#but i can say dude did something bad enough to receive his punches

[mxlktxa]

ᴛᴀɪɴᴛᴇᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

ᴍᴏᴅᴇʀɴ!ᴀᴜ, ᴄᴏʟʟᴇɢᴇ!ᴀᴜ

ᴀʙʙʏ ᴀɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴏɴ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ (ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ ꜱʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴅᴇᴀʟᴇʀ!ᴇʟʟɪᴇ ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍꜱ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ)

ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ; ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ*, ᴀʙʙʏ ᴀɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴏɴ (ʜɪɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴀᴛ/ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴᴇᴅ), ᴇʟʟɪᴇ ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍꜱ, ᴊᴇꜱꜱᴇ ɴᴏʟᴀꜱᴛɴᴀᴍᴇ

ᴄᴡ; ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴅʀᴜɢꜱ (ᴡᴇᴇᴅ), ᴅʀᴜɢ ᴜꜱᴀɢᴇ, ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ɢʀᴇᴇɴɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ, ɢʀᴇᴇᴋ ᴍʏᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢʏ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴇʀꜱᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ, ꜱᴛʀᴏɴɢ ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ, ɪᴍᴘʟɪᴇᴅ ꜱᴛᴀʟᴋɪɴɢ

ᴡᴄ; 1.2ᴋ ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ, 6.0ᴋ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ

ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴍᴇꜱꜱ??

It had been a few weeks since I had left Abby in that bathroom, alone with her thoughts. Over those few weeks, she harassed me less and met me at my dorm less. At one point, she texted me on my socials to ask if we could meet up at some point. Of course, she never received a response from me. That led to Abby sending people to me to ask about how I've been and if I've gotten her text.

The last person that she had sent my way didn't even want to do what Abby asked her to. Her name was Ellie. I knew about her, of course, she was a drug dealer, but she kept a low profile somehow. She minded her own business, did her own thing, and pretty much just... well, that's all really. We even ended up getting close and she did not give any fucks about my situation.

We met up often, Ellie always bringing around a joint for us to share. Most of the time it just turned into her I suppose 'teaching' me how to smoke. She even tried to get me to do a bong rip, which is fucking terrifying. I eventually got the hang of it-- the joint, I'm not fucking with a bong, not yet-- so Ellie got me to smoke with her almost every time we met up.

"Ellie?" I whined, looking around the room. I felt like how TV static looked, my mind all foggy and not a thought behind my eyes. Except trying to figure out if I could overdose on the drug.

"What's up?" She replied with a low, monotone attitude, turning to me. I was staring at my hands, crying, and more than just a little freaked out, "Are you good?"

"Ellie, am I dying?" I whimpered, crawling to her and curling up in a ball, "Fuck, I don't wanna die! I have a test tomorrow! And I'm so hungry, I want food so bad. What's happening?" I hugged her waist, sniffling and shaking my head.

Ellie snorted before laughing her ass off, rubbing my back. I only cried harder at her cruel response, burying my face in her stomach, "You're not dying. You just greened the fuck out," she reassured me, hands now resting on the back of my head as I started to calm down and just lie there, "That's on me, I forget that you're new to this."

"So I'm not dying?"

"No, dude. You're fine," Ellie lifted my head carefully, winking at me, "You want some Cheetos and frosting?" I looked at Ellie with a confused face. The combination sounded so nasty but so good at the same time.

"Please," with a raspy voice and a small yawn, Ellie left me to lie on her bed while she ran off to get the snacks for me, "Can I have some juice too?"

"I only have fruit punch."

"I'll take it."

"Okay."

I loved being around Ellie. Not only because she was sweet to me, but because she hadn't exposed my actions or state to the entire campus. She had no pictures or videos of me, and she even refused to let me leave her dorm that day. Not until I was back to myself. I would like to go as far as calling her my best friend, but I've only known her for so long.

Anyways, here I sat in the library with Ellie and her friend Jesse, all of us sitting in silence and reading what we had in front of us. Ellie was trapped in a book that had all sorts of facts and information about space, Jesse was tangled up in a cookbook oddly enough, and I had my head shoved into a book about the Greek Goddess, Aphrodite.

"Alright," Ellie huffed, setting down her novel, slouching in her chair, and sinking as well, "We've been all been sitting here reading for what? An hour and a half? Tell me something interesting you guys found."

Jesse chuckled, crossing his arms to lean against the table. I glanced at him ready to hear what he has to say, "I just learned how to bake cinnamon roll sugar cookies," he shrugged, glancing at his book then at me, "What'd you learn, Ellie?"

"You have any idea how many Earths can fit into the sun? And keep in mind that the sun is an average-sized star," Ellie scoffed, pulling her hoodie up over her head, "About one million Earths can fit into the sun."

"Jesus, fuck," I huffed, sitting with a shocked expression. I wasn't a huge space nerd like Ellie, but I could always be easily entertained by the facts that she shares, "You're next, little lady," beneath the table, Ellie nudged my leg with her knee, grinning at the book I was going through.

"Uh, well... Aphrodite came from sea foam. Quick lesson, she's the Greek goddess of love, beauty, procreation, and pleasure. She was the one Goddess that was considered to be one of the most beautiful. Her husband was Hephaestus, who was thrown down a mountain because his mother took one glance at him and was like 'This baby looks wack as fuck'. Uhm, it's rumored or known that she had an affair with Ares."

"Who's Ares?" Jesse asked, closing my book to quiz me. I raised a brow at him, shaking my head.

"Ares is the God of war, not like Kratos from the franchise that's not the same thing. Though he shares that title with Athena, even if she is the goddess of war strategy. Another fun fact is that nobody likes him because he was disturbingly bloodthirsty. The only people who like him are Aphrodite and the Spartans."

Jesse nodded softly as he opened the book back up and shrugged, "Alright. Girl knows her Greek mythology."

"Of course, I do. Athena started this," I leaned back in my chair, pulling my knees up to hug them, "only because she just popped out of Zeus's head and was like 'what's up, fuckers, I'm Athena and that's all you need to know, later'," I giggled. Ellie's jaw dropped and she got all up in my face, confused.

"Seriously? Like she just fucking made an entrance and dipped?"

"Well, she was just a headache that Zeus had which was a gnarly headache by the way, and then she popped out and dipped. Fully clothed and armored," I shrugged. Ellie sat back, nodding at the information she had just received.

"That's fucking cool, honestly," Ellie laughed, "Wait, who's Athena?"

As much as I wanted to answer Ellie's question, I stopped myself and looked around uncomfortably. It felt like somebody was watching me and I needed to see who was watching me and where they were.

"Uhm... She's, uh," I whispered, looking at every person that wasn't Ellie and Dina, "Athena is the goddess of war strategy and she," I ended up making eye contact with a familiar face yet they were too far for me to make out, "Can we leave?" I asked, picking my things up and getting out of my chair.

Ellie looked in the same direction I had been staring at, getting to be defensive and understanding, "Yeah. Let's go back to your dorm or something."

"What's going on? Can somebody fill me in," Jesse searched our faces, getting up regardless.

"I'll tell you when we get to my dorm," we all picked up our things, damn near bolting out of the library.

I don't know who it was but I've got a hunch it's either Abby or one of her crazed exes or friends. I don't know nor do I care. What I do know is that I don't need this bullshit right now.

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ!!; @macaroni676 @uraesthete @machetegirl109 @elliesbabagrill

ᴀɴ; ɪᴋ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴘᴛ ɪꜱ ᴘʀᴏʙᴀʙʟʏ ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʙᴏʀɪɴɢ ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴍ ᴛʀʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴘ3 ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇꜱᴛɪɴɢ/ᴛʀʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴠᴇɴɢᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛ!!!!! ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴇᴅ ɪᴛ ɪᴍ ꜱᴏʀʀʏʏʏʏʏʏʏ!!!!

[banancrumbs]

hob working for morpheus and all that talk about protecting dream in 1789, that’s it

[uwusenpaiuwu]

Sleepovers At The Baji Household feat. A Fed-Up Chifuyu

Summary: Chifuyu just wants to sleep, man, but Baji wants to be a jealous crackhead at 2 AM.

Pairing: Sano Manjiro | Mikey x Male Reader

Note(s): I had a little free time and wrote this. So, please enjoy! ALSO, to the anon that sent me a request a few days ago, I saw it and have it filed on my to-do list!!! I will definitely get to it as soon as I get a break in my schedule :)

"Chifuyu, ya wanna see some real discrimination?"

No. No, Chifuyu does not want to see what Baji means by 'real discrimination.'

Does he tell him that, though?

Yes, actually, because it's 2 in the fucking morning and, as much as he respects the other boy, he wouldn't put it past himself to smother him with a pillow after having his dream of cuddling with a sea of puppies suddenly destroyed.

Unfortunately for his sanity, Baji either doesn't hear him or, more likely than not, doesn't give a fuck, because he's already flopping onto his belly and whipping out his phone to do God knows what.

The dial tone that sounds from the speaker a few seconds later makes Chifuyu cringe, especially since it's only ever been a calm silence fit for a good night's sleep prior to Baji bulldozing through it with his absurd question. (At the very least, he's thankful that the latter has half a mind to keep the brightness on the lowest setting, otherwise, Chifuyu would have had to fight.)

On the far end of the row of carefully-laid futons, you shift in your sleep, eyebrows furrowing together at the noise. Rotating onto your side, you unconsciously reach for Baji, and just when he thinks you're being cute and trying to cuddle him, you smack him in the head.

Baji doesn't flinch, instead, takes his pillow and shoves it in your grasp to keep your unconscious self occupied, so that he can focus on getting through to the person who reuses to pick up (understandably so).

Releasing a frustrated groan after being redirected to voice mail for the fifth time, he dials the number again, muttering an impatient, "Pick up already."

Chifuyu feels sorry for the poor soul on the other end. He would've blocked someone following the first call, because again, it's-

The blond has to squint his eyes up at the digital clock on Baji's nightstand, which confirms that it's already 2:22 A.M, further solidifying the fact that he shouldn't be awake right now. And this also applies to the ever persistent first division captain, who insists on bothering who Chifuyu soon discovers is Mikey from the contact ID that flashes across the screen.

Why Baji is so keen on bothering him is a question he doesn't have the mental capacity to ponder over. The most energy he'll expend is to listen in when the call miraculously connects.

"What...?" comes a muffled voice from the receiver, tone laced in an irked grogginess birthed from a slumber rudely interrupted.

There's an absurdly loud, almost angry, roar of Mikey's name, one that has Chifuyu curling in on himself in a futile attempt to escape a sound that should be illegal at this hour.

But you know what else should be illegal?

The fucking whiplash Chifuyu gets when Baji's deep voice takes an abrupt 180°, switching from its normal gruffness to a squeaky, ear-piercing shrill as he screams, "I love you, love you, love you! Do you love me, too, Mikey-kyun~♡?!"

The room is dead silent.

Not a word. Not a murmur. Not a breath.

Just pure, unadulterated silence as both Chifuyu and Mikey process the words that hang in the air, permeating it with a goosebumps-inducing eeriness from having heard such a...a girly, overtly cutesy screech from Baji.

Then-

"What the fuck? He hung on me!"

Chifuyu opens his mouth, thinks better of reacting to the cursed scene he had the misfortune of bearing witness to, and promptly closes it.

Other people may have sleep paralysis demons.

But Chifuyu?

Chifuyu has Baji.

With both hands partially raised in prayer, he begs for the shenanigans to be over and done with.

They are not.

While his eyes remain closed in a last ditch effort to convince himself that it's all a bad dream, he hears a lot of grumbling happening on your side of the room, courtesy of Baji, who's scrambling around in search of...something. One quick peek reveals him fiddling with a phone - yours, to be exact, as evidenced by the distinctive phone charm of your favorite anime character hanging from it.

"(Y/n), wake up for a second," he hears him whisper. It takes a bit of prompting, until he's able to successfully rouse you enough from sleep to elicit any kind of response, which is, essentially, nothing short of an incoherent, slurred mess. Although, Chifuyu is pretty damn certain he heard you call Baji a 'dickhead' for the trouble.

Unperturbed, he continues shaking your limp form, coaxing you into wakefulness with, "Repeat what I tell you, and I'll let you go back to asleep. Deal?"

You squint your eyes at him, only able to make out a vague outline of his visage in the lightless room. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart, hope to die," he automatically responds with the same phrase he's become accustomed to saying whenever you two made a promise, something done purely out of habit, formed when the two of you were just kids and he wanted to get you to do something absolutely ridiculous either for him or with him. And just 'cause he knows you're more susceptible to complying if he does it, he also interlocks his pinky with yours.

"...Fine."

The approval is his cue to proceed, and it's as he's putting the phone on speaker that he turns back to a regretfully wide awake Chifuyu, mouthing a wordless, 'Watch.'

The phone rings, loud and clear, precisely once and only once.

"(Y/n), what's wrong?" It's important to note that even though Mikey still sounds tired as hell, his tone is much lighter, much happier really, than when it was Baji, which is an offense in itself to the said teen that's off to the side, attentively listening to the conversation unfold.

Then, it strikes Chifuyu, what Baji is trying to do, and fuck does it give him an instant headache.

Meanwhile, your mouth morphs into the dopiest of smiles with the pleasant surprise of hearing your boyfriend's voice, chest instantly overtaken by a warm fuzziness that never fails to make an appearance whenever he's involved. Sappy, you know, but it's true!

A light but firm nudge to your shoulder reminds you of your mission. It's too bad that, teetering along the edge of sleep as you are, the words Baji whispers are barely repeated correctly.

The initial phrase from before, the one Baji greeted Mikey with, is shortened to a simple, "You wuv I...?"

But, without missing a beat, you receive Mikey's confident reply of, "Mhm... I wuv you a lot."

There's a sleepy giggle then - a fucking giggle - before your voices drop to sweet whispers that the third and fourth wheels can't fully comprehend from where they are.

"Where the fuck was my 'I wuv you,' huh?!" Baji whisper-shouts, considerate of your conversation even when ranting and raving. "Shit, I would've taken a simple 'I love you,' too! I've known that bastard way longer than (Y/n), and this is what I get?!"

Okay. Toman's president answers his boyfriend's late night calls faster than he does anyone else's and openly expresses his love for him. So what? Chifuyu wouldn't exactly call it 'discrimination,' per se. 'Favoritism,' maybe if you wanna stretch it, but using as strong a word as discrimination, especially taking into account you two are dating; it's normal? Nah.

"You wanna say 'bye' to them? Mm. Baji and Chifuyu." A pause. "Fuyu, Mikey says 'bye.'"

"Bye, Mikey-kun."

The other person in the room waits, and waits, and waits, and when it's clear that there is no intention to address his presence whatsoever, Baji turns to Chifuyu with an almost scandalized expression, making wild gesticulations with his hands, clearly distressed. "See?!"

Blank blue eyes stare back at him, unblinking. Honestly, it's a common occurrence - Baji spiraling in a nonsensical rage - so it's easy for Chifuyu to block out the muted, jealousy-driven temper tantrum as he takes his pillow in both hands, raises it as high as he can, and-

Sigh.

-lets it flop right back onto his face.

He can't suffocate Baji. Shouldn't. Wouldn't. Couldn't. After all, they're best buds, meaning he has an obligation to put up with shit like this once in a while. (Plus, he'd probably get his ass kicked before he succeeds anyway. Totally not worth the beating.)

"Did you hear? Mikey said he wuvs me," he hears you drawl dreamily as soon as you hang up, sounding very close to clocking back out for the night.

"Yeah, yeah. Cute shit. Happy for ya, dude," Baji huffs. Thankfully, he sounds like he's in a similar state to yours, if the yawn that follows his sarcastic comment is anything to go by.

"...He soooo ignored you."

That warrants a punishing punch to the arm, dulled only slightly by the combination of the thick quilt you're swaddled in and the raven-haired boy's fatigue.

"I'll fucking throw you out right now, (Y/n). Don't test me."

"You won't."

"I will."

"Won't."

"Will."

The conversation gradually dies down shortly after, the exhaustion that took its sweet time getting to both of you having reached its peak with the help of the childish bickering. It takes 10 minutes, maybe 15, before two sets of light snores fill the room.

Finally.

Let it be known that there is a lesson to be learned from tonight's events. Really, there is. Y'know, something along the lines of 'Don't agree to a sleepover with Baji, if you plan on actually sleeping,' or whatever.

Alas, Chifuyu's consciousness fades before he realizes what it is.

~~~

"Mikey, be honest. Who do you love more? Me or-?"

"(Y/n)."

"But-"

(Y/n)."

"I-"

"(Y/n)."

Baji is only momentarily discouraged, sharp eyes glaring at the blond that lays his head on your lap after hi-fiving you. He didn't want to do this, but he's left with no choice.

"(Y/n) or Babu?"

From the way Mikey stiffens up, refusing to look at either him or you in the eyes, Baji knows he has him right where he wants him, has him torn between a cute face or a sweet ride.

"Oi! Don't pretend to be asleep! Answer the damn question! OI!"

(After hours of serious contemplation - even though you told him it doesn't particularly matter - it's revealed that, of course, Mikey loves you more. Babu just happens to trail behind as a very close second.)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 294: A Half-Assed Escape

Previously on BnHA: Mirio was all “SURPRISE I’M BACK THANKS TO OUR RESIDENT SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO RECENTLY EARNED HER BACHELOR’S OF BEING A TOTAL BADASS.” Kacchan was all, “you know what, Dabi’s been trending long enough, time to remind the fandom what a real G looks like,” and he blasted his little bleeding body back into the fray and was all “FROM HERE ON OUT CALL ME DYNAMIGHT!!” Mirio was all, “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... oh, you’re serious,” and Kacchan was all “!!”, and so that’s the story of how my son got murdered twice in one day. Meanwhile in the Todoroki Drama Zone, Deku was all “STOP MURDERING MY FRIEND” and Dabi was all “THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” and fandom had a whole big debate about Whether Or Not Dabi Trying To Murder Deku’s Friends And Mentors Is Any Of Deku’s Business, which went exactly how you think it went. Anyway, so then Deku yelled at Dabi, and Endeavor was all moved by his manly words and randomly went to go uppercut Machia in the chin. And, seeing as how the Momoserum finally chose that exact moment to kick in, Machia is now down for the count.

Today on BnHA: The Miriosquad handles the Nearly High End Noumus, freeing up Jeanist to jasphyxiate (okay that one doesn’t really work so well) the rest of the League. Compress is all “TIME FOR THIS MILD-MANNERED SIDE CHARACTER VILLAIN TO SHINE”, except that by “shine” what he actually means is “use his quirk to punch a literal hole right through his own ass to free himself.” The rest of the chapter is basically just a back and forth between him and Jeanist, with Jeanist trying to recapture him, and Compress repeatedly thwarting him by chopping more holes out of himself because HE’S FRESH OUT OF FUCKS, AND THE ONES AT THE STORE ARE ALL SOLD OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS. Anyway, so with Compress basically dying and all, Horikoshi is all “you know what that means”, and delivers a freshly-baked villain flashback revealing that Compress is a descendant of Harima Ouji, a.k.a. the Peerless Thief, a.k.a. some famous guy whom Gentle mentioned this one time for like two seconds back in the day. The chapter ends with Compress finally demasking himself and dumping Tomura back onto the ground, a.k.a. The Worst Possible Place For Tomura To Be. ( •﹏•)

WHY IS CRUST HERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD

-- OH WAIT, SHIT. OH

AIZAWAAAA you’re alive and receiving medical help thank GOD. HOW MANY EYES DO YOU HAVE. AND MIRKO!! HOW MANY LIMBS DO YOU HAVE, OMG

so is this Aizawa dreaming about Crust’s final moments, then?? jesus. with All Due Respect to Crust’s memory, does Aizawa not already have enough misplaced guilt on his conscience as it is?? “nope, we’re gonna keep piling it on. that’s all he is now. three limbs, an indeterminate number of eyes, sexy hair, and Guilt” well shit

motherfucker y’all really out here placing an oxygen mask on Gran Torino’s corpse. fucking shounen characters. each one comes with a lifetime warranty

DAMN YOU HORIKOSHI WHY DO YOU KEEP SHOWING THESE CLOSE-UPS OF HAWKS’S UNCONSCIOUS FACE ALL WHUMPED OUT AND EXHAUSTED. HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS ARE WE GOING TO GET. ARE YOU PLANNING ON KILLING ME WITH THE UPCOMING CONVALESCENCE ARC, BECAUSE IF SO, AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO TELL ME AHEAD OF TIME SO I CAN MAKE A WILL

for a moment I considered going back and checking my previous recaps to count how many times I’ve already made a joke about Dabi’s fire incinerating Hawks’s wings but not touching so much as a hair on his five o’clock shadow, so that I could calculate whether or not I could possibly get away with making that same joke one more time. but then I realized I could just do it in this kind of roundabout way I’m doing right now instead. so there you have it

FFFFFFFMT LADY AND MIDNIGHT NOOOOO

PLEASE BE ALIVE. PLEASE RESPECT THE SIGN ON THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING. THE ONE THAT SAYS “NO LADY CHARACTERS ALLOWED TO DIE”, WITH THE FINE PRINT AT THE BOTTOM “AT LEAST NOT UNTIL HORIKOSHI GIVES US LIKE TWENTY-SIX MORE OF THEM FIRST IF THAT’S THE WAY HE WANTS TO PLAY IT.” IT’S A GOOD SIGN, PLEASE RESPECT ITS WISHES!!

so anyway though, Jeanist is giving a speech about how god knows how many people all worked together to bring Machia down. and now RHA is getting in on those fabric puns too, I see. “A SINGLE STRAND MAY BE THIN BUT TOGETHER THEY FORM A STRONG ROPE” oh so you think you guys are funny eh? I’m a frayed knot

MEANWHILE EXCUSE ME BUT WHY ARE YOU FUCKING CRYING BLOOD, HOLY SHIT

fffffff. so much for him taking over as the Number One once all this is over. so let’s just recap real quick, because Horikoshi has long since made it clear that one of his plot goals for this arc is to wipe out every single member of the Billboard Top Ten. so how we doin?

Endeavor - was just figuratively eviscerated in front of the entire nation by his homicidal zombiepunk son. also burnt half to death and possibly down a lung. will almost certainly be forced to retire after this one way or the other

Hawks - lying prettily in a medical tent. wings status: gone. hair status: still perfect

Jeanist - WELL I THOUGHT HE WAS FINE BUT APPARENTLY HE’S OUT HERE DYING, JESUS CHRIST

Edgeshot - MIA, last seen fighting Re-Destro. I really want him to have kicked RD’s ass because fuck that guy, but realistically they probably fought to a draw at best

Mirko - alive but in critical condition and missing something like 1.5 limbs

Crust - dead, currently haunting Aizawa’s traumatized dreams. now he’s gonna be triggered the rest of his life by people giving him the thumbs up, THANKS A LOT

Kamui Woods - was set on fire which is His Weakness. thoughts and prayers

Wash - last seen floating hospital patients to safety as Tomura’s wave of decay descended towards him. probably dead ffff

Old Man Samurai - haven’t seen this fucker in a hot minute, who even knows where he’s wandered off to

Ryuukyuu - currently being treated for her wounds, looked pretty bad off. but it’s hard to tell how hurt she is since most of the injuries were acquired in her transformed state. SHE BETTER GET WELL SOON

anyways, so yeah. so much for the top ten. guess that’s another reason Horikoshi brought Mirio back now, huh

so there’s a big panel of everyone fighting the Noumu while Machia lies there all “blurgh.” good riddance my dude. it took like twenty chapters and a hundred people to stop this guy so I really fucking hope he stays down. you’ve had your fun

anyway so Jeanist is sending another steel thread towards Dabi! and he’s all “just a bit more!!” fklklj this is gonna go real well isn’t it

meanwhile Mirio’s fighting a Nearly High End with all of these weird rock formations jutting out of its skin. go on and kick his ass then, Mirio

“each of these guys is probably just as strong as the Noumu from Kyuushuu” hold on I thought Ujiko or Tomura or someone said that wasn’t the case? not that Mirio would know I suppose. anyways let’s just hope he’s wrong cuz if not these kids are probably screwed

kLSDKFHLSKHGLKLK OH MY GODDDD

IIDA FUCKING TENYA YOU’RE A PEACH. THINKS THE NAME IS OUTRAGEOUS, CHECK. USES IT ANYWAY, CHECK. “JUST BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T BE SUPPORTIVE.” WHAT A CLASS ACT

AND KACCHAN IS RESPONDING WITH AS MUCH DIGNITY AS HE CAN MUSTER

WOW, SON. IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, OR SOMETHING!! although listen up, real talk, the fact that Kacchan of all people can’t muster the energy to yell at someone questioning his ability to kick ass is HIGHKEY troubling and we may be in need of an intervention here soon :/

now Jeanist is finally turning his attention to the League! was... was it not already on the League. omg

ACTUAL SCREAMING AHHHHHH FUCK FUCKLK LK AHHLKHKFFFF

hey so um. what the actual fucked up hell. my soul left my body. imagine if you saw the reflection of this panel on your bedroom window. you would never sleep again

OKAY RHA TRANSLATORS ARE YOU HAVING YOURSELF A LAUGH AGAIN

THIS CANNOT BE WHAT HE’S ACTUALLY SAYING RIGHT. BUT IT’S RIGHT IN THAT UNCANNY VALLEY OF NOT BEING QUITE SURE, THOUGH... (　ﾟдﾟ)

(ETA: just a next-day clarification here, apparently my sleep-deprived ADHD word-skipping brain completely skipped right over the “a” in that last panel, so what I read was, “and Shigaraki’s limp noodle.” so yeah, the moral of this story is always read the speech bubble carefully before you start making running jokes throughout the rest of your post, folks.)

oh wow he’s really freaking out lmao

to be fair though, I’d argue that Dabi has gotten pre-tty close at this point :’) thrilled for him, really I am

but anyway, well then figure something out you big dramatic robot-armed fiend. didn’t you just say you could touch your own ass? can you not just Compress yourself to break free?? does it not work on you? or would you be stuck afterwards lol

(ETA: I was picturing him compressing his entire body at once, not just chunks of it. ghhhlkh.)

um

holy shit Jeanist. are you stupidly trying to cut off their air, or are you going for more of a sleeper hold (jleeper hold??) thing instead. the latter would be way smarter and faster and probably safer as well just saying

but unless Spinner is just being super dramatic, it sure looks like he’s fucking strangling them djslkjlk. this will certainly cement his popularity among the villain stans. good thing you’re not running for office any time soon bud

anyway so I have no idea what these guys are trying to do now. what is this

do you even have till the count of 5 at this rate. I mean

OH MY GOODNESS

HE’S REALLY FUCKING DOING IT!! HE’S COMPRESSING HIS BUTT!! OMFG. TOMURA HIDE YOUR NOODLE!!!

WHAT THE FUCK

DID YOU COMPRESS A PIECE OF YOUR OWN ASS. FUCKING WHAT. PUT THIS MAN’S PICTURE IN THE DICTIONARY NEXT TO THE WORD “LOYALTY”, HOLY CRAP

HOLY SHIT COMPRESS

“HOLY SHIT DID THAT GUY JUST PUNCH A HOLE THROUGH HIS OWN ASS IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS VILLAIN PALS. FUCK IT, HE DESERVES TO ESCAPE”

jeez, talk about... A HALF-ASSED ESCAPE ATTEMPT :D :D :D hahaha. but real talk though, Horikoshi has clearly never tried to leap twelve feet straight up in the air multiple times in succession with only half his glutes though. everyone, I regret to inform you that this panel right here on the left may be slightly unrealistic

also where the hell is he going to go?? did you pack a jetpack away in one of those little marbles sir. and what about Dabi?? and Skeptic too, I guess, but we don’t really care about Skeptic

(ETA: at this point I had to stop reading for about two hours because I had to go out and take care of something; that’s also why this is being posted later than usual lol. anyways so where were we.)

oh my lord

the existence of a translator’s note here implies that the earlier line about Compress being able to reach Tomura’s junk was not, in fact, ad-libbed. hmm. hmmmmmmmm

anyway so now he’s grabbing Compress again because OF COURSE HE IS, so now we’re right back to square one! except now Tomura and Spinner are secured inside of little marbles, and presumably Compress is the only one who can release them

oh nevermind he’s just maiming himself again instead, SHEESH

Skeptic a man is dying please have some goddamn respect

so, uh. is he gonna die, though??

I really can’t tell wtf is going on here, this is the most confusing the art has been in a while. Horikoshi put all of his spoons into that creepyass close-up panel earlier, that bastard

OMG WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS

DON’T FUCKING TELL ME THE “COMPRESS IS RELATED TO THIS THIEF GUY FROM OLDEN TIMES” THEORY IS ACTUALLY TRUE WHAAAAAAT. OH SHIT

so apparently Harima was a Robin Hood type guy who stole from... heroes?? wtf. are heroes the 1% in this scenario. y’all didn’t have any Fortune 500 CEOs to steal from?

THAT’S THE BLOOD THAT FLOWS THROUGH YOU, OH SHIT. and in a related oh shit, the fact that we are getting a Compress flashback now of all times doesn’t bode super well for him. ffff

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKIS ARE STILL TODOROKI-ING

listen here boy if you touch one freaking hair on Shouto’s candy cane head I swear to god --

WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY!!!

SHOUTO NOOOOOO. WTF YOU’RE LITERALLY THE ONE GUY WHOSE WEAKNESS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FIRE. DABI YOU SHIT, YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF!! I’M PRINTING OUT A COPY OF THAT COMPRESS PANEL!!! KEEP AN EYE OUT ON THAT BEDROOM WINDOW YOU PUNK!!!

SO NOW POOR SHOUTO IS UNCONSCIOUS AND FALLING!! SOMEONE SAVE HIM!! WHO CATCHES THE CATCHER

COMPRESS LITERALLY HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE RIGHT NOW, WHAT IS HAPPENING

PLEASE DON’T CALL TOMURA LEADER OF THE “PLF” YOU KNOW I CAN’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU DO THAT. ARE YOU DYING. ARE YOU JUST A FUCKING HEAD NOW WTF

(ETA: “masks are removable, makeste” you know what it’s been a long day okay lmao. or I suppose Compress is really the one who is lmao.)

GASPPPPPP

okay. okay. looooool okay then

WHY WERE YOU COVERING THIS SEXY MOP OF HAIR UNDER THAT HOOD YOU TOOL. IT WOULD HAVE LOOKED SO GOOD WITH THE TOP HAT. I’M SO MAD AT YOU RIGHT NOW

as if it wasn’t enough for him to demask himself, he also had to get all shirtless and then do this weird attempt at a sexypose too huh

hard to say exactly how much of his torso is currently missing, but safe to say that’s proooooooobably not good. :///// fuck

on the other hand, Kacchan also has a torso hole and he’s still flying around like he just drank a dozen red bulls, so

this man lost his ass and he’s still out here monologuing like it’s the last two minutes of The Prestige. one might say he is monologuing his ass off

so he let Spinner and Tomura free, but is Dabi still trapped in his marble?? wasn’t he all on fire and stuff?? hopefully he can still turn off his quirk in there because if not that’s a pretty fucked up way to die. somewhere out there Snatch’s ghost is all “YEAH I’LL SAY.” oh how the turntables

last but not least, sooooooo. Tomura. back on the ground. that’s. um. ...shiiiiiiiit

[hongjoongslut]

Title: Mortal Chaos

after being banished from Mount Olympus, you are forced to wreak havoc on mortals. every man that has stepped into your life, they’ve fallen to your knees and did what you asked at will. no mortal man has ever given you trouble or attitude at your requests, except for one. Yoo Kihyun.

pairing: goddess!reader (Até, goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse) x mortal!mafialeader!Kihyun

rating: 18+

Word Count: 2.4k

warnings: greekmythology!au, tatted!kihyun, nonidol!kihyun, reader is such a bitch but thats how she was made, mafia themes, sarcasm, so much sarcasm, mentions of readers and kihyun’s past victims, reader and kihyun have a physical fight but it doesn’t last long.

NSFW warnings: dom!kihyun, brat!reader, unprotected sex (this goddess has superpowers to not get pregnant lol, always wear protection), pull out method, oral (f receiving), kihyun is a cocky little shit in bed, slight degradation from both parties but no harsh names

BTW reader's thoughts are in italics :)

Enjoy!!

being a goddess should be beautiful, right? it’s not everything it sounds like. you just so happen to be one of the few goddesses that are feared instead of loved. you’ve made men do unspeakable things countless times, they just fall to your knees and bend at your will. for years you fooled gods until Zeus had enough of your antics. he banished you to Earth. now you’re stuck with pathetic mortals, but at least you can still wreak havoc here.

you can’t exactly be in your goddess form without notice, so you pretend to be some sort of rebel among the others. you’re going to your usual club where sorry, pathetic men roam freely, unknowingly that you’re about to ruin their lives. “these mortal songs aren’t too bad.” you thought to yourself, searching for your prey. you see a few men that are far from sober and you almost pity them, almost. no one has really sparked your interest, so you go on the dance floor. “might as well act as a mortal since i’m here.” your outfit is sure to spark men at a club, how could they not fall in love with fishnets hugging your thighs oh so deliciously.

so far you’ve been looking for random men to practice on, while you wait for your target to show up. Yoo Kihyun. you’ve been in this town for a while, and everybody you meet tells you to stay away from him and his gang, Monsta X. there’s wanted posters almost everywhere you go. you thought the members would be nice to mess with, but once you figured out who the leader was, your heart was set. he was definitely a handsome man, even a blind person could see so. his men are attractive as well, you’re sure so many women fall to their feet.

you’re dancing in a crowd of people who smell of sweat and alcohol. “almost smells like sex.” of course you’ve been bumped into, but someone is getting a little to close for your liking. you push it off until someone grabs your hips and tries to make you grind on them. you turn to find some wasted dude, smirking. “back the fuck off bitch, you don’t want to mess with me.” he laughs “i can’t resist you baby…” he slurs. you scoff, shoving him away. you turn to dance again but he grabs your wrist. “feisty, i love it sweetheart.” you’ve had it. you turn and sock him directly in the nose. “don’t fucking touch me. go to hell.” he stumbles, blood beginning to pour from his now crooked nose. “you bitch…i’m gonna kill you!” he tries to run to you, but he is stopped by a tatted arm. “get the fuck out of my club before i deal with you myself.” the man turns to face Yoo Kihyun, his eyes immediately widened. the drunk runs away from the situation, leaving you and Kihyun standing there.

“im so sorry about that ma’am. you did break his nose, i’m impressed. i’ve never seen a woman do that.” he scoffs, now facing you. “can i get you anything on the house for dealing with such an asshole?” you smile. “No thanks, but is there any first aid kit in here? My hand really hurts..” you rub your perfectly fine hand. “i’ve got you kihyun.” he nods. “follow me. don’t worry, we’ll get that hand looked at.” you walk behind him, studying his features. “he really is handsome. i’m gonna have so much fun with him.” he brings you to his office, guiding you to a chair. “i’m sure you may have just bruised or maybe even broke it. you socked the hell out of him.” he laughs again. “you’d be perfect for the mafia. i’m sure you’ve heard this town is filled with gangs left and right.” he turns to you and examines your hand. “wow, i don’t see any cuts or bruises. it doesn’t feel broken or anything, you’re a strong woman.” he looks at you smirking. “thank you, what’s your name?” he rolls his eyes, scoffing.

“have you not been in town for long? everybody here knows my name. I’m Yoo Kihyun, I run this club.” he offers his hand, you reach out to shake it. “ahh, well nice to meet you Kihyun, i’m y/n.” he smiles. “what a beautiful name, it suits such a badass woman like you.” you start to admire his office. “he has good taste in decor and aesthetic.” you walk around, analyzing his office. “this office is gorgeous, who are all these people?” you point to a picture of him and Monsta X. he walks to you, seeing what picture you’re pointing at. “ahh, those are my closest friends. they work for me here at this club.” you can feel the music blaring through the floor. “you know, i actually recognize these men. i think they’re in some sort of gang.. why would you be friends with such horrible people?” you start to back away, pretending to be scared.

“so you did know who i was all along. i’m not that dumb sweetheart.” he looks at you, then walks to his door and locks it. “so, who do you work for and why are you here? i suggest you tell me willingly or we’ll have to get it out another way.” you back away from him, your butt hitting his desk. “i-i don’t work for anyone! i just came here because my boyfriend just left me and my friends suggested i come here to forget about that asshole… please don’t hurt me!” you really should become an actor, he’s completely fooled. “i’m so sorry about that y/n.. i can make him disappear you know. just say the word and it will be like he never existed.” you smiled, looking down to his feet. his finger comes to your chin, lifting your face. “you’re really beautiful darling. he’s missing out on such a kickass woman. tell me, since you’ve definitely heard of my gang, what do you think of me?” you don’t know how he’s affecting you, this isn’t supposed to happen. wetness fills between your legs.

“i think you’re very attractive and maybe you need a woman by your side to help with this shitty town. i may look innocent, but i’ve done unspeakable things baby.” he smirks, eyeing your features. “you wouldn’t last five minutes in my gang babygirl. we’re feared internationally.” you hum, biting your lip. “i’ve terrorized gods and men alike. nothing scares me.” you reach to hold his cheek. “maybe it’s you that wouldn’t last five minutes with me.” you wink, caressing the apple of his cheeks. you feel his cheeks becoming warm. “why don’t we test that theory then darling. you sure you want me and you can handle me? i wouldn’t want to be the same person that asshole downstairs.” you shake your head. “you’re so much better than him. give me your worst-“ you lean into his ear “-daddy.”

he steps back, eying your figure. “you play a wonderful lie darling, but i’m not fooled. i suggest you tell me why you’re really here or im getting my friends up here. you do not want that sweetheart.” he pulls a knife from his pocket, holding it against your throat. you laugh. “oh kihyun, you really think this knife scares me? you’re all bark and no bite baby.” his pupils dilate, pushing the knife closer to your throat. “don’t fucking push me brat.” you stare at each other for a moment before you push him away. you punch his stomach, making him stumble back. “instead of using the cowards way out, show me how tough this mafia leader really is.” he scoffs. “im not hitting a lady. get out before i change my mind.” you walk towards him. “if you want me out so badly, why did you lock the door?” you push him to his knees and knee him in the jaw, making him lay flat on the floor. “i suggest you do as i say or you’ll be my next victim.” he sighs. he wraps his leg around yours, pulling you to the ground. he punches you hard in the gut, making you whine slightly. he pulls out a walkie talkie. “boys, get up here, now.” your eyes widen.

“they will be here soon unless you apologize darling, i suggest you do so.” you sigh, not wanting to ruin your plan, “i’m sorry kihyun...im just fighting because its all i know how to do. I’ll leave you alone.” he lets you up and calls his members. “nevermind that, boys. i’ve got it handled.” you let a small smile show to your face. you turn to leave his office when he stops you. “y/n, i never thought i’d beg to anyone but we definitely need you in our group. we may look handsome but its nothing to your beauty. not to mention, you can definitely fight and defend yourself. please darling, i’ll do anything.” you smile subconsciously. “oh how dumb can you really be?” you stare at him, watching him eye you up and down. “listen here. if i tell you my secret, i’d have to kill you, but just know that i can fight a lot better than what i did with you. i’ve never seen someone so handsome...it attracts me.” he smirks. “Well, what do i need to do so you’ll join Monsta X princess?” you stare at him for a moment before softly pecking his lips. “how about you show me how one of the most feared leaders is when he’s begging to cum?” something switched in his eyes, you could see it. “i definitely will, brat.”

he picks you up with ease and slams you on his desk. his lips are devouring yours and his tongue is exploring every part of your mouth. “how the hell is a mortal making me so aroused?” he leaves your lips to mark your neck. your body is getting antsy. “as much as i love this, just fuck me already kihyun...or is it that you’re too weak to please me?” he grabs your throat, closing his hands. The loss of air is so thrilling, you almost don’t want him to leave. “princess, that’s not the case at all. you better learn your place quickly or you’re not cumming at all tonight.” he rips off your shirt, taking a second to view you. “so beautiful darling...and all for me.” you smile at his words. he removes your pants, leaving you in just your lacey boyshorts. “i swear if he judges me for wearing boyshorts, i will actually kill him” he removes them, staring directly at your pussy. “so wet...yet you called me weak? how ironic.” he licks a stripe on you, your entire body losing itself. “sweet tasting, beautiful looking and is badass? you must be my dream.” he goes back to your pussy, eating you as if he has never tasted food before. moans leave your mouth, your mind can’t even process words. “kihyun...don’t fucking stop please...holy shit.” he doesn’t respond verbal;y, he responds with pushing his index finger into your soaking cunt. “god…. i cannot wait to feel these walls against my cock. so perfect princess.” a familiar feeling is bubbling inside you. “kihyun, im so close...please let me cum!” he looks up at you, smirking at your already fucked out state. “since you asked so nicely, cum all over my tongue darling.” he starts eating you out again, his tongue and fingers moving faster than the speed of light. you scream his name as you cum. he leans up, licking his lips. “the sweetest thing i’ve ever had baby. he removes his shirt, showing you his inked chest. “holy shit, how does he keep getting hotter?” he sees you looking at his chest. “you got a staring problem baby. i know, they make me so irresistible.” you roll your eyes. “come fuck me already or i will blue ball you in a split second.” his eyes widen. he takes his pants off, slipping his boxers off with them. “are you on birth control?” he softens a bit. “im not able to get pregnant, and i wont tell you why.” he laughs. “jeez, so hostile.” he slowly pushes in, watching your reaction. “holy shit kihyun…” he sighs. “so warm and wet...i am definitely not gonna last long.” he pushes further until he bottoms out. he watches how your body is reacting, making sure he isn’t actually hurting you. “please move kihyun. i can’t wait any longer.” he pulls out slowly only to go back in harder. he picks up his pace, moans bouncing off the walls. “shit...you’re so perfect y/n, i wish i could stay in this pussy all day.” you can’t pronounce anything but his names and very explicit words. you’re uncontrollably squeezing down on his cock, making him falter his pace. “you’re squeezing down on me….god im so close.” you can feel another orgasm bubbling inside you. “k-kihyun, please please please let me cum, wanna-wanna cum all over your cock.” his breathing and pace is becoming irregular. “yes... yes princess, cum all over my cock.” he rubs your clit, making you scream. your orgasm hits you hard, your body shaking uncontrollably. “princess…. holy shit!” he pulls out of you, shooting his cum all over your stomach. he sighs, still getting over his high. he grabs a tissue from his desk and wipes you clean. he helps you back into your clothes. he starts dressing himself, wearing a permanent smile. “so, is that what i needed to do for you to join my gang, princess?” you scoff, rolling your eyes.

“you’re so arrogant kihyun, but hell yes.”

oh my goodness my baby is finally out!! it took a while for me to finish this but i absolutely love this

[the-nysh]

Did you see shiro ripping reddit a new one btw? Probably the only person in the fanbase brave enough to vocalise that Saitama’s be-all and end-all savior chara concept is problematic and other cast members have to suffer to maintain that image. Garou being the latest and most egregious example.

Oh yeah. :') Somebody over there has to do it. Ever since the redraw I've shared their same concerns (as in: willing to see the manga commit to its own thing, provided Garou’s core characterization & agency remain intact that is), and I'm pretty sure I've received several of their messages in concerned outraged solidarity too (so hi there), because I recognize the same strong language, and many of my own words from posts I've written, in support of their reddit arguments. They’re one of the rare few users over there who's always read Garou 100% in good faith over the years, so I know their care, trust, and dedication to his character and the understanding of his nuanced, beneficial narrative themes run deep. That's respect from me. However, holding back any shred of patience or pretend courtesy anymore vs reddit's continued bad faith idiocy (or blissful illiteracy) towards Garou's character, when now there's morally no excuse to try and defend the cruelty he's been made to suffer, is a completely different battle (that I don’t have the patience to engage), so godspeed there! :'D

In their unfiltered words:

Garou is the best character this series has by far and large. The only properly fleshed out character period. Robbing him of his agency by using a cosmic device to wank Saitama’s OP-and-so-heroic self shows that OPM at its core is just another isekaishit for self-inserters, with a rapidly forming MC stalker harem even. And that is not a Garou problem, that’s a fucking pattern already and a Saitama problem. He can only exist as a protagonist if the efforts and desires of other characters are constantly undermined. In the manga everyone is a victim of an absurd and explicitly evil cosmic parasite and only fucking Saitama is allowed to solve that shit with his magical punches. Garou is robbed of his agency and turned a damsel to wank Saitama, and S classes are just overdramatic punching bags also primed to start wanking their savior Saitama.

Which...I understand. Because on one hand of looking at it, it's true. In terms of the story's expanded real estate and narrative focus, imo Garou is best boy, no disagreement there.

In my words, his manga self is someone too fundamentally good and inherently heroic, that he literally had to be mindraped into corruption against his will for any of this to happen. (For him to 'go evil' as reddit dudes ~wanted~ simply for the surface 'edgy,' or for the sake of a flashier 'good fight' vs Saitama, at Garou's entire 100+chs of established core character's expense.) Because it was otherwise impossible for Garou to ever willingly lose his key humanity or put on a believable 'evil' performance to test the heroes anymore, unless some other Literally True Evil being ('god') forcibly did it FOR him. Trapped into a corner even after he refused, but still mindraped into a corrupted faceless void of his former real self, involuntarily turned into a victim to god's cruel agenda against humanity - its eradication, and now everyone has to unfairly suffer from that violation. Congratulations. (Where it's essentially become Saitama vs god’s agenda now, while throwing everything else of value and even the nuance to question what’s beyond ‘good vs evil’ anymore out the window~) And I can't believe some fans still have the gall to say that this was ever something 'good' for Garou to deserve. That this is ‘cool.’ To completely lose the best parts of what make him Him without his consent, and corrupted into enacting overkill nuclear wrath on the world (where it's no joke or pretense anymore) which had never aligned with what he ever actually wanted to achieve in the first place (fixing the biased injustice of the world, towards saving it). So please fuck right off with that abhorrently vile victim blaming bullshit towards him, or believing any of this 'god' stuff is a true reflection of Garou's inner will/desires, or you've proven you never cared for or had faith in Garou's actual character at all.

...But things are destroyed only IF the manga is actually going for that type of arc ending with Saitama solving everything for him though, which would yes, be terrible for all other characters involved (or well, unless Saitama has magic defenses vs radiation damage I'm unaware of, he's fine so there’s no need to worry about him) since then everyone else (but especially Garou) would essentially be sacrificed only to make Saitama ‘look good.’ (Which in my opinion of his performance as a good effective hero this time, he’s.....alarmingly come up short to properly earn the heroic title of ‘one punch man’ yet. Just as King’s lectured he’s not anywhere close to the ideal of ‘greatest hero.’ Pre-redraw he was much better and considerate, but not this route.)

Because remember how many posts I made expressing wariness and warning the danger of Saitama's (problematic) approach to essentially 'bully' and push Garou further? How I knew (from personal experience with a mentally unwell -bipolar- family member who was driven to....) how none of this would be helpful. It would only make things worse. Now we see why. Because if Saitama had taken Tareo's promise seriously without messing around, under oath/obligation -on the job even- as a reliable hero to actually help & save Garou, then all of this could have been prevented. But now? After indirectly pushing it to this point of no return, the same detached Saitama swooping in to simply 'punch' god's corruption out of Garou FOR him, would just feel foully unearned. Hell no. And again, doing all the work for him still wouldn't actually help Garou's psychological problems with his identity at all. So...thanks for nothing, I guess?

No actual Garou fan wants to see that happen, or made to feel like all their time and emotional investment in his story thus far has either been wasted by the author or suddenly thrown away in the trash, where nothing else but Saitama matters, as I said here. Because doing that, by elevating one character just to put down another - at the entire other’s expense even, only fosters resentment and spiteful dislike towards the former. So it’s surely made us Garou fans hate ‘god’!!! 8′D But under no circumstances do I want to start disliking Saitama out of spite either, as that would only unpleasantly lead towards the manga’s dropability. So is ONE sure he wants to do that to the Garou fanbase? By losing a huge portion of his most dedicated (eastern) readers? Esp if that’s all there is to look forward to at the climax of his arc? Really? There has to be more to it.

Where there’s some meaning or reason why, that ultimately works in service of Garou’s hero journey - where he can finally discover/realize/accept his real self’s potential, after discerning and rejecting the indiscriminate mass destruction he never intended, to assert what he’s always truly wanted instead (but could never fully believe in) deep down, towards his decision to become the type of hero he’s always denied himself. Not determined by the rules or expectations set by anyone, beyond even those controlled by ‘god.’ In which the ‘magic’ solution to this whole crisis also lies within himself, to somehow mentally overcome, overrule, or reverse. If there is any faith still left in Garou’s strength of character at all, to help him save himself. (Tareo, I’m counting on you~) Because Saitama can certainly punch things, but he narratively can’t solve something this integral to his character for him (esp if there’s any weird callback to Child Emperor’s mental ‘win’ over Phoenix Man’s corruption attempt, with Saitama’s ‘assistance.’) ...Otherwise where’s the catharsis? Then there’s really No Point for this ‘god’ development to happen to Garou at all. Beyond pointless physical fight escalation in which we already know the winner anyway.

So what else is there? It’s why I’ve made speculative posts like this. Where in all my highest hopium, if Saitama’s punch can’t directly solve Garou’s problems for him or save everyone from the effects of radiation damage, or even if Blast & friends have no magic solutions to it either (esp if they’re too busy trying to fix god’s dimensional seal)....then who else has the impossible magic power right now to change things? Garou. :) Especially if he succeeds in taking back his agency and turns that power around, from destruction into...? His own. To defy god and save the world. (Oh it’d be a miracle.) But by his own assertive choice of will this time. When saving lives (and the day) is a choice fully on purpose (just like he’s already done for Tareo & Bang), not by accident. He’d be just that good at it. 

[dontcallmecarrie]

Hey, I vicariously live in my imagination to escape from the reality.

So, I have been wondering about the Rogues reaction to Tony defeating thanos, the IronSmaug, taking over the world etc...

Have a go at it, if you are interested.

It's also fine if you dont.

thanks, I really, really needed the distraction. it's been. an interesting week. not in a good way.

.

tbh, the whole 'what does Team Cap think about this mess?' thing in TWiFFON is...something I had originally been torn about, and everything that's been happening ever since means I keep finding myself going "do I have the energy to tackle this? lol no".

For some context, because you probably know my stance on this sort of thing but I prefer redundancy just to make sure we're on the same page: once upon a time, I honestly, genuinely did like the Avengers. All of them, and yes, that included Wanda [...for less than an hour, but still].

Back when I still had faith in the writers, I was constantly going "...okay, so when are these guys going to stop acting so OOC? Where tf are they planning on taking these character arcs?" and just being disappointed at each turn— but I stuck around because I liked the potential. Steve "what do you mean punching fascists isn't cool anymore?" Rogers, Natasha "my past is a tire fire and I'll just leave it at that" Romanov, Clint "where's Loki? Let me at him!" Barton and the rest of the group had their good points, and I gave myself a headache trying to figure out wtf was their thought process when the time came for them to do their thing in TWiFFON.

It wasn't fun, I only did it because it was absolutely necessary... and I still ended up receiving complaints.

Look: for me, character bashing is exhausting. I have enough going down in my life that I don't have any interest in writing it, and over the past few years I've seen more than one of the fandoms I follow/lurk in become salt mines that have me going "...okay, if you hate it so much, why are you even here?"

When I write, I try my best to emphasize the 'actions have consequences' thing I learned long before I hit puberty; but that doesn't mean I'm up for anything beyond that. Again, I used to like these characters, so seeing the levels of suffering canon— and some writers— put them through just has me stepping back for a moment.

But TWiFFON attracted a lot of people who were pretty far out there in terms of what they wanted, some of whom got very very pissy when it wasn't the story I wanted to write, which is...probably like 99% of the reason I'm still burned out on that AU. Apart from the recent personal life bs that means I am Not Up To Dealing With any hypothetical rando that shows up in my inbox, because normally I could not care less about what people think but my energy levels are. Um. Not great atm. Not sure I wouldn't bite anyone's head off if they wanted to start something right now, tbh, or just ragequit writing for a while because I have way better things to do with my time than deal with random internet assholes.

...apologies for the tangent, but now you know why that situation is one I'm normally kinda reluctant on tackling.

As for what I'd originally headcanoned:

Back before things hit the fan, I'd originally planned to have some little interlude snippets of what Team Cap's been dealing with. Mostly, it would've forced them to acknowledge that for all none of them liked or trusted Tony, he was basically just the personification of what the rest of the world thought of them.

Nobody respects them, anymore, or trusts them; Clint'd be in very hot water and sleeping on the couch for a while, and Hank Pym would never let Scott hear the end of his involvement in this whole thing because Hank hates the Stark name and the English language cannot concisely articulate just how pissed off he was that he had to publicly thank Tony.

Team Cap overall would also start to fall apart at the seams as more and more stuff came out and ey, turns out the leader they'd trusted and broken international laws for had lied to them.

By omission, sure, but honestly— do you think that'd go down well? The "oh yeah, I've known my brainwashed friend killed his parents since DC but I am not going to tell him unless I'm forced to" thing?

I don't know about you, but I for one highly doubt Sam Wilson would be okay with that. Or Clint, for that matter, and the list goes on because the more time passes, the more stuff keeps coming out of the woodwork and for the first time in years, they're forced to deal with it.

One of the things I planned to include in the sidefic can basically be summed up as "the curious case of Bucky Barnes": that is to say, what'd happen after he's taken into custody, and poke lightly at the clusterfuck we're unpacking here. Tony, feeling bad for losing control in the bunker, would basically go "shit I fucked up but I also never want to see him again but he's an even bigger mess than I am, that's a whole lot to unpack so you know what? I'm just throwing out the suitcase entirely here, have all the resources for support and help and if I ever see you again, it'll be too soon".

...to sum up, it's messy af. SI Legal would feature heavily because his particular case means he needs a team of lawyers, what with the 'former POW who's trying to recover from All The Trauma' thing, and the 'so I literally was just trying to buy some damn groceries when you guys dragged me into this', and Tony basically went "hey, so if anyone wants to help him, uh, I kinda have some interest in this one. Fair warning, dude probably killed Kennedy while mind-controlled, with our luck".

And along the way, there'd also be some of that one subplot I'd cut due to pacing issues: specifically, the one dealing with prosthetics.

Remember how Miriam Sharpe said her son would never walk again? Yeah, we'd be revisiting that: her family'd get a letter or something inviting them for clinical trials, and meet Rhodey in passing as he's using his own leg braces to get around because he's still healing. Bucky would get a few design offers for a free replacement for his arm, and it'd probably end up being a collab with Wakanda because T'Challa feels bad for his role in that mess as well.

So Team Cap would be seeing this, seeing how everyone's acting and reacting, and the way one of their own is getting all the help and support Stark Industries has to offer and realizing that yeah, they messed up. Big time.

...depending on my salt levels and how close we're sticking to canon, I was thinking this'd go one of two ways.

Either they'd double down and just go "ugh, Tony is a supervillain and we can't do anything about it!" while TWiFFON marches on and then later go "...you mean he did it by accident?!", or...

Well, canon's proven character development and continuity isn't really in their writers' vocabulary. So my original idea of 'they're forced to deal with the reality of the situation, acknowledge they messed up and slowly move on with their lives' would've been very unrealistic.

Again, most of this is intentionally vague, I had not been keen to tackle that mess in TWiFFON in the first place and the way things exploded on me means I really, really don't have the energy to do so now. Not when there's far better things I could do with my time, like mess around with AUs where people actually get along, or knit, or— well, the list goes on.

[alicemitch09writes]

skinny love

pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou x reader

summary: 6 months later. Was he too late?

author’s notes: This is a direct sequel to first love and part of a trilogy also aptly named ‘first love’ ugh, i am so unoriginal. Please go read that first before this, otherwise you’ll be confused.

also available on ao3.

disclaimer: i own NOTHING but the plot.

His feet feel like lead as he trudged to the vending machine, adamant on getting coffee. It was only Monday. The smallest sounds of coin drops and beeps were making his head hurt.

Taking his first sip of his coffee, he walked around the quiet halls.

He hated hospitals.

Actually, they weren't that bad, having everything it needed to cater to the patient's needs. But it was a façade to their impending doom. And he hated it. Hated the way doctors and nurses would say with practiced ease that everything will be alright – when it won't.

They mean well, they really do, but they were a painful reminder of how fragile life was – how easy it can be taken away.

Reaching Room #423, he turned the knob, finding (Name) in the same state she's been the past six months. The door shuts quietly behind him, back resting against it.

"Tetsu, have you been eating?"

He could almost hear her voice, filled with worry of how thin he is. She always did that, nagging him like a mom to eat if he wanted to win. Funny she thought that, thinking more of his (and the team's) welfare's than her own. (Name) was always that kind.

Instead, the image of that beautiful girl was replaced with one lying on the hospital bed – limp and lifeless.

(Name) didn't belong here, not in this hospital nor in that bed she was lying in. No.

She deserved to be home, in her room surrounded by her instruments, fussing herself with her studies, that new song she wanted to learn, or managing a pack of rowdy boys.

He didn’t know how long he just stood there before he heard a knock at the door. Lazily turning his body, he opened the door; his actions seemed robotic, staring at two familiar faces.

"Hey man," Bokuto greeted, balloons in different colors and shapes (there was one in the shape of an owl) in hand, worry in his eyes. "Wow, you look like shit."

"Thanks." He said, taking a sip of his coffee.

"That wasn't very nice, Bokuto-san." Akaashi scolded, appearing behind the salt-and-pepper-haired teen with flowers in his hands.

Too tired to argue, he stepped aside, letting them in. Closing the door behind him, he watched the two eyeing the unconscious girl, hearing Bokuto sighing while Akaashi dutifully went straight for the vase, intending to replace the flowers.

He plopped down on his seat, canned coffee still in hand.

"But seriously man," Bokuto called, tying the balloons next to the side table. "you look terrible."

Kuroo closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose.

"When was the last time you went out?"

"Bokuto-san." Akaashi called in warning, appearing from the toilet with a vase filled with clean water.

"I'm serious!" Kuroo draped an arm over his eyes as if to hide the bags underneath. "Dude, you barely left since. Day in, day out, you're here but never at home. Nowhere else but here. You even ditched your first year of college!"

"I won't want to leave her," Kuroo said, still not moving from his spot.

Bokuto frowned at his friend, arms crossed. "I'm not saying that you should, I'm saying (Name)-chan wouldn't like to see you this way."

(Name).

Sighing, Kuroo slumped forward, arms propped on his knees, staring at the sterile ground.

"We're just worried about you, Kuroo."

That must be the umpteenth time someone's told him that – his mom, his dad, his older sister, Kenma, Coach Nekomata, the team. But still, his resolve won't change.

Taking a long sip, he met both stares from Bokuto and Akaashi, who had just finished with the flowers.

"I'm not leaving her." he said in finality, turning to the sleeping girl. There were a lot of things he wanted to tell her, a lot. And he wanted to be the first person she sees when she wakes up, the first person to see her wake.

Sighing exasperatedly, hands on his hips, Bokuto resigned. His friend was stubborn, but he had an iron resolve. "I know you won't. Figured as much."

"Then why do you still bother?"

Smirking at the raven-haired teen, he says with a shrug. "Because bro, you matter to me."

Kuroo put a hand to his heart, touched. "Bro."

"Bokuto-san just wanted to act cool every once in a while," Akaashi coolly said, opening the drapes. That earned a loud, familiar call from his former captain. Kuroo smiled, some things never change.

"But seriously dude, you could use a bath because you smell like shit."

Akaashi didn't need to scold him then as Bokuto received a (friendly) punch to the gut from Kuroo.

Six months.

That's how long he was suffering, how long he had been tortured by the mere thought of never seeing her smile again, of never hearing her laugh again, of never having her around again – of never seeing her again.

The word cancer stuck to his head was like a punch to the gut, pummeling him inside out with every step he took. Never mind the burning pain of his muscles from a day's worth of match, never mind finally giving their coach the chance to witness the 'Battle at the Dumps' match even though they lost, never mind that his high school life had officially come to an end – they didn't matter at this point. He just wanted to see her.

And the first time he saw her – dressed in a hospital gown, with tubes sticking to her body connected to machines that kept her alive, he was crushed. As if he were a porcelain doll smashed into a million pieces, each fragment breaking into smaller pieces.

He nearly broke down at the sight of her. She was beautiful as ever, yet to see her in that situation broke his heart.

(Name) had been operated; the chances of her survival were slim. But the only thing Kuroo could think was how small (Name) looked in that big, white bed.

Picking her hands, he noted how small they were – how he could practically see and feel her bones. Threading his finger through hers, he brought them to his cheek, relishing in her warmth. These were the same fingers that cared for him each time he'd earn a bruise or a scratch, the same hands that brushed his hair when he was sleepy – gentle touches that made him think that she was an angel. Slim fingers that did magic with every instrument she held.

He always knew she was small – fragile, even – but it only clicked to him now as to why that was the case. Ironic that he was the perceptive guy, inside and outside the court, yet he failed to notice his best friend's wellbeing. How did he miss to notice how little she would eat, how easily tired she was, or how low her stamina was? He was supposed to be the smart guy, for crying out loud!

He wanted to hit himself, to numb himself of the pain.

The moment he found out, he wouldn't stop crying, hating himself every minute of every day.

(Name) wouldn't wake up.

(Name) wouldn't wake up.

(Name). Wouldn't. Wake. Up.

"Kuroo," a voice called, quiet and low, one he knew all too well. Weakly raising his head, he looked over his shoulder, meeting a familiar blonde teen.

Kenma looked at his best friend worriedly, a frown in his face. "You should go home." The raven-haired lad shook his head, Kenma sighed. "(Name) wouldn't like that."

"I'm not leaving her." he says, voice raspy.

Kenma stared, eyes narrowing. "Have you been eating at least?"

"I've been snacking on what Auntie gives me," he rubs his eyes tiredly, stretching his arms over his head. "I'll be fine."

His dark hair was greasy, sticking out to different directions – messier than usual; there were bags under his eyes. The clothes he's been wearing were days old now, but it's not like he leaves the hospital. How long has he had proper sleep or shower?

"You're not." Kenma pointed out, walking towards the bed, opposite to where his friend was. He arranges the plushies from various game characters beside her bed, dusting a few. When he was done, he stood next to the unconscious girl, eyes dancing with sorrow.

Kuroo watched his friend carefully, a question burning his head. "How long have you known?"

Kenma blinked. Deciding to sit down, he met Kuroo's gaze. "A while now." He answers as if anticipating the question. "(Name) was the most secretive amongst us three; I thought you'd have known first." Shrugging, he adjusted her blanket. "But you didn't." Kuroo wanted to laugh at that because it was half-true. They both knew he was far more observant than he let on.

Sighing, the blonde props his arm on a nearby desk, resting his head on his palm. "Knowing her secret was like carrying a heavy burden because it's her secret and your knowledge of her sickness."

Frowning, he asked. "She didn't know that you knew?"

The blonde shook his head without looking at him. "Like I said, it was a burden on my part as well. Plus, that'd be disrespecting (Name). And I can't do that to her."

Something likened to rage burned within him, he was standing before his best friend before he knew it. "And you didn't bother to tell me?"

"It's not my secret to tell." Kenma says easily, carefully setting her clamped hand aside.

"But we're best friends!" Kuroo's voice rose, earning a scoff from the blonde as he turned to meet his gaze, eyes almost challenging.

"Don't you think that'd be disrespecting (Name)'s decision?" Kuroo was practically shaking now, hands balled into a fist. "Besides, it's not like you cared to begin with-"

Kuroo had grabbed him by the collar, raising him to his level. "I dare you to say that again." He seethed hotly, eyes burning.

Kenma didn't falter, eyes glowering. "What's the matter, Kuroo? Upset that for once, you failed to gain information before me to break someone, to use it to your advantage? Or are you just mad that (Name) couldn't trust you enough?"

"Shut up!" his voice rose, grip tightening.

Steely gold hues met his, challenging and mocking. "Then are you guilty because it's practically your fault she's in this situation?"

That was the final straw.

Taking his hand back, Kuroo was just about to smack Kenma in the face when blaring sound rang through the room. The two automatically turned to her, panicked, Kuroo dropped Kenma, ran for the intercom while Kenma stared at (Name)'s body, not knowing what to do.

A little while later, a nurse came rushing in.

Kuro and Kenma stepped aside, watching the nurse attend to their best friend each holding their breath. Kuroo was wondering if he should've called for her doctor, but after a while, the nurse sedated her, (Name)'s body relaxed.

The gentle beep of the heart monitor demonstrated her calmness.

"She'll be alright, just a little stressed is all." The nurse says kindly, much to their relief.

They sighed in unison, rooted on the spot even as the nurse left the room.

(Name)'s breathing slowly through the calming silence that came, followed by the purring of the machines and quite chattering outside.

The two best friends stood there, watching the unconscious girl. Kuroo and Kenma slumped against the wall, the raven-haired teen slipping to the ground. The tension between the two was still there, something that was rare even for them. In the many years they knew each other, not once have they got into a fight this extreme. And even if a fight did ensue, there was only one person who could bring it to a stop, one person they'd bow to other than Yaku.

"She'd kill us by now," Kenma sighs, breaking the silence.

Kuroo snorted at that, hiding the smile on his face.

Eventually, he broke into fits of laughter. Kenma joined in.

"She'd give us a litany," Kuroo added, voice thick. "then she'd take us by the ear."

Kenma shuddered, rubbing at his ear. Kuroo did the same.

"You started it though," Kenma told him, bluntly.

Kuroo narrowed his eyes at him. "But you fanned the flames."

They burst into chuckles, tension dying down.

A little while later, the room was filled with members of the Nekoma team – bringing flowers, fruits, and toys. Each member, especially Yamamoto, Inuoka, and Lev, fawned over their unconscious manager while Fukunaga fussed over the snacks. Yaku had to keep everyone in line.

The best friends exchanged a look, knowing that if (Name) were awake, she couldn't be any happier.

Someone was waking him, gently shaking his shoulders. Raising his head from his folded arms, he was met with warm (eye color) eyes. "Tetsuroo-kun." The woman greeted kindly.

"Auntie," He stood up in greeting, pulling his wrinkled clothes down. "Good evening."

Her smile, it reminded him of hers, how he missed her smile. "Good evening." Walking across the room, she dropped her bag and sat on the chair next to her daughter, patting a hand over her cheek. "Any news?" she asked, looking up at him.

He shook his head, hands tightening. "Just the same."

The smile remained, eyes never losing its light. "Then she's still alright."

Just staring at the woman made him wonder how she could still be so optimistic about the situation. It must be hard on her, her only daughter was under coma after her operation, yet she never loses hope. She was just like (Name). And duh, she was her mom!

"Have you eaten?"

He nodded. "Yeah." He lied, tucking his hands on his pockets.

She stared, her smile waning a bit, worry in her eyes, then nods.

"Where is Uncle?" he asked, staring at freshly cut flowers next to her bed – carnations, care of the Fukorodani team.

"Oh, just parking the car. He'll be here in a while."

Kuroo nods, not knowing what else to say. So he sits by the couch, watching Auntie talked to her daughter, telling her how her classmates missed her (evidenced by the balloons and cards surrounding her bed), how their neighbors have as well, how quiet the house has been lately without her playing, the little things. But to her, they were all that mattered.

He hung his head, not wanting to watch any longer. He could hear the sadness in her voice, the longing, and yet, she still hopes. How could she?

"I'll be right back, Auntie." He announces, making his way out before she could reply, missing the worried look on her face.

Six months.

Six excruciating months.

He's endured and suffered that long.

But still, she wouldn't wake up.

Splashing water to his face, he then looked up, finding a miserable guy staring back at him.

Then are you guilty because it's practically your fault she's in this situation?

No matter what they say, it was his fault she was in this situation. It was his fault she's lying in that hospital bed, unconscious. It was his fault.

He wanted to punch his reflection so bad, but he was tired (physically and emotionally).

He didn't like hospitals, hated how clinically clean it was and how dreadful it was. Life came and go here.

Reaching for the door to her room, he paused.

What good would it be for him to be here?

He didn't deserve to be here keeping guard and watching her.

What was he even doing here?

"Aren't you going to go in?" a voice called behind him.

Turning, he was met with a kind gaze from a bespectacled (hair color) man. Their kind disposition ran in the family, he didn't deserve it.

At a loss for words, Kuroo mumbled unintelligent words, the man laughed heartily.

"Looks like you need a bite," although shorter than the teen, he wrapped his arm around his shoulders, steering them away. "come, you need to eat."

Kuroo gulped, staring down at the meal before him, then at the smiling man. There were a few people at the cafeteria – a few nurses and doctors on break, a kid with his mother, some teens, and them.

A comfortable silence forms between them despite having fidgeting in his presence.

The smell of strong spice was making his mouth water, aptly reminding him of the lie he told Auntie. Truth was, he snacked on some fruits given by his family earlier that day, that and coffee. A little while later, his stomach growled. The old man chuckled heartily. "Go on," he encourages.

Timidly, he nodded, saying his grace before digging in.

His eyes widened at the burst of flavors in his mouth, almost forgetting what an amazing cook the man was. He chewed carefully, distracting himself with the texture and taste.

He hadn't noticed the old man leaving until he came back with a can of orange juice for both of them. Kuroo muttered a 'thanks', chugging down the beverage.

"It's so good to see you eat," he tells him, eyes crinkling. "and no, you can't lie to me. I know you, Tetsuroo-kun." He laughed.

It was like he was eight again. It was always like that with this man, this amazing man, who held instruments like magic, the same man who was the father of the girl lying in this very hospital bed, comatose, because of him.

He chewed slowly, eyes dropping. Eventually, he swallowed but didn't reach for more even though the bento box was still full.

"Oh, are you done eating?" asked the confused man.

He almost wanted to laugh.

These past months weren't easy on all of them, especially for them. They could have blamed him for why their daughter was here, but they didn't. Instead, they pulled themselves together for her and for him.

"Thank you, uncle." He says instead, meaning it. Kuroo grinned at the confused man before digging in again.

He shook his head at the teen before him, chuckling heartily. He studies the young boy before him, remembering the look on his face when he saw her comatose state – it was the look of absolute heartbreak.

When he was done eating, they packed slowly, making slow talk (although it was more of him doing the talking). They were standing outside her room, but before they entered, he called him.

"She wouldn't like it you know," he tells him, sincerely. "seeing you like this, filled with guilt and hate. She would've wanted you to be happy, even if she's not the one causing it."

There was a sharp tug in his heart at the last line. "But she makes me happy." It was barely a whisper, tears starting anew. "But I didn't let her know that."

His eyes were stinging with tears, body trembling.

The older man patted his shoulder, squeezing in assurance.

While waiting for her to wake up, he often talked to her about their childhood, some dumb memories, and some good ones. He even told her of the events that transpired during nationals, not knowing that she was watching via live television.

"You should've been there," he said quietly, letting his fingers play with her growing (hair color) hair. "the team wouldn't be anything without our manager."

Some days, he'd read to her, having scavenged through her room from her yet to-read pile. He had to endure going through books that were not of his genre (especially romance), but in the end, found himself enjoying them.

With each passing day, the hope of her waking up was waning. He feared she might never wake up. The waiting was killing him, unnerving and destroying him. But he didn't give up hope, could never. He could wait years if he has to, just to see her (eyes color) eyes again, hear her laugh again, and be with her.

"Oh my, it's that boy again! He's become a familiar face around here."

"How long has he been visiting her?"

"About six months now, since that girl was brought in. He practically lives here."

"Poor thing, looks like he hasn't eaten or slept for days!"

"And he barely leaves her room. And when he does, it's only for a few hours or a day, and then he's back."

"Seriously?"

"The poor boy, the pain he's been through."

"And she might never wake up."

"I don't care what they say," he says against their intertwined fingers. "you are perfect to me. And I'm not leaving you."

It was barely midnight, but he couldn't help it. The conversation he heard earlier was getting to him. They didn't know anything about him or her. It was none of their business.

But to say that she was never going to wake up?

No.

He didn't like to think about it.

She was going to wake up.

He knew it.

But honestly? He wasn't so sure anymore.

Shifting in his seat, he threw his head back, massaging at his throbbing temples. When he opened his eyes, he noted something from the corner of his eye. Her ukulele was lying beside her; he stared at it long and hard before deciding to pick it up. Upon closer inspection, he noticed scratches and a Band-Aid on the crack of the soundboard. Something tugged inside him; he knew exactly where that crack came from.

His grip tightened.

Kenma was right, he was selfish.

He was so selfish.

Absentmindedly, he played with the strings, filling the silence. And then, he began adjusting the chords. It used to drive (Name) nuts, especially when she found how out of tune her ukulele was because of him. He smiled, he always loved seeing her cute face pinched into a frown – she was so cute like that.

Satisfied with the pitch, his calloused fingers began to play a few strings. The song was slow, gentle.

I wanna make you smile, whenever you're sad

Carry you around when your arthritis is bad

All I wanna do, is grow old with you

I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches

Build you a fire if the furnace breaks

Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you

  He loved her.

Cliché as it is, he did.

Truth of the matter is, he's always been in love with her.

From the first moment they met, the first time he saw her smile, the first time she scolded him and Kenma, the first time she fussed over them, the first time he saw her play an instrument, to the first time she made him realize how many years have passed that he was so, so, in love with her.

So hopelessly in love with (Name).

Except, he was scared to risk their friendship – scared that she might not feel the same way he did.

I'll miss you

Kiss you

Give you my coat when you are cold

Need you

Feed you

Even let ya hold the remote control

Six months without her was absolute torture.

She was part of every significant event in his life; he couldn't remember spending a day without her in it

Because life without her? He couldn't even imagine.

It was meaningless.

If he could, he'd turn back time and make it right.

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink

Put you to bed if you've had too much to drink

I could be the man who grows old with you

I wanna grow old with you

The last lines of the song came out barely a whisper.

Releasing a shaky breath, he hung his head, tears streamed freely. "I've waited so long to play that."

It was the cheesiest song from a lousy movie. But the song, he had to admit, was one of his low-key favorites. The lyrics to the song were so sincere and heartfelt. He finally understood why love songs were made – to say the words everyone failed to say or supplement their feelings.

If only she was awake, then she'd hear his feelings.

Putting her ukulele away, he takes her hand in his, holding it close as he cried. "Please, wake up."

He buried his face into her hand, kissing it as he repeatedly begs for her to wake up, tears still streaming. "There's so much I want to tell you, so much I want you to know."

Taking her hand, he places a quick kiss to her palm, pressing it against his chest. "Feel that? That's my heart and it's beating for you."

His heart was beating fast, as it always did when (Name) was around.

Every single thing she does wonders is magic to him, especially with the way he captivated her the moment their eyes met. He missed it all – her smile, her touch, her eyes, her laugh, in general, he missed her.

So much it hurt.

Because the possibility of her never waking up was a factor that scared him every single day for the past six months. He didn't want their last meeting to be of him being an ass to her.

His heart skipped a beat.

He looked up at her, then at the hand on his chest, he swore he felt her hand twitch.

[yniswaifu]

The bet - 3

Sweat and shoes hit the gym floor as the Inarizaki volleyball team practiced for the upcoming national tournament. The members were more stressed and under pressure, as in the previous year they lost the first place by a hair. But this time, they were determined to win.

Under normal circumstances, Osamu would be giving his all if not more, and completely down to compete with his brother. But for the past couple of days he had such a gloomy vibe around him that Atsumu didn't even want to approach him for an one-on-one game. Not like he was doing any better after f/n dumped him. But it was also not as bad as his twin.

You covered 90% of Osamu's thoughts lately. Half of it was trying to understand why you suddenly, out of nowhere talked about the bet with f/n, and the rest was of how much he missed you. He didn't tell anyone, as usual, and even if his teammates noticed the change, they didn't say anything. Including Kita – the most meticulous of the lot.

But the problem was, this was messing with the flow of the team and nationals was around the corner. Osamu had to do something about his issues, and he had to do it fast.

Missing the receive for the nth time now, Osamu cussed loudly and slammed his fist on the wall. He wanted to put his body and mind in the game, but he just couldn't. What the heck did you do to him.

"Osamu, take a break. And collect your thoughts." Aran said softly. He knew Osamu had to buck up, but he also understood something was troubling his teammate.

Sighing, the second year nods and sits near the wall with a towel in hand and water bottle in another. Suna was eyeing him, and so was his brother, but they didn't say anything.

"it's all y/n's fault." Atsumu says, clicking his tongue. He always thought you were one of the coolest people around, and perfect for his brother – but all this went out the window when it came to f/n and how she broke up with him the other day.

Atsumu was so confused and shocked and upset that it took him some time to realize what was happening. F/n was crying and he couldn't even hug her or console her because apparently it's over between them now that y/n revealed the truth behind the relationship. He was so mad at y/n that he swore if y/n was a guy then she would have been punched already. Although he did get a little rough with her by grabbing her collar.

That made him feel bad, but he wasn't going to admit it.

"I think what she did was correct though." Suna says, shrugging.

Atsumu is in shock. What is this guy saying? "correct? F/n broke up with me because of her dude!"

"not really. that's because the relationship didn't have the best start."

He was speechless. What Suna said was right, but...

Sighing, he chooses to ignore the words and resume their practice.

Osamu observed others. They all seemed to be in their top form, fit for the national. Meanwhile he's being a heartbroken Romeo.

Shaking his head, he tried to get his thoughts together. Y/n didn't have to go and dig up old memories. Memories that were supposed to be buried forever. He wanted to be with you and play volleyball, not deal with this mess you created.

Even if it was you who messed up, you had the audacity to go missing after that day. You neither called or texted him. And it also seemed like you were avoiding him. He could ask Ginjima, your second cousin, but the two of you lived away from each other.

Ten minutes in, Osamu felt better and felt like he could focus in the game. But just then, the gym doors open, and a familiar face peeps in.

Osamu halts in his place, wide eyed. He hadn't seen you for three days, but as soon as you appeared, it made him feel like he's seeing you after three years. And that made him a little emotional.

He sees you scan the room, missing him in the process. Finally, your eyes land on someone to his right, and he sees Kita walking towards you. You smile and say something, and Kita calls Ginjima.

He runs towards you, and you hand him something, a bento of sorts before smiling and waving him goodbye. Just then, Suna says, "y/n! Wait a minute!"

Osamu was busy staring at you when Suna's voice echoed in the gym and is surprised at the sudden call. He never expected Suna to do something so...bold. He sees you two talking, and how Suna is saying something to make you laugh, and he notices how you copy Suna's signature pose he does before his blocking. When did the two of you become close?

Atsumu, who is now standing beside his brother mutters under his breath, "never knew she will jump to another man so fast? That too Suna."

Osamu wanted to strangle his brother for that, but even he thought how much of that could be correct. You were laughing at Suna's words like you never had a boyfriend and never did anything wrong. And hadn't been contacting that so called boyfriend.

"Suna! Enough talking! Let's get back to practice!" he yells, much to everyone's surprise. He himself wasn't sure why he said that, but he did say that, and now both you and Suna look at Osamu at the same time.

He swore you saw your face drop before returning to normal.

You bid Suna goodbye and leave. He returns to the crowd and said something to Ginjima, ignoring Osamu.

"what did y/n give you?" Aran asks Ginjima.

"ah, a bento her mom prepared, since my parents won't be home, so aunty sent something for me for dinner." he answered.

Osamu's eyes narrowed. He shouldn't be jealous of Ginjima, since he's your cousin, but he was. And that was more irritating.

"y/n said to share some with me as well." Suna interrupts. It was such an obvious lie that made Aran roll his eyes.

Ginjima looks at him with a deadpan expression. "please. She didn't. I know her."

"but she did."

"never."

"I'll tell–"

"can you both shut up about y/n and get back to practice." Atsumu's voice interrupts them both. His tone was that of annoyance.

Suna gives him a side eye look, while Ginjima is surprised. What just happened?

"yo, you good?" he asks the blondie.

"not really. Nationals are coming up and here we're discussing about some stupid girl."

Wow, Osamu is pissed now.

"watch your mou–"

"don't call y/n stupid." Suna cuts him off. He looked pissed.

It's not just Osamu or Atsumu, but the whole gym that was surprised. First of all, that bold move he pulled earlier was shocking. And now he's defending someone? Is this really Suna Rintarou they knew?

Osamu felt helpless in all this. He couldn't bear this type of conflicted feeling, and he wanted to talk to you and sort this out. He hated fighting with you and because of the chaos and Suna's weird reactions and behaviour towards you, he felt insecure. It's not like you had broken up with him, then why is this happening? Where another man had to take your side?

With the resolve to make up with you, Osamu returns to the game when Kita orders everyone to go back to the game and talk this out when they weren't practicing.

I know chap 3 is short, but I felt anymore than this would ruin the flow. So stay tuned for chap 4. I think this fic would be another 2-3 chaps more. Also, Suna defending someone is...👀

Yeah.

[spider6oy]

Just One Look | JJ Maybank

summary: jj has a serious problem; he can’t seem to stop staring at you. everyone notices, even you, but he doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it - or maybe he just can’t. but at a kegger on the beach, maybe this time his staring won’t go to waste?

warnings: self-loathing, self-depreciation, sickly sweet loved up teens

word count: 2030-ish

masterlist

JJ couldn't help but stare.

He really couldn't - no, like, seriously he couldn't. He had tried everything to practically stop gawking at you like some sort of fish out of water; with his eyes wide and lips parted ever so slightly. He had tried using a rubber band on his wrist, snapping it every time he would catch himself staring. He had tried pinching his arm, squeezing his skin every time he would so much as glance your way. He had even tried slapping himself across the face one time - although it did raise a few eyebrows and brought more questions than JJ cared to answer.

But none of those techniques had worked.

JJ had remembered hearing from someone before, that if you punish yourself enough times whilst doing something you didn't want to do (in this case it was staring at you like you were a pot of gold at the end of a goddamn rainbow), then your mind would soon learn to see that action as undesirable and bad, and eventually you would stop.

Well, JJ thought whoever had said that was definitely talking out of their ass - his money was on Pope.

But in the end it didn't matter what JJ tried to do to stop himself from staring at you, nothing would ever seem to work, and he was completely done with it.

"Dude, you're doing it again." John B commented as he took a swig from the red solo cup in his hand; smirking slightly as he noticed his blonde friend gawping at you from across the beach.

"Doing what?" JJ asked innocently, bringing his own red cup up to his lips and taking a long sip. He continued to watch you dance amongst your friends and the other people who had turned up to the kegger. His eyes traced over your body slowly; completely entranced by the way you moved your hips and swayed your body to the beat of the music.

"Making yourself look like a creep, as per usual JJ." Kiara stated, pulling the colourful sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and staring over the brim of them at the not-so-subtle teen. "I mean, is it so hard to actually go over and talk to her?" she questioned, accepting the cup of beer Pope had just brought back from the keg.

"Oh a thousand percent. Listen, in JJ's mind, talking to Y/N is the equivalent to going to The Crain House and getting caught by Mrs Crain herself - he would no doubt shit his pants." Pope joked, quickly dodging JJ's fist as he tried to land a punch to his chest.

JJ shook his head as he gave Pope a weak shove (not actually wanting to hurt his friend), rolling his eyes as his friends continued to joke and laugh about his unfortunate situation. He had become used to the banter and quips that came with his major crush on you, but never letting the jokes get to his head because most of the time they were true - to a certain extent.

JJ would like to think he wouldn't shit his pants if he actually went to talk to you. . . well. . . he could only pray he wouldn't.

But, his friends were right in saying that he was scared to talk to you. He was absolutely terrified. Even the thought of sending you a simple 'Hello' made his heartbeat quicken and his palms start to clam up.

About two years ago he had tried to talk to you. His friends had challenged him, tired of the way he would trail after you like some love-sick puppy, to go up to you and just start a conversation. JJ thought for a moment as he looked at you, sitting at a table in The Wreck at the opposite side of the room to him and the Pogues. He thought why not? He wasn't going to get to know you if he didn't make the first move - up until this point he was pretty sure you didn't even know he existed. So, he stood up from his seat (much to the surprise of his friends) and walked towards your table. He set his eyes on you; watching as your smile widened and your eyes crinkled as you laughed at something your friend had said to you – not noticing the waiter that was walking towards him on his right-hand side.

All JJ could remember was ending up on the floor; covered from head to toe in fish-stew and attracting the attention of every single customer in the restaurant. After that he swore that he would never try and speak to you again; knowing that if he did, something bad would inevitably end up happening.

Because when did anything ever go right for JJ, huh?

“JJ, I doubt anything bad would actually happen, just go over there and talk to her!” John B said, slightly flailing his arms around as he grew fed up of his friends’ cowardice.

JJ looked at all three of his friends; Kie and Pope nodding their heads in agreement with what John B had just said – but to JJ, that didn’t matter. He just shook his head, swirling the beer in his cup around as he lightly kicked at the sand under his feet.

“JJ, I bet she doesn’t even remember what happened at the restaurant two years ago, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Kiara added, swatting at Pope’s hand as he tried to steal the sunglasses perched on her nose.

“But you remember!” JJ pointed out, looking up from the sand.

“Yes, but that’s only because I know how much you hate that memory, and I enjoy watching you suffer.” Kiara countered, finally taking her sunglasses off and placing them on Pope’s head, receiving a wide grin from the boy.

“Listen JJ, I know you’re scared to go and talk to Y/N, I get it. It didn’t go to plan last time, and I get that it affected you, but that was still only your first time trying! You don’t even know what could’ve happened if you’d tried again, and you won’t know what will happen if you don’t try now!” Kiara laced her hand with Pope’s, mumbling about wanting to go and grab another beer, before turning back towards JJ. “Just. . . don’t waste your time staring at a girl, when you’re not even going to do anything about it, JJ. It’s really not worth it.”

-

“Your secret admirer is staring at you, again.” Heather commented, her eyes motioning to the blonde boy that was stood across the beach.

You glanced towards your left; smiling lightly as you noticed JJ looking over in your direction, giggling at the sight of him quickly averting his eyes and awkwardly scratching the back of his neck – trying to act as if he hadn’t just been caught.

You had always sort of been aware of the stares and glances from JJ Maybank. At first, when your friends had pointed out that they had seen JJ staring at you, you were quick to play it off. Always saying how he couldn’t have been staring at you; it must have been someone else, or that he was probably just staring at your friends, because there was no way he could have been staring at you.

Right?

But after a few months, you had started to notice yourself that JJ was staring at you (with this look of just complete and utter adoration and warmth that made you feel instantly weak at the knees and want nothing more than to run into his arms and just never let go).

What struck you the most from the action was simply confusion; confusion as to why he would choose to stare at you? Out of everyone in The Outer Banks; out of all the Kook’s, and the Touron’s, and the Pogue’s (especially the Pogues, considering you had always thought that JJ and Kiara had something going on); he chose you.

You.

Plain and simple you.

Nothing special. Nothing exciting. Nothing out-of-this-world amazing.

Just. . . you – Y/F/N Y/L/N.

And somehow that had been one of the hardest things you had ever had to come to terms with; the fact that someone liked you, the fact that someone found you attractive, the fact that someone would go out of their way just to look at you, and only you.

You had never been the most confident of people; quite often struggling to find the positives in yourself when all you could see was the flaws. Your friends would tell you countless times that you were stunning and hot and gorgeous; but those comments didn’t even make a scratch on the hatred and disgust that surrounded you like a shield of armour – attacking you instead of protecting you.

But when you caught JJ gazing at you with that look - it felt like something inside of you had finally broken free from your prison of self-deprecation; some sort of self-worth, or self-love, or whatever you wanted to call it. It really didn’t matter. Because for the first time in your life, you could finally look at yourself and see the beauty that everyone else could see.

The beauty that JJ could see.

“Why don’t you go over and talk to him?”

“What?” You questioned, completely caught off guard by Heathers proposal.

Heather rolled her eyes lightly, still swaying to the beat of the music playing from some speaker situated on the beach. “Y/N, that boy has been staring at you for the last. . . I don’t even know how many years – a lot, probably, and during this entire time he has not once come up to speak to you – which is pretty stupid in my opinion, but I’m not gonna get into that,” Heather rambles, making you laugh and shake your head at her words.

“The point is Y/N, is that I can tell JJ is nervous and just doesn’t have the confidence to come up and talk to you himself. . . which is quite surprising because he’s always come off as pretty cocky and confident to me – but anyways, so-“.

“Heather, what’s the point?” You ask; trying to stop Heather from falling down a rabbit hole of her own thoughts.

“I’m getting to that. . . the point is Y/N; is that you have to go up and talk to him. He just. . . can’t come to you.” Heather stated, shrugging her shoulders lightly as she looked over in JJ’s direction. “I don’t know why really. Maybe something happened to him before? Maybe something has just put him off from coming to speak to you?” Heather turned back towards you; grabbing your shoulders and turning you towards JJ, slightly pushing you forward. “But we will never know unless you go and talk to him! So, go!”. Heather gave you one final push; sending you out of the crowd of dancers and towards the drinking bystanders.

You quickly turn back around, hoping to find Heather to try and talk her out of this crazy idea, but she was gone – already swallowed by the large crowd of dancing teenagers. You sigh lightly, feeling your heartbeat start to pick up as you slowly turned back around.

You eyes instantly spot JJ; standing next to his friend (who you think is called John B), drinking from a red solo cup, and talking about god-knows-what.

You take one step across the sand, feeling your hands start to shake as adrenaline seeps into your bloodstream. You take another, feeling your breaths start to quicken as anticipation begins to build in your chest. You take another, feeling a slight sweat begin to settle on your forehead as the anxiety starts to set in.

You take another, and another, and another; until you’re practically almost beside him.

You go to take another, and you suddenly stop.

Your eyes widen slightly. Your breath catches in your throat. Your heart feels as though it’s stopped beating.

Because he’s looking at you and you’re looking at him.

Because he’s caught your eye and you’ve caught his.

Because you’re both looking at each-other now.

This wasn’t some stolen glance, or a sneaky look anymore.

This was a real and true two-way-connection; one that made your heart burst with excitement and your mind spin with wonder – you never wanted that feeling to end.

You took another step forward now, no longer feeling dread and anxiety swell inside of you but instead it was a feeling of anticipation and fascination. The feeling only continued to grow as you neared JJ – nothing could stop you now or slow your pace.

You had to get to JJ.

Out of the corner of your eyes you noticed John B leave JJ’s side, a knowing smirk plastered on his lips as he tried to hide it with a swig of his plastic cup.

You finally do stop, arms-length away from the blonde boy stood in front of you; equally as awestruck and dumbfounded as you currently felt.

You both hold the look.

You both stared at each other.

You both smiled.

“I’m Y/N.” You said, holding out your hand for him to shake.

“I’m JJ.” He retorted, slipping his hand into yours.

[thatshithurted8]

Confessing Feelings

Summary: Tired of your obliviousness JJ takes a leap of faith and admits his feelings.

Word Count: 1.8k

Prompts: “Stop pretending you’re okay cause I know you’re not.” “Just talk to me.” “What if I told you I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.” Requested by: @multiphases 

There’s no doubt that Y/N Y/L/N is a gorgeous girl. Anyone that saw her knew that and most people grew even more attracted to her once they got to know her.

Even though some people would catergorize you as the most attractive girl in all of OBX no one has been lucky enough to date you. Or even take you out on a date for that matter.

After all of these years you simply just thought no one was interested in you and that was okay despite, being lonely at times or craving a relationship like John B’s and Sarah’s.

However, if it was up to you to pick any boy on the island to date you would pick JJ with a hundred percent certainty. Despite wishing for boys to show any type of interest in you a part of you will always want JJ. After all, he was your first love, but he doesn’t know that, nor do you think he feels the same way about you.

Little did you know though that a mischievous blonde has stopped that from happening. JJ was so protective of you and you guys were extremely close. The only time you guys weren’t attached to the hip was when JJ was hooking up with a random girl. However, since you two are with each other 24/7 it’s hard for guys to try to talk to you, especially knowing about JJ’s notorious reputation.  Every guy on the island knew not to even attempt to get with you because of JJ, even Rafe Cameron the Kook King himself knew that. 

The only people that didn’t know that were stupid Tourons. It seemed like everyone Touron had the tendency to hit on you, but JJ’s anger would decrease when you politely declined them. Despite feeling lonely at times you didn’t want the stress of a long distance relationship if you were to connect with one on that level.

However, as of right now JJ leaned against the door frame of the cabin in Heyward’s boat, pouting. Currently you were rambling on about how a Touron bought you your meal when you were out for breakfast with your cousin. The Touron, named Brett eventually asked for your number and you for once obliged. 

“I swear swear guys he is probably the most attractive guy I’ve ever seen.” You say to Sarah and Kie while you flipped yourself to lay down on your back. After all you wanted a even tan. Your statement felt like a punch in the gut to JJ as he continued to eavesdrop into your conversation with the girls.

“Show me a picture and I’ll be the judge of that.” Kie says.

“JJ can you pass me my phone?” You say sitting up, your hand resting just above your eyebrows as the setting sun shines into your eyes. 

The blue eyed boy turns and looks at you with a dull and distant look. “Get it yourself Y/N.” He says in a monotone voice before walking away to join Pope and John B in the water. 

Confused by JJ’s response you get up and get the device yourself. Just as he’s about to jump in he hears Sarah squeal, “Holy shit he is cute!”

JJ rolls his eyes and jumps into the water, wishing things were different between you two and that you weren’t so oblivious to his apparent feelings towards you. 

- 

The moment Pope docked his dads boat back at John B’s JJ jumps onto the small pier before storming into the chateau. 

“What’s his problem?” Kie asks while everyone looks at you with confused and worried gazes, causing you to simply shrug your shoulders in confusion. They all knew how close you and JJ were so it was surprising to Kie and Sarah that you didn’t know what was wrong. However, John B and Pope knew why you didn’t know, you were too busy being oblivious to notice his blatant feelings towards you. 

“Y/N why don’t you go and talk to him we’ll give you guys space.” Pope suggests, feeling bad for the boy especially since he was in the same position, but with Kie. 

You simply nod your head and grab your towel before making your way off of the boat and into John B’s chateau. “JJ?" You call out, slipping off your flip flops once the door behind you slams shut. Instead of hearing a response all you could hear were the rest of the pogues laughing on the boat and the sound of the old fridge that was on it’s last leg. 

“JJ?” You call out again, placing your semi damp towel on a chair before walking down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Once again you received no answer, but your stomach dropped when you saw the door to JJ’s room closed shut. The only time the blonde closed his door was when he was hooking up with some chick or he was upset. Since there was no way a girl came into the chateau just mere seconds before you, you were assuming the latter. 

You softly knock against the wooden door, before turning the knob and opening the it, causing it to squeal on it’s hinges. “J?” 

Your eyes instantly land on the blonde boy who you were looking for, as he laid on the bed facing the wall. JJ ignores you again, leaving you to let out a sigh before walking into the room fully and closing the door behind you. 

JJ’s eyes quickly flutter shut when he notices you walking over to the side of bed he was resting on. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone especially you. Although, JJ loved every moment he spent with you, his emotions were getting the best of him and he didn’t want to confess something he would regret later just because you like a stupid Touron.

Once you see JJ’s eyes closed you roll your eyes knowing that he wasn’t asleep at all. “J, I know you’re not asleep.” Keeping his eyes closed, JJ’s heart flutters at how well you know him. 

You lower yourself to the ground and sit criss cross apple sauce facing your best friend. “What’s wrong JJ?” You ask softly, but once again he doesn’t answer you. 

After a few minutes of silence you get up and jump onto the Maybank boy, tickling him at all of the spots he was ticklish. “Dude talk to me.” 

JJ’s eyes fly open and he starts to squirm and laugh under you as you continue your brutal attack. “Stop Y/N!” He laughs, causing you to smile at the sound of his happiness. 

“Not until you tell me what the hell is wrong!” 

As tears welled up in JJ’s eyes and his cheeks turned red he finally gathered his strength and flipped you two over so that he was now hovering over you. “Nothing’s wrong Y/N.” He says sending you a smile, but you could tell from the way he was looking at you that it wasn’t genuine. 

You roll your eyes, starting to get genuinely annoyed at how closed off he was being. Ever since you two were younger you made a pact not to keep things from each other. 

“Stop pretending you’re okay cause I know you’re not.” You say looking up into his cerulean orbs with a serious expression coating your face. JJ’s smile falters, knowing that you were going to keep on pressing him until you got a clear answer. 

“Seriously Y/N I’m fine.” He says looking in your eyes, praying you wouldn’t detect his lie. 

However, you did like you always do. “Stop lying J. Just talk to me.” 

JJ sighs and you couldn’t stop the heat rising to your face as you watched him bite his lip and move off of you, sitting on his knees at the end of the bed. You sit up and grab his hands before looking at him reassuringly to say that he can tell you whatever was on his mind. 

“Do you like that Brett guy?” He asks making eye contact with you then darting his eyes across the room. 

Confused by his question you shrug your shoulders and start to graze the back of JJ’s hand with your thumb. “I don’t know him well, but I think I can potentially like him. Why?” 

JJ lets out another sigh and chews on the inside of his cheek while looking down at your intertwined hands. You knew that he was arguing with himself about telling you or not what he was thinking. As you allowed JJ to gather his thoughts you felt a shift in the air, causing your heart beat to subconsciously increase.

“What if I told you I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.” He breathes out, finally making eye contact with you again. 

Your eyes widen at the boy in front of you’s statement, but your heart seemingly started to race faster and heat rushed to your face. “What?” You ask shocked, still keeping eye contact with JJ. 

“I’ve been in love with you ever since we were little Y/N, and not in a platonic way.” He says blushing.

At first you thought he was just playing with you, it was JJ after all he was notorious for pulling pranks and being mischievous. However, the way he looked at you and the blush covering his face made you realize that he was in fact telling the truth.

JJ could feel the nerves that were practically flying off of him as he studied your face for any indication to tell him how you were feeling. He couldn’t find any which only made him even more worried that he made the wrong decision by telling you and now ruining your friendship.

However, as a small smile appears on your face the blonde lets out a breath of air he didn’t even realizing he was holding in.

“Holy shit I can’t believe this is happening.” You mumble, rubbing your hand down your face while giddiness and excitement took over you.

“I’ve felt the same way for years J.” You softly say, making eye contact with the boy you’ve been in love with for as long as you could remember.

You watch as JJ’s blue eyes widen with excitement and he smiles down at you. JJ wasn’t the type of guy to be immune to cheesy and romantic stuff so he found himself falling into your arms, his cheeks feeling like they were on fire. You squeal as your back and head meet the mattress underneath you, but your hands instantly find their way to JJ’s golden locks.

“I love you JJ.” You say softly, looking down at the boy in your arms.

He nestles his head into your torso and wraps his arms around your hips, pulling you closer to him. “I love you Y/N and I’ve been waiting for this moment forever.”

-

Question of the day: do you think you can have a first love even though the other persons feeling aren’t reciprocated?

[zemodaddy]

Shades of Him

Chapter 6

I just wanna say I’m sorry.

Warnings: violence, swearing, fluff

Word count:

Chapter 6

You follow the girl into a building which supposed to house Karli. She points to a doorway signalling that she’s just up ahead. “You got ten minutes, then we’re doing things my way” Walker pushes Zemo against a wall and handcuffs him to some kind of machinery. “Aggressive, but I get it” You try your best to ignore the urge to send Walker flying out of a window. “Go ahead Sam, we’ll stay here” you say.

You all wait in silence. Bucky and you blocking the doorway that Sam went through, Zemo restrained opposite you, Leemar was sat on a ledge and Walker kept on walking up and down. He was restless, he hated not being in control. A woman having dominance over him must irk him to the core. You smile to yourself. You look at Zemo to find him looking at you already. He tilted his head lightly, glanced at Walker, and grinned in amusement as if to say ‘what’s wrong with this guy’. You shake your head widening your smile.

Walker now walks up to Bucky and you, looking over your shoulders as if he could see through walls and see Sam. “No no no this is a bad idea” he states, walking away again. “Sit tight john it hasn’t been ten minutes yet” Bucky says calmly. “Don’t do that, don’t patronise me” what is with this dude. “He knows what he’s doing” you say. After a second Walker goes “I’m goin in”. You both stop him, yet he’s persistent. “Your partner needs back up in there, do you really want his blood on your hands?”

“Bucky really?” He had let Walker and his friend pass. Luckily you had snipped the keys to Zemos handcuffs from his pocket before he left. After discreetly tossing them to Zemo you follow Bucky after Walker. A commotion was already happening between him, Sam and Karli. Fuck. Karli looked betrayed by Sam and quickly started running for the nearest door. Bucky pushes past everyone and follows her.

“See what you did Johnny” you shout. He flings the shield at you to which you duck. He is really testing your patience. Before you could find the best way to take him out he had already disappeared after Karli. “That little git”. You run after him.

Arriving just in time, you find Zemo smashing some blue vials on the ground. Walker was taking a few swift steps towards him before lifting his shield to Zemos head. Correction, Steve’s shield. Before you could stop him he launches it. “What the hell, Walker” you rush over to Zemo who now lay on the floor. However, while examining his face for any serious damage you don’t notice Walker bending down and picking the one vial that wasn’t destroyed.

Luckily, Zemo wasn’t hurt, just knocked out. You move to Walker and as he turns around you punch him in the face. “You’re going to regret that” he says. You laugh “am I?” you summon flames into your hands, daring him to make his move. At the sight of your hands he seemed to back down a little. The others rush in. “What did we miss?”

“Somethings not right about Walker” Bucky walks into the main kitchen/lounge area. “Yeah he’s batshit crazy.” You say, earning a chuckle from Sam. Zemo was lying on one of the couches, with a wet flannel you had given him upon your return to his house on his face. “You shouldn’t have given him the shield” Bucky aims this statement at Sam. “I didn’t give him the shield.” “Well Steve definitely didn’t.” You were walking over to Zemo to check on his face when the front doors fly open. “Fucking hell”

“Alright that’s it let’s go, I’m ordering you to had him over.” Walker struts into your space. “That’s not going to happen”you say. Zemo gets up behind you and begins to walk to the outer edge of the room. “Shield or no shield the only think your running in here is your mouth” sam says. You follow Zemo and whisper “this can’t be good”. Seconds after you say this a loud thud noise sounds. A long spear had wedged itself before Walker into the wall. The Dora Milaje enter. “Release him to us now” Zemo seems to be in high demand today. “Hi, John Walker, captain America” the leader doesn’t say a word. “Well, uh let’s put down the pointy sticks” “you might want to fight Bucky before fighting the Dora milaje Johnny boo” you say. “Yeah well the Dora Milaje don’t have jurisdiction here”. Now the woman speaks “the Dora milaje have jurisdiction wherever they find themselves to be”

A fight was to be expected. Walker gave them too little credit. “We should do something” Sam voices. “Looking strong John” Bucky shouts over the chaos. You pour yourself a drink while watching everyone fight. It didn’t seem fitting to I interrupt them just yet. Bucky and Sam had now got themselves involved meaning that they’d probably need back up soon. However you hadn’t notice Zemo slip into a bathroom and lock the doors behind him, you were too focused on wondering who to help.

You decide to aid Sam in his struggle against one of the Dora Milaje. She overpowered him way to easily. After some struggling both parties stopped fighting as the leader found that Zemo had left. Somehow Bucky’s arm had been removed and was lying on the floor. They soon left leaving you all of bit dishevelled. Walker looked as if he’d dropped his favourite toy in the toilet.

“I can’t believe he pulled an El chapo” the three of you were gazing at the uncovered hole in the bathroom which Zemo had escaped through. “I can” Bucky says. “Ill follow him, you guys focus on Karli” “no” they both say at the same time. “I can track him and make sure he is secured while you guys finish the mission” there was no other way and they both knew it. “Fine, but be careful.”

You waste no time in finding Zemo. However, instead of going underground, you follow the tracker Bucky had placed on him when he first escaped from prison. He had travelled far already. By the looks of the screen in front of you he was heading for Sokovia. He knew he was being tracked, yet used his one opportunity of freedom to visit his old home. You guess it was time to ask another favour from your old friend.

“Hey Sharon its me again.” You speak into your phone “Y/n? Is something wrong” “Zemo snuck out and I’m finding him now but he’s in the air” “Do you happen to have a plane I could borrow?” You hear Sharon sigh over the phone. “Head to your nearest airstrip, ill get one ready” “Thank you so much I owe you one Sharon” “The things I do for you three” you could hear the eye roll in her voice.

As promised, you find yourself on a jet plane, heading for Sokovia. You receive an alert on your phone. It read ‘Captain America brutally murders civilian’. “What” you knew he was insane but you certainly didn’t expect this. You quickly dial for Sam. “What happened?” You couldn’t get the words out quick enough. “We went to talk to Karli but Walker followed. Leemar got killed in action and he went mad” “Shit are you guys okay?” “Yeah, Karli got away though. Have you found Zemo?” “I’m nearly at his location” “Okay, we’ll meet you there” and he hung up.

The Dora Milaje must be searching for Zemo too, so you had to get to him first. Finally, the plane lands. You knew exactly where he would be, it was obvious, you didn’t have to check the tracker. The whole of the flight you thought over some options on how to get Zemo away from the Dora. Each time you came to the same conclusion. They would never stop searching for him, not until he breathes his last breath.

You find Zemo standing in front of the memorial that was built for the grieving friends and families after Ultron. You walk next to him. “I thought you’d be here sooner” he says. You ignore him and wrap your arms around his torso. Theres no other options you remind yourself. He places his arms around your shoulders. “I can’t believe you slipped away unnoticed like that” “That house has many secret escape systems, I just used that situation to my advantage” he certainly did. You part from him a little, creating enough space for you to lean into a kiss. “Sam and Bucky are on their way here, and so are the Dora” you press your forehead against his, both your hands leant against his chest. He looks down. You don’t have the strength to look into his eyes.

“We can leave, together, right now.” You stroke the back of his head. “I know”. “Will you come with me?” You sigh parting from him a little further. “Do you trust me, Helmut?” Tears begin to fill your eyes. It felt like a million knives were stabbing into your heart. You knew what you had to do but every inch of your body told you not do it. You hug him one last time and whisper “Close your eyes”. “Why are you cry-“ “Helmut please” you cut him off. The fight against yourself was hard enough already.

He does as you say. You press a kiss between his eyebrows and slowly move way from him. You walk 3 or 4 meters before turning to face Zemo. Reaching behind your back you pull out the cold, black weapon from your strap. You hesitate before pointing the barrel of the gun towards the man you had come to trust despite his past. Your hands were shaking uncontrollably as you place a finger on the trigger. A single tear slips down your cheek as you stand there, your arm raised. Time seems to slow, it didn’t feel real anymore.

Never had you imagined it would come to this but he left you no other choice. An aircraft flies over head; Sam and Bucky must have arrived. “Y/n what are you-“ Zemo was looking at you now. You have waited too long. His eyes widen when he realises what you wanted to do.

“I’m sorry” you pull the trigger.

@killsandthrills @aisling1985 @booklover2929 @noavengers @arianalilyblack @your-pixels-are-showing @kenna-1904 @mochminnie @the-lil-spud @starssscary @safiakillspop

[morizoras-cave]

Alley (Request)

James Mcavoy x gn!teen!co-star!reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Request Description: hello! alternatively, could you please write a James McAvoy x teen!costar!reader where after an interview, the reader leaves backstage to an alley to receive a call. before she can enter the building, she is stopped by a an older man who are being super creepy and whatnot. James, wondering where the reader is, goes to the alley and seeing what is happening, becomes really mad and protective over the reader. thank you!

Warnings: pedophilia, sexual assault, attempted r*pe, creepy dude, creepy remarks, language, violence

(A/N): this is a very heavy and sad fic. if you have experienced something in the realm of r*pe, i highly encourage you to reach out and talk about it

“Stop laughing, you idiot!” James wheezed, the two of you clucking with laughter. Whoever had put the two of you together for the press tour had made an embarrassingly large mistake. You were pretty sure you hadn’t answered a single question. 

“I-I can’t!” you were crying now, falling back in your seat and clutching your stomach. Even the people behind the cameras couldn’t hold back their smiles and light chuckles.

“Alright, lunch break!” Your publicist called rather bitterly. She was horribly overworked, trying desperately to get you and James to get a hold of yourselves. 

You and James stilled your laughs, finally, for fuck’s sake. 

“Ready for lunch?” he asked. Just then, your phone buzzed in your pocket. You took it out and sighed, seeing your sister’s name displayed on screen. 

“In a moment,” you responded and James nodded, disappearing into the break room. Meanwhile you clicked to pick up your phone.

“Y/n!” your sister hissed.

“Yeah?” you asked, bemused. 

“You’ll never guess what- Wait, are you alone right now?” 

You looked around. There were at least 8 people still in the room. “No,” you mumbled.

“Find somewhere empty!”

“Why?”

“Because this is embarrassing, and I cannot have some randos listening in!” Your sister urged and you pinched the bridge of your nose, considering just hanging up and dealing with repercussions. Finally you gathered enough will to go ‘okay, fine’, and then you left the interview room. 

You entered a hallway, that, sadly, contained more people. You poked your head in through several doors, but none were empty. 

“Are you alone yet?” 

“No!” 

You finally gave up on the building itself and exited, pleased to see a dark and shadowy, but empty alley. You sighed in relief. 

“Alright, I’m alone.” 

“Great, alright, so-” 

Your sister told her story with much enthusiasm, and you had to admit it was both pretty funny and embarrassing for your sister. It was worth it to have entered the alley, you decided, when she was finished. 

“Alright, I’ll see you later, Y/n. Have fun!” 

“Thanks, bye!” 

You hung up. Your stomach growled and you groaned, realizing the extent of your hunger. Taking a few steps forward to leave the alley, you suddenly bumped into someone. You looked up in shock.

An old man, maybe 50 or so, was standing there, smiling at you knowingly. Just as you were about to apologize, he spoke: “You’re a pretty little one, aren’t you?” 

You were stunned. “Uh-” 

“What do you say you and I have some fun?” his voice was low and wet and raspy. He licked his lips. You gulped and shook your head, not trusting yourself to speak confidently. 

You ducked your head, trying to simply walk past him and avoid an uncomfortable situation. The man reached out and grabbed your arm, swinging you back to face him, angrily. You yelped. 

“You don’t get to just walk away, now, baby,” you were so scared, you were shaking, your eyes were rimming with tears, and your heart was pounding. Alarms were blaring in your head. You were revolted by him and his hand on your arm. 

“I said, let’s have some fun,” he spat and reached his hand up to touch your cheek. He chuckled dryly when a tear escaped your eye. You shook your head, whispering a ‘no’. 

The man pushed you up against the brick wall. A switch flipped inside you, and you did the only thing you could think of: Scream.

Meanwhile, James was starting to wonder where you were. He was sitting alone at lunch, chewing sadly on his salad. 

He decided to find you, knowing you were always the most excited about lunch (or any meal for that matter), and that it was highly unlikely you would let a phone call keep you away from your precious calories.

“Y/N?” he called, walking through the interviewing room and into the hallway. “Y/n?” 

“Oh, Y/n L/n? They went outside,” a man with a clipboard said, pointing to a heavy, grey door. James nodded a thank you, pushing through the door. 

He came out, sun shining on his face, and birds chirping sweetly, just in time to hear your ear-piercing scream. 

Admittedly, it was a very scary sound. James’ first thought was not that it was you, just a poor woman in a bad situation (and of course he would help). You and James had a mostly silly and funny friendship. There were very few moments of sincerity and seriousness between you, so the thought that it could be you, your petrified scream, was impossible. Because you were you. Y/n.

But it was you. James was frozen for a moment. You were pressed between the old man and the brick wall, thrashing and crying, but the man was much stronger than you. He brought a wrinkly, disgusting hand over your mouth and whispered breathlessly: “Shut up, you stupid whore.”

James didn’t think, like he so rarely did when upset, rather strolled up to the man and, mutely, sucker-punched the creep right in the mug. 

The old man stumbled back, grasping his face and groaning. James was seeing red. His entire body was tensed, and then he took two quick steps, and the hit him again. The old man’s body jerked and he fell to the ground. 

James lifted his fist to hit him again, when he felt a hand on his arm. Your hand. He turned to look at you, eyes softening when he saw your red, wetted eyes, and your features twisted into anguish.

No words were spoken between the two of you, you just simultaneously fell into a hug. You wanted to stay there, but you were shaking. You couldn’t feel safe when the man was on the ground right next to you, curled up like a shrimp. 

You pulled back, glancing at the man. “C-Can we go?”

James nodded. He turned back to man once more, elegantly kicked him in the dick (another scream sounded, this time the man’s response to having his balls crushed), and the grabbed your hand and marched out of there. 

You sniffled and, though entirely and irreversibly distraught, giggled at the action. James pulled open the grey door and pushed you both inside. The man with the clipboard was still there, clipboarding.

“Hey, call security, there’s a fucking rapist out there, he needs to be arrested,” James said and the clipboard man was not ready for this, eyes widening, looking at James, then you, then his clipboard and then the door. Then he nodded, like he was given a great and burdening task.

James pushed you further along, past all the questioning eyes (you were rather disheveled), and into the break room. His salad sat lonesomely on the dining table. 

When you two were alone in the break room, he turned towards you and hugged you again, You hugged him back and allowed yourself fall apart. You cried and shook.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, N/n,” he whispered. It was only then he felt the severity of the situation dawn on him. “It’ll be alright. He’ll be arrested. You’re safe. Nothing like that will ever happen to you again.”

You nodded into his chest, sobbing. “T-Thank you, James.”

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing at all. I would do that a million times if it meant keeping you safe.” 

You nodded again. 

He held you for a few minutes. You felt safe there, but something inside you still felt so wrong. 

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this,” you whispered when you stopped crying. James looked at you like you were crazy. 

“Y/n? Are you kidding me? That man just- He just- You have every right to cry. Every right to ‘be like this’, whatever that means. If you weren’t crying, I’d be more concerned!” He looked in your eyes as he spoke, hands gently on your shoulders. 

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well, how about I bring you back to the hotel, so you can relax a bit,” James suggested gently. You nodded shyly, but then:

“Don’t I need to speak to the police?” 

“You’ll speak to them, when you’re ready to. They can come find you at the hotel, alright?” 

“Alright.”

James drove you back to the hotel and stayed with you while you dozed off. The police came during your slumber, and James asked them, quietly, if they could come back later, and that you really needed rest. They reluctantly agreed to wait outside. 

It turned out the man was a serial rapist, finding young teens out alone at night and having his way with them. He’d apparently slipped through the law’s cracks by moving from state to state. 

You could care less who he was and what he did. It was impossible to tell how you’d deal with it and how you’d move forward, you were just happy James had been there that day, and happy he stayed with you as you moved forward.

You knew that the road to being happy and healthy would be much tougher without him there. Luckily, James cared for you endlessly, and he’d search every alley in the world to make sure you were okay. :)

___________________________

Tag List:

@hera-the-writer @marvel-madness @40srogcrs @whatthefuckimbisexual @snarky–starky @garbage-potato @lozzypoz321 @allthecreativeonesaretaken @missamericana713 @rororo06 @shady80smusicsingercolor @ireadfanficforfun @deephideoutmilkshake @rae-is-typing @sophs-library @herecomesthewriterwitch @alicedanganh @eviemarvel

[mayraki]

✧ chapter four: fire is catching - b. barnes x oc series ✧

-> captain-james’ gif

‘let’s play fire with fire’ series masterlist

my masterlist

summary: the night continues so sam, bucky and sera deal with the big man on his big throne. but when their mission doesn’t go according to plan, blood ends up spilling on the floor as their little team starts to fall apart.

warnings: graphic descriptions about blood.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A tall man with his deep voice asked while putting his hand on Sera’s shoulder as soon as she walked in front of him with the intention to walk inside the VIP area.

Sera, who had her veins still pounding from her fight with Bucky moments earlier, she moved the man’s hand away and looked at him dead in the eyes. “Dude, I’m not in the mood for this so you better fuck off.”

“Excuse me?”

Sera nodded with a smile. “Oh, you heard me.”

“Hey, hey.” Sam appeared from her back trying to calm the situation down like he always did. But before he could let out another word, the big guy on his boy throne spoke while he had three girls around him.

“What is going on with that girl, Jack?”

Sera moved her head to the side to be able to see the guy on the eyes. “We just need to talk to you!”

The man let out a big laugh soon joined by the girls next to him, which lead to Sera feeling her chest being filled with anger and hotness. “And why would I do that, sweetheart? What makes you think a man like me would want to talk to a girl like... you?” He grabbed one of the girls he had next to him and quickly moved her on top of his lap. Disgusted by this man, Sera clenched her jawline and rolled her eyes. “Unless, is not exactly talking what you want to do with me.” The man let out a grin as Sera tilted her head to the side and squinted her eyes when a thought crossed her mind.

Bucky took a step closer angrily but soon stopped once he saw from the corner of his eye the little smile forming on Sera’s lips. “No, you’re right. It’s not talking what I want to do.” As soon as she said those words she opened her eyes normally and felt the hot air going through them.

Sam and Bucky looked at her and carefully watched her moves. But she wasn’t moving a single muscle from her body. Sam, noticing this and her silence, walked to be next to Sera and locked at her eyes. Followed soon by Bucky, but to her other side.

“Careful, now.” Sam said softly. “Just to get us in.”

Bucky heard Sam’s words and furrowed his eyebrows confused still looking at Sera and her red eyes. But before he could let out a word the man letting out a big scream in pain made him turn to him and see how he was grabbing his head as he was kneeled down on the floor.

“Sr? Sr? Are you alright?” The big man quickly walked towards him to try and take him off the floor worryingly. But soon after, the man stopped grabbing his head and quickly looked up with terror in his eyes.

“Just to get us in.” Sera said softly looking at how the man struggled to get up. The girls around him stepped back as they were grabbing each others arms.

As Bucky’s eyes were seeing everything that was happening in front of him, his thoughts about her were slowly coming together. She and her powers were still a mystery to him, the more he spent time with her the more he found out. And this time, he had one thing to add to the list: her saying “I can burn everything that’s on your mind without moving a finger” wasn’t a lie after all.

“Everyone out!” The man yelled after regaining his feet on the floor and started to push everyone out of the way. “Now!” His loud tone could be heard on top of the music gaining some looks from the people dancing. Proudly walking inside that tiny VIP area, Sam, Sera and Bucky stood in front of the man as he sat down once again on his throne, trying to gain his confidence and thoughts back. “Seraphina Thompson. I’ve heard stories about you... I should’ve guessed you were going to come here.”

“And why is that?” Sera asked as she crossed her arms around her chest.

“My name is Zaha and I’m a smart man. Enough to know that I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. And for that, I am truly sorry.”

“You know where you can stick your apology-”

“Sera.” Sam stopped her gaining her eyes on him. “We’re not here to get ourselves into trouble, remember? We just want to talk.” Sera rolled her eyes and went silent, letting Sam take over the conversation. “We need to talk about a guy that calls himself The Red Wolf.”

“I’m sorry. But what makes you think I know about him?”

“Rumours has is that one of his guys worked here for you, and we need to know if you’ve seen or heard about him.”

“I’m sorry... but I don’t. I’ve never heard that nickname before.” Sera squinted her eyes and took a deep breath in, noticing the guy moving uncomfortably on his seat.

“You sure about that?” Bucky said and for the looks of it, he seemed to have caught the same thing as Sera.

“Yes, I am sure. Otherwise I don’t know why I would hide information from you guys.”

“You call yourself smart but you lie about having information,” Bucky said “and I don’t think that’s very smart of you, Mr. Zaha.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Oh, I think you are.” Sera spitted out. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be moving in your seat nervously like you’re doing right now. If you don’t have anything to hide, then don’t be nervous.”

“Oh, I think he is very nervous.” Bucky agreed, getting closer to Zaha.

He crossed his legs to hide his heart beating faster but unlucky for him, nothing passes unnoticed for Sam, Bucky and Sera.

“Nervous like a little chihuahua.” Sam said jokingly. “Shaking like you need to pee right now. Do you need to pee Mr. Zaha? Or that brain of yours is hiding something important and that’s why you’re shaking like a little baby?”

“I think is the second option, Sam,” Bucky said firmly “so you better be smart about this.”

It was obvious that Zaha was caught off guard and didn’t expect to face someone like them on that night. Sera knew that he was a man that liked to be feared and not the one being threatened, so trying to gain control of the situation he let out a grin and tilted his head slowly to the side. “And you are, Mr...?”

“You don’t want to find out.” Bucky said quickly, not wanting to deal with Zaha’s twisted mind.

“Not to be rude or anything,” Zaha said slowly while while pointing at Bucky with his long finger “but why are you the one with the job of intimidation?” He let out a grin and then slowly turned towards Sera, who furrowed her eyebrows angrily. “Don’t you two think that is better to use the girl with fire in her eyes?”

Before Sam or Sera could say anything, Bucky quickly walked towards Zaha and punched the side of his throne making a loud noise once his hands touched the sit and for Zaha to lock eyes with him and regain the fear on his eyes.

“Don’t look at her, look at me.” Bucky said firmly with his jaw clenched and his killing eyes on Zaha. “You better speak and tell us what you know because you don’t want to be on my bad side.”

Sera noticed his big arms under that black jacket he had and felt how her stomach turned once the need of touching them appeared on her mind. Unintentionally, she widen her eyes at the surprise of Bucky feeling angry once again. But this time, Sera wasn’t angry too, this time she felt the hotness growing inside of her as the butterflies were going crazy inside of her stomach. He looked attractive and her mind wasn’t going to let it pass.

So lost in her thoughts, Sera didn’t notice the metal arm showing once Bucky moved closer to Zaha. Before she could do something about it, Zaha moved his eyes towards it since it made a different noise than the other hand. Realising the dark grey color Bucky had on his arm, his eyes went wide open as his back touched the back of his seat, clearly intimidated of what he had in front of him.

“You’re the winter soldier... and you” Zaha turned to Sam, immediately recognising him “you’re the falcon.” Bucky stepped back as Zaha was going back and forth between them all with shook in his eyes. “Seraphina Thompson with the falcon and the winter soldier?”

“Now you see the trouble you’re in?” Sam said nodding his head.

“I knew... The Red Wolf.” Zaha said finally after a couple of seconds and looking down at the floor. “He used to make his reunions here.”

“Why used to?” Sera asked.

“I don’t know. He suddenly stopped needing the place. I- I never stepped inside one of his meetings because he didn’t allow it.” He looked up waiting for one of them to talk but receiving not words he sighed and shook his head. “He is a very dangerous man. And has so many people behind him- even I was impressed. I knew who he was but I never knew or tried to understand what he was planning to do. To be quite honest, I was terrified, truly terrified, when he came here I moved myself out of the way. He once asked me to give one of his men a job here so I did. And that’s it. So, I’m sorry but I can’t help you more.”

“So you let a man have his meetings here for a long time but you don’t know anything about him?” Bucky asked. “It sounds like bullshit.”

“Sera do you smell that?” Sam asked and Sera quickly smelled the air and nodded. “Bullshit.”

“It’s not! I’m telling you the truth.”

“Sounds to me like you’re a coward.” Bucky let out slowly as he was getting closer.

Noticing his eyes on Bucky’s metal arm, Sera let out a tiny grin and slightly tilted her head to the side. “What? Afraid of a little metal arm?”

Bucky let his hands rest on the side of his chair to get his face closer to his, feeling the fear growing inside of Zaha. “Talk.”

“That’s all I-”

“Talk, before you make me lose my patience.”

“I’m being serious! That’s all I know!”

Bucky said something else but Sera didn’t hear it. As soon as he said his next words Sera felt how they slowly faded away as the electricity ran through her veins. She closed her eyes feeling her eyes burn and her throat feeling up with hot air.

“Sam-” She said almost in a whisper but it was enough since Sam worryingly turned to her and quickly walked towards her to grab her shoulder.

“Sera? Are you alright?” He asked but as soon as she locked eyes with him, he understood.

“Something’s wrong.” The second she said those words the sound of a bullet entering the room his their ears and soon ended up inside Zaha’s head, immediately making his body to fly backwards as the blood was pouring from his forehead and slowly covering the floor around him.

Realising what just happened, Bucky turned around to lock eyes with Sera. But when another thing caught his eyes, he immediately ran towards her as the sound of bullets being shot hit his ears. Without hesitating, Bucky covered her body and lifted his metal arm to stop any bullet quickly flying her way.

As Sam threw himself out of the way, Sera closed her eyes once Bucky turned her to the side and with strength pushed her against the wall to cover themselves from the thousands of bullets going their way.

Ignoring the pain Sera was feeling on her back from hitting the wall, she locked eyes with Bucky who seemed to have glued himself in front of her. Their eyes were locked to each other with no intention to move them away. Their faces were so close that their chests would almost touch the moment they filled their lungs with air. Sera widen her eyes at the realisation that Bucky just saved her body from ending covered in bullets.

Even if the loud noises around them were still going, Bucky and Sera didn’t take their eyes away from each other, until Sam quickly ran towards them to cover his body the same way Sera and Bucky were doing.

“Would you two mind stopping with the whole staring thing and help me?! Because I don’t think Mr. Zaha has the intention to do so now!” Sam yelled after taking the gun out of the back of his jeans and trying to hit anyone that had the intentions to kill them.

Going back to reality and what was happening next to her, Sera moved Bucky out the way the moment he took out the guy he had on his back. Feeling the fire on her fingertips grow Sera moved her feet towards the bullets and ignored the big yell of her name coming out of Bucky’s mouth. Lifting her hands to her side the second her eyes turned red, a wall fire started growing in front of her making the bullets towards her, Sam and Bucky melt the instant they touched the burning wall Sera had created.

Bucky seeing what Sera was doing and the second he took off the shook out of his face, he ran towards Sam who was now standing next to the wall of fire with his chest going quickly up and down. He turned to look at Bucky who was still surprised at the way Sera and her red eyes were handling the situation, something that he had never seen anyone do before.

The sound of the melted bullets hitting the floor were now hitting their ears. “I guess she can do a little more than turn into a torch.” Bucky said with his eyes locked on her. When the bullets stopped going through the wall, Bucky lifted his gun ready to face whatever was coming even if it felt like Sera had everything covered. And she did.

Without waiting another second, moving her hands to the ceiling she closed them into fists to feel the burning sensation growing inside her palm. Her chest was filled with hot air as the smoke was quickly coming out of her skin. Silence surrounded the room, but then, quicker as another bullet trying to get through, Sera opened her hands and with a loud noise left the fire of the wall fly like a pheonix towards the man with big guns trying to kill them, making them all fly toward the wall and end up unconscious on the floor, with nothing more than empty gun and burning marks on their skins.

Feeling her hands going back to normal, she turned around to Sam and Bucky who were standing behind her with their eyes locked on the guys at the floor with furrowed eyebrows. Sera did a little smile and shrugged her shoulders once she gained their eyes on her, doing a thumbs up and nodding. “We’re cool now.” She said before turning around and leaving the VIP area to join the now empty dance floor.

“Yeah, more than a torch.” Sam said softly before leaving a confused and still surprised Bucky behind.

“Now what?” Sera asked once she had her two partners by her side on that empty room with lights going all sorts of crazy.

Before Sam or Bucky could say anything, the sound of a door opening hit their ears letting them notice the now four guys with big guns going their way. “I guess is fighting those assholes.” Sam said before they all ran towards a big white column to hide their bodies behind it.

Expecting to hear more bullets going their way, Sera made her hands burn making fire grow out of them, but before she could move her hands to her side, a big ball of fire hitting the side of the column made them all jump backwards as both Bucky and Sam looked at a very confused Sera.

“What the fuck was that?!” Bucky asked.

“Did they cloned you or some shit?!” As Sam asked that questions, Sera looked at her hands glowing and spitting fire, she closed her eyes the second an ugly old memory game back to her head.

“Can’t be.” She said moving her head to the side to have a better look at the men with black suits and big guns on their hands. But they weren’t normal guns... they were white and were as big as their whole torsos combined. It had red lines on each side that Sera knew they glow everytime they charged. The little sound of fire it made when it threw the ball fire hit Sera’s ears once again making her move Sam and Bucky out of the way by pushing them and hitting their backs to the wall by their left.

“What is that and where can I get one!?” Sam asked when another fire ball hit the white and big column.

“It’s a fire arm!” Sera yelled moving the fire growing towards them.

“Yeah no shit, Sera!” Bucky yelled putting off the little ball of fire by his side with his foot. “What do we do now?”

“We need to make a plan!” Sam yelled. “Bucky go left and I go right while Sera stops the fire-!” He was yelling but then shut his mouth when Bucky and Sera completely ignored what he was saying and started to walk towards the big guns throwing fire. “Why the hell did you ask?!” Sam asked but then went back to the wall once another ball of fire went his way.

“This fucking shoes!” Sera yelled feeling the pain on her toes and ankles the second after she moved the fire going towards her and Bucky by her side.

“Give them to me.” Bucky said and without questioning it, Sera lifted her foot and took of the heel and handed the two pairs of shoes to Bucky. As her eyes were slowly following Bucky’s move, she saw how he moved his metal arm backwards and how the shoe left his hand the second his hand passed his head.

Without giving Sera a moment to react, her other shoe was already flying towards another man, ending up inside his eye. Sera’s eyes were seeing how the blood started to pour out of their eyes as slowly as a tear going down their cheeks. “I always knew you could use a heel as a weapon.” Sera said surprised. But that tiny moment didn’t last long since she felt another ball of fire going her way. Lifting her hands to her side she quickly stopped it and pushed it away, making a big explosion and taking down the other men in front of her in the process.

Bullets hitting her ear Sera turned to her side and noticed Sam behind the counter trying to hit the man now going towards him. With quick steps, Bucky walked passed her ready to take the man down. Seeing how the gun he had on his hands was glowing, Bucky stopped with the intention to move to the side and avoid the big ball of fire wanting to burn him. But before it even had the chance, the second it was out of the big white gun, the big ball of fire quickly moved backwards like someone pushed it, making the man fly backwards and hit the wall behind him.

Bucky turned back to see Sera with a little smile on her face as her eyes were slowly going back to normal. “Uno reverse card, bitch.” She said as she was getting closer to Bucky and Sam, who were now standing side by side.

“Having fun?” Sam asked out of breath while Sera was barely different from when the fight started.

“Is it wrong if I say yes?” She answered cheekily. Eating the laugh that came out of Sera’s mouth, the front door opened letting them see another man entering with, this time, an ever bigger weapon. “Holy shit.” Sera said with shook in her eyes.

“Still having fun?” Bucky asked gaining a mean look from Sera.

Without giving them a second to breathe, another big ball of fire was flying towards them but Sera moving in front of Bucky and Sam lifted her hands into the air and quickly stopped it. Feeling the fire inside of her hands and her eyes burning with desire, she pushed the fire towards the wall by her side making a big loud noise in the process.

Punches were being thrown out, bullets flying as well as fire growing each second around Bucky, Sam and Sera. Neither of them expected to end the night like that, or even why they were in that situation to begin with.

After moving another ball fire going her way, feeling her arms getting tired she moved to the side and let her back rest on the wall as the bullets leaving their guns was hitting her ears. She slightly moved her head to see better what was happening as she heard Sam yelling for Bucky. They needed her. She felt her heart beating faster as she saw how Bucky and Sam were struggling to keep up the fight. Her breathing was going quicker as the sound around her was fading away and her sight was becoming blurrier. Her fingertips felt the burning sensation as her eyes wanted to close. But trying her hardest, she moved towards Sam and Bucky to lift her hands and enter the fire about to burn them into her body.

The scene in front of her getting blurrier and blurrier as the seconds were passing, seeing the fire around her and being thrown at her became even more harder. She didn’t know what was happening or how to stop it. Moving her head side to side to see if Bucky and Sam were alright, she felt how her heart wanted to jump out of her chest. Bucky was struggling when three men were grabbing his arm with strength. Sam, by her other side, was still hiding behind the counter trying to move himself out of the way were fire was growing everywhere around him.

With the intention to move, Sera tried to lift her foot but it felt like it was heavier than ever. The pain in her legs turned into feeling like she was glued to the floor down her. The burning on her hands was stronger but nothing seemed to want to come out of it as her eyes hurt like something had stabbed them a second ago. Her head was pounding while she noticed the noise around her was slowly fading away. No bullets, no fire, no voices but complete silence... until she felt something grabbing her neck and pulling her to the ground as she felt an electric sensation against her neck making her breathing cut short and her eyes to fully close, stopping her from feeling anything else and fall unconscious on the floor.

Bucky’s foot quickly flew towards one of the guys’ knee making him quickly fall into the ground. Able to free himself from one of them, he threw his head backwards to hit the guy behind him in the forehead. Having one guy left, he just lifted his hand and quickly punched the guy in the face, leaving three men now in the floor next to him. Wanting to look for his friends, Bucky looked up and noticed Sam trying to fight a man but quickly shooting him to the ground. Nodding once they locked eyes with each other, with the same intention they both looked around looking for the third member of their team. But once they both saw the same thing, it made their quick feet ran towards a Sera laying on the floor with four men around her. But before any of them could make another move, a strange electric feeling hit their skin making them soon fall to the floor.

Feeling his body shake against the floor, Bucky’s eyes were still glued to Sera as his heart dropped to his stomach. “Sera!” He tried to yell but it came out nothing more than a loud whisper with so much pain in it.

“Look at you.... the winter soldier.” Bucky heard with a joking tone as he was laying in the floor. “What a pity.” Soon after a sound of someone spitting by his side hit his ears and then steps moving away.

As her skin was moving uncomfortably on the floor, he managed to keep his eyes on Sera. The way that a man grabbed her body and lifted her on his shoulders like she was bag of some sort, made his inside burn with anger. He felt how his heavy body was starting to hurt him and getting tired the more he spent on the floor with his eyes stuck on one side of the room.

“What are you gonna do now, Winter Soldier?” A guy yelled kneeling down before letting out the biggest laugh ever, shaking the walls around him. “We’re going to have fun with her. Don’t worry.” He said after getting up and letting out another smile seeing how Bucky still couldn’t get up from the floor.

Following the men with his eyes, Bucky felt how his brain was screaming at him to move and save her. But nothing seemed to be working, the electric feeling against his skin was still shaking his body slowly and keeping anything else from hearing the commands his brain was yelling.

Shaking Sera jokingly, the man that just talked to Bucky turned her head and said something that Bucky couldn’t hear. There was nothing he could do about it, they were taking her God knows where and were planning on doing terrible things to her while Bucky couldn’t even get up to try and save her. He felt useless while the pain inside of him was growing as they were taking Sera further and further away out of the building.

Suddenly, when he gain full attention of his heart beating faster he immediately felt something falling from his eyes towards his cheek. He tensed his teeth together while the pain became tighter around his chest and heart. His breathing was cutting short when the air became thicker around him. Closing his eyes when he heard the front door closing and seeing that Sera was no longer inside the building, hearing his breathing was the only thing he could hear next. The thick air, his heavy stomach and the pain inside his chest were growing each second that was passing as a single tear drop was going down his cheek. She was gone. They took her and Bucky couldn’t save her. That was just... it.

>>>

A strong headache appeared on Sera’s head the second she opened her eyes and the white strong light troubled her eyes. She squinted them as they were wondering around the room. It was as white as the light itself and had nothing but the chair she was sitting on and a giant black window in front of her. A tight feeling around her wrist made her realize that she was wrapped at the chair as well as her ankles. The coldness on her neck and being unable to move her head far backwards, she noticed a thick metal necklace covering her neck with a red light that would turn on and off constantly.

The memories before she closed her eyes were slowly coming to her the more she found herself in that room. The fire around her, her burning eyes and... her blurry sight. She still didn’t understand why she felt like that and why couldn’t she control herself. Her heavy body was now gone but she still felt a slightly electric feeling on her neck.

With the intention to move her fingers to feel the burning sensation in them, she took her full attention towards them, but as soon as she tried the white giant door by her left side quickly opened to let her see that ugly face she hated seeing.

“Jackson.” She said angrily as he let out a tiny smile once he closed the door behind him. He had his same long red coat and brown shiny boots. It didn’t matter to the old man that he had a powerful woman like Sera under his power, he still took the time to look good. “I should’ve guessed it was you.”

“Why?” Jackson asked while slowly walking towards her with his hands behind his back. “Because I am the only one who can defeat you?”

“No,” Sera quickly nodded as a grin started to grow on her lips “because I can smell the rotten fish from here.”

Instead of saying something back, Jackson just let out a tiny smile and got even closer to her face. Seeing every detail on his eyes, Sera felt the blood in her veins move faster as his lips were becoming even more into a bigger smile. “Nice to see you again, Sera. And not with those two.”

“Where are they?” She asked moving her body towards him making a loud noise as the chair moved with her.

Seeing how Sera clenched her jawline and the anger Jackson loved so much to see in her eyes, he moved backwards and let out yet another smile. “You really care about them... don’t you?” Not wanting to get an answer from her, Jackson took another step closer and added: “One thing at a time, dear, one thing at a time.”

“Yeah, and the first thing I’ll do is burn everything to the ground.”

“Ah. There she is. I missed you.” Jackson grabbed her chin with strength taking her head backwards as her eyes were burning with anger while looking at him. “But you need to be careful with what you do, dear. I want you to see something. You’re going to love it.” With the same strength as he was holding her, he let go of her chin making her move her head to the side and immediately feel the pain on her skin the moment he let go.

Following Jackson with her eyes, she noticed how his hand went inside his pocket and slowly took out a small controller with a bunch of different color buttons on it. “See this? This, can do a lot of things.” He arrived next to the window and let out a tiny smile while pointing at the blackness next to him. “First of all...” he pressed a button and Sera saw how it quickly turned the lights from the other room. Being the light so bright, Sera squinted her eyes and looked down trying to cover her eyes from the strong and bright light.

But when curiosity became even stronger than the pain she was feeling, she looked up and immediately widened her eyes. The moment she saw those blonde hairs and those green eyes her heart dropped to her stomach. “Angela.” Sera whispered making her throat hurt. Red scratches covered her lips and arms making Sera feel some tears fighting to come out. Her heavy dark bags under her eyes made it seem like she hadn’t slept for days.

Angela, being kneeled down on the floor with chains covering her wrists, looked up and made her face and body even more visible. Realising the shook in her eyes, Sera noticed that she could see her when they both locked eyes with each other. Her skinny lips turned into a smile as soon as her eyes realised that the person she was looking at was Sera, but then noticed Jackson standing in the other room as well, she erased it and rolled her eyes moving her scratched body to the side.

Feeling the anger and pain of seeing her friend all hurt grew inside of her as her fingertips were staring to feel their burning in them. A slight noise hit the room as Sera filled her lungs with fire and tried to free herself, but before she could let anything out, she felt a strong electric shook in her neck, making her body go back to normal and let out nothing but smoke out.

“And that, my dear, is the second thing this controller does. See that fashionable necklace I gave you? Yes, this little thing does the trick but, oh boy, that is the thing that could destroy you. So, if I were you, I would check my options and keep those beautiful fingertips still. We don’t want your sight to her blurry again before you fall on the floor, do we?”

“What do you want?” Sera asked with a firm tone once her neck recovered from the electric shook.

“What do I want?” Jackson asked getting closer to Sera. “I want you, of course.”

“Me?”

“Yeah...” He said softly. “To help me, of course. Like you did years ago.”

“I’m not that same person I was years ago, so fuck off.”

“Oh, language, please.” Jackson said disgusted arriving closer to Sera and stopping right in front of her body. “The old you is still there,” he pointed at her chest “I know it.”

“You don’t know shit, Jackson. You think you do, but you don’t. You want to control something that you can’t.”

“Well, I did controlled you, didn’t I?” He asked softly enjoying the look of Sera’s eyes.

She remembered all those old memories like it was the other day. Her old self being by Jackson’s side and doing whatever his mouth let out. Burning, exploding, tortuning.... it was horrible for her to recall all of those things. Knowing that she was no longer than person was what kept her going, but being in front of him asking her for help, made it more difficult to forget and not get affected by them as they were slowly coming back.

“You were happy, Sera. What happened?” Jackson asked slowly.

“I wasn’t. You manipulated me, you used me. You saw my pain so you took your chance to use what I can do-”

“But, yet, you did them. No questions asked. I never pointed a gun to your head. Did I? Don’t make excuses for the things that you did, dear.”

“I’m not. Believe me. I’ve spent years regretting and trying to forget what I did.”

Jackson stopped for a moment while a little smile grew on his lips. “Yes, with Mr. Wilson, am I right?”

Sera felt her chest close up as his mouth let out his name. “Don’t talk about him. Go to your point, Jackson, what is it exactly that you want from me?”

Seeing how Jackson lifted the controller and got ready to press another button, Sera furrowed her eyebrows as she was waiting for his next words. But before he did, the little noise of the button being pressed hit her ears and soon after, the door quickly opened. “I want you to make me more, Sera.”

Tables and more tables with the same weapons that Sera saw before collapsing on the floor were entering room. She slowly wondered the room and shook her head before turning once again to lock eyes with a proud Jackson staring at her like he was staring at her soul.

“What do you say, Sera? Just like the old days?”

“Like the old days-” Sera closed her eyes with strength while shaking her head. “This is insane, Jackson! Even for you!” The moment she opened her eyes Jackson was closer that made her able to see the desire and craziness now building inside his eyes.

“Sera, you and me together; we could rule the world. We would be unstoppable. If you make me more I can take down those asshole that want me dead and then make the underground mine. And after that, make the whole world mine. If you help me, if you give those weapons the energy they need to breath out fire it’s going to happen. I could be the king. And you... can be my queen, right by my side.”

Sera moved her head backwards and slowly shook her head while her eyes wondered the room once again, shook of what she was hearing and seeing. “Jackson. You want to play with something that’s way more complicated than you think. Understanding how this works isn’t something as easy as knowing how to build those weapons. It was comes after.” Seeing the anger and disappointment growing on his eyes, Sera moved closer to his face and whispered loudly: “Fire is catching. And if you play with it when you can’t control it... you’ll burn.”

“Well, I controlled you and I didn’t burn, did I?” He asked with the some tone but with anger before walking backwards and grabbing the controller once again. “And if I can make you remember, I have something that is going to make you help me, dear.” Jackson pointed at Angela who was confusingly watching every single weapon that there was in the room. Noticing that everyone was looking at her, she turned to lock eyes with Sera and let out a tiny smile even if her eyes screamed the pain she was feeling inside and out. “If you don’t help me, I can make her eyes go blurry.... like yours did. But I don’t think someone as weak as her can take it. So you better think it twice.”

Sera didn’t move her eyes from Angela. She saw how after giving her a smile, she went over to Jackson and flipped him off when he turned to her. Him, letting out a long angry sigh, went back to staring at Sera and tilted his head to the side, enjoying having the upper hand on her and the defeated look on her face.

‘I’m sorry’ Sera mouthed at Angela who slowly shook her head with a confused smile. Not wanting to look at her in the eyes anymore, she turned to Jackson and said the words she would never expected to say ever again: “I’ll help you.”

>>>

The trees were passing on Bucky’s window as the car was moving on the road. He had his elbow touching the door while his hand was against his lips holding his heavy head. The only noise surrounding the car was the sound of it running and the beeping coming from Sam’s phone.

After both, Sam and Bucky, gained control of their bodies they ran out of the building to see if they could notice anything that could lead them to Sera. But the whole street was as empty as the club inside. No noise, no black car, not even people walking around. The wind was the only thing they noticed moving around them.

Bucky found himself walking backwards and moving his metal hand with speed towards the wall behind him, hitting it with strength and making a big whole in the process. Feeling his breathing getting heavier as the anger grew inside of him, he closed his eyes with strength while his mind was trying to think of his next move.

He had no idea where they could’ve taken her, or even if she was still on the ground or on a plane going somewhere. His brain was empty as his chest became even more tighter and his heart wanted to jump out of his body. He opened his eyes to see Sam standing right next to him with his eyes glued to his phone screen typing something as fast as his fingers let him. Confused on what he was doing, he got closer to him but as soon as he arrived to his side, Sam blocked his phone and started walking away, quickly being followed by Bucky.

“So how exactly is this thing going to take us to Sera?” Bucky asked with a raspy voice once he looked at the phone, seeing how it had a tiny map in it and had a big red circle beeping every two seconds.

“A couple of years ago, when I used to work with Sera, I installed a tracker on her phone because there were times where she would...” Sam stopped and Bucky noticed that he was struggling on deciding if he should keep talking or just stop right there, but then when a tiny sigh came out of his mouth, he continued: “Look, our story is way more complicated than I could ever let you know. And if ever let you know, she has to say yes first. It’s her decision.”

“What is it about it that it’s such a big thing for you to ask her permission?”

“It’s complicated, Bucky, like I told you. It’s more of her story than mine, that’s why.” Bucky looked to the window a million of questions were flying around his head. Was it something bad? That questioned seemed to eat his brain the most. It wasn’t like Bucky’s past was clean and he was worried of thinking bad of her if he knew, his past was the dirtiest of them all, the wonder and the curiosity was the thing that was surrounding his brain. Why was it so important that Sam didn’t want to tell him?

“I get it.” Bucky said. “Believe me, I do. It’s not like I have the cleanest past.”

“Look, remember the first where she stayed with us? The one where we told her to wait?” Bucky nodded, as he looked at Sam remembering what Sera told him about Sam seeing it before. “It used to happen a lot back then, but even worse than the one we saw. She would take more minutes to calm herself down, make bigger shields around her to the point where we couldn’t even be close to her. It was ugly, Bucky.”

“Why, Sam? What makes her do that?”

“She comes from a hard life. Even if she acts like she doesn’t, the worst scenario that could happen to a person happened to her. After that, she went through even more terrible things. The point is, when those moments were over, she would usually end up in places far, far away.” Sam said. “That’s why I decided to install this tracker, I never told her because I knew she was going to hate it. But that was the only option I had back then.”

“And that’s how you knew where she was after all those years.” Sam nodded as Bucky let out sigh and added: “Good thing you thought of it, then.” He let out a tiny smile and turned to his window once again.

Even if some of the questions Bucky had on his mind were answered, he still felt as confused as the moment he started to wonder about her. Thousand of ideas were growing on his head as the seconds were passing. Not knowing the real story was eating him on the inside and making him even more nervous. He moved on his seat uncomfortably as his foot started to move up and down with speed. The minutes didn’t seem to pass as they where moving and that made the blood in his veins to rush.

Noticing this, Sam did a quick look to Bucky and his nervous actions. That wasn’t something normal on him, feeling anxious and showing it. He would always hide what was going on that brain of his carefully managing every movement he did. He was good at it. He was trained to be good at it. Even if his mind wasn’t the one that it used to, he still had everything he learned inside of him. So to be this out and about with his emotions, it had to be something big.

“You care about her, don’t you?” Sam asked ending the silence between them. Bucky, instead of turning to Sam and denying it, he stayed in silence and let out a tiny sigh. Maybe he did.

The memory of how his body felt when his eyes were seeing those men taking her away... made his chest tighten and feel his heart beating a little bit faster than usual. His throat closed up making it harder for him to say something to Sam. Like his cheek had a memory of it self, he felt how the invisible tear dropped down from his cheek while his mind was replaying Sera’s body being carried out. She knew this girl in less than a week but had him feeling things he hadn’t felt in a long time. He found himself caring about her, wanting to protect her like she was his.... Bucky knew that Sera didn’t need a protection, she proved more than capable of taken care of herself multiple times, but for the way his body and mind were acting, that didn’t matter to Bucky, he still felt the need to make sure she was fine until her last breath.

“She’s going to be fine, Bucky.” Sam said softly gaining Bucky’s attention.

Locking eyes with Sam, he nodded and let out a tiny smile not wanting to worry Sam with his millions of questions inside his brain. And weird enough, a big noise coming from a far helped him do that. As soon as the noise hit their ears, they both turned to the the road to see a big explosion going off, fire surrounded trees as big piece of smoke was flying upwards towards the sky. Like they were thinking the same thing, they both turned to Sam’s phone and noticed that the big red circle was closer than they expected.

“I think we found her.” Sam said softly, quickly turning the car towards the side of road after checking if anyone was coming, ready to follow the fire slowly growing around the forest.

>>>

“C’mon, Angela, get up.”

As the smoke around her was getting bigger and thicker, fire was growing and building up every second, Sera quickly ran towards her friend and grabbed her arm to help her get up. She noticed the weapons all now destroyed and some men also laying on the ground, but Jackson was nowhere to be seen.

Since the moment Sera saw those weapons get into the room, her little plan started working inside her head. She saw the opportunity and knew that she was going to take it. So, when Jackson pushed the little button to take that thick eletric necklace out of her neck and slowly took it off her, she looked up and immediately felt her eyes burning with desire as her hands touched the cold metal of the weapons.

“How-?” Angela asked after coughing the smoke out of lungs. “How did you do that? I thought you were going to help them.”

“That asshole wants to control fire but doesn’t even take the time to understand it.” She said while getting Angela’s arm around her shoulders to help her walking. “If I can give that piece of crap the amount of energy to work, I can also give it the energy to self destruct and explode. C’mon, let’s go.”

Covering Angela’s mouth with her own shirt to prevent her from breathing in the smoke around her, they both walked outside the room to find their way out of that building. Wondering with her eyes, Sera looked to her left and noticed a light coming from a tiny window surrounded by fire. But that wasn’t a problem for her. Moving her feet towards the window, she moved the flames to the side making a tiny path for her and Angela to walk through. Once close to it, she lifted her other hand that wasn’t holding her friend and as she felt the burning on her palm, she moved it with speed and threw a ball of fire to break the glass and finally, leave the burning building behind.

“C’mon, watch your step.” Sera said as Angela was carefully jumping the window and dropping to the other side.

Trees on fire and more smoke was the only thing Sera noticed the moment her shoes touched the grass. She looked around and realised the where both in the middle of the forest, there was nothing else than trees and bushes around them. But getting away from the fire to keep Angela safe was the only thing Sera wanted to do, so without waiting another second, Sera wrapped Angela’s arm around her shoulders once again and started to walk away, leaving pieces of smoke behind her.

“Wow, ok, so let me get this straight.” Angela started saying with her heavy breathing as they were both carefully walking besides the tall trees. “You have super powers. You can control fire and explode things... am I right?”

“And other things, but yes.”

“Alright! Cool, cool, cool, cool. That’s just... oh my god, that’s wild Sera! All this time since I’ve known you?” Sera nodded. “What the fuck?!” She yelled but then regretted it since a strong pain appeared on her stomach. “Fuck. I mean,” she said softly “you, fire, that’s crazy! And that man? What’s your story with him? Did you work with him? Is he bad? Angela, of course he’s bad! He trapped you for days to get to Sera! Of course! So, ok, Sera equals super powers. Then bad guy takes me to find Sera and make her do shit that’s bad. Ok, I got it. Then, Sera, a badass, explodes the entire building so we can escape. Sounds good?”

“You know, for being trapped in a horrible room for days you do have the energy to talk a lot.” Sera said and then soon heard Angela let out a tiny laugh, which lead to Sera’s chest fill with relief since her friend was alright and it was starting to hit her.

“Yeah. I mean if you just found your roommate for almost a year has super powers, you would too!”

Sera let out a tiny laugh but then quickly shook her head. “It’s not that amazing.”

“Sera! Are you kidding me, of course it is! You made an entire building blow up! Ouch- fuck.”

“Are you alright?” Sera asked once she looked to her friend, noticing her hand on her stomach. “We can stop if you want.”

“No, we need to get out of here. I trust you and your amazing powers, but those assholes can come after us any minute. C’mon.”

After feeling like they’ve been walking for long minutes, Sera and Angela both smiled when they started to hear the sound of cars moving along on the road. But the moment Sera moved her foot to keep walking, the sound of people walking behind them made her turn around with speed and fill her hands with fire and her dark eyes to turn red.

“Sera! It’s us!”

“Bucky?” She asked making her hands go back to normal as well as her eyes. Once she locked her sight with Bucky’s, a wave of safeness ran through her body.

“And you have hot friends too?!” Angela asked in a loud whisper by her side making her let out a tiny laugh and erase the feeling Bucky just gave her, saving it in a little box along with the others.

“Sam. How did you find me?”

“That’s a long story for later, now we need to get the hell out of here because-” Sam was saying but then the sound of a group of people running towards them cut him off. Turning around, they all noticed the men with weapons ready to fight them all. Sera took of Angela’s arm and walked closer to Sam, before he turned around to look at her once again “well, because those douche bags were following us.”

“Sam, Bucky, you need to take Angela to the car and keep her safe. Leave and don’t look back, I got this.” Before Sam could let out a word, Sera talked again “C’mon, you know better than anyone I can handle it.”

Sam took a second but then nodded, taking Angela’s arm and turning around, ready to follow what Sera told her.

“I’m not leaving you.” Bucky said walking in front of her. “I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

“Bucky, go!” She tried to push him by touching his chest, but barely moving Bucky turned to the men walking towards them and ignored the angry Sera by his side. “Bucky.”

“I’m not leaving without you, Sera.” His firm tone made her realise he wasn’t going to change his mind and having no more time left, she let out a big angry sigh and turned to the side ready to face the fight coming her way. With her eyes, she counted the amount of men in front of her and as soon as the number ‘15’ appeared on her mind, she turned to Bucky and whispered “Regret staying now?” But got no response, he just tilted his head to crack his neck and moved his metal arm, preparing his body to help Sera and end that fight once and for all.

From the moment that the first shot was fired and Sera stopped it, neither of them stopped moving. Sera moving her hands left and right, filling their surroundings with flames, destroying or exploding the weapons along side the men holding them. Bucky, with his quick feet would make his way towards each men by the right side, avoiding balls of fire and using his strength to take every guy to the floor by only one punch. Soon after, they both find themselves with three guys left.

Feeling Bucky by his side, Sera locked eyes with him and nodded when Bucky grabbed the knife from his back pocket and quickly moving it between his fingers. Lifting her hand towards Bucky, she carefully lit up her fingers and as soon as Bucky’s knife left his hand, she took full control of it and moved it towards the men with the intention to hit three of them at the same time. And just like she wanted, as the fire was leaving her hand she moved the knife and with a quick move of her wrist she saw how the tiny metal object hit one, then another one, and final, the other men lined in front her, taking them all to the ground in less than three seconds.

“Good throw.” Bucky said while nodding with approval which lead to Sera just shrugging her shoulders and letting out a tiny smile.

“I had a little bit of help.”

“A little bit?” Bucky said offended, but that little banter didn’t last long since Sera felt that electric feeling against her skin and soon faced forward to see the big ball of fire going with speed towards her.

Before she could lift her hands to stop it, a big yell coming from Bucky’s mouth hit her ears making her turn around with worry. But what she feared to see didn’t happen, instead, a quick Bucky was now in front of her seconds away to get hit by the fire flying ready to burn him.

Everything after that turned like a slow motion movie for both of them. The flames hitting his skin and the pain on his face made her eyes widen and get watery at the sight of it. As fast as her feet could allow her, she moved towards him and quickly placed herself in front of him immediately feeling the fire hitting her skin in every single place of her body. She touched his shoulder and closed her eyes with strength, ready to do one of the hardest thing she ever learned to do.

Bucky as soon as he felt the burning sensation against him, he closed his eyes with clenched teeth feeling the strong pain now growing on his body. Not being able to bare it anymore, he let out a loud scream in pain but soon after, like a quick wave of water had hit him, he suddenly stopped feeling that irritating pain. Opening his to see what was happening, he met hers. Her red eyes were staring at his while tears were dripping down her cheeks. Her hair was moving around her uncomfortably as her glowing skin was making her body shine.

From the corner of his eyes Bucky noticed the fire still going around him, but he wasn’t burning. His eyes were still glued to hers trying to understand what she was doing, he suddenly felt how her fingers on his free hand started to tingle so he looked down to find his skin... glowing. Just like Sera, his skin started to glow the same color as the fire around them. The tingle feeling was now all over his body expect on his metal arm which seemed to be the only thing that didn’t change since the fire hit him.

Looking back to Sera, the moment that they both stared at each other was when a strange feeling appeared on their insides. It felt like they were connecting, he felt like he could read all of her thoughts as she could read his. A second later, Sera moved her hand to Bucky’s cheek and pressed her palm with strength agains his skin to feel every single part of him on her.

Their hearts felt like they were beating as one with the same rhythm, their veins were twisting together like cables as their blood were mixing to become just one. Those feelings felt so strange but real at the same time. Their glowing bodies were becoming one as the fire that had went inside Bucky was slowly flying out. Suddenly, like the slow movie that was happening they both felt everything come undone when Sera lifted her hands and let the explosion that was building inside her body finally come out.

Once the noise was gone and there was nothing but silence surrounding them, they both opened their eyes to find themselves lying on the floor with smoke trying to get inside their bodies. Their eyes locked as their heavy breathing was moving their chest up and down.

Bucky felt so confused at what just happened that he sat down and stared at his surroundings noticing nothing but fire around him. Going back to Sera, he saw how her body was going back to normal and her red eyes were turning dark once again. She knew what just happened and he couldn’t wait to ask her, but nothing seem to want to go out their mouths.

Their connection was all they could think about. The way their bodies became one and everything they felt. Even if Bucky was confused and had no idea what just happened, he knew one thing: that was definitely not a nothing.

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[csykora]

A thought about meaningful change

I don’t want to distract from the most recent thing Benn did. I’m going to be talking about several different things, and some might seem smaller than others: I know. I’m not saying that the newest thing isn’t important enough on its own or that everything’s on the same level. But I think patterns can be useful.

(I have also made myself sick with nerves a couple times so I’m posting this as is: sorry for typos, and while I’ll stand behind my ideas there may be some sentences that are a little long or awkwardly worded).

Back in 2015, Jame Benn and Tyler Seguin were doing a radio interview.

Some of you might be thinking, “You want to talk about THIS, AGAIN?” Yes. More of you are probably thinking, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yeah, that’s what I want to talk about.

cw for discussions of sexual harassment, incest, homophobia, bullying, misogyny and transmisogyny, transphobia

So during this interview, one of the radio hosts asked Benn if he and his brother were ever road roommates. Benn said no, and the host commented that Henrik and Daniel Sedin probably roomed together.

“Well yeah…that’s the Sedins,” Seguin said.

“Who knows what else they do together?" Benn said. Everyone laughed.

“Seriously,” Seguin said.

"Dude, it's creepy," the radio hosts said, "In fact, it's a good example to future brothers in the NHL on how not to do things." Then they reassured Benn, “In no way am I implying that you have a Sedin-type vibe going about you.”

Benn and Seguin laughed. The conversation continued, calling the Sedins creepy for wearing similar facial hair, leaving nearby and spending too much time together.

When asked pointblank, “Are the Sedins weird?” Benn answered, “I don’t know. I can’t say.”

To finish the sentence he didn’t: he was implying that the Sedin brothers fuck each other.

Now, these were shock jockeys. They were almost certainly hoping Benn and Seguin would say something homophobic. That said, even shock jockeys pre-screen an interview. They’re not going to invite just anyone on the air and try this with them, because all it takes is someone saying, “I don’t know what you mean,” or “No, I actually respect Dan and Henke a lot as my colleagues” to ruin that set up. If a shock jockey thinks you’re a mark, you’ve probably said something off-air that made them think you’re a mark. And if they dug a pit in front of him, Benn is still the one who decided to stick his dick in it and make things overtly sexual.

After, the Stars stated that Benn had “reached out” the Sedins to apologize. Seguin did not reach out but was “included” in whatever Benn wrote or said. Neither of them gave a public explanation or apology. As far as I can tell the Sedins never commented on whether they received that message, what sort of apology it was, or whether they accepted it. Henrik Sedin’s only comment was, “I think it says more about them than it does about us.”

Ways that homophobia is working here:

-the idea that two men having any degree of physical or emotional closeness, even family members, is suspicious.

-Benn roomed with his brother. Course he did. The hosts spell out what he was afraid of: that the other men in the room might think he had the wrong vibe. He was so afraid of them thinking he had unmanly vulnerabilities like liking his own brother that he misrepresented the situation and pushed someone else forward.

-the idea that a man having any relationship to another man’s physical body or appearance, is suspicious.

Dressing or looking too similar to another man—which means you’ve paid attention to how another man’s body looks in order to copy him, like you’re trying to take ownership of his body, which = fucking him—is a really common accusation. Gay men are seen as lusting after and trying to copy other men’s real masculinity for themselves (but of course never quite succeeding). A man thinking that another man who he knows or suspects to be gay looks too similar to him, and so must have been watching and ‘copying’ him, is a common spark for homophobic attacks.

-the idea that any of this could have been a joke depends on the idea that two men having sex is wacky and unrealistic. Imagine if that happened, wouldn’t that be weird.

Now, someone might say, “It’s not that gay sex is wacky, it’s that the incest that is!” First, incest accounts for a lot of childhood sexual abuse, so I wouldn’t say it’s wacky either. And while it’s true that people can say awful things to different gender twins as well out of a combination of gender prejudices, in this case there were also homophobic ideas about men and masculinity at play.

Ways that power is working here:

-People forgot this fast. It was treated as settled because the Stars said it was settled. People gave “kudos” to Benn “doing the right thing” afterward, or for seeming to realize what was happening and not saying yes to the final question.

 I would argue that “I don’t know, I can’t say” is somehow a worse answer to a yes-or-no question, because it means that either you want to say yes but you’re scared of the consequences, or you sincerely don’t know what to say. All he had to do was say “No.” After he said “I don’t know,” Seguin continued and said, “They are weird.” If Benn had said, “No, actually they’ve been professional when I’ve worked with them and I won’t comment any more on their personal life,” Sequin might have noticed, and Benn might have encouraged him to change his behavior. Not saying “no” was a direct, demonstrable failure to show any kind of leadership.

-This counts as workplace sexual harassment. I’m not saying a case should have been pursued: that should have been at least partly up to the Sedins (although there should also be workplace rules about what is and isn’t acceptable without the victims having to ask for it). But that’s a word we can use for this, this could have been counted as that. Sexual harassment are actions based on a person’s gender, assigned sex, sexual activity, or other qualities related to sex, not just sexual attraction. I worry that often, conflicted feelings about putting people into the category of “Sexual Harasser” lead people to think that actions “aren’t bad enough” to be sexual harassment when they definitionally can be. In other lines of work, if you talk about your coworkers fucking their twins in the office, there are rules about that: at the very least, you’ll be getting a bunch of trainings and be moved to a part of the office where you won’t see them again.

In the NHL, it seems frighteningly clear that people don’t have recourse for sexual harassment. This was discussed and handled as a “childish insult”, not harassment against two coworkers/employees. Often, there’s a logic that something is just an insult, not a ‘real’ threat, because the person who did it couldn’t possibly be sexually attracted to the person they did it to.

-In 2015 Eric and Jordan Staal were living in identical houses outside Raleigh and ‘playing’ together every night. Seems super suspicious. Unless beefy Canadian boys’ behavior is normal, and European masculinity always has to be questioned as being softer-spoken, slimmer, more intellectual, scared of heavy hitting. There are a lot of reasons you might not call Eric Staal gay—maybe you know he’s bigger than you, more successful on Team Canada than you, more popular with the other Team Canada guys than you. Or maybe you just don’t look at him and think he could be gay. Or both. Eric is positioned so you’d have to punch up at him: Benn tried to position himself closer to that kind of social standing, by pushing someone else who already doesn’t quite fit in further out. This isn’t directly in the words, so I’m not all-out accusing them of xenophobia: what I mean is that it’s always worth asking if and how and why feminization is applied to Those Other People.

There’s the eating out thing. Which he sent to teammate Jason Demers, commenting “I feel like your (sic) the kind of guy who would”.

How misogyny is working here:

-the idea that this could have been funny or interesting or worth saying at all depends on the idea that vulvas are weird. Imagine if someone willing touched a cis woman with anything but their dick. Gosh.

-There’s no good explanation for what ‘the kind of guy who would’ was meant to mean. No one says, ‘Hey, do you do this widely mocked sex act? I don’t, but I think you would, and that’s cool and doesn’t affect your masculinity at all, bro, life is a rich tapestry.’

How power is working here:

-This counts as sexual harassment again. Even if asking a coworker (or really more like someone you shift-manage or who reports to you) ‘how do you fuck your partner?’ wasn’t, saying ‘you seem like you would do ___’ is. Again, I’m not saying that Demers has to feel that way about it, but he should have had options.

-Demers was also in a new relationship at the time, so this could be harassment to both him and his partner, who had no recourse when someone her partner has to work with/for comments on her body.

-I don’t think it was intended as sexual harassment. But there’s not really a nice explanation of what he meant to say. It seems like it was intended as an insult or a ‘warning’: ‘this is the way men are allowed and no allowed to be in our group, do you know your place?’

Around that time, the Stars shared a video of Benn, Seguin, and Valeri Nichushkin. Each were supposed to say a couple lines, including their name. Valeri pronounced his nickname ‘Vall’, with a native Russian accent, more like “Wall” in English. Each time Benn and Seguin laughed and questions him and the producer cut. After a couple takes Benn said, “I thought your name was ‘Val.’” 

Sequin physically turned away from Nichushkin and laughed. Nichushkin, not understanding the comment, and not laughing, turned to Benn for an explanation, but Benn only turned toward Seguin, both continuing to laugh.

It was part of a pattern of comments from observers: “If Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn are having a laugh in the locker room, Nichushkin can only guess what’s so funny.” They themselves commented on how “His English is really not good at all…A lot of times we find him just sitting there.” “(In) normal conversations, he doesn’t really know what’s going on.”

I’ll give them credit—they said they felt pity and “try to help” too. I just can’t find any examples of them doing it, compared to teammates like Sharp or Spezza who can more concretely describe spending time with him.

Nichushkin chose to burn contract time in the KHL rather than Dallas before being bought out, expressing that he no longer felt like he “belonged in the NHL.” He felt that the Stars didn’t “trust” in him, was “nervous” in the locker room, and said his family worried for his mental health because of the culture.

“There is a bit of it because I want to be part of the conversation when someone says something,” Nichushkin said. “But I don’t have enough words I know so I can join in.”

-Is it the worst xenophobia in the world? Nah. It’s not free from xenophobia, when the only joke is that someone speaks differently than you. It’s not Benn joking about his own misunderstanding to invite Nichushkin in. I often point to Tripp Tracy, who asks players to teach him words in their language and then sets up jokes about his accent so they can deliver the punchline and laugh with him.

-Is it bullying? It kind of came off like it, to make a joke about someone you know can’t understand. At least it was unnecessary, and unkind. It’s just reminding someone they don’t belong.

-It’s unimpressive. It’s deflecting. Oh, he doesn’t know what’s going on? What did you do to tell to him? My family communicate through a mix of finger-signing, Scrabble tiles, and interpretive dance: I guarantee you, if you can’t communicate concepts like “we’re going to get dinner now, you’re welcome here, we’re having fun!”, you’re not trying. Which is fine, I guess, you don’t have to talk to people, unless it’s like, your job to work with your teammates.

Wanting to ban trans*feminine athletes from competition is based on a complete misunderstanding of math, medicine, and athletics; it’s unnecessary, unethical, and unkind.

It’s an unsurprising continuation of the ideas that there’s a line between men and women and transgressing it is suspicious, that women are gross, that people who are different are shocking and funny, that social pressure can and should be used to remind people who are different that they don’t belong.

It’s a fascist use of power, which I don’t say to mean that “He is A Fascist in every sense,” but that those beliesf express a desire and a comfort with using power to control other people’s bodies, and which bodies have access to certain spaces, to maintain “purity”.

I’m not saying that anyone should have looked at any of these things and easily decided in that moment, “That’s it, he’s shouldn’t have a platform or power over other players, he’s irredeemable.” You might look at a couple of them and think, “That’s not even a problem at all.” I’ll agree to disagree on some of them, but my point is about a pattern of how this dude uses the power he’s given.

I have a phrase, or more a series of words I sometimes yell when I’m talking about subjects like this—“STRUCK A TIM HORTONS.” I shout this in commemoration of the time that Ryan O’Reilly got drunk and drove his pickup into the wall of a small town Ontario Timmies.

“Struck a Tim Hortons” is a very good phrase to read in a police report. And, also, I’m an ACoA. I’ve experienced impaired driving, I’m terrified to shaking of it, and I know that other people have experienced much worse consequences. This isn’t a perfect metaphor (it’s not an example of prejudice or violence against a class of people, etc) but my point is that I try to hold it in my heart because that’s one case where I know what it’s like to really, really want something to just be NBD. Where part of me wants to just think it was a funny mistake so I don’t have to really think about the serious implications of it, and part of me super doesn’t. I have an instinct to resolve those feelings, to come down and decide that it’s either insignificant enough that I don’t have to think about it, or significant enough that I can hate him and then also stop thinking about it, and then I can have the relief of feeling just one feeling at a time.

I don’t think it’s bad to feel conflicted learning something about someone. I think it’s important.

But the problem is that if one thing isn’t significant enough, and we decide to keep thinking someone is fundamentally Good, we often toss that thing out. So when another thing happens, we only look at the new thing, trying to decide: is this enough? And that next thing might not be enough either. So we can go on and on, until you add up to a lot of things that have each done some harm, but none of them have been enough to change how we see and talk about someone.

Now I, personally, decided that the Timmies wasn’t so bad that ROR couldn’t ever make it up to me. But I didn’t decide to feel fine about it: I tried to just put a pin in how conflicted I felt. It’s been years, and over the years I think his actions have showed meaningful change. He hasn’t struck a Starbucks, a Dunkin, or even a Caribou. There’s a pattern.

I think a lot of people who don’t really like the things Benn says or does or believes have given him a lot of chances to make up for them, because they don’t want him to really mean those things. By which I really mean that I know there are a lot of women and queer fans who liked the guy. I get it (I don’t actually get it get it, but I mean I can try to understand people coming from a very different place than I do about him). 

I’ve read a lot of ways that people who are themselves vulnerable in our society try to empathize with him by imagining him as vulnerable too--he’s also experienced fatphobia, homophobia, he wasn’t expected to succeed, etc! I think that’s a wonderfully human instinct. But often I think people have more empathy for those experiences than he expresses for himself--he agrees that it was Bad to be fat and he’s Worked Hard to fit into the masculine norm, he agrees that it’s Bad to be close with another man and works to avoid it--and certainly more than he has showed in his actions toward others. If you’re going to say I hate him for saying that, I don’t--I want him and everyone in our society not to feel and do this shit!

I see a lot of people starting from the idea he is a good leader trying really hard to spin his choices as a smart strategy when he plays dumb with media, when he doesn’t give specific action plans or give public statements or apologies. (I actually agree with the first one, I think it is a strategy for him to avoid transparency and not do a part of his job that he doesn’t want to do.) It just…it seems like a lot of work to reach a pre-determined goal. It’s okay to like someone and for them to still not be good at their jobs! When I say I think a guy’s not a good leader, that’s not always the same as saying he’s a bad person. And if we keep on promoting a guy as a good leader because we like them regardless of their demonstrated leadership skills…that’s how we end up with a lot of shitty policies in the NHL.

Over the years he has consistently avoided stepping up to his captaincy and using his personal power to say things like, “No,” “Tyler, cut it out,” “This is what I’m going to do to fix a problem,” or “I believe in…” anything, really. 

I really, really want to ask people to be mad as hell and advocate for the NHL to improve its code of conduct and harassment processes. I do. But I’m also tired. I don’t think, if I did ask you that, it would work. I don’t have an argument for why you should be mad at someone who’s mad at my existence. I’m not trying. I just want to encourage you, if you’re feeling the tug of feelings and just want to be able to simplify someone’s behavior and love them in simple terms, to put a pin in the more complicated parts, and remember them the next time, and look for patterns.

[cactusnymph]

Prompt fill #5 for @dimension20alphabet:

Escape

[part two to this]

Usually it goes like this:

 The Bad Kids eat lunch together in the cafeteria and otherwise Fabian doesn’t talk much to any of them over the course of his day. It’s not like he’s actively ignoring them, but he’s more on the side of the popular kids. The cool guys. The jocks.

 Meanwhile, the others—well, maybe except for Fig—don’t exactly fit the bill.

 Sure, Fabian would die for any of them, but somehow the social structures at school still feel restrictive in a way that gives him a hard time moving against them.

 Now though, now the unthinkable has happened.

 The Ball is ignoring him.

 Well, not as much as ignoring Fabian as he’s actively fleeing from him the second Fabian comes into view. At first Fabian thought that The Ball had just forgotten something in his locker when he turned around and ran—ran—in the opposite direction of Fabian.

 But it happens again during the first break and Riz is not at their usual table when Fabian joins the others for lunch.

 Everyone is looking at him.

 “What?”, he asks.

 His mood was bad all weekend. After the ridiculous dare he received on Theo’s party The Ball was nowhere to be seen. Both Adaine and Theo—Theo of all people, as if he was The Ball’s friend—followed him out of the room while everyone continued to stare at Fabian accusingly.

 Even Gorgug looked somewhat perturbed, like it was Fabian’s fault that a room full of people had chanted about him kissing The Ball. That hadn’t been his idea!

 “Hey man, you know, you could’ve said ‘no’ without making it sound like, you know, Riz was like, a slimy ghoul or whatever”, Ragh had said to him quietly.

 As far as Fabian knows, Theo and The Ball had ended up making out in one of the empty rooms or behind the house. Those pictures in his head didn’t lead to his weekend getting any better either.

 He trained way too much with his mother. He ate so many kippers that Cathilda asked him if he was feeling alright—which he wasn’t, but he couldn’t exactly explain why. He went for a run three times on Sunday and was still feeling on edge about everything that had happened.

 In the end he crashed on his bed with sore muscles and a scene of The Ball and Theo kissing playing on repeat in his mind that followed him into his dreams.

 And now his friends were looking at him as if he had personally murderer The Ball. With his bare hands. For fun.

 “Did you talk to Riz?”, Adaine wants to know.

 “No.”

 Silence answers him and he looks around the table.

 “What? He saw me in the hallway, turned around and ran away!”, Fabian exclaims angrily. His face is getting hot. He hates all this emotional bullshit and almost wishes he could just go back to being his father’s darling boy instead of his own man, because somehow that seemed way easier.

 “Oh no. Poor Riz”, Kristen says and Fabian almost loses his shit right there.

 Why is it ‘poor Riz’? Why is no one acknowledging what a shit weekend he had? And how fucking dumb that dare was? And how it’s offensive to consider that Riz and Theo made out behind the house while Fabian was being stared at like someone who strangles puppies? And also, he fucking hates it to be ignored.

 He is Fabian Aramais Seacaster.

 He refuses to be ignored!

 “Did you try to text him to apologize?”, Gorgug asks.

 Fabian stares at him.

 “For what?”

 “I mean. You know, because. He looked pretty hurt and like. Isn’t he your best friend?”, Gorgug says quietly and Fabian feels like someone has dropped an iron weight into his stomach.

 “I mean, I guess we’re friends, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, you know—best friends is maybe a little—“

 A voice in his head whispers “Why would you say that, isn’t that a lie?” but Fabian doesn’t get to listen to it as Fig lowers her fork and looks past Fabian at someone right behind him.

 “Oh, no”, Gorgug says very quietly and Kristen gets up halfway from her chair which leads Fabian to turn around just to be faced with The Ball’s very pale and very unhappy face. For a split second Fabian has the opportunity to notice that Riz looks as if he hasn’t slept or eaten for the past two days, but then he notices Fabian looking at him and escapes immediately.

 “Okay, Fabian, I know talking about your feelings is super fucking hard and everything, but get a grip, man”, Fig snaps at him.

 “My feelings are perfectly fine, thank you”, Fabian grits through his teeth but he doesn’t touch the rest of his food and instead spends the rest of his lunch break cursing the universe for having The Ball turn up right at that moment when Fabian announced that them being best friends might be a bit of a stretch.

 Fabian never really had a best friend before.

 Fuck if he knows what that’s even supposed to mean.

 Riz always just went ahead and announced it to the whole world after they’d barely known each other for a week and back then it had been completely ludicrous.

 Now, though.

 Fabian doesn’t know.

 He might have announced that toxic masculinity is dead, but the truth is that it’s still hard dealing with all this emotional bullshit when no one ever really taught him how it works. And he’ll rather be shot than admit that. At least for now.

 It was hard enough to deal with the fact that he never really did anything on his own and was nothing but a pale shadow of his father, but now that he managed to work through that, everything else was still as difficult as before.

 And who the fuck are you supposed to talk to about these things?

 His father is a madman flying a dead dragon through hell.

 His mother heats up whole cantaloupes in hot pans, because she doesn’t even know how to cook some fucking scrambled eggs.

 Cathilda would probably know a thing or two about this stuff, but Fabian has yet to fully grow into the whole Cathilda-is-basically-his-surrogate-mother-and-not-just-his-maid-thing.

 And how is he going to explain this whole mess anyway?

 “Hey Cathilda, I went to this party and someone told me to kiss The Ball and I was like ‘No, that’s ridiculous’ and now everyone is acting like I’m a complete asshole and The Ball doesn’t talk to me anymore, which is quite frankly offensive, because he always says that I’m his fucking best friend.”

 Even to Fabian that sounds ridiculous. And it doesn’t take into account his obsessive thoughts about Theo and Riz kissing or how The Ball might have overheard Fabian saying that they’re not best friends. And his bloodshot eyes with dark shadows under them. And his pale green face with all those freckles.

 And...

 Fabian decides that school can suck his dick on this terrible Monday and he leaves the Aguefort Academy directly after lunch break instead of going to his fighter class.

 It’s not like he needs it, anyway.

 He could probably wipe the floor with his teacher at this point.

 On his way home he receives multiple text messages from his friends.

 “Hey Fabian, where are you? Are you okay?”, from Gorgug.

 “Just text him”, from Adaine.

 “Maybe Jawbone can help you out, he’s really good at this relationship stuff”, from Kristen.

 Relationship stuff?

 What relationship stuff?

 The Ball is not his boyfriend.

 Fabian laughs as he passes a mother with her two kids and she looks slightly concerned about his well being and tugs her children further down the sidewalk.

 What if The Ball wants Theo to be his boyfriend?

 Fabian stops in the middle of the road and stares at his phone. He doesn’t want to talk to Jawbone. Sure, Jawbone is cool and everything. But talking to Jawbone feels too much like admitting that he might have a serious problem, more so than if he maybe just talks to one of his friends.

 For a split second Fabian thinks that wants to talk to Riz until he remembers that that’s not possible right now.

 Because Riz doesn’t talk to him. And also Riz wouldn’t want to talk about anything related to kissing or—or—

 Fabian stuffs his crystal back into his pocket and turns a corner that leads him towards Mordred Manor instead of home.

 Ragh is outside in the vast garden of the manor, wearing a straw hat and some shorts and nothing else while he waters some plants.

 “Hey, what’s up, bro?”, he calls over to Fabian, turns the hose and hits Fabian square in the chest with a jet of cold water. It only takes a few seconds until he’s completely drenched.

 Ragh laughs loudly while he turns off the water and throws the hose down into the grass.

 “You good, man?”, Ragh asks as he walks over to him. Fabian feels like on any other day he might have simply punched Ragh in the face for getting his expensive sneakers wet, but today it just seems like maybe he deserved a shower of cold water.

 “Um—yeah. No. I don’t really know”, he says and his voice reminds him of the time when the whole Leviathan debacle went down. He clears his throat and wipes some water out of his face. “Do you—uh. Have some time to talk?”

 “Sure, dude. Let’s find a spot with a little more shade.”

 Fabian hates the feeling of water in his shoes, so he takes them off and follows Ragh through the garden and into the shade under a big maple tree.

 “What’s up, dude?”, Ragh asks and throws himself down into the ground, pulls the straw hat off his head and leans against the thick trunk of the tree. Fabian sits down cross-legged and puts his sneakers to the side.

 “So—uh”, he starts and then closes his mouth immediately because he hasn’t actually thought this through at all. Ragh looks at him curiously and Fabian wonders if there is a good and nonchalant way to ask the things he wants to ask. Instead of acting cool and composed how he wants to, what comes out of his mouth is:

 “Do you think The Ball and Theo made out?”

 There is a beat of silence in which Fabian considers just getting up and running out of the garden and into traffic. This was not what he is supposed to ask.

 This is not—

 “Dude”, Ragh says and he leans forward to look at Fabian. “You look like you’re about to puke, man.”

 Fabian doesn’t feel great. His chest feels like someone installed iron clasps around it and is pulling his ribs tight and his stomach is doing some acrobatics that it’s absolutely not supposed to do.

 Why did he ask this?

 And what if Ragh says yes?

 Why the fuck does it even bother him?

 The Ball can kiss whoever the fuck he wants!

 “I’m—sure. Fine. Yeah. It’s all—uh. Fine.”

 “Yeah, dude, no offense, but like, it doesn’t look particularly fine to me. So—what you’re asking me is. If Riz and Theo got it going after that whole Truth or Dare thing?”

 Fabian takes a deep breath, which seems particular hard for some reason. This is ridiculous.

 He’s Fabian Aramais Seacaster. He knows how to fucking breathe.

 “I—guess?”

 “Hm”, Ragh says and leans back again. “Not sure if that’s my story to tell, bro. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry you feel like shit, but, like. Isn’t that something you should talk to Riz about?”

 Fabian thinks that, if one other person tells him to talk to The Ball, he might actually commit cold blooded murder.

 “Great suggestion, seeing as to how he keeps running away from me like he’s afraid I’m going to breathe fire at him any second”, he growls and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Ragh sighs and cocks his head from side to the other.

 “Would it like, bother you if they actually had made out?”

 Fabian wants to snort and say “No”. What comes out instead is a garbled noise as his brain is bombarded with pictures about Riz and Theo kissing.

 “Woah, dude, okay”, Ragh says and he looks alarmed. “Breathe, man.”

 Fabian can do that. Breathing is really easy, except that it’s not.

 “Okay, dude, Imma just say it now, okay? It’s like ripping a band-aid off!”, Ragh says loudly, grips Fabian’s shoulders and stares at him very intently. “I think you’re totally into Riz.”

 Fabian’s brain feels like it’s suffering from a bad case of frostbite. His thoughts turn sluggish as he tries to process what Ragh just said, but it doesn’t make any sense. Fabian is not into The Ball. He’s not in love with Riz. That is insane.

 “Okay, so, hear me out, bro. Remember how I was totally in love with Dayne? And it took me like a million years to like, get that? Feels pretty similar to what’s happening with you right now, right? Because we’re like, these manly dudes and we’re supposed to be into hot girls and all that stuff, right? So it doesn’t really fit the picture, but it’s totally fine, dude. It’s all good. You can be in love with Riz.”

 Fabian blinks at him. He can hear the words and he can feel the corners of his mouth turn upwards as if to try to form into a grin.

 “Don’t be insane, Ragh. I’m not—That’s—“

 “It bothers you when he’s with other people because you’re fucking jealous, dude. I’ve been there, okay? And it’s like this weird thing of—you’re not allowed to be jealous because that’s fucking weird, right? Because that’s like, your best bro and everything. But then you keep obsessing about him making out with other people and then it’s like, okay, but what if he kissed me and then you feel really fucking bad, right? Because you’re brain shouldn’t go there?”

 For the very first time Fabian imagines what would have happened if he, instead of saying “No, that’s ridiculous”, had actually kissed The Ball.

 He thinks about Riz’ sharp teeth and how he keeps chewing on his bottom lip when he’s nervous and the second Fabian’s brain arrives at Riz’ bottom lip it feels like there is a dam inside his brain breaking.

 He imagines grabbing Riz and pulling him into his lap, pressing his lips against his and hearing Riz make a choked noise against his lips—

 “What the actual fuck.”

 Ragh lets go of his shoulders and nods.

 “Yeah, dude. Intense, right?”

 “But—why?”

 Ragh shrugs and rubs the back of his head with one of his hands. Somehow the cold water drenching Fabian’s clothing feels like a blessing now because his skin seems to be on fire.

 Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—

 “Because, dude.”

 “But like—what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

 “I mean. Sounds to me like you should totally kiss your Ball, bro.”

 Fabian’s stomach does multiple somersaults.

 “But he’s not—into that kind of stuff.”

 Ragh chuckles.

 “Dude, I love Riz, I really do, but I feel like now that you figured this part of the whole deal out I can just tell you, that like. Riz doesn’t want to make out with Theo or pretty much anyone, right? Which is totally fine, bro, don’t get me wrong. But also, like. I’m a hundred percent certain that he would totally kiss you, man.”

 Fabian’s first response is “Of course he does, why shouldn’t he” but then his brain catches up and his skin starts to tingle.

 Maybe this is why kissing Aelwyn for the second time wasn’t really working out. Maybe this is what Aelwyn meant when she said “Well, I suppose we’re not a good match after all”.

 “Riz... wants to kiss me?”

 Ragh nods and grins.

 “Yeah, dude.”

 “Okay. Well—uh. I have to go.”

 “Don’t forget your shoes!”, Ragh shouts after him but Fabian doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his shoes as he takes off.

 Maybe he can unpack all of this shit later. Maybe he should actually talk to Jawbone. Maybe this is going to be yet another thing that makes him different from his father and as soon as he has some time to think it through he can maybe arrive at the conclusion that that isn’t a bad thing.

 At some point he stops running because he actually has no idea where Riz is. Is he still at school? At home? At his damn office? Fabian pulls out his crystal and hastily types a message to Riz.

 “Where are you???? We need to kiss!”

 He deletes the last word and types “talk” instead. Fabian watches with his breath held as three dots appear on his screen very shortly before they disappear again. He waits in the middle of the street, no shoes on, dripping wet. People passing him by look as though they’re concerned for his mental state but Fabian couldn’t care less.

 Maybe now is not the time to be manly about his feelings if he actually wants to fucking kiss his damn best friend.

 “I need to talk to my best friend”, he types.

 The dots reappear immediately.

 “at the office”

 Fabian stuffs the crystal back into his pocket, considers calling the Hangman to drive him over there but then decides that he doesn’t want to wait for him to arrive.

 The last time Fabian was in Riz’ office there was a terribly creepy doppelganger of Riz trying to kill him, but he pushes the thought to the side as he rushes into the building, dripping water everywhere as he heads up the stairs.

 Fabian doesn’t think he can manage another emotional talk today because the last one left him completely drained and exhausted, but the second that he spots Riz behind his desk ripping some papers in a nervous craze his heart leaps into his throat and goes into overdrive immediately.

 Fuck.

 He rips open the door and Riz flinches so hard that he sends all the papers flying. Then he stares at Fabian with his huge, yellow eyes.

 “Why are you wet? And where are your shoes?”, he wants to know, looking completely confused.

 “Doesn’t matter”, Fabian says, rounds the desk and grabs Riz by the shoulders. “We need to talk about Saturday.”

 Riz turns his face away and there is a dark green blush on his cheeks and the back of his nose. Now that Fabian knows what his damn problem is he realizes how fucking badly he actually wants to kiss Riz.

 “Oh—well. Yeah. Haha, weird, right? Don’t worry about it, it was totally ridicu—“

 “I should have done it”, Fabian interjects. Riz’ eyes grow impossibly wider.

 “Wh—what?”

 “I should have done it. Kiss you, I mean. We should have kissed.”

 Who would have thought that the son of the famous Bill Seacaster would die of a heart attack at the age of eighteen while wearing no shoes and dripping wet clothes.

 “Wh—why?”

 “Because I—“

 Fabian didn’t actually get that far in his head. He grabs Riz’ shoulders tighter and fuck, he can’t bring himself to say the words.

 “Because I don’t want you to kiss anyone else”, is what he manages in the end and he watches closely as Riz’ swallows and the dark shade of green on his face grows impossibly darker still.

 “Did you mean it?”, he asks quietly, his voice raspy and hoarse.

 “Mean what?”

 “That—in your text message. About—you know. Being best friends or whatever.”

 Fabian takes a deep breath.

 “Yeah.”

 Riz makes a very small “Oh” sound and then, all of a sudden, Fabian stumbles backwards with his arms full of Goblin. It occurs to him that this is the first time they actually hugged.

 “So—uh. Can I? Um—kiss you?”, he asks and his voice sounds like he swallowed a bunch of sand.

 “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

 It turns out that kissing someone you’re actually into is better than winning a Bloodrush game, better than dancing, better than pretty much everything he’s ever done before. Riz holds onto him as if his life depended on it and Fabian feels like he won’t let his best friend down anytime soon or he might just fall over and die.

 It occurs to him that this must be Riz’ first kiss and something inside him purrs contently at the thought of that as he lets himself sink down into Riz’ chair so Riz is sitting in his lap.

 “Thought you were into that Theo dude”, he mumbles against Riz’ lips.

 “’m not.”

 “Yeah, I get that now.”

 “I’m uh—pretty much only into you. So...”

 Fabian’s heart is doing a very silly little dance in his chest but all he can bring himself to say is “Yeah”. All the other words that he probably should say get stuck somewhere half the way up his throat because his heart is beating too fast.

 “So... no more Truth or Dare”, Riz says sheepishly.

 “No, definitely not.”

 “Cool.”

 Very cool indeed, Fabian thinks, as he kisses Riz again.