#but i can’t go get anything because i don’t think this counts as essential during the strike

[loveofastarvingdog]

trying to find the metaphysical vegetable that may bring me less despair

[luvergirl777]

If Not With You - N.S

Pairing | Neteyam Sully x Human Reader

Word Count | 19k, whoops.  

Genre | Acquaintances to lovers? Fluff, they're both dumb and can't drop a hint to save their life, SMUT.

Summary | Neteyam never understood you, and he doesn't think he ever will. Your skin is a different color than his, you're a solid 5 feet shorter than him, your native language is different than his, he could go on forever. He doesn't think he'll ever understand, until he watches you struggle with a knife for 10 minutes and graciously offers his services to you. Suddenly, he's bitten off more than he realizes.

Index | Bickering back and forth, the reader takes every chance she can get to be snarky, Neteyam does too though, purring Neteyam, two idiots in love, smut, creampie, soft!dom Neteyam (service dom kind of), a brief mention of breeding lol. Let me know if I missed anything that should be noted!

You confuse Neteyam in almost all aspects of your being. You’re human, so painfully alien as you run around the high grounds, scurrying to climb around the home tree to the best of your ability, scurrying to provide his grandmother with herbs for the wounded. So painfully human as you sit on the ground, weaving clothes 3 times your size for protection for warriors during time of battle. Painfully human as you cling to Kiri’s ikran (it’s the “least scary” you say) when you join foraging trips, not used to flying. And so painfully human despite having an Avatar sleeping less than 20 feet away, perfectly fine and ready to be used. His father had mentioned something about you not feeling comfortable or welcomed in your avatar body, not taught how to use it properly yet, somehow feeling more accepted as a human. 

You’ve lived your entire life here as a human, mostly. You were given your avatar more recently within the last couple of years, the Avatar taking a while to fully grow and become yours. Still, he’s maybe only seen it once. You wear the clothes, join the songs, dance in the festivals, forage and gather, weave, fish, help the wounded, everything you can physically do, you do. Because of your size, you sometimes struggle with preparing, gathering, and foraging through the forest. It takes you much more effort and time to scale fallen logs and rocks than others. It’s never made any sense, it still doesn’t to him. As you prepare a sturmbeest with some of the others for tonight’s meal, you bewilder him even more. 

“Here, let me help you.” Neteyam offers quickly as he sees you struggling to cut. He's afraid you’re going to slip and hurt yourself, the effort it takes to cut makes your hands shake where they hold your blade. It would be no issue in your avatar body, he’s sure of it but he doesn’t bring it up. After cutting through the hard part, he’s quick to hand you back the small knife to avoid taking over your village duty. “You know if-“ 

“If I was in my Avatar body I’d be able to do it?” You finish his sentence, glancing up at him. While you quickly divert your gaze, he catches the small look of shame you have before you return to the task that requires all your attention. 

“No, no. I was going to say if you need help, you can just call again.” He smiles, shaking his head softly. At this, you can’t help but jokingly scoff at him. 

“But you were thinking about it.” 

“Hmmm, I was not! You have no proof.” 

“That’s how everyone thinks, it’s fine to admit it Neteyam.” You chuckle, resuming your complete focus on the sturmbeest you’re more determined than ever to cut up now thanks to him. “Plus, shouldn’t you be preparing for the meal? Making sure everyone is accounted for and what not.” You're essentially telling him to get back to his tasks. 

“I am, making sure you’re accounted for. The way you’re wielding that knife I'm afraid you’ll go missing.” He teases you, pointing out the amount of effort you’re using to cut through the meat. “Also, if you don’t mind me asking since you brought it up, FYI, why aren’t you in your Avatar?” 

You sigh, and for a brief moment Neteyam thinks he’s overstepped his welcome. “No one really taught me how to use it. I suppose it’s all the same mechanics as controlling myself, but to an extent I don't feel connected. Your father said he felt the same at first, and offered to teach me but got busy with olo'eyktan duties, which is understandable. I haven't felt comfortable enough to ask him, it takes a lot of time that I'm sure he doesn’t have, you know?” 

“I can help you.” Neteyam offers before he has a chance to rethink it. 

“I think you’re also too busy, future olo'eyktan .” You turn your attention to him for a brief moment before resuming. “Plus, it’s not the culture or village life. I've grown up here, I understand that much. It’s the connection, and being in my body. I don't think you’d understand what I mean.” 

“I think you just need practice in a safe area where you don't have to worry. I can be your lookout while you get used to your body, who better than me?” Neteyam’s confidence grows as he offers you his gracious services. His smirk threatens to fall a bit as you glare up at him, but he’s determined to convince you regardless. 

“Your dad.” He interrupts your train of thought with a pained expression, making you giggle. “But I suppose since he’s unavailable, you’re the next best option.”

“Ouch.” He jokes, placing a hand over his heart. “So we'll start tomorrow, little human?” He cheekily adds, beginning to step away from you to return to his head counting job.

He smiles softly as you stick your tongue at him, turning back to finish your job as well. His heart beats hard in his chest, his adrenaline slowly beginning to run off as he checks to make sure everything is going as it should. As he sits next to his mother, the slight panic begins to settle in as he waits for you to join the feast. 

His mother notices the odd, out of place, anxious energy from her son. He’s not usually like this, his demeanor is off. “Neteyam?” She asks, nudging him softly. 

Neteyam faces her with more confidence now, attempting to get his mood back. “Yes, mother?”

“Are you feeling okay?” She reaches out for a brief moment, pressing her hand against his forehead. At this, he smiles softly before pushing her hand away by the wrist. She smiles softly at him, returning to talking to the others. Small cheers erupt as everyone begins to bring in the food, carrying trays and trays of food. He catches a small glimpse of you, following behind the others carrying trays. You’re not carrying anything, preoccupied with cleaning your knife before placing it back on your hip. You settle down behind most of the others, allowing others to get their food before you. He’s extremely observant of you now, he always has been, but it’s even more now. 

Dinner goes by as always, everyone talking, joking, telling stories with one another. You conversate every now and then, happily listening to stories that the other villagers tell you about hunts and raids they have been on. He feels hyper aware of your presence now, watching as a tail jokingly wraps around your waist and knocks you off balance. You smile, jokingly hitting the other people while saying something he can't pick up. Your smile is pretty, so pretty.

It almost feels impossible tearing his eyes away, but eventually he does. He begins to actually engage in his family conversation, listening to his mother and fathers stories. He can't wait for the next day to come, fighting to fall asleep. It feels like hours before he dozes off. 

Neteyam is grabbed by his father before he can actually slip away, a firm hand on his shoulder stopping all of his momentum. “Where are you off to?” His father asks, tugging slightly to turn him around to face him. Neteyam groans in his head, tail flicking slightly behind him. His ears quickly pin down as a reflex. 

“To the labs.” He answers plainly, hoping his father just lets him go with no further questioning. It’s all hopeful thinking, he knows that he will be questioned further. He wants to go, you’re probably waiting for him there now. You’re always on time, never keeping anyone else waiting on you for too long. 

“For what? Are you not coming on watch today?” Jake asks, the grip on his shoulder tightening slightly. Neteyams ears flatten further, tail flicking more aggressively. 

“I promised someone I would help them in the lab.” Neteyam answers. “I will be back later today.”

“Later today?!” Jake asks, releasing him in return for putting his hands on his hips. At the commotion, Neytiri comes out to see what’s going on. Jake gives her the rundown, “He is skipping watch to help the labs.” At this, Neteyam groans softly, the description not at all accurate or reflecting him. 

“Sa’nok,” Neteyam mumbles softly, “I promised,” 

“He hasn’t missed a watch in weeks.” Neytiri points out. “He’s also helping someone, he doesn’t need to come on every watch. Go, Neteyam.”

At this, he bows softly before hightailing it out of the area as quickly as possible. He thanks Eywa for his mother intervening, moving as quickly as possible to get to the labs. Sure enough, you’re waiting for him inside. You seem agitated already, sitting on one of the tables as you swing your legs back and forth. He’s quickly apologizing for keeping you waiting, explaining his situation as quickly as possible. 

“It’s okay, Nete.” You shrug, hopping down and walking over to the pods, known as link units. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’m gonna look like a baby deer and complain the entire time.” You whine, trying to convince him otherwise. 

“Are you trying to get me not to, or do you not want to? It sounds like you don’t want to.”

“I’m scared.” You admit, sighing softly. Neteyam offers a solemn expression, encouraging you softly as he pops open the link pod. He helps you climb in, offering a hand as you hop backwards into the memory foam. The beads on your chest cover clink loudly at the momentum, filling the otherwise silent lab. Max enters the lab, late, but still there. You trust him the most to help you link and check all of your vitals, others making you too nervous. 

“I’m going to come and get you once I make sure you link, where is your Avatar?” Neteyam asks as you lay down, holding the top of the pod as he leans down to talk with you. Your breathing is irregular, nerves shaking you to your cure. “I will be there, Y/n, to get you. I’ll be there for every step.” 

“My Avatar is all the way at the high camp.” You tell him, “I’ll wait for you though.” 

“I’ll be there, as fast as possible.” He ensures you, stepping away to let Max do his job to link you to your Avatar. Neteyam fiddles with the oxygen mask around his neck, playing with the strings as he watches you get settled in. As the pod closes, he turns to the screens that show your vitals. Your breathing is increased, but Max explains that’s to be expected when someone hasn’t linked for a while, “Normal nerves,” He calls them. 

“She should be in, I would hurry to make sure she's not freaking out.” And Neteyam does. He doesn’t think he’s ever flown as fast before, his ikran cutting through the air. He gets to high camp as fast as possible, running to the Avatar sleeping area. You’re sitting up, playing with your hands as you wait for him.

“Y/n! Look at you! You look like me.” Neteyam beams happily, running over to you. He helps you up, offering his hand as you stand. You stand easily, but still have a look of uneasiness written across your face. He notices your ears remain down, pinned back with worry. Every now and then, they’ll perk up for the briefest moment before going back. Cute.  “Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel fine, I just think I'm a bit hungry since I haven't been in this body for a while.” You explain, beginning to walk through the Avatar area. Your Avatar reminds him of his siblings, five fingers and toes, eyebrows, etc. You’re walking fine, a bit wobbly on certain areas of uneven terrain, checking a couple of times behind you to make sure he’s close. The camp is busy as always, people running around to fulfill their duties. You navigate the commotion easily though, heading over to the edge of the base. 

“Are you okay to fly?” Neteyam asks, clicking and calling out to his ikran. You nod, shakily, but still saying yes. His ikran is quick to land on the rocks, calming down as Neteyam connects his tswin and readies to mount. He gets on first, reaching to grab your hand and help you sling your leg over. “You can use the saddle and the hold here.” Neteyam speaks, guiding you to sit. He reaches around you, holding your hand and wrapping it around the leather hold. The strong animal flaps his wings underneath you, making your nerves set in as you already begin slipping off to one side.

“You’re okay, It’ll get easier once he’s moving.” He reassures you, using one arm to wrap around your waist, pulling you back upright. A small blush spreads across your face, your bodies extremely close to one another as he’s focused on your well-being. 

“What about you? Are you going to be okay with flying?” You ask, seeing as he has no secure hold. He’s not using the saddle, nor the holds. 

“Yes, I will be okay.” He reassures, holding where his tswin is connected. You trust him, and you trust his ability to fly more than anyone else. Even still, nerves bubble in your chest. “I’ll fly as carefully as possible for you, just hold on, okay?”

“Yes, I will.” You nod, tightening the hold on the leather underneath your palms. Even though you prepared yourself, the shriek that leaves your body as his ikran drops is involuntary. You can hear Neteyam’s faint chuckle in your ear, leaning forward as he guides his ikran. His hair brushes along your shoulder as he leans forward, goosebumps spreading across your arms. His arm tightens the slightest bit around your waist, ensuring you don’t lean too far forward and lose your balance. “Where are we heading?” You yell over your shoulder, the wind loud in your ears. 

“To find you something to eat!” Neteyam calls back, “We’ll be walking around the forest, give you some time to get used to your body without anyone else being around to pressure you.” 

You nod, looking forward to observe where you’re going. Neteyam flies as smoothly as possible for you, communicating to his ikran to stay calm as much as possible. The forest is extremely dense, flying through the trees and hanging vines with expert skill. Neteyam once again chuckles as he sees your grip tighten, both on the leather hold and your legs where they squeeze his ikran for purchase. Landing, the jungle is dense as he hops down. 

You land right after, the grass underneath your feet soft and plush. “Are we finding fruit?” You smile, beginning to trail off from him. Neteyam has to hide the smile, unconnecting as he dismisses his Seze. The grass is so soft underneath your feet, each step cushiony. You’re good at foraging, using all your skills and knowledge you’ve learned over the years. “Here, Nete,” You smile softly, handing him two fruits. Neteyam becomes your Navi basket, arms carrying everything you collect. He's more than happy to follow you around, eventually coaxing you to come sit once you’ve got enough. 

“You need to eat,” Neteyam says, soft but firm as he begins making his way to the river. He finds a soft area of grass, plopping down before softly letting the fruits follow. You join, watching Neteyam carefully as he dips the fruits into the river, cleaning them before handing them over with a big smile. “They’ll taste even better in this body,” He almost promises. 

And they do. They genuinely do.Your taste buds are alive and so heightened, a small smile pulling at the corner of your lips as you eat. “It’s good,” You grin, devouring the fruits that your body so desperately needs, gaining some semblance of energy back. 

“Do you still feel okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s still weird, I know it’s me, but it doesn’t feel like me. Moving is weird, everything is a conscious effort.” You try to explain to him. 

“Does that include your ears being down?” He asks, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he teases softly. “It's cute, don’t get me wrong, but not normal.” 

Once again, you have to consciously pull your ears up like the natural position they’re held at. When you forget, they fall back down. Neteyam pins his ears, signaling to you that you’re doing it again. It works perfectly, your ears perking up once more. 

“See? It’s too hard.” You smile, “We should just go back, say we tried hard.” You plead, making him laugh. You know he’d never, too much determination and pride in his chest to ever allow it. 

“You just need more time in this body, I’m sure of it.” Neteyam answers, shaking his head no as you whine. “We haven’t even got you running yet.” 

At this you groan, flopping backwards on the soft grass as you complain. You quickly get lost in it, the ground so soft, the sun so warm on your skin. It's comforting, much needed vitamin D. 

Despite ALL of your complaining, which was a lot, your body does prove more efficient than your human body. It moves through the terrain easier, scales the rocks and jumps over the fallen trees with no problem, runs as if it was made to do only that. Climbing was nothing you've ever wanted to do until now, and you find yourself playing in the trees like a child again. Climbing as a human is too hard, but this is easy, so it’s FUN. 

“Neteyam! You’re not joining!” You call from treetop, Neteyam watching carefully from the ground. He follows along when you stray too far, watching with careful eyes. It's endearing, how careful he is. 

“It's okay, you’re doing great!” He calls happily. 

You take it as enough confirmation that he’s okay with what’s happening, you having fun while he remains down there. Soon enough, he’s running on the ground to keep up with you. Not that he minds, he has the stamina for it. “Are you having fun!?” He happily calls, splashing through a shallow river as he follows you. 

“Yes! This is amazing,” You answer before beginning to come down. Your hands and feet are sore, unused to the rough nature of aggressive use. You don’t pay much attention, joining Neteyam in the cool water of the river, finding some relief. “It's nice, feels nice.” 

Neteyam fights off the urge to say “I told you so,” instead providing you with encouraging praise. Neteyam wants to teach you everything, he almost itches for it. He's already making a list in his head of everything he could offer you that you don’t know in this body. 

Hunting, riding, flying, swimming, scaling home tree, fighting if you’d like, archery. You know how to weave, arguably better than him, so that’s not something he can claim he taught. Along with foraging and gathering, healing, you also know the dances and songs, and basic craft skills that he can’t claim credit for. But what he can, he will. For today though, he lets you run, and play, and frolic through the grass. He follows you, never losing sight of his surroundings. He'll provide some knowledge here and there, but nothing too crazy. 

You’re exhausted as the sun begins to set, leaning against Neteyams seated body. “We should head back,” You mumble, praying he’ll let you go back this time. He agrees, not wanting to stay out too late for the creatures that come out. 

“We should, we can eat with the people,” He sees another learning opportunity. He stands, leaving you to support your own weight. You watch as he clicks and calls, his ikran coming down soon after. You can feel the exhaustion from the soon-ride, getting up with a grunt. 

“What if I just hold onto you?” It’s a real question, you’re trying to find out if that would be more or less tiring. 

“If you'd like,” He blushes the slightest bit as he faces away from you. Neteyam gets on first, now sitting on the saddle and holding the leather hold. He helps you climb behind him, “You still sure?” He asks, double checking with you since you have no secure holds. Your arms wrap tightly around his waist, torsos flush together. You can hold here, and with your legs. 

“Yes, this is okay,” It feels slightly unsafe compared to the saddle, but it’s less taxing on your body. You also can’t see much over his frame, but you don’t mind. “Thank you, Neteyam, it’s fun,” You talk with him. Your voice vibrates off him, bouncing off his skin. 

“Of course,” He beams even though you can’t see it. You arrive at the home tree soon enough, high in the trees where the ikrans stay. Neteyam leads you to the people for dinner, extremely careful that you don’t lose your balance in the high branches. When you have to hop down a considerable amount, he’s extra careful, going first as an example. He waits each time for you, always ready to catch if he ever needs to. With a relieved breath, he doesn’t need to, and you both make it to dinner without a hitch. 

“Sa’nok, Sempul,” Neteyam greets his family, bringing his hand to his forehead. You immediately follow along, greeting the leaders of your clan. “Would you mind Y/n eating with us tonight?” 

“Oh, no no it’s okay. I wouldn’t want to intrude-“ 

“Of course,” Jake smiles happily, genuinely excited to see you in your Avatar body. His hand lands softly onto your shoulder, examining your body. “How’s it feeling?” 

“Good! Good. It’s a lot of fun,” You smile, giving him a brief overview of your day spent doing nothing but pushing it. He grins, remembering his own days of running with his body for the first time. He tells you the story, beckoning you to sit with his family as he does so. You do, sitting next to Neteyam and Kiri. You know Kiri well, always working together in the healer's hut with her and Tsahìk. 

You know Lo’ak as well, but the two of you don’t talk much besides brief, common interactions. Regardless, you have nothing against him. And Tuk? Tuk is just adorable. You briefly remember gifting her an ikran toy when she was younger, handmade by you. You’re sure she has no recollection of it, much too young. But you don’t mind at all. You all share stories, you mainly listen as you don’t have many that are as exciting as theirs. Neytiri’s intrigue you the most, ears naturally perking up every time she speaks about something. 

Neteyam notices, a small smile spreading across his face as he eats. They flatten when silence takes over the conversation, obviously uncomfortable. The night wraps up like always, but Neteyam is sure to check on not only your Avatar, but also your human body. He makes sure both of your forms get to bed safely before he returns to his family's area, settling in. 

The days turn into weeks of getting used to your body. Neteyam teaches you everything he can, everything that comes to mind. You’re surprisingly good at archery, but guilt kills you when hunting. Even with the knowledge of clean, respectful kills, it’s not your favorite. Riding also comes natural to you, connecting with Pa’li as if you were born native. You become comfortable in your Avatar body, trusting your body’s movements and mind. You run, scale, leap, climb, crawl, swim, everything as if you were born in this body. As you land clean kill after clean kill, and join in on the hunting festivals, Neteyam begins to push you softly in the direction of iknimaya, taming your ikran. 

“Neteyam, it’s scary.” You defend yourself as you prepare meat for tonight’s dinner. Your Avatar body slices through easily, never struggling for more than a couple of moments. “They’re scary.” 

“I know, I know.” He sighs, “But-“ 

“Neteyam, I don’t want to talk about it right now. It’s scary, and I could die.” 

“You can die at any time.“ You send him a strong glare, ending the conversation without another word being shared with each other. You’re done talking about it for tonight, placing the meat on a serving platter. You don’t talk about it for a while, going on about your lessons and training, learning more and more each day. 

You’re out in the forest, a routine day unfolding. Your body and mind feel like yours, Neteyam also begins to wander away from you further and further. If it comes down to it, you can defend yourself to some extent. He's doing just that when a blood curdling scream rips through the forest, catching his attention immediately. His feet are moving faster than his brain, running. 

“NETEYAM!” You scream again, feet remaining planted firm in front of the animal in front of you. Your heartbeat is rapid as you stare down the creature, trying to figure out its next course of action. Stepping a couple of feet back, your fingers immediately begin to reach for the knife that’s secured across your chest. “It’s not moving, Nete. I don’t know what to do.” You speak, more calmly now as the palulukan has made no action to pursue you yet. Still, you unsheathe your knife just in case. It wouldn’t help much if it attacked, but it gives you some peace of mind for the current circumstances. 

“Is it not pursuing?” Neteyam asks, and you can hear his faint footsteps running to get to you in the distance. It’s still in the same place it was, still staring at you. 

“No! It’s just staring at me!” You yell back, trying to hold your ground as much as possible. Your knees shake the slightest bit, which you try to calm. If you turn and run, you could possibly outsmart it. However, as soon as you turn you’re sure it would immediately begin its pursuit on you. Neteyam eventually finds you, keeping his distance as he accesses the situation as much as possible. 

“I know what I’m going to say, you will not like-“ 

“Nete!” 

“I know, I know! But step up to it. Slowly, you’re not pouncing on her, but stepping up.” You want to scream at him, it sounds like a stupid idea. However, you don’t think there’s anyone you trust more with your general well-being than him. “Trust me! If something happens, I'm right behind you, jumping in.” 

“You promise?” You never break your eye contact, but you know Neteyam is staring directly at you. Taking a step, you can hear the faint “Promise” that Neteyam mumbles out softly. Another step comes, and the creature still hasn’t moved a single inch from where you were first confronted by it. Now you’re in attacking distance again, if you reached fully out you would surely touch it on the head. For the first time, it moved. It leans down, and it takes everything in your willpower to not start instinctively booking it at the first sign of movement, “Neteyam?” 

“Tsaheylu, make the bond. She’s offering to you.” Neteyam explains, stepping a bit closer as the tense environment of the situation has lessened. “It’s okay, she’s submitting to you, Y/n.” 

You’re still too afraid to break eye contact to look at Neteyam, your eyes never leaving her as you reach back for your kuru. As soon as the tsaheylu is made, a rush of relief washes over you. “Thank Eywa, thank Eywa,” You mumble, walking to its side and swinging yourself over the animal. Your heartbeat calms down with the animals, and you finally are able to feel her strength and power. She's unlike anything else you've ridden, not a ikran, not pa’li. Once you’re fully bonded, Neteyam feels safe enough to approach. 

“Scary?” He giggles, his hand coming to rest on your calf where it sits on the palulukan’s side. You can feel his thumb run across your skin comfortingly, making you smile as you face away from him. 

“Just a bit, she feels…kind?” You ask, despite him having no idea. “Her thoughts, her power and strength, is kind?” 

“I see, you feel her? You’re getting the hang of this whole, tsaheylu, kuru thing.” He smiles at you, walking behind you and hopping on. Even at the sudden movement, she still doesn’t think of any harm or reaction in a negative manner. You absolutely beam, reaching forward and petting the space at her forehead essentially. “Should I hold on?” Neteyam chuckles behind you. 

“Oh yes, 100%. Strong.” Is all you offer him before beginning to move, just walking but still feeling the absolute power she holds. 

“I trust you.” Neteyam smiles, leaning forward to wrap his arms around your waist. The contact makes your face flush hot, immediately pushing it away from your thoughts as you begin to run, easily jumping and clearing anything in the forest floor. Once again, it’s a completely different ride than you’re used to, you and Neteyam whooping, laughing, and shrieking when you particularly jerk and almost slide off. Slowing to a stop, you find yourself at the edge of the river. You gently rub her shoulder in warning as you slide off, patting her gently. You break the tsaheylu, watching in case she flees. Instead, she stays, drinks water, settles down with the both of you where you sit on the soft grass. 

“What about her family?” You ask Neteyam as if he would know the answer. Neteyam shrugs softly, unsure himself. He has no answer for this, logically. 

“She seems to want you more.” 

“I see,” 

“Y/n, you are more than ready for iknimaya,” 

There’s a loud sigh filling the peace of the forest. You hum, finally giving in. “Fine, Neteyam.” You sigh, watching as the thanator creeps towards you, laying down next to where you’re seated. “I’ll complete my iknimaya.” You nod, finalizing your statement. 

“The next trip is in one week,” 

You nod. You have one week to fully prepare yourself and the people around you. If anything, you’ll retreat at the first sign you can’t do it. Still, you dread the trip. 

You and Neteyam decide not to bring your thanator back, scared of the commotion she may cause. You promise to return to her in the forest in the opening you met at, bidding her goodbye in the meantime. With one final reassuring pet, she runs off. 

The days creep by, anxiety beginning to find its hold over you for your upcoming rite of passage completion. 

“It's my day off from lessons, Neteyam!” You poke your tongue out at him as he peels open your hammock, giving you no other option but to fully wake up. The hammock, suspended on two branches of the home tree, sways hazardously as he kneels down. He's almost, he is, towering over your human form like this, poking and prodding you until you get up. 

“Just because it’s your day off doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. What, I have to make reservations now?” Neteyam jokes, beaming at you as you finally rise, easily jumping onto a nearby branch to get going. Even as you stretch out completely, he’s a solid 3 feet taller than you still. “I was thinking we can just chill today, though. Nothing crazy, no village duties.” 

“Your father let you off village duties?” 

“Well no, but-“ 

“He’s gonna end up hating me.” It’s half joking, half not. You stop walking, instead turning around to face him. “Go back,” You chuckle, pushing Neteyam’s stomach. There’s enough force for little imprints to appear in his skin, but not nearly enough to move the giant. “I'm serious, he’s gonna start blaming me for you being absent all the time.” 

“Hmmm,” Neteyam pretends to think for a moment, tapping his bottom lip. “No.” Before you have a chance to react, Neteyam easily grabs both of your wrists in one palm. With one easy motion, you’re being swung through the air before landing on his back. He chuckles as you smack his shoulder for endangering your life like that, swinging you over the open area of the home tree sleeping area. (Even though you know he’d never drop you, even accidentally.) “C’mon, don’t worry about him. I'll be the one answering anyway.” 

“I’m serious, you’re gonna get yourself in trouble. Like Lo’ak.” You chuckle, and he scoffs at the accusations. 

“Never in a million years,” While the two of you talk, Neteyam easily scales the home tree and arrives at the ikrans in no time at all. “Plus, we can’t get in trouble if he can’t find me.” 

“This is stupid, and you know it.” You smile hard despite all your scolding, a specialness filling your chest that Neteyam would want to spend your days with you, even though it meant trouble for him. Once again, he nonchalantly shakes his head before calling down his ikran, quickly calming her for your sake. 

“Come on, we only have all day.” He jokes, offering his palm for you to climb up. You still hate flying, especially as a human just because of the size and how scary trying to hold on is. (Balance isn’t your thing and Neteyam is basically an expert flyer, aka, crazy ass flyer.)  Still, you suck it up as he takes you to your destination. It's a familiar area, pretty river, pretty flowers, and nearby fruit trees that you’re for sure going to devour when the time comes. 

You beam, hopping down before Neteyam and running over to dip your feet in the clear water. If Neteyams is lucky, you won’t start a water fight the moment he walks over. He approaches with caution, attacked one too many times to not be. Even as no attack ensures, he’s still sure to sit down carefully in case there’s some other sneak attack waiting around the corner. 

Instead, you both sit and watch the water for a bit. It’s a comfortable silence, a shared one at that. “I made you something.” You speak softly, finally breaking the silence, nerves flashing across your face when Neteyam doesn’t look over right away. “Just a small thing, nothing serious.” 

“Sorry, the fish over there- you were saying?” 

“I made you something.” 

“No, no-“ 

“It’s already made, it’d be rude to not accept it.” You chuckle, beginning to dig through your medicinal pouch (That’s supposed to be used for plants and herbs.) Neteyam watches carefully as you pull out a riding visor, carefully braided and woven to very little details. The small wings that make up the visor are in perfect condition, not even a small crack on them. 

“I know you have one, but I feel bad about the wings I broke on it.” You chuckle, handing it over to him. You were once riding with him in your human form and felt uneasy. As you slipped off to one side, you instinctively reached up to him, breaking the fragile protective wings on his visor. As you place it in his hands, your hands linger against one another’s for just a moment too long before you pull away. “And one more thing.” 

“You shouldn’t have-“ 

“I wanted to, Neteyam. In my free time, or days where we couldn’t practice because you had work.” You interrupt him, watching the soft smile slowly spread across his face. “This is your last gift, so don’t get all excited, it’s nothing crazy.” 

“I will get excited, it’s from you.” Neteyam hums softly, watching as you prepare to present your gift. 

“Shut your eyes, don’t open until I say.”

“How is that fair!”

“Warriors honor!! Shut your eyes!” You giggle loudly, standing up next to Neteyam. You’re not much taller than him even when he sits, but neither of you mention it. “No peeking, or else I'm taking it back.” 

“Fineee,” He sighs, finally following along with your shenanigans. Finally, you pull out your gift. It’s a simple necklace in theory, however you modeled its design after traditional warrior necklaces that have gone out of trend in recent years. Small goosebumps spread across Neteyam’s skin as your fingertips graze his skin, jumping slightly as you gently move his kuru. 

“Sorry, sorry.” You quickly apologize, watching as the goosebumps spread across his nape. You didn’t even think before you did it, out of instinct. You finish quickly after that, wanting to put some distance in between you two. “Look in the water.” 

He does, a giant smile spread across his face when he finds your eyes again. “You made this for me?” 

“Of course, who else?” You giggle, reaching out to run your fingers across the beads. Neteyam catches your forearm before you have a chance to move away once more, accidentally jerking you forward into his arms. You land with a huff, Neteyam quickly wrapping you in his embrace. So small compared to him, fitting in his arms like nothing at all. Your skin is so soft against his, his fingertips easily making small indents in your arms where he holds you close. 

“Thank you Y/n.” Neteyam mumbles softly, eyes falling shut as he gets lost in holding you, your scent, your voice. His eyes peel open the slightest bit as you begin to shuffle, preparing to release you as soon as you make a move to. Instead, you’re reaching up, wrapping your arms around his neck as you hug him close. Your knees are resting on his thighs, having to kneel in order to even reach. He can feel your beaded top against his chest, feel your heartbeat if he focuses hard enough on it. He’s sure you can feel his too, now beating a million miles a second. 

“Of course, a warrior necklace for a mighty warrior,” You mumble, almost directly into his ear unintentionally, goosebumps spreading all along his body. He shudders, making you pull back softly, peering at him with a careful look. Suddenly, he’s even more aware of the proximity and you on his lap. 

“Sorry, I just got a chill. Must be because my father is looking for me,” He smiles, covering up for himself. You laugh softly, carefully climbing off and sitting back by the river. You lay down, sun washing over your skin. Neteyam’s eyes soak it all in, not a sight that’s very common. He joins you after a bit, talking about any random topic that comes to mind. 

“Nete, can I ask you something weird?” 

“Anything,” 

“What does your kuru feel like? I'm not sure if it’s different for me, but you seem to be much more sensitive.” You ask softly, scared of overstepping your welcome when it comes to his teaching. 

As he lays next to you, he’s acutely aware of how much larger his frame is. “Hm, I suppose I am sensitive. But only when I want to be, with people I want to be.” He answers, hinting slightly. He's more than aware it’s going to fly over your head. 

“Uhm. When Na’vi chooses their mate, and they, uhm mate, is it the same tsaheylu as our bond with animals? With our mounts?” 

“Hmm, I'm not sure. I haven’t been there yet.” He chuckles softly, but still does his best to answer. “I suppose they are connected in the same way, but you cannot control them as if you are on a mount. You cannot think about going, and expect the other to go. It’s more of a spiritual connection, being completely with the other. I suppose we also feel the other's sensations and emotions, but control is not the aspect of it.” 

“Why are you so sensitive with yours?” 

“It is my nervous system, if I wasn’t something would be seriously wrong.” He answers sarcastically, making the both of you laugh. 

A comfortable silence falls over the two of you, your eyes closing as you soak up the sun. 

“Neteyam?”

“Hm?”

“I'm scared.” It’s vulnerable and the truth, you’re terrified. “If I fall, will you catch me?” You’re completely dead serious, terrified of falling off the cliff. 

“Of course, I'll fly Seze.” He promises you. You sigh, nodding your head. 

The day slips through your grasp before you can even hold onto it for a second, night quickly approaching. You and Neteyam slowly make your way back to home tree, you much slower, as you purposely get further and further behind. Neteyam knows, and he could definitely guess why you’re acting so strange. He doesn’t push you, just slows down his pace tenfold to allow you to catch up and even pass him. Ever so observant, he watches as your fists clench tight as your feet come to a gradual stop. 

“Neteyam, spend tonight with me.” You rush, quickly. You quickly turn around to peer up at him, catching the small smile that’s already pulling at the corners of his mouth. Your fists are still clenched as you wait for his response to your borderline demand. 

“It doesn’t sound like you’re asking, demanding the future Olo'eyktan around?” Neteyam boasts, jokingly puffing out his chest before he’s dropping into a squat to be more eye-level with your form. “Y/n?” 

You almost knock him off balance as you ambush him, smaller body crashing against his as your arms fly around his neck. He regains his composure just as quickly, arms wrapping around you. “I'm scared.” You mumble against his ear, goosebumps shooting down his spine. “Just in case something happens.” You continue to mumble, borderline against his skin. “I want to spend tonight with you.” Your arms never loosen their hold, not giving him much leeway. 

“Nothing will happen, Y/n.” He reassures you, easily picking up both of your body weight as he stands. He doesn’t pry you away, instead he wraps his arms around your torso as he easily carries you through the branches. “I promise, you will do amazing.” He fights to reassure you, lips brushing against your ear. 

“You don’t know that.” 

“I do, I do.” He giggles softly, finally arriving at the sleeping hammocks after what feels like forever. (The close proximity is going straight to his head.) “You need rest though, my mighty warrior.” Neteyam gives you a wide grin as you pull away, smiling back softly at him. “I won’t leave you, if that’s what you want.'' He carefully maneuvers your weight into one arm, the other assisting him as he climbs into the hammock. Laying on his back, a content sigh slips through your lips as you rest on his chest. 

“Neteyam, if I fail, what will you do?” You mumble, avoiding his gaze as your head never lifts as you speak to him. 

“I will catch you.” He answers back almost immediately, not missing a single beat. It makes you smile, reassures you, calms your nerves just the slightest bit as he promises. 

“Neteyam?”

“You're supposed to shut your eyes, syulang.” He teases as you continue your questioning. 

“Can we go to the labs?” It's now Neteyam’s turn to ask questions, you never want to be in the lab. Never once have you asked to go there. 

“Huh?”

“My mask is annoying, I'm getting used to not having it on.” Okay, he supposes that makes sense. Eases his nerves that you’re falling into your more human side than that of the culture and of the people. He lets out a puff of air he didn’t realize he was holding, climbing onto his feet carefully with you still in his arms. He wobbles like an idiot climbing out, regaining his balance once his feet hit the tree branch. 

As always, Neteyam moves swiftly despite your weight remaining fixed to his back. You're tired, slowly slipping further and further down, making it hard for him to move as easily. “Y/n, you’re killing me,” Neteyam chuckles softly, reaching behind him to pull you up his back. He easily drops you onto his shoulders, continuing the fast pace he was previously at. He’s dumb, he definitely did not think this one through. Each movement has your legs clenching tightly, scared to fall from so high up. He can feel your warmth, so close. Each time you shuffle, he can smell you, so close it’s making him dizzy. Mustering all his strength up, he pushes on.

He thanks Eywa under his breath when he sets you down, still feeling the warmth on his shoulders where you once were. He hums softly as he grabs a mask, fiddling with the annoying thing as he places it over his head. He watches as you happily rip off your mask, rubbing at the red lines it left behind on your face. The lab is empty, everyone out for the night, likely sleeping up at high camp with the Avatar lab. Neteyam follows you loosely as you wander around, eventually slipping into a room. It’s small, for Neteyam. However, for you, the bed is giant as you plop dead in the middle of it. 

“Neteyammm,” You sing-song to him, beckoning him over on the small bed. He curls and concorts, knees coming up as you lay almost encircled by him. Your face is engulfed in a smile, hands reaching up to play with his hair. “Maybe after I become a warrior I’ll rebraid your hair. You’ve been so busy.” You mumble softly, continuing to play softly with it. Your fingers brush over his kuru, a shudder running down his spine before he can stop it. You’re so close, smell so good, so warm, it makes him 100% more sensitive, he thinks. “Sorry, sorry,” Your hands retract just as fast as his reaction happened. 

“No, no, it’s okay.” He reacts, stopping your hand before it has the chance to fully leave his head. “It’s okay, it’s not bad. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re curious, it’s okay.” 

“Neteyam,”

“It’s okay,” He smiles softly, gently placing your hand back where it once was. He encourages you to do whatever you’d like, bending to your every will. He would, he does. Another shudder runs down his spine when your little hands graze over it once more, goosebumps spreading along his skin. He can see the apprehension on your face, uncertainty. “It doesn’t hurt, syulang. It’s just sensitive, a new feeling.” He hums, pressing his face into your neck, hiding the blush that begins to spread across his face and ears. 

You fill up his senses entirely, and he likes it. He wants you to. He bites back a softly whimper when your fingers trail down the braid, nose flat against your skin as he inhales. He can feel you warm up, feel himself warm up as well. His kuru seeks out your touch almost, wrapping around your fingers before you even realize it. Trying to make some form of tsaheylu, likely. Your fingers twitch slightly through the exposed part of his nerves, gaining confidence as you brush through them carefully, watching for any pained noises. Neteyam cant bite back the whimper when you carefully wrap your fingers around it, entangling back. He pitifully moans against your skin, embarrassment coursing through his veins as he refuses to meet your eyes. 

“You need to rest, mighty.” Neyetam hums against your skin, afraid if he glances into your eyes now it would be too much for him, he’d give in. Another shiver runs, this time just from the thought of you, your skin, the proximity of your bodies as he curls around your form on the bed. “Let’s rest for tomorrow.” He can feel you nod, carefully moving your hands away from his kuru. He’s about to mourn the loss of contact, maybe even complain, before you’re running your fingers with his braids, holding his head close. Everything is good. 

You thank Eywa for the blessing that makes Neteyam not look at you, you’d surely be read like a book. Face red, lips bitten bright red, slick with saliva. Thank Eywa. 

You wake up with dread, genuine dread. Terror racks your body the whole trip. Not at the thought of scaling the mountain, or climbing the vines. At the thought of failing. Neteyam has so much faith in you, you don’t know what you’d do if you were to fail. You can almost feel the disappointment rolling from him. Shaking the thought from your head, you continue climbing the hard rock, pulling yourself out of autopilot. Neteyam whoops every now and then, encouraging you and the other group of warriors you’ve traveled with. It's nice, knowing he’s close, but terrifying at the same time. 

As you come to the opening of the cave, just before you cross over, your heart drops. Seze comes into your view, landing and allowing Neteyam off. 

He presses his fingers to his forehead, greeting everyone in the surrounding area. You all follow along, greeting your future leader. “I will not be watching, I'll be on lookout. Just in case.” He announces to the group, watching as the dread still doesn’t leave your face. He announces you’ll go last, trying to make you feel better. It fails, miserably. But you don’t tell him. 

When it’s finally your turn, he comes back to the mountain, beginning to carefully walk you underneath the waterfall. People have failed today, scurrying back underneath the water in a desperate attempt to miss the near-death attack. They all come back ashamed, disappointed, and you’ve done your best to reassure them. Of course, some also succeeded, flying off with loud cheers and chants cheering them on. 

“Neteyam, if I think I’m going to die, I am going back.” It’s dead serious, eyes dead serious, as you stare back at him. You’re scared, and he knows it, but you’re trying desperately to hide it all. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, but I'm scared.” 

“I understand,” Neteyam nods, “I am not going further, I have to get back to Seze. I will be close,” You know he will, you know it. Carefully inching closer, most of the ikrans are already scattered, scared off by ten other hunters. The entire process is a blur, fear and adrenaline taking over your mind. You can barely remember what happened as you force your tsaheylu to connect, terrified pants calming out. 

You briefly hear Neteyam’s chants fill your ears, hands pressing against your face in excitement. “What happened?” It's a genuine question. You can’t remember. 

“Once you captured it, it did not fight. You didn’t have to lock it down.” He answers, a crazy look coming over his face as if he’s realizing something. As the adrenaline begins to mellow out, your brain begins working again. 

“I have to fly, Neteyam move,” You demand, his hands still carefully holding your head in his palms as he forces you to look at him. 

“Yes, yes. Fly, I’ll follow.” He smiles, ducking out of the way. He can hear the shriek that leaves your lips as you take off, the sound bouncing off the nearby rock. His feet are sprinting as quickly as possible over the wet rock, finding Seze and taking off just as quickly to search for you. You’re doing decent, still shaky, but alive when he finds you. You grieve the absence of a proper saddle and hold, Neteyam more than aware as he laughs at you. 

“IT'S HARD!” You scream over the wind, voice just barely making its way to his ears. 

“YOU DID IT!” He’s screaming back, a giant smile plastered across his face. The hours tick by quicker than he would’ve liked, signaling for you to follow as he leads you back to home tree. He supposes it’s because you went last, the time seemingly running past him. As you land in the top branches of the home tree, your unsteady legs buckle as you make contact with the mossy branch, toppling down. 

“I’m tired,” Is all you offer, disconnecting your kuru as you allow your ikran to perch wherever she pleases. Neteyam lets out a hearty laugh as he reaches to pick you back up. 

“You did it, I told you you were ready,” He smiles, the smile taking up his entire face. His arms wrap around you, pulling you into his embrace in a flurry. Your legs still feel weak, but you muster enough strength to wrap your arms back around him. “Come, we must meet with the others for dinner, announce it to the clan,” He blurts, excitement running through his veins for you. A giant smile spreads across your face as you agree, following him down with interlocked pinkies. 

As you make it down, Neteyam lets out a loud whoop, announcing your success. Cheers and chants follow, everyone beginning to congratulate and praise you. Your official ceremony will be held in a week, commemorating and celebrating your achievement of having your place within the people. Neteyam is busy telling everyone the story, voice bubbling with excitement, growing in volume as he gets to the good parts. You beam beside him, listening. You couldn’t tell it anyway, you partially blanked. 

Some of the elder members of the clan have a look you can’t quite decipher, unsure of what it means. You choose not to ask, scared of getting an answer you don’t actually want. For once, you choose ignorance. 

Eventually the commotion begins to die down, everyone beginning to eat as usual. Neteyam practically begs you to eat with them as always, but Neytiri has the same look that so many others have given you. “Thank you, Nete, but I’m really worn out,” You offer softly, placing your hand on his bicep to try and calm him. He offers you a sad, kicked puppy look, but it didn’t work. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” You smile, beginning to make your way back to the hammocks. 

“Child,'' Neytiri speaks softly once you depart, swooping Neteyam away for a brief moment. He knows he’s going to get some sort of lecture, good or bad, so he follows without saying another word. “She is special, no?” She asks, plain and simple. They both know the answer to this, Neteyam’s ears pinning in worry. 

“…No.” Fear leads him as he lies. 

“Neteyam.” It is kind but firm. 

“She has something.” Is all he offers. He doesn’t know what it really is, but he knows it’s something. “Does that matter?” He avoids her gaze in worry. 

“No, no. It doesn't matter. But it's something to be noted and watched, you know that.” She speaks, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. “Is she something special…to you?” She asks delicately, placing a careful hand over his heart as she asks. 

“I'm…not sure.” He answers honestly. 

Neytiri nods. She also knows the answer to that question, but figured she’d ask anyway. “Come, my child, let’s eat.” She smiles warmly, leading him back. He earns a lot of “ouuuus” from his siblings when he gets back, assuming he got in trouble. 

He hisses softly, resuming his natural place with his family as he begins eating. 

The days once again fly by before he can even think too long about it, a sturmbeest hunt following just days after your iknimaya. 

“Come with us, Y/n,” Neteyam pleads alongside Lo’ak, begging you to come to the hunt with them. Your small human frame is still wiping the sleep from your eyes, glaring up at him as you devour your fruit. You pop your mask back on as you chew, the mask becoming more and more frustrating as you grow accustomed to your Avatar body. 

“I can't hunt and fly at the same time, I'm not good at flying yet.” You answer genuinely, allowing your neck to relax as you look down, no longer peering up. 

“You can be our lookout,” Lo’ak offers, also wanting you desperately to come along. He knows he hasn’t talked to you much, and as he watches his brother fall head over heels for you, he’s determined to grow closer. 

You huff loudly, eyes still all squinty from sleep. You struggle up to your feet, the two blue boys giant next to you. “I'll meet you guys by the ikrans,” You whine, beginning to lazily make your way to the labs for link. 

“Yay yay yay!” Lo’ak and Neteyam chant, easily lifting you and absolutely spriting you to the labs. You scream and laugh, body jostled around as if you weighed absolutely nothing to them. Your ribs hurt from laughing as they arrive at the shack, placing you down in front of the front door. They usher you inside. 

“We’ll be at the tree,” Neteyam smiles, waving as you step inside. They both take off before the door even closes all the way. You can only laugh as you imagine them going crazy, sprinting up the tree branches. Just as you imagined, when you finally get up there, both boys are panting and disheveled, bowed over at the hips as they fight for air. 

“Skxawngs,” You laugh wildly, a giant smile on your face as you call your ikran down. She’s calm as you connect, quickly rising and falling backwards as you wait for the other two. 

The hunt goes smoothly as possible. Some shots are always missed, some Navi and their pa’li are always knocked over, some sturmbeests are wounded but not killed, always a tragedy. You watch Neteyam and Lo’ak very closely, terrified that one of them was going to get themselves in some sort of trouble or hurt. Neteyam lands a hit on one, the arrow not deep enough to kill the giant male just get. You’re a considerable distance ahead, flying further in front. 

“Y/N, SHOOT! THE BIG MALE!” His voice screams to you, wanting to put the animal down with as little pain as possible. You let out an annoyed growl as you draw your bow as quickly as possible, using the wind to whip back as quickly as possible. Your arrow is aimed and shot quickly, the male about to run past where you’re flying, charging wildly. Your arrow hits on the same area, successfully knocking the prize winner down. 

You, Neteyam, and Lo’ak cheer loudly, flying quickly next to one another as the adrenaline courses through your veins. Lo’ak screams in english, Neteyam in Navi, and you in a weird mix of the two. You're met by the people with loud calls and cheers, celebration soon to be underway as you bring in the prize kills. 

“Y/n, come to the ceremony with me tonight.” Neteyam calls you softly as you feed your ikran, tending carefully to her. He watches as you loosen the saddle and reins, allowing your ikran to have more ability and flexibility while you’re not riding. 

“The ceremony, with you? Are you courting me?” You chuckle softly. You know the culture, he knows you know the culture. Even at your accusation, the both of you giggle and brush it aside. 

“You? Of course not. I'm giving you the gracious opportunity to take your Avatar to a ceremony, and just so happen to go with the clan leader's son.” 

“Uhhhh huh.” 

“Seriously, you’d be missing out if you don’t.” 

“Fine, I suppose I will.” 

The night is hectic, fermented juice being passed around like no one’s business, dance, games, and food all being shared among the clans members. You’re a topic of conversation, everyone inquiring about your appearance in your Avatar and not how you normally show up. Even still, it’s a good time. Everything goes generally as planned, until Tarsen approaches you later in the night, smooth voice talking with you. 

He's sweet, and you suppose he’s just as accomplished as Neteyam in terms of earning their place within the clan. You know he’s respectful and hardworking, but besides that you’ve never really talked to him. 

“You look very beautiful tonight.” A giant smile spreads across your face before you even have a chance to stop it fully. “Please, allow me to get a drink with you.” You have no chance in hell, nodding like an idiot as he takes your hand to help you up off your seat. The drinks are strong, making you warm in seconds flat. 

“How is the ceremony going for you, Tarsem?” You smile softly, turning to listen to his answer. He steps a bit closer as he talks to you, leaning forward to tell you about his day in your ear. There’s small goosebumps spreading across your arms from the proximity, listening nevertheless to him. It takes a lot of effort to not jump when his tail comes to wrap around your waist, a classic courting gesture. He's bragging to you about his kill in the hunt, and your mind begins to wander to yours and Neteyam’s joint kill. 

“Y/n?” You turn to find the voice, losing your balance temporarily as you search. “Can I have this dance?” Neteyam appears out of nowhere, standing up straighter and broad in front of you. 

“Nete! Of course!” Once again, your balance falters as you step towards him. You quickly mumble a string of apologies to Tarsem, promising to come back as you excuse yourself from him. Neteyam’s chest rumbles as you fall towards him, finally breaking free of Tarsem’s hold on your waist. “Let's go!” 

He waits until you get away from the table to speak once again, “Are you drunk? You’ve been drinking?” 

“Yes, well no. Tarsem wanted to drink with me, but that’s it.” You struggle, beginning to make your way over to the clan's traditional dance line. Your hand reaches for Neteyam, pulling him along to follow. He stands in place, solid as a rock despite your pleading. Your costume makes soft clicking sounds as the beads and feathers move, a pretty hanging assortment that Neteyam had gifted you. Before arriving at the ceremony, you realized you had no ceremony outfits for your Avatar, only for your human body. It sits on your shoulders, connecting at your wrists to almost resemble wings hanging down. 

“And his tail?” His jaw is clenched hard. 

“Neteyam? What’s wrong?” You finally give up trying to pull him to the dance, it’s clear he doesn’t actually care to dance at this moment. There's a small frown on your face that Neteyam threatens to crumble under. He pulls his composure together, reaching out and pulling you close by your elbow. 

“He was courting after you, and you let him.” Neteyam mumbles, eyes searching yours for answers. 

“I didn't think you’d mind…you said we were just going to give me a chance to use my Avatar, Nete.” You sigh, confusion evident. “You’re confusing me, really badly. I don't understand why you’re upset. Please, can we just dance??” 

Neteyam once again doesn’t budge. Even in your Avatar body, his strength easily overpowers yours and he’s suddenly an unmoving force. The two of you are away from the crowd, able to talk more freely and hide from any peering eyes. “Would you have continued?” Neteyam grits, unable to hold eye contact with you as he peers down. 

“What do you mean? What are you accusing me of?” 

“Would you have mated?” 

“Neteyam! What are you on about?” You slur your speech, balance losing temporarily as you fall forward into him. He catches you despite technically being upset. “I’m not mating with anybody, the person I want doesn't want me. He told me so today,” You drunkenly babble, arms wrapping around his neck as you hold yourself up. “Told me he won’t go to the ceremony with me in that way, doesn’t want to court me.” Your costume tangles with him as his arms come to wrap around your waist, the proximity going to his head. 

“He told you that, huh?” Neteyam feels his face heat, knowing who you’re talking about. You lift slightly onto your tiptoes, pushing yourself closer against his chest. “I think you should tell him that.” 

“Hmmm, I don’t know,” Your words came out mumbled, “He’s a really busy guy, you know? Don’t wanna be an inconvenience.” You continue, and Neteyam can feel his heart contract a bit. 

“You’re not an inconvenience.” 

“Hmmm,” You hum, goosebumps sprouting against his skin. “Can we dance, Nete. Please?” You ask again, beginning to untangle yourself from him. He mourns the loss of closeness, holding tight to your hand in his. Your face is bright pink, but you still lock eyes with him. “Come, let’s dance in the ceremony,” You softly pull, this time Neteyam moves with, giving in. The two of you dance and sing, play some of the games, share food as you begin to settle down for the night. You’re holding the leaf on your lap, you and Neteyam both picking from it here and there. 

Unknown to you, Tarsem is making his way over, ready to ask about your promise of returning to him. Neteyam locks eyes, giving him a heavy glare that’s almost unmistakable even in an inebriated state. To solidify his claim, he’s moving closer to you, legs now pressed together, his arm wrapping around your shoulder. He gets the message loud and clear, turning around and beginning to make his way elsewhere. 

“Nete, I’m tired,” You call his attention back without realizing, head falling onto his shoulder. “Can I go back to home tree? You can stay if you need to, future Olo'eyktan,” You smile, beginning to stand as you hand him the leaf in case he’s sticking around. “I’ll see you for our lessons, yeah?” 

“I’ll walk you back,” He’s quick to offer, wanting to make sure you get back safely, and by yourself. Neteyam does as promised, safely walking you back to home tree to allow your Avatar to rest. He thinks hard, would your human body remember what you said and did? Are you going to steer clear of him now? You’re beyond wobbly, scaring Neteyam half to death as you wobble side to side on the tree branches. Your body has enough muscle memory to easily guide you to the hammock, still, Neteyam gasps hard as you freely jump into an open one. “Oh Eywa! Y/n!” He scolds. 

You laugh softly, peering up at him. “Goodnight, Nete. Get back safe okay?” You lazily smile, gently pulling at the edge of the leaf to cover yourself. You’re out quickly, body exhausted. Neteyam is now racing on foot to the lab to check on human you. 

“Y/n?” He calls as he walks through the lab, struggling with the mask as he holds it. 

“Neteyam? You should probably get back to the ceremony,” You mumble, stretching your legs and arms out. He smiles softly as the beads clink together, “People are probably waiting on you.” 

“Yeah, but you should get some rest. I wanted to make sure you’re okay, you drank a lot.” 

“I suppose it doesn’t cross over, that’d be weird if it did. I don’t remember much though,” You smile, a bit embarrassed that you can’t remember the ceremony that Neteyam took you to. 

“I see, I see.” He nods, “Here, I’ll run you up to home tree so you can get some sleep.” Neteyam smiles as he offers, turning around and squatting to offer his back. You climb on, wrapping your legs around his torso as much as possible given his size. Neteyam takes you there easily, jumping, climbing, and scaling the tree with little to no difference with you on him. He's careful as he climbs into a leaf, allowing you to climb off of his back. You laugh as he wobbles in it as he tries to get up around you. 

“Careful, you’ll knock both of us out,” You smile, grabbing his arm where he’s trying to push himself up without leaning too far to one side. He can only balance with both arms, awkwardly placed on either side of your head, your smaller frame engulfed by his much bigger one. 

Neteyam makes the mistake of looking, his body easily covering yours entirely, your face bright red as you bite on your lips, avoiding eye contact. Your small hand grips hard as you balance yourself, not helping. He's so close he can practically smell the heat rolling off of you. “Sorry, Sorry! I’m just, this is, it’s fragile,” He stutters, his own face warming. He wants to stay here, like this, with you. He's sure you can see the blush on his ears, stuttering like an idiot when he accidentally looks in between both of your bodies. But he can’t, so he reluctantly climbs away, barely making it to the tree branch. “I’ll see you soon,” He grits out, closing the hammock for you. 

Neteyam knows he should go back to the ceremony, make his rounds as the chief's son. But he has a bigger issue at hand, said issue? In between his legs. 

Your’s and the other warrior’s ceremony is quick to come, your body being painted traditionally for it. White paint is drug along your torso and face, finger paths making pretty even lines. You begged Kiri to help you, knowing she’d be the most careful and intricate. As she drags her fingers over your lips, the both of you giggle wildly. Tuk, who joined the both of you for fun, stares at you with stars in her eyes. 

“Y/n, I have a gift for you,” Kiri speaks, springing up and running off. She comes back quickly. She comes back with a decently sized box. “It’s for tonight.” 

Your heart aches as you open it, a giant smile spread across your face. “You didn’t have to-“ 

“It's not just from me.” 

Its beautiful ceremonial pieces, bottoms, a top, accessories galore, and a few pieces to decorate your hair with. “Most were woven and made by Neteyam,” Kiri almost whispers, a knowing smile spread across her face at the confession. 

“I see…” You smile, trying to avoid the blush that threatens to come across you. Kiri is very receptive, even more so to you since she’s known you for so long. “They’re beautiful, I’ll be sure to talk to him and thank him later tonight,” 

Kiri smiles, “I'm sure he’d like that a lot.” She nods, climbing to her feet. She offers her hands, helping you up. “Me and Tuk will leave you to get ready,” 

You thank her repeatedly as she leaves. You kiss the top of Tuk’s head goodbye when she complains about leaving, promising her you’ll see her later. Getting changed makes your stomach flip wildly, nerves beginning to set in for the night. Everyone is busy with their preparations, running wildly around the tree. Dressed and painted, you make your way down. 

Neteyam spots you immediately, having to run off to help with preparations. His mind is filled with you, just the brief glimpse he caught. He tells himself to distance himself, too scared that once he’s in your grasp he won’t be able to break himself away. He watches the entire night, eyes never once leaving your frame. Hours fly by like minutes, too entranced in the way you dance, speak, sing, smile, interact, everything about you. You can feel his stare, burning into your skin. He watches as you join in the dances, accept praise and congratulations, turn down courting and mate offers left and right. His eyes never leave once. 

“Sa’nu,” Neteyam soft voice catches Neytiri’s attention, quickly walking off with him. Far enough away from everyone else, Neteyam speaks freely. “I am going to ask Y/n to be my mate tonight.” His voice is firm and strong. He's not asking in the slightest, he is telling her. 

Neytiri nods softly, fighting the smile that pulls at the corner of her lips. “She will make a good mate for you, my eldest.” He smiles, reaching to softly cup his face. 

Neteyam nods, “I know.” The two of them walk back to the party, Neteyam standing much stronger, more confident as he searches for you once again. 

“Syulang,” Neteyam calls, watching as your head immediately turns towards him. His heart beats hard. “Are you having fun?” He asks softly when you make your way over, a glow radiating off of you. 

“Yes, I am. Are you having fun?” You smile back, sitting with him on one of the logs. 

“Yes, I am.” He nods. 

“Watching me? Because I haven't seen you do much else,” You tease softly, leaning forward towards him as you speak. It’s the truth, he hasn’t done much else. 

“Yes, making sure you’re safe,” He nods, coming up with an excuse that’s semi-believable. 

“My warrior, forever and always being my lookout,” You grin at him, thinking about when he first promised to be your extra set of eyes, keeping you out of harm's reach. A couple of braids fall from behind his ear as he shuffles slightly. Before you’re thinking, you reach forward, gently tucking them behind his ear. 

The grin on his face is irreplaceable, his hand gently reaching for your wrist before you can pull away. He softly pulls your hand down, kissing the pads of your fingers softly. “Y/n? I want to show you something, whenever you’re ready to go.” He gently releases your wrist after pressing another kiss to your pinky, your extra finger that makes you different. 

Your mind goes numb, essentially, eyes widening as you stare at the man in front of you. “Ye-yes. I was going to get going soon anyway,” You mumble, not entirely the truth but you digress. He grins, a love-sick grin as he’s the first to get up. He offers his palm, smiling even more when you take it. 

“You are one of the people now, physically and spiritually now.” Neteyam begins as the two of you run through the forest, taking turns passing one another in brief sprints. The two of you laugh like dummies, leaping and hopping over logs. “Eywa has heard you, acknowledged you.” He continues, slowing his pace when he approaches his destination. It's the tree of voices, a place you know from stories and pictures. You’ve never visited yourself, never being able to connect or truly listen. “These trees are our people. We connect with them through here, hear their voices, listen to their stories.” Neteyam speaks softly as he walks through the trees. “It is one of our most sacred places. It is our memories, our history.” 

Neteyam’s voice is honey to your ears, watching his actions closely. His movements stop, reaching to gather a few of the branches and bringing them to himself. Reaching for his braid, he connects his tswin. You watch him, unsure of if you should follow. Neteyam smiles, nodding towards you to follow when you don’t immediately mirror him. You follow, connecting. It’s different than anything else, your pupils grow giant, listening to the voices, stories, songs. Goosebumps grow all along your body, eyes falling closed as you listen to the advice of mothers passed down for thousands of generations. 

“Y/n,” Neteyam speaks softly, hands gently taking your elbows in his hold. Your eyes peel open, gently pulling your kuru away. “I have a gift for you,” 

“Neteyam-“ 

“It’s already made.” He uses your own logic against you from the past. You giggle softly, following him to the soft grass when he sits. He tenderly presents a necklace in his palms, holding it with both hands as he presents it to you. “It’s for you, marking our training together.” Neteyam explains nervously, feeling his tail flick wildly behind him in anxiety. 

“You shouldn’t have, you already made me my outfit Nete.” Your voice grows soft as you scooch closer to him, leaning in to examine the necklace in his hands. 

“This is the first day, where we spent all day in the forest. This is when you learned archery, your first clean kill, bonding with Midnight, your iknimaya, your kill in the sturmbeest festival, your celebration tonight.” He explains each of the beads, face warming as you continue to draw closer to one another. There's one remaining, a soft pink stone. 

“Which is this one?” You ask, reaching and pointing. 

“This one…is to represent tonight,” Neteyam mumbles, extremely soft. Your eyes catch one another’s for a brief moment, breaking off when you feel the heat rise to your cheeks. “The trees, the people, us.” 

“Neteyam, it’s too sweet,” Your voice is smooth and heavenly to him, hands holding his bicep firmly. You then release him, turning your back so he can place it onto you. His touch makes goosebumps spread anywhere they brush, a shudder going down your spine. Your fingers reach to feel it, “It’s perfect, Nete,” You mumble as you turn back and face him. Your hands find his shoulders naturally, eyes connecting. 

“I see you, Y/n.” He mumbles, hands once again falling to hold your arms where they rest on him. 

“Neteyam, you see me, I see you.” You mumble softly, your hands gently cupping his face in your palms as you shuffle closer to where he’s kneeled. He smiles, leaning his head into your hold and almost nuzzling into you. There's a rumble in his chest, a purr as you always call it, as he feels so completely intent in your hold. He always denies purring with a passion when anyone else brings it up, but you, sure, he’d purr for you. “Nete, I see you.” You speak again, sitting so close that your knees are between one another. 

“You’ve grown up here, you know the culture. After coming of age, all of the people are permitted to make their bow or weapon, and find their mate if they wish to." Neteyam speaks softly to you, pressing his forehead to yours. “You may do this as you wish, with whoever you wish.” Neteyam’s chest tightens as his mind goes to Tarsem. 

“With whoever I wish?” You ask softly, pulling your head back slightly. Neteyam looks confused, eyes squinting in confusion at your move. “What are the conditions of, “whoever?” I feel that some people are definitely off limits.”

“Who is off limits to you?” Neteyam mumbles, his hands dropping down from your elbows to the ground behind him, holding his torso up. 

“Hmmmm,” You pretend to think for a couple of moments, tapping your chin as Neteyam makes himself comfortable, now sitting as he rests on his palms. He looks especially handsome, the smallest look of smugness on his face. He’s almost beckoning you closer, inviting you onto his lap as he sprawls out in front of you. “Olo'eyktan, he’s definitely off limits. Hmmm, I think the future Olo'eyktan is also off limits.” 

“Yeah? Did he tell you that it’s off limits?” His confidence grows even more, chest booming. Finally, he reaches forward, hands finding your waist and finally pulling you close once more. Your knees are on either side of his thighs, hovering over his lap. “I think that the future Olo'eyktan has already chosen his mate though, a very special person, someone who he didn’t think he’d be with right now.” Neteyam speaks gently as he continues to pull you close, allowing you to sit on his lap. 

“So if he’s already chosen his mate, then he IS off limits.” You continue the game you’re playing, a giant smile spread across your face as your thumb rubs along his cheek. Finally caving in, you speak again “You really think the future Olo'eyktan would want to be with me? A little human?” You giggle like a school girl gossiping, pretending that you weren’t talking directly to him. 

“I think he would, definitely. In fact, I know he would.” Neteyam speaks, leaning forward and gently connecting your lips. You pause for a moment to relish in the moment, soft lips pressed against one another, breathing mixing together. You’re the first to move, sliding your lips against his. You can feel the rumbling growing in Neteyam’s chest, the purring that you love so much coming out. Moving closer, your chests press flush together, his arms wrapping around your back. 

The kiss consumes you, lights your skin on fire as his palms trail along your skin. It feels like your oxygen has been stolen from your lungs, Neteyam greedily taking it as he kisses you harder. Your hands find the back of his head, pulling him closer if it’s even possible at this point. You break the kiss, panting heavily as you fight to fill your lungs with air. 

“Nete, I can't. I can't be Tsahìk, I cannot lead the people.” You pull away, hands still cupping his face. Neteyam presses his cheek into your hold, a gentle smile plastered across his face. Your heart aches, thumbs gently rubbing across his cheeks. “You should look elsewhere-“

“You have a bond with Eywa, I see her with you all the time. You and the forest, her children, your mount, they are all special. You can. You have helped my grandmother from the day she allowed you to, you know how to heal and help. But if you don’t wish to, we will be simple weavers together-“ 

“Don’t.” Your voice cuts him off.

“Okay, hunters,”

“Neteyam!” 

“Songwriters?” 

“You have worked your whole life training, ensuring your place as leader. You will likely take over in just a few years time. I will not let you throw it away for me.” 

“I don't want to lead the people, if not with you.” He answers completely honestly, leaning forward to press your forehead together. “That life is not worth living.” His eyes fall closed as he relishes the feeling of your hold, holding him so closely, so delicately. “It is not the life I want. I don’t want to lead if you’re not by my side.” 

“Only if you want to, no pressure,” Neteyam mumbles against your lips. One of his palms leaves your skin, instead beginning to reach behind him for his tswin. He pulls it over his shoulder, resting it there and waiting for your reaction. Reaching back for yours, it’s a choice you’ve already made long before now. “Y/n, I see you.” Neteyam mumbles, trailing down his braid and watching as you mirror him. “I see you, I see every form of you, every body, my sweet mate.'' Connecting your kuru’s sends electricity down your spine, both of your pupils dilating as the connection is sealed, releasing your kurus. 

“Neteyam,” You mumble, hands immediately wrapping themselves around him and pulling him as close as possible. Your breathing is heavy, chest heaving against his as you stare into his eyes, both of your pupils giant. Your lips crash together, body seated securely on Neteyam’s lap as he pulls you close. “I need you, haaa fuck, I need you Neteyam.” You whine softly against his lips, pulling roughly on the ties around his hips. 

“I know, paskalin, I know.” Neteyam mumbles against your lips, reaching down to pull your hands back up. He places a soft kiss on your palm, “Relax, pretty. Wanna make you feel good, please you.” Neteyam speaks, hands wrapping around to hold your back. He's extremely strong, pushing both of your weights up to gently place you on your back. 

“Neteyam,” You whine, reaching back to try to pull at his ties. He easily dodges your prying fingers, pinning your hands to the soft moss underneath you. 

“Patience, Y/n,” He speaks softly but firm, “Want to do it right, want to mate you right,” He mumbles, beginning to kiss along your skin. An involuntarily whimper leaves when he makes his way down your neck, slowly getting closer and closer to where you need his touch. You pull softly on his grip, unable to break it. “Make you feel good, so you never want anyone else,”

“I don’t, never Neteyam,” Your voice breaks off into a whine as he nips at the soft flesh on your chest, reaching to untie your top. Goosebumps spread across your skin as he touches as he pleases, hands trailing from your thighs, up to your breast, and then back down to your thighs. Teasing, he’s teasing you. You whine as you squeeze his hips in between your thighs, pulling him closer. “I’ve only ever wanted you.” 

“You mean that?” He asks softly as he carefully takes a breast in his mouth, tongue gently lapping. He watches your reaction, gauges what you don’t like and do, and adjusts all of his movements perfectly. As he nips, a small cry falls past his lips. “You didn’t answer me, yawne.”

“Yes, yes I mean that.” You answer, body steadily heating as he makes his way in between your thighs, kneading the soft flesh. 

“So soft.” He bums to you, placing his head on your thighs as if they were a pillow. He's still teasing, unmoving as he looks up at you from where you want him. 

“Nete,” Your voice breaks, reaching down to pull softly at his braids, growing impatient. His palms rub along your skin soothingly, moving from your outer thighs, up to your hips where he grabs and holds. “Please, take it off,” You plead as be toys with the ties on the side of your hip, twirling them around his finger. 

“Of course, pretty.” Neteyam finally caves in, pulling your loincloth off carefully. You feel his heartbeat increase, pupils growing even more. Your adrenaline masks your embarrassment, wanting him more than ever. Neteyam peers up at you, a smirk playing on his lips as he watches your reaction. His breath fans over you, making your thighs tighten where they sit on his shoulders. “So pretty, so beautiful.” He mumbles, lightly licking along your heat. 

You can feel the lightning shoot up your back, a moan ripping through your throat. You can feel him inhale hard, nose pressed flat against your skin as he breathes in deeply. “Neteyam! Don’t!”

“Too good,” He ignores you, breathing in your scent in deep, greedy gulps. He ignores your whining, face buried as deep as possible into your cunt. 

“Neteyam, you need to rel-AH!” His arms wrap tight around your waist, dragging you along the ground. He pulls your hips easily up to his face, now kneeling and sitting on his feet. “Eywa, Nete,” A moan travels through the trees as you balance on your upper back, hands reaching down to grab his knees to try and talk sense into him. Your nails dig where they can reach, Neteyam lost to you as he licks, sucks, and flicks along your clit with ease you would expect from someone experienced. 

“Need you,” He moans into your pussy, only worsening your circumstances as he sends you closer to the edge. He moans into you, enjoying eating you out as if he was being pleasured currently. Your moans are impossible to hold back, whimpering, moaning, and crying out his name. “Taste better than, fuck, anything I’ve ever bad,” He growls, tightening his hold, folding his arms more. 

It’s ridiculous, how you’re positioned, completely helpless from his assault. Your knees are resting on his shoulder, accidentally flexing and sending you grinding against his face, a loud moan coming from both of you. “Do it again, ride my face,” Neteyam growls softly. 

You whimper as you do so, flexing your legs and consistently pulling your pussy across his face. When your legs begin shaking too badly to continue at the same pace, he picks up the slack for you. “Going to cum,” You cry, nails digging in deeper, beginning to break skin. He doesn’t even register the pain, desperate to get you there. 

“Cum, cum on my tongue,” He growls, never slowing his ministrations. You whimper as he pushes you closer and closer, legs beginning to tighten around his head. 

“Cumming, Nete,” You cry, head falling against the soft moss as you do so. Your legs tighten around his head, holding him there as you ride out the orgasm. They finally loosen when the overstimulation kicks in, unable to remain locked down. 

“So good, so pretty for me,” Neteyam coos, carefully moving your body so you’re once again laying flat on the ground. His palms soothe over your thighs, rubbing the shakes out where they sit around his hips. “So good, such a perfect mate for me, such a perfect girl,” He mumbles. 

“Nete, need you,” You whine, using the last bit of your strength to sit up. Your hands push softly at his shoulders, switching the positions as you straddle his hips once more. His loin cloth is stretched, body wanting you more than he could ever tell you. Your lips crash against his, tasting yourself on his face. Heat immediately spreads across your cheeks, slight embarrassment, as you fumble with his ties. This time, he lets you. 

“You okay, pretty?” Neteyam coos as you untie him, eyes never leaving your face. His hands slide along your hips, making their way in between your thighs once again. “Are you going to be able to take me, hmm?” His voice has a slight teasing tone, but you know there’s concern underneath it as well. Your head falls forward as he slowly sinks a finger into your heat, allowing your face to nestle in his shoulder. 

“I want you, Neteyam. I want your cock,” You complain softly, body aching with want. 

“I know, but I don't want you to hurt yourself,'' Neteyam has a purr rumbling in his chest. He cares for you, so deeply, even as he tortures himself with the amount of restraint he’s exercising. Another whine is pulled past your lips as another finger slips in, curling to hit just right. “There it is, there you go,” Neteyam coos as you turn to putty in his hold, fingers exactly where you need him. He stretches you thoroughly, to his liking. Pleasure shoots through your spine, mind melting. “Okay, you got this,” He smiles at you, fingers rubbing comforting circles on your hips. 

Your shaky hands line him up, excitement and nerves shooting through your body. Your breathing is uneven as you sink down, panting as you sink down to the base, hips pressed together. “Fuck, fuck,” Neteyam pants, one of his hands holding your hips and encouraging you to grind against him. It draws soft moans from the two of you, the spiritual and physical connection between the two of you making your mind feel fuzzy, almost numb. “You’re doing so good for me, my sweet mate. Taking me so well, taking it so well.” He encourages, gently rocking up into you. 

“My mate, my mighty warrior.” You pant, gathering all of the strength you still have to rock yourself along his cock, doing your best to take all of him each time. Neteyam feels feral as you pant on top of him, thighs shaking on either side of his hips. Only he can make you feel like this, only he can see you in this state, all for him. You’re taking him so well, so warm and welcoming as you coax him inside with each thrust. You’re so close, holding his body completely flush against yours. All of his senses are full of you, one hand holding your back and the other has a death grip on your hip. 

“So good to me, all for me, only for me.” Neteyam continues to encourage you, your whimpers and mewls filling his ears as you hide in his shoulder. Possessiveness grows, consumes him as you shudder into him, his sweet mate. He's never felt like this, his skin hot, a strong desire growing in his chest. 

“Want to cum, Nete.” You’re so sensitive, so hot just because of him. You whimper, words slurred as you fight to think even the slightest bit straight. Your arms are wrapped around him for purchase, the only thing providing you stability as you grind down on his cock. Your small whimpers and moans fill your ears, making you flush red in embarrassment. Biting them back, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip is the best you can manage. Neteyam picks it up instantly, both due to your connection and his ears alerting him.

“What is it, my mate?” Neteyam draws, not able to use the term enough. “Not feeling good anymore?” The confidence and smugness oozes from each work, he knows the answers to his questions before he even asks. “Don’t want to give me your little whines anymore?” Neteyam knows what he’s doing, punctuating the end of his sentence with a gentle snap up of his hips. A broken sob falls from your lips, mewls and whines quickly following it. “There she is, are you going to come for me? Let me hear you, yawne. Use me to make yourself feel good, pretty.” 

His voice is intoxicating, feels like you’re on drugs as you pant and whine on top of him. Your hips grind down, no longer bouncing as you whimper as his tip repeatedly hits where you want him, where you need him. Neteyam happily allows you, fondness growing stronger as you do as you please, following his instructions. It doesn’t feel as good to him this way, but god damn it, seeing you in this state easily makes up for it. 

“Feels good, hm?” He asks softly, words muffled by your hair as you pull him close. One hand slides down, gently circling the little bud that he knows makes you tick. 

“Ah, ah, gonna cum for you, Nete,” Your voice mewls, soft pants breaking up your words as you ride him how you like. Your thighs are shaking worse now, chasing your high like nothing else matters. “Can I cum, please?” 

“Of course,” His abs clench hard as he fights off his orgasm, your pussy clenching hard around him as you become more sensitive. His restraint is wearing thin, patience being tested like never before. As you teeter closer, his fingers circle just the slightest bit faster. And you’re cumming around him, hard. His own lips part with a moan as you squeeze his length, shaky thighs continuing to move as your determination to ride it out takes over. Your pants fill his senses, heartbeat filling his own chest, minds molding together. 

Eventually, your hips slow, one hand quickly grabbing and pulling his wrist away from your heat. “Nete,” You whimper, squeezing around him. Your arms wrap around his back, chests flush together. “Want you to feel good,” 

“I am, yawne.” Neteyam smiles at you, rolling his hips up into you. “Wanted you to feel good, first.'' His voice is gentle as he maneuvers the both of you. Your back hits the ground once again, Neteyam still in between your thighs as he follows close. “Absolutely killing me, doing all I can to hold myself back,” A small growl rumbles through his chest, pressing his hips against you, filling you as deep as possible. “Absolutely losing it,” He growls as he pulls out, snapping his hips forward. You moan, loud. 

“Don’t hold back, feel good, Neteyam.” You whimper, his palms slipping underneath your thighs. Your breath catches as he hikes your legs up, hands meeting the bend of your knees as he folds you. 

“I'm sorry, yawne,” Neteyam moans softly, pressing his forehead against yours as he absolutely ravishes you. His hips snap hard into you, no longer holding back as he chases his own release. You moan loudly against his lips, not quite kissing, but lips brushing together. He groans and growls, eyes falling shut as he slams his hips into you, filling your cunt completely up each time. 

Your noises are unrelenting, unable to bite them back as pleasure shoots through your body with each thrust. Neteyam is feral, chasing the high that he’s edged himself off of for the last hour. “Neteyam, gonna cum, you feel too good,” You whimper, biting at your lips as you peel your eyes open to look at him. Your arms shakily move, clawing softly at his back. 

“Cum, cum for me.” Neteyam mumbles, “Gonna cum with you this time, okay paskalin?” He asks softly, pressing a shaky kiss to your cheek. His hips twitch and abs tighten as he focuses on how tight you’re wrapped around him, twitching and clenching down harder as you’re about to cum for him once more. “Gonna fill you up, okay? Put a future clan leader into you,” He groans harshly, feral, animalistic. “My baby, you’ll be a good mama for me,” 

“Nete, oh fuck,” You cry, cumming hard around his cock. A broken sob falls from your lips, face leaning forward. Before you even have a moment to think of it, your teeth sink deep into his shoulder, your mating bite. Neteyam shudders as you mark him, hips continuing as he fucks you through your orgasm, soon spilling into you. 

“Fuck, fuck yawne, good girl,” Neteyam groans, letting go of one of your legs and holding your head. He doesn’t pull you away, but relieves the strain on your neck as you bite into him. His hips slow, every now and then thrusting into you as he fucks his cum deeper into your pussy. 

You release your hold, pulling your fangs out of his skin. Laying back down, there’s blood and drool on your lips, eyes glazed over as you stare up at him. Neteyam lazily thrusts once or twice more, overstimulation kicking in before he’s slowly pulling out. “Paskalin, you okay?” He mumbles gently, carefully moving your legs to a more comfortable position. Kissing your forehead, you begin to come back, more aware of his words. “You did so well,”

“Neteyam, I see you,” You can’t help but smile at him. Your heart is so full, so fond, as your eyes water. “I love you,” It’s more human, Neteyam isn’t entirely familiar with it. 

“I love you too,” Regardless, he doesn’t miss a beat, “I see you.” Neteyam nuzzles his face into you, arms wrapping around your back as he lays down, pulling you close. “We are mated for life, I am with you now.”

little extra lol

A couple of days have passed since then, and Neteyam has never felt so secure and confident in his life. His father was a bit upset he didn’t get the run down before like his mother did, but nothing serious. Kiri and Lo’ak saw it coming, and Tuk? She’s just as excited as Neteyam. You’ve started your official Tsahìk training now, alongside copious amounts of support from the Sully family. 

While he is your #1 supporter, he can’t help but feel annoyed that he’s barely seen you the last couple of days. His mate, and they only meet after sunset for rest. He hasn’t even seen your little human body in days, always falling asleep with your Avatar and your human form staying at the lab (It’s easier, you start training extremely early in the morning.) 

He almost cries from relief when you wake him, small human body basically sitting on his chest. “Nete, I have a day off,” You grin, still shaking him slightly. The excitement quickly shoots south, but in a surprising way. He can feel your heartbeat, it’s as if you were back to the night you had officially become one. But you were human. 

“Y/n?” He mumbles, thinking he’s still half asleep. As he sits up and becomes more aware, he’s not imagining it. “I see you,” 

“I see you-“ 

“No, I see you.” He mumbles, placing his hand over his heart. “Like we’re connected, I can feel your heartbeat right now…” Neteyam thinks hard, and he thinks hard for hot minute, “Like, our tsaheylu works even in your human body, I feel you, sense you,” 

Neteyam’s mind runs fuzzy at the realization, big head falling into the crook of your neck and taking a deep, long inhale of your scent. He's suddenly way too aware of you sitting in his lap, small frame draped over his much, much larger one. “Y/n,” He groans, deep as his arms wrap around you, caging you in. His hands knead at your soft flesh, well-fed, healthy, fertile. His mind absolutely reels at the thought, the embodiment of fertility. 

“Neteyam, we can’t,” You mumble against his skin, voice close to his ear, goosebumps spreading. He knows why, he does. As his frame easily hides your entire body just with his torso, he knows. He’d break you, truly. “I can link with my-“ 

“No, no.” He shakes his head, palms groping at the soft meat of your thighs. He doesn’t want your Avatar, he wants you. He feels this body, he’s connected not with your bodies, but with you. The thought sends him. 

“Nete, I physically can't,” There’s humor in your words, a slight giggle as you pull away to peer at him. His pupils are giant, mind cloudy as he stares at you. You chuckle, hands pulling at your mask. With one deep breath, you pull it off. 

“What are you-“ His panicked tone is quickly cut off when your lips press against his, soft and careful. It doesn’t help his situation, lips so unbelievably soft where they’re connected with his own. His mind melts, eagerly kissing you back as if he was starved from it. He whines, a genuine sound, when you pull back, yanking your mask on quickly. 

“You worry a lot,”

“I worry for you,” Neteyam rolls his eyes. Maybe if he ignores you, and his unbelievable attraction for you, the tightness in his cloth will go away. It's all wishful thinking, impossible thinking, given how you’re currently straddling his thighs. “You have to give me a bit to calm down, yawne. I can't do it with you sitting like this,” He whines, growing uncomfortable with each passing second. 

“Why can’t I help you?” You whine, leaning forward to wrap your arms around his neck, a small pout on your face. 

“Because I’m scared I will lose it and hurt you,”

“You’d never hurt me, Nete,” It’s a genuine statement, both of you know it. “Not in a way I didn’t want, anyway,” 

“Yawne,” He groans, “Not helping.”

“C’mon, let’s go find somewhere private.” You almost have it in you to laugh at him when you climb off his lap, a genuine crazed look in his eyes. 

“Do you not feel it in this body?” Neteyam asks as he runs after you, picking you up to more easily scale home tree. You think for a couple of moments, shrugging. 

“I think I feel it all the time, I thought it was normal,” You answer him honestly, arms and legs wrapped around his body as he climbs and runs. His ikran meets him hastily, and he’s taking off before he even asks you if you’d like to sit on the saddle instead. 

“Maybe I couldn’t tell because I haven't seen you in this body in awhile,” He concludes as he lands, hoping down with you still death gripped to his back. “Been killing me, Y/n. It’s like torture, being away from you for so long,” He whines, immediately turning to wrap you in his hold when your feet touch the soft grass. He kneels carefully, more level with you as he continues the dramatics. “Missed your little human body tripping over sticks,” He teases, knowing the sticks are logs for you. His head finds itself against your chest, listening to the way your heart beats. 

“Oh the drama,” You laugh, making yourself comfortable when you sit down. “Can't kiss you in this body, it’s unfair,” You complain as you lay down, knowing Neteyam is soon to find his place in between your thighs. It takes almost no time, legs widening to accommodate the large Na’vi. 

“We can work out a system,” He really wants to kiss you, “Deep breath,” He barely lets you finish before he pulls the mask off, immediately slamming his lips against your own. He’s desperate and needy, the feeling only multiplying as you’re finally close. He can feel the heat in between your legs, making him lose his judgment. He kisses you as if his life depends on it for a bit, before his care for your well-being overrides his thoughts and he’s placing the mask back on. “Fuck, just missed you so much,” He grins, trailing down to your chest as he kisses along your sensitive and thin skin. It’s like torture when he trails down, his mind melting as his fingers trail over the edge of your own beaded cloth. 

“It’s okay Nete,” You’re quick to reassure, watching as he immediately takes the go ahead and unties it. Wasting no time at all, he genuinely wastes no time as his head immediately buries in between your legs. “NETEYAM, FUCK!” You yelp, his giant head occupying all of the space. He's starved, so starved, and he eats to reflect that. You’re cumming once then again, then again, and then- 

“One more for me paskalin, just too good, tastes too good, it’ll be the last one,” 

Once his face finds its way out, he’s absolutely covered in your arousal and cum. His fingers find his own cloth, an idea popping in his head, “Do you trust me, love?” 

“Of course,” He grins softly, allowing himself to finally be free of his constraint. He moans softly at that alone, so turned on, so drunk on you that his mind is definitely not working to its full capacitors. He whines loud as he slides in between your legs, big, angry cock easily slipping through your wet folds. You whimper as his tip brushes your sensitive clit, continuing to push past it until your hips are flush together. He moans, loud, when he looks down, angry cock just barely nudging at your breasts. 

“I'd break you, yawne,” He growls softly, sliding his hips back before snapping them forward, “I'd break this little body,” He lets out more of a whine when you squeeze your thighs together, giving him more friction, more touch. “But oh, you’d be so full, stuffed full of my cock,” He groans, shuddering slightly on top of you. 

“I know, Nete,” You whimper back softly, losing your mind as he fucks himself against your pussy, shuttering each time he slips into where your thighs squeeze. He genuinely would, likely fuck up your lungs and all vital organs in the process. 

You’re absolutely soaked from his touch, providing more than enough lubrication for him as he easily slides between your lips, constantly hitting your clit right where you need it. It’s obscene, the sounds it’s making, you would think he’s fucking into you. “Nete,” You whimper, hands pulling at his arms to try and get him closer. He obliges happily, leaning forward to press himself against

you. He whines loudly, cock in between either of your bodies. “Love you,”

“Love you too, paskalin,” He smiles softly, kissing the top of your head, “I’m gonna cum for you, hm?” He smiles, watching your face as you eagerly nod. “Deep breath for me, pretty girl,” He grins hard, a giant smile on his face as you follow his instructions. He carefully pulls your mask off, wasting no time in slamming his lips onto yours. He devours your whines, whimpers, and moans, greedily taking them as his hips continue to pump against you. He kisses you until he cums, getting lost in the feel of your lips against his. You whimper as you feel him moan into your mouth, hands beginning to press against his biceps. 

“My mate,” You whimper, reaching for his hand that still holds your mask. He quickly gets the message, placing it back onto your face. 

“Yawne, my girl,” He sighs softly, hips still grinding against yours as he rides out his high with you. “Need you to cum again,” He mumbles against your lips, knowing you weren’t able to cum with him. “Just one more, one more. This will be the last, I promise love,” He almost babbles against your skin, kissing it. 

“I can't, Neteyam,” You whine as his hands trail in between your legs, gently spreading your thighs to allow for more access. Your thighs are no match for his strength, whimpering gently when his fingers ghost across your clit. 

“You can, yawne, for me, please?” He grins softly, a bit of a smirk spreading across his face. The smile never leaves his face as your hands grip hard at his wrists, discoloring his skin from the pressure. Neteyam is obsessed with the way your skin flushes for him, puffy swollen lips parting as he fingers slide in between them. He could watch it for hours, sit here and please you for hours if you’d let him. 

A moan rips past your lips when two of his digits slip into your heat, filled to the brim from just his fingers. Your nails dig into his skin, clenching down around him almost impossibly tight. His eyes are narrowed in, mesmerized as his fingers disappear into you. Neteyam curls his fingers just right, an even louder moan. Your hips jerk hard, legs lifting and wrapping around his arms. “Feels too good,” You whine, thighs locking around him. 

“Cum for me, Y/n,” He groans, prying your legs apart and replacing it with his head. The pleasure is still too much, legs wrapping around his head as his mouth and fingers never cease for a second. 

“Gonna cum for you, gonna cum hard,” You groan, flexing slightly as you grind against his face. Your orgasm blinds you when it washes over you, legs shaking, chest rising and falling rapidly, stomach clenching hard as you rise up. You cum hard, squirting as Neteyam’s fingers still curl and grind into your soft walls. Neteyam has a crazed look on his face, eyes wide as he stares up at you. He's covered in your cum and arousal, just like you're covered in his currently. 

“Y/n,”

“Neteyam I’m sorry I’ve never done-“ 

“Do it again,”

“No, please, Nete,” You whimper loudly, as his fingers curl just right, pleasure washing over you just right. It takes the last bit of your energy, cumming all over his arm in waves as you shake in his hold. Your hands immediately pull his face out from your thighs as you calm him down. He slowly relents, gentle as he removes himself from you. 

“Thank you, my mate,” He smiles, “Love you so much,”

“Love you too,”

“Come, let’s go clean up,” He’s careful as he picks you up, leaving your items where they lay. He carefully makes his way over to the river, slowly stepping in as you hold onto his neck, legs wrapped around his torso. A giant smile spreads across your face as he lowers the both of you in, water up to your necks now. 

“I'm sorry I’ve been so busy recently, Neteyam,” You smile, pushing back some braids that have fallen from his efforts. “Trying hard to get everything quickly,” You grin, hand softly holding his cheek in your hold, “So I can be a good Tsahìk for the people, for you,” 

“I know you will,” He speaks softly, allowing his head to fall forward, pressing his forehead against yours, “I understand, I just miss you,” He instinctively curls into your touch where it rests on his cheek. 

“I miss you too, your grandmother asks me about you sometimes. She told me Eywa sees us,”

“Oh, is that so?” He entertains you, smiling when he pulls back. He's standing, but you’re solely relying on him to not have to tread the water and use up what little energy you have left. “What does she wanna know?” 

“Eh, you know. The basic grandma stuff, if you’re eating well, staying safe,” You smile, cupping some of the water and dragging it along his face. You clean him up, leaning back in his embrace when you’re satisfied with the job. His arms hold you, hands splayed across your back. “If you’re happy these days.”

“Of course I am, yawne, I have you,” His voice is sincere and gentle as he pulls you close, tucking your head into his shoulder as he holds the base of your neck. “All I need.”

@rainbowsocks @nerys-nerie bc you guys commented on the other post, luv uuuu

[homeofthelonelywriter]

HM: Carlisle Cullen x clumsy!Reader

(A/N) I think this is the first time since I started with Head Canon Monday, that I post something that wasn’t a request...still, since all the clumsy!Reader HC were so popular, I thought I would do them with an underrated character. I hope you like it!

Pairing: Carlisle Cullen x clumsy!Reader

Warnings: none

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Am I the only who thought that he was extremely hot in this scene?)

let’s start with the good thing

he’s a doctor

no matter how badly you hurt yourself, he knows how to fix you

honestly, that is probably how you two met

you somehow managed to hurt yourself and had to go to the hospital

and he just happened to be your very attractive doctor

after that, you became a regular there

and he made sure to always be the one to treat you

after all, he knew about the connection as soon as the two of you met for the first time

and connection or not, you couldn’t deny that you were falling for him

after a few months of your regular visits there was suddenly another doctor treating you

you of course asked where Carlisle was

and you were told that he no longer wanted to be your doctor

which confused and hurt you

but as you were about to leave the hospital, Carlisle pulled you aside

at first you wanted to ignore him, still hurt by his rejection

but as you walked away from him, he called something after you that took you by surprise

“Doctors can’t date their patients.”

you, of course, immediately turned around and jumped into his open arms

after you calmed down, he officially asked you if you’d like to go out with him

you said yes

duh

you quickly found out about the vampire thing

they weren’t really hiding it that well

after you two started dating, Carlisle developed some strategies to keep you from hurting yourself

one, he’d always be by your side

before dates, he would pick you up at your front door

and after, he would insist to bring you at least to the front door, if not even up to your room

two, if you insisted on going hiking with him, he’d insist to carry you most of the time

that would also count if it was slippery during winter

three, he would be the one to drive the car

again, especially during winter

his reflexes are just better than yours

four, no wet dishes for you

or knives

just anything you could hurt yourself with

five, he essentially babyproofed the house

no carpets you could trip over

extra sturdy railings at the stairs

if he would not carry you up and down those damn things

he even babyproofed your house

six, first air kids EVERYWHERE

and all his kids had to learn about first aid

especially Emmet, Alice and Edward since you spend most of your time with them

even you had to complete a course

and you always had to carry a first aid kit with you

seven, Jasper would have to slowly get used to you

and you would not be allowed to be alone with Jasper

either Carlisle, Edward, Emmet or Rose had to be there with you

eight, no wrestling with Emmet

this one was only implemented because Carlisle found Emmet and you play-wrestling one day and, if he could, he would’ve had a heart attack

nine, high heels or pumps only on special occasions and when someone was with you

ten, tell Carlisle if you hurt yourself

even if you think that it’s nothing

he loves you

and is worried shitless about you

he just wants you to be safe

and for that, he would do anything

but don’t even try asking him about turning into a vampire

[fluentmoviequoter]

Favors and Broken Promises

Requested Here!

Pairing: David 'Deacon' Kay x journalist!fem!reader

Summary: When you begin receiving death threats while writing an article on a dirty cop, Deacon Kay reluctantly agrees to protect you. He makes the situation worse before it gets better.

Warnings: angst to fluff; non-descriptive fight scene and injuries. the detective and dirty cop's names are a somewhat obscure book reference

Word Count: 3.0k+ words

A/N: I didn't proofread this, but I'll be back soon to do so!

Picture from Pinterest

Masterlist Directory | Deacon Kay Masterlist | Request Info/Fandom List

Deacon is attempting - and failing – to enjoy his day off. When his work phone rings, he sighs before answering.

“Sergeant Kay,” he greets, hoping this will be quick.

“Deacon, this is Detective Jeff Sherman.”

Smiling, Deacon is pleased that it’s not a SWAT call.

“What can I do for ya, Sherman?” he asks.

“I need a favor.”

“Anything for an academy classmate. Couldn’t have survived without you,” Deacon replies.

“It’s a big favor, Deacon. Big enough that if you say no I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

“What have you gotten yourself into? This LAPD business?”

“Yeah. It’s for a case I’m investigating. Dirty cop working in the academy.”

“LAPD academy? For how long?”

“Started around the time we were there.”

“We would have seen it, wouldn’t we? Is there any truth to the claims, Sherman?”

Sherman sighs, and Deacon isn’t prepared to hear, “You didn’t know to look, Deac.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I’ve got a friend, a journalist investigating the cop, and she needs protection. She started receiving death threats last week, and she was being blackmailed before that.”

“Why call me?”

“It would be off the books. Our history and your time in private security make you the perfect choice to keep her safe while we find this guy, get to bottom the threats.”

“Of course. Like I said, Sherman, anything for you.”

✯✯✯✯✯

Investigating a dirty cop in the Los Angeles Police Academy isn’t as easy as one might think. After years in investigative journalism and a brief history in the criminal justice field, you found yourself drawn to telling the stories of the people who need justice the most but can’t get it for themselves. This particular story caught your attention because you know exactly what these young women are dealing with.

Walter Greener has been harassing, blackmailing, and assaulting female recruits since you were in the academy years ago. His history of mistreating women and the fact that he’s still at it with no record of any reprimands makes you eager to expose the truth.

You were likely one of the first. Greener harassed you constantly, and when he grew bold enough to assault you on numerous occasions, putting his hands on you or getting rough in the locker rooms after training, you began considering dropping out. Letting the actions of one man dictate your life seemed ridiculous, and you vowed not to quit without good reason.

When the first letter demanded something in exchange for your safety, essentially asking for a piece of your soul to keep your life, you knew you couldn’t keep going on the track you were on. You pulled away from your friends and family before dropping out and moving. During this time, completely alone, you began studying to become a journalist, refusing to let other women’s stories go unheard. Your classmate, Jeff Sherman, tracked you down and demanded to know what happened, able to see something that no one else could.

Years later, when you learned that Greener was not only a cop but was working in the academy, you had to return to the heart of Los Angeles and find the entire story; the good, bad, and ugly. Now that you have enough evidence, both past and present, you’re ready to write your article. There’s more than enough to get him fired and charged with harassment and assault if anyone else is willing to testify against him. The moment you began preparing the story, a death threat appeared in your email inbox. Within a few days, they were being delivered straight to your door.

The only relationship that survived your forced exit from the academy was with Jeff Sherman, so you called him and told him everything. He jumped to action, promising to find him and keep you safe. Believing him, you continue working on the story, unwilling to let Greener scare you away again.

✯✯✯✯✯

“This woman have a name?” Deacon asks.

“You’re not gonna like it,” Sherman says before telling Deacon your name.

“Are you kidding me? No way, Sherman.”

“You already agreed, Deac. C’mon, man, do it for me?”

Deacon pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering how he went from being suddenly abandoned by you to being responsible for your safety. While you were in the academy, you dated Deacon for several months. He was happy, and things were getting serious, and then, out of nowhere, you started pulling back before disappearing completely. You dropped out of the academy, and Deacon had to accept that he’d likely never see you again. You broke his heart without giving him any idea about what happened. Even today, he is hurt and angry that you didn’t talk to him about the unknown issue. 

Unaware of how you were forced to pull away from him and the career of your dreams, Deacon has remained clueless about the blackmail and harassment that targeted your personal life. Each threat included your family and friends, including your cop friends and Deacon himself.

You and Detective Sherman only stayed in touch because he realized something was going on with all of the women and found you, cornering you for answers after your disappearance. 

Deacon already agreed and won’t go back on his word, but he really doesn’t want to see you again. Doesn’t want to be that close to you, responsible for you, any of it. He was pissed when you left, and he’s still so angry and hurt that he can’t imagine letting you walk into his life, his house, without at least providing a few answers. The idea of someone threatening to kill you, however, makes it harder to say no (if he could).

“You said death threats?” Deacon asks. “Are they bad?”

“They weren’t at first. Progressively, yeah, they’ve gotten graphic and detailed. The blackmail was rough too, though. Greener knows a lot about her.”

“Wait, Richard Greener? From the academy?”

“Right, you didn’t know, I’m sorry. That’s who the article is about. He’s still harassing and assaulting young girls in the academy and she’s trying to get to the bottom of it, get him fired or indicted.”

Deacon wants clarification on the ‘still’ aspect of Sherman’s statement but decides that getting close to this is a bad idea. It’s a job, nothing more, so he can’t let you get under his skin. The anger and hurt are as powerful as they were years ago, so Deacon will keep you alive and then watch you walk away again.

✯✯✯✯✯

“Why won’t you tell me who my bodyguard is, Sherman?” you ask, approaching a back door.

“Because you wouldn’t have come,” he admits while knocking.

The door opens, and you find yourself face-to-face with Deacon Kay.

“Hi,” you whisper, shocked to see him.

He ignores you, looking at Sherman instead. “Check for trails?”

“Of course, Deac. We weren’t followed. Thanks for your help.” He looks between you to add, “Don’t kill each other.”

Sherman walks away, and Deacon enters the house, leaving the door open for you to carry your bag inside.

“Guest room is the second door on the right,” he says, his back to you.

“Thanks,” you reply. “I’m sure you didn’t want to do this, but I appreciate it.”

“Oh, yeah, I just live for protecting people who intentionally piss off the wrong people with their second career choice of journalism. Because writing will change so much.”

You try to ignore his hurtful jab, opting to find the guest room instead of staying close to Deacon. He’s already forgotten this is supposed to be a job, letting his emotions control him. When you reemerge a few hours later, he wordlessly slides a plate of food to you.

“Thanks.”

“Feel free to throw it away if you suddenly decide you don’t like it, since you seem to enjoy that,” Deacon snaps, taking his plate into his room and closing the door.

“I think I might prefer the death threats,” you say to yourself.

✯✯✯✯✯

“Luca, you don’t get it. She left me, took part of me with her,” Deacon says quietly, pacing as he asks for advice.

“Sounds like she may still have it,” Luca offers. “Maybe give her a chance to explain. Have you talked to her yet?”

“Um- sort of. Nothing civil though.”

“Deac,” Luca sighs. “You can’t attack her for something she did back then and expect her to feel safe, for one, but that’s also no way to move on, man. At some point you just gotta let go and find something else.”

“You’re telling me to forgive and forget?”

 “I’m telling you to remember that neither of you are the same people you were back then. Give her a chance, and maybe be a little respectful of the fact that the man who destroyed her life is threatening to take it.”

“Thanks, Luca.”

Deacon ends the call and exits his room, noticing your door is closed. He sees your shadow move in the light under the door and decides that Luca’s advice can wait a day because his hurt feels brand new.

✯✯✯✯✯

“Is that wise?” Deacon asks, walking into the kitchen the following morning. “Isn’t writing what got you into this?”

“Not exactly,” you answer, completing your outline.

“Well, it’s what got me into this, and it’s not my dream vacation, so maybe don’t do anything to make the situation worse, if you can manage that.”

You nod slowly, sad that Deacon seems stuck on what you did in the academy. If he can’t move on or at least give you a chance to explain after all this time, then it’s probably not worth trying, you think.

Deacon notices the sad, misty look in your eyes as you continue typing but exits the room before anything else happens. He’s not in the mood to give you pity or feel empathetic toward you; you got yourself into this situation, but you also drug Deacon into it.

Throughout the rest of the day, you don’t even react to Deacon’s jabs and outright mean comments. Whenever he sees you, you jump as if you didn’t know anyone else was around, are lost in thought, and ignore him, or stare longingly out the window. Even after stumbling upon you crying at two different times, he keeps pushing you, letting the past impact his current treatment of you. Deacon thinks you don’t seem to care, so why should he?

By the end of the first day, you refuse to meet Deacon’s eyes and try your hardest to avoid him. Deacon notices, of course, and realizes that something in your past must be affecting you, maybe even the same thing that made you leave him. Everyone seems to think Deacon needs to move on, but he’s not the only one.

✯✯✯✯✯

A few days into your nightmarish stay with Deacon, he wakes up in an especially bad mood, which shows in his snarky comments and low-aimed insults.

“Couldn’t make it as a cop so you sit behind a computer and judge those of us that answered the call to serve and protect,” Deacon mutters.

Tired and unable to take Deacon’s – for lack of a better word – verbal abuse for a moment longer, you snap. “Well, I am so sorry that I was harassed and assaulted so often that I didn’t feel safe anywhere, not even with you! Dropping out and pulling away from everyone I cared about was my only choice, and it hurt me just as much as it hurt you, Deacon, but I’m not trying to make you feel like a monster for letting me leave and not noticing that Greener was putting his hands on me every time you looked away!”

Deacon’s eyes are wide as you continue, “And if the panic attacks and trust issues get to be too much, I’ll just leave again, because I think anything would be better than sitting in this house, with the man who is supposed to be keeping me safe but instead is making a bad situation a whole lot worse.”

With your emotions raging, you can feel the panic attack building in your chest, and you storm away before Deacon can witness that level of vulnerability.

Once he’s alone in the living room, Deacon begins piecing together all of the little signs he missed before, growing more and more determined to make it up to you. From the academy to this moment, he has a lot of hurt to mend, but he can help you now, even if he didn’t back then. Your situation requires a reminder that there are good, trustworthy cops; despite his recent behavior, Deacon is one of the good ones.

✯✯✯✯✯

Deacon knocks softly on your door, and you harshly rub the tears off your cheeks before answering.

“I’m so sorry,” he says when you come into view. Staying in the hallway, Deacon holds his hands before him, his genuineness evident in his gaze and body language. “I’m here with you and I will protect you, I promise.”

You nod, and he sends you a small smile before retreating into his room. Your heart feels a bit lighter, and Deacon’s does, too.

✯✯✯✯✯

Over the next few days, Deacon’s heart begins healing. He’s casually protective, gently moving you out of the way when you’re blocking something he needs, calmly asking you to stay away from the window, and refusing to let you out of his sight for too long. When you spend too much time in the shower, Deacon knocks and asks if you’re okay. Your responding laugh makes Deacon smile for the first time in too many years.

Deacon does more than a bodyguard should, with evident kindness and concern underlying each of his movements and commands. When he speaks, his words are nearly parallel to his previous comments.

“What are you writing?” he asks when he finds you curled on the couch with your laptop perched on your knees.

“Working on the article,” you answer carefully.

“I’ve read some of your pieces. You write on important topics in a way that makes them relatable. That’s admirable.”

Later the same day, he encourages you to keep writing when you mumble that it feels pointless.

“Even if you help one more girl, isn’t that enough?”

He even walks you to bed, holding the door open as he apologizes again. “And I didn’t mean what I said – any of it – but especially the part about you not being able to be a cop. We both know you were on track to be the best of us. But what you’re doing now is just as important.”

“Still can’t help but feel robbed,” you admit. “He took everything I loved.”

Glancing up at Deacon, you think he understands your meaning when he smiles.

✯✯✯✯✯

“Sergeant Kay,” Deacon says, answering his phone. “I’m off this week… How bad is it?... Yeah, I’ll get right back to you.”

“You should go,” you say, looking over your laptop. “Sounds like they need their best.”

“It’s a major hostage situation, and they only called because it’s urgent. I shouldn’t leave you, though, they can find someone else.”

“Deac,” you call. “I’ll be okay for a little while. And I will call if anything happens, or I get worried or just want to talk. I promise.”

Deacon reluctantly agrees, gathering his things as he calls his team back and tells them he will meet them at the scene. As he leaves you, he feels like something is wrong, out of place, but maybe that’s just because he misses you after spending so much time together.

✯✯✯✯✯

Something scratches across the front door, and you’re immediately alert. It hasn’t been long enough for Deacon to return, so you rush to his room, but the front door slams against the wall before you can escape behind another locked door.

“An article about me?” Greener asks. “I’d be flattered if I didn’t know exactly what kind of woman you are.”

“Now, I’m the kind of woman that you can’t intimidate.”

“Intimidate?” Greener laughs as he cracks his neck. “We’re way past that, don’t you think?”

You step back as Greener lunges, glad you continued training after dropping out of the academy. You’re still a good fighter, and Greener underestimates you because you’re a woman. While Deacon deals with a tiring afternoon of saving hostages, you win a tiring fight.

Car doors close in the neighboring driveway, and an exhausted and injured Greener rushes out of the broken front door. You don’t want to call Deacon, not because you don’t trust him but because you know he will blame himself. Regardless, you dial his number and lean back against the wall.

“Hey, what happened?” Deacon answers.

“Uh, Greener broke in. I’m okay… mostly okay. We fought but he got scared off,” you answer softly.

Deacon hangs up, rushing home and patching you up. He covers your scrapes and bruises, apologizing as he goes.

“I will never put you in this situation again,” he promises as he secures the last bandage over your split knuckles.

“Stay by my side?” you ask, offering your less bruised hand.

Deacon takes it with a soft touch as he answers, “Through it all.”

✯✯✯✯✯

Deacon keeps his promise, staying by your side through the trial, the mixed backlash and praise over the article, and perhaps most surprisingly, your sudden fear of being alone again.

Standing by his door with your bags in tow, you can’t cross the threshold.

“You don’t have to go,” Deacon repeats. “Stay as long as you want. I’m by your side, remember? There’s nothing to worry about here. Other than me getting attached to you and clingier.”

You smile, glancing at the door before stepping closer to Deacon as he pulls you into a hug, and you wrap your arms around him before pressing your cheek against his shirt.

“I’m never leaving you again,” Deacon vows. “I lost you once, and after everything we went through to find each other again, what I put you through, I’m not losing you again.”

[stagefoureddiediaz]

When Buddie go dating!

Look the maroon blazer from the sneak peek had me spiralling hard last night so I decided to take a look at Eddie And Buck when they try dating because as I said in my other post - Eddie wearing a shade of red in connection with a first date - doesn’t bode well for the relationship!!!

Eddie

If we went with the very strict definition of a first date then the only ones we’d have are Ana and the new one, however I’ve included a couple of other instances that I think re also first date adjacent enough to count!

In chronological order we have

2x04

I’ve included this one because when we have Eddie rocking up to Bucks to ‘help Maddie move - its important to remember that at this point Buck doesn’t know Eddie is still married to Shannon. Eddie thinks Buck has set him up on a date when Buck says he lied about helping Maddie move - if it was that kind of set up it wasn’t going to end well!

2x10

This one is a two parter - Eddie worrying about hooking up with Shannon and letting her back into Christophers life - worrying about essentially dating her again and if its what is best for Chris.

followed up by Chris telling Eddie what his Christmas wish is - to have his mother back - and Eddie therefore deciding to let Shannon back in. I know this isn’t technically a first date (either scene) but it is the moment that the relationship is rekindled properly - the moment we see Eddie make the decision to date her again - for Chris.

4x06

first date with Ana (need I say more!!)

6x14

And now this date non date where Eddie was going to let her down gently but she beats him to the punch!

Eddie doesn’t wear maroon or burgundy all that often. We get a couple connected with the fight club arc and the only other times we see Eddie in maroon/burgundy are in familial moments - seeing Chris off to summer camp or when Buck comes over in 6x12 - its not a colour he wears often.

Buck

Then we have Buck. who doesn’t wear maroon or burgundy on first dates but he does wear black and the same thing happens - they don’t go well for him or the relationships don’t go well.

1x06

He’s wearing a black tie with his suit for his date with Abby and we all know how that ended up!

1x09

This is a second attempt at a first date so I’m including it - it also doesn’t end very well

2x08

His first date with Ali sees him in a black knit polo. I haven’t included his hook ups with Taylor that precede this - because they are just that hook-ups - they are not an intention to date, they are spontaneous things that happen and Taylor doesn’t want anything more at this point even if Buck would’ve!

4x07

Eddies dating Ana so Buck starts dating to - this one with Veronica goes super well for him!!! He’s wearing a black jacket during the date and we then don’t ee him in it after the date is over and he runs into her again.

4x08

Taylor still wants to just hook-up but Buck thinks he’s on a double date - a detail he didn’t mention to Taylor. this ‘date’ also goes really well for him!! Buck is wearing a black button up/down shirt (I can’t remember which it is) 

6x13

And then we have Poker date - where Buck is wearing a black shirt again Buck thinks its just going to be him and Eddie going out and playing a bit of poker - very date like! Only then Julie Rosen is there and things spiral outwards from then on. Buck has a great time winning etc. but the way the script plays out it reads like Buck expected a date of some sort and he thinks he misunderstood the assignment! this black shirt burgundy blazer being followed by Eddie in the same outfit to a date that his date makes into a note date is making me cackle!

So there we have it. I’m very much expecting any further dates Eddie goes on to involve him wearing maroon or burgundy and any Buck goes in to involve black.

When we see them go on an actual first date together - I think we’ll see them in colours closer to those we see them in around each other in everyday environments - so a combination of green and blue, and possibly some cream or yellow, but no white (on Buck) or black or red. 

[onewholivesinloops]

people saying wonder egg priority’s momoe is good trans rep offends me on a personal level because i STILL can’t grasp what her deal is even supposed to be. the trans boy isn’t either imo btw. he gets the most brutal backstory and his inclusion is very questionable when the whole egg thing is about girls so there’s nothing that justifies that other than the fact that he’s afab which IS blatantly transphobic. momoe’s thing is made even more confusing with all of the trans imagery (her bra literally being the flag and revealing itself when she comes to terms with herself had to have meant something) so is the egg system transphobic or not?? i feel like it only makes sense to read her as cis considering afab people are what count going by the track record, and she struggles with femininity and girls flirting with her (which is lowkey homophobic to me bc it implies sapphics will jump on any gnc girl) but this makes the trans imagery with her very weird. it’s like they associate her with specifically the trans colors several times during pivotal scenes only to throw in the trans boy counting as an egg so it's VERY muddled what they wanna go for...

being a cis woman who’s mistaken for a boy due to being gnc isn't a bad idea for a character concept, and i like the idea of her finding comfort and genuine love with a trans man who can relate to her experience. it's just SO dumb they go out of their way to code her as trans in the process of this, and not to mention the misery porn that ends up being the boy's storyline (the suffering in the show lowkey feels very fetishy especially when you look at the writers’ background i found out the main writer wrote a bunch of torture porn soap operas featuring teenage girls from this video and while i don’t think this subject matter is something that can’t ever be discussed and explored the show is so set on being miserable especially with him in particular), the aforementioned weird undertones of how girls treated momoe and the system just casually being transphobic with no real focus put on that. the system in general is miserable and fucked up and as much as i’d like to give it the benefit of doubt in that it’s the intent i don’t think the narrative thinks the gender essentalism and transphobia parts of it are actual flaws because there’s no real focus on that.

i also think the trans boy shouldn’t have been an egg character in the first place. he should’ve been a real world one. i can see the idea of a corrupt sexist and transphobic system that exploits the mental health of little girls using a trans boy for their experiments done well if it’s called out for what it is, but that’s never the case in the show at any point and it’s not something i trust these writers to tackle well. also don’t get me started on that suicide thing in episode 4 where acca and ura-acca go “women and men’s suicides mean different things; men are goal-oriented and women are emotion-oriented, and women are impulsive and easily influenced”. this misogyny and gender essentialism is, again, never called out or addressed so it’s hard to read this as anything but what the narrative and the writers believe/don’t think is an issue lol...

don’t even get me started on frill because idek what that robot girl’s point is even supposed to be. she’s even more nonsensical than momoe’s thing. the suicide disease or whatever the hell it was is the cherry on top that makes the show even more offensive because on top of condemning the girls for their suffering it feels like it’s also taking away their agency which is very dehumanizing.

[nightowlwriting]

summary: you are used to people hating what you can do. sometimes even you hate what you can do - and how isolated it makes you. steve rogers is one of the people that you expected to understand the weight that you carry on your shoulders, but he doesn’t. not until he has to see it firsthand.

word count: 18.6k

reader specifics: no race/gender/sexuality/body type mentioned, no pronouns for reader used, telepathic!reader, insecure!reader, lonely!reader

warnings: mean!steve (in the beginning), brief descriptions and allusions to violence against women, brief descriptions and allusions to sexual violence, brief allusions to sex trafficking, brief mentions of nazi violence and terroristic threats

note: this literally took me months to write and idk why. i’m not even sure it’s GOOD. i like it and that’s all that matters (except i, like other artist’s thrive upon reblogs)

title credit: against me!

fic aes: here

mobile masterlist - request - support my work? - ao3

When Clint Barton appears in your office wearing his official A-Team uniform, you know what’s coming next. Wanda and Tony had both texted you that morning and let you know that they might need you for an interrogation, but you hadn’t held your breath. Sometimes they sent you those texts once a week and not once had they made good on your promise to help if they needed it. The coworkers that pay attention to the comings and goings of people in the office are staring as Clint Barton stalks over to your desk, tapping one knuckle against the hardwood you inherited from a retiree - possibly the nicest desk in your row of cubicles. You watch his mouth move more than you hear him speak. “Need you on three.”

Three? One of your nosier coworkers, Lisa thinks rather loudly during a pause in the song you’re listening to, That’s the interview level. Wonder what’s going on there that they need someone from Data. There is, of course, a deeper thought below that one where she believes that you’re either sleeping with someone in the Big Team or doing something underhanded and about to get reamed within an inch of your life. Neither of those things are true, but you don’t care enough to correct her as you click off your computer and stand to follow Clint. There really isn’t a way to correct her, either, without painting a big, red target on your back for what you can do. You’re sure that if they’ve sent one of the Avengers to collect you that the situation is dire - and you don’t think that because you’ve wormed around in his head, either.

That’s just the nature of people needing you.

Besides, when you’re working you have the most mind-numbing metal playing through your headphones at all times. It makes it easier to focus on your work instead of the thoughts around you. You wouldn’t be able to hear Clint if he was holding onto your shoulders and screaming into your mouth. That’s the way you like it - the way you need to keep it so you can actually make a living as a data entry grunt for the Stark Association. (Although most of the work that you do is for the new Avengers - handling all of the absolute bullshit paperwork that comes from the times that they’re out and saving the world.) He seems to understand you the most out of anyone you’ve met besides Wanda and Tony - not that you see the A-Team much, but you’ve caught him several different times rolling his eyes and stepping away from the group or just reaching up and turning off his hearing aids. If anyone is going to not feel weird about not saying anything to you as you walk through the hallways, it’s Clint.

He leaves you at the elevator, not bothering to take you to floor three. Clint cuts you a look as the doors close that essentially says you know where to go, right? If you hadn’t been putting your entire body and mind into keeping yourself out of his head, you might have even heard it. As it is, you can’t keep your music playing and do your job, so as the elevator descends you unplug yourself from the music and tuck your phone back into your back pocket. As you pass floors, voices come in and out of focus. It makes you slightly dizzy at the rate at which you gain access to strangers’ heads and are then yanked out of them. Even after your entire life like this, you’ve never gotten used to it.

-I think my brother is cheating on his-

-And then Rhonda from HR said-

-Did you see the guy they hauled in-

-So much fucking paperwork-

You practically throw yourself off of the elevator when it stops on the third floor. It’s much quieter there but that’s only because you’re too far away from the interrogation room that everyone is gathered in. Clint didn’t tell you what room to go to, but you know when you’re close. You can feel Wanda prodding at the air, waiting for you and reaching out to you - plus, there seems to be a rather large crowd waiting for your arrival.

Before you even open the door you know that Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Wanda are waiting behind it. You stop short when you also see James Barnes and Natasha Romanoff. You hadn’t heard them. “Crowded room.” You deadpan before stepping into the hug Wanda is offering you. It’s hard, then, to keep your cool façade on because physical touch amplifies your connections and she doesn’t have a lot of the limits that you do - just like she has limits that you don’t have. You’re hit with a wave of everything before you kiss the side of her forehead and take three large side steps away from her. Everyone but Tony and Wanda cut you suspicious looks but you’re used to it. It’s been like that since before Tony flipped open your file and saw what you can do.

“Can’t crack this one?” You gesture to the man behind the one-way glass - his body language shows that he’s proud and open, not all worried about what’s happening or where he is. There’s an easy grin on his face, teeth all white and straightened by money, and his blond hair is tied back in a high bun.

“Not even Cap can get it out of him,” Tony leans against the glass casually, like he isn’t resorting to activating the last clause in your employment contract. Steve Rogers bristles at the nickname. His thoughts wash over you briefly, despite the fact that you were trying to keep out of everyone’s head.

-Pointless to bring in some stranger from data entry. Probably doesn’t even know the first thing about running an interrogation-

You shake your head, blinking long and slow to try and push him out. Wanda watches with furrowed brows as your hands subtly begin to shake at your sides. Coolly, you shift your weight and tuck them into the pockets of your slacks so nobody else picks up on it. So that she can’t call you out on it. “What’s he in for?” You say as you open your eyes. Barely two seconds have passed. The frown has fallen from your face.

-Can’t even look at anyone in the room besides Tony or Wanda. I’ll give this two minutes before it crumbles and we have to pick up the damn mess-

You sigh and press your lips together in a tight, tense smile. Sam and Bucky share a look at your sudden change in facial expression but you’re more focused on the information that Natasha begins reading off of a folder in front of her.

Well, reading is a strong word.

She’s staring straight at you while reciting everything, like she’s trying to gauge your reaction. You’re pretty talented at not having any reaction, despite being self-trained. The man behind the glass is Tanner Smith, a known Nazi sympathizer, and extremist. When his coworkers reported strange behavior to his boss - being late, excessive sweating, talking about a big event and the change that would soon be coming - his boss reported his suspicions to the higher-ups. Strange, considering how calm and collected he is now. How had he been so careless about the plans only to stare the barrel of an Avengers colored gun down like a pro?

Still, after a brief investigation and dive into his electronics by the boys in blue, he ended up in the Avengers compound. There’d been chatter online between Tanner and a group of extremists. Natasha only briefed you on that a little bit, telling you that one bomb had already been planted somewhere and another was in the works. Nobody knows where the first one had been put, except maybe Tanner and he isn’t talking. But he will talk, you know this. Maybe that’s why when you catch a stray man, I really hope Tony knows what he’s doing bringing in an analyst to interrogate from Sam, and then we shouldn’t be bringing in insignificant rookies to do our jobs from Steve that you grind your teeth a little bit.

“Don’t worry,” You take a deliberate breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth, just like you taught yourself, “We’ll have the location before the end of the hour. I may just be an insignificant little analyst but I know what I’m doing.”

Sam doesn’t seem to catch what you’ve said but Steve, who had been standing with his arms crossed while he looked away and toward the floor, snaps to attention with his mouth slightly open, eyebrows furrowed. The only reaction you give is a twitch of your upper lip, the urge to peel it back and expose your teeth angrily sitting heavy in the hollow of your throat. You know he’s Captain America, but come on, man! You keep the compound running just as much as he does! (If not more. Who else would reply to the invoices sent your way for the damage he does when he throws a desk out the window or something?)

Natasha moves to hand you Tanner’s file but you wave her off before she can get too close. You’re getting nothing from her right now and you want to keep it that way. There aren’t many people that are hard for you to read, and you think that if she’s still blank after being this close to you for a little bit - well, you might just have to become friends with her. That goes for Bucky, too. He’s standing even closer than Natasha is, a little over six feet away from you, and you’ve got nothing. He watches you refuse the file and his eyebrows hike to his hairline, mimicking Steve and Sam who stand on either side of him.

How arrogant.

Huh, really confident.

The latter thought from Sam helps keep you from bristling at Steve’s assessment of you. You wonder what his issue is with you not needing the file when Natasha didn’t need it either, but you understand he’s probably strung tight about finding that bomb and bringing a stranger in to do his job. (And you’d taken a thought he’d had in the privacy of his own head and thrown it back in his face to be petty.)

As you shed your jacket you think about how he was only in his late twenties when he went into the ice. Perhaps he’s over one hundred years old in the eyes of the law, but mentally he’s not even halfway through his life or the development of his self-identity.

As you breeze into the interrogation room, you wonder how much of his self-identity revolves around what they did to him in that lab so many decades ago.

That doesn’t really matter though, because now you have to focus everything you have on getting into Tanner’s head and peeling away whatever weird protections he has that make his thoughts so… Mundane. He’s currently watching you amble about the room, hands clasped behind your back, and all he’s thinking about is his fucking grocery list. You know that he’s doing something to mask his thoughts because there’s not even an undertone to those thoughts - something everyone has. They have the thoughts they think to themselves and then the reason behind them.

Conscious and subconscious.

Tanner Smith is only having conscious thoughts and that is suspicious. You purse your lips and drop down into the chair across from him, putting the mirror the Avengers are standing behind to your left. You watch Tanner, still scanning his thoughts, for several minutes of poignant silence until he finally cracks.

“So, who are you? Their secret, special weapon?”

You tilt your head slightly, a ghost of a smirk passing over your face. His thoughts flicker and you hone in the strange reaction. “Something like that, Tanner.” You catch a glimpse, a flash of color and dirty blonde curls on a little girl who’s running away, sun flares lighting up the world around her. Warmth fills your chest as laughter echoes somewhere behind your mind, like the call-and-response of a cave, and then it’s gone, sucked away by whatever Tanner was taught to disperse his thoughts.

Surely the A-Team had Wanda try to break past his defenses, but she can’t do what you can do. Nobody can.

“What? I’m too strong so the Avengers had to run to their boss?” He sneers, clearly shaken up by your non-reaction to everything he’s done - clearly, everybody else who’s tried to get the information out of him had some sort of reaction. You’re not mirroring him, sitting purposefully neutral to oppose his faux-openness. Nothing about your interrogation technique is by the book, and it’s upsetting him. You catch another glimpse of the little girl in his thoughts, this time snagging a name from the ether. Like bad TV reception, another voice worms into your head.

We’re getting nowhere. I told Tony this was a waste of time. I should go in there and put an end to this right now.

“Oh, please, don’t flatter yourself.” You sigh, slapping your palms against your thighs half-heartedly. “Also, Captain Rogers?” You let his name hang in the air for a second, but never break eye contact with Tanner, “I would appreciate it if you took three large steps back. Or, perhaps, if you could stand at the very back of the room.” It’s only when you wait three seconds and clear your throat that his thoughts recede and your mind clears.

“Oh, so you’re crazy.” Tanner grins, leaning forward, “They thought locking me in here with a freak would make me talk and, when it didn’t, they moved on to the nut.”

You outright laugh before standing from your chair. “I hope you’re not referring to my good friend, Wanda. Compared to me, she’s normal.” You round the table once but then stop in front of the mirror, watching Tanner’s reflection over your own reflection’s shoulder. There’s something to be said about your psychological training - that is, you have none. But you do have an open funnel into the human psyche that allows you certain knowledge about how to manipulate it. This - standing at the mirror and making indirect eye contact with Tanner? It’s all about distance and showing him how insignificant he is to you.

That and you want to show Steve Hasn’t Had A Good Thought About You Rogers what he’s really fucking with.

“How’s your little sister?” You finally ask, clasping your hands behind your back again. You watch the color drain from Tanner’s face, his mind opening up as his sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive to activate his acute stress response. He has four options now that you’ve put him in panic mode: fight, flight, fawn, freeze. “What’s her name again? Tanya? Trish? No, Tilly. Tilly and Tanner - that’s cute. Your Mom’s name is Tricia, right? She likes a theme, I suppose.”

He doesn’t respond. It seems he’s chosen to freeze.

“None of that was in your file, of course, because Smith isn’t your real last name. The social security number you’re living under isn’t your original social security number.” You blink once, pulling on that loose thread until Tanner’s mind completely opens to yours. From the corner of your eye, you watch as a milky sheen begins to cover your iris and obscure the color. Tanner whimpers as his iris begins to dissolve, falling away until he matches your white, colorless eyes. You feel more than hear the thoughts on the other side of the glass turn to panic, but it’s easy to shut them out when you’re so focused on the link you now have with your suspect.

When you speak again, your voice is overlaid with his despite his mouth not moving. “Oh, you care about your family.” He flinches but can’t say anything. Won’t say anything. “I see it, right there.” Your head tilts as you begin to dig through his head, prying at seals and locks he’s put on memories - both painful and happy. “Oh, she’s only nine. So precious, so young. So naïve to the ways of the world. To what her older brother does for a living. To what he believes, and what he’s willing to do to support those beliefs.”

“Stop it,” Tanner says, your voice underneath his. You hum more than laugh, but the energy is the same and it makes him shiver.

“And lucky, too,” You continue. He’s not even fighting anymore, not that he could if he wanted to. Now that you’re inside of his head, there’s nothing anyone can do short of knocking you out. “Tricia is smart. Went to Harvard. Has Tilly living all cozy in the Hills and going to a nice, private school. Far away from you and your friends. How are the holidays? Do you go visit them? Or does your Mom ask you to stay away?”

Milk white tears break your waterline and run down your cheeks, eyes unblinking as you keep Tanner in your hold. “Please,” His dual-tone voice whimpers, “Leave them out of this.”

You click your tongue, a hint of a smile ghosting over your lips and the crinkles next to your eyes. “I don’t think I will. See, I know where they live. I know where they sleep. I know how you get in contact with them. I know everything about them now. You’ve given that to me.” He physically jerks but can’t get away from you - you’re everywhere in his mind. He’s falling further and further into you just like you’re falling into his mind. Soon, the two of you will fall into one person. You’ll have to get the information quickly so that doesn’t happen. “You’ll give me where you planted that bomb, too.”

“No,” Tanner resists. You feel the tug on your own mind, his psyche - whether consciously or subconsciously - trying to sew up the hollow you carved out for yourself. Your eyebrows furrow, but barely. “No, I won’t. It needs to happen. They need to see that we’re serious.” He slams one fist down on the table in front of him and fights against you even harder.

You sigh, shoulders barely moving with the breath. The world begins to fall away piece by piece as the white in your eyes slowly begins to shift; swirling darker and darker until your once white eyes are filled to the brim with gray and then, a second later, black. It leaks down your cheeks as you speak directly into his brain, mouth never moving. “If you do not tell me, I will take it from you.”

The room around you crumbles until you’re standing in a black abyss, still looking at Tanner in the reflection of a mirror that’s not there. He reels back in a chair that’s not there either, clutching at the sides of his head as you dig around in his memories.

Childhood, his first kiss, the indoctrination into his extremist beliefs. Somewhere around last week, you slow down, peeling layer from layer until you find what you’re looking for. With the exact location and the time it’s set to explode, you sever the connection and you’re back in the interrogation room. The inky proof of what you’ve done is tacky on your face and Tanner is facedown on the table, shoulders heaving as he sobs and claws at the side of his head, incoherently mumbling about the things you showed him in his head that he doesn’t even remember. Memories that are his, but aren’t, because they’re yours. But, no, that’s not right - right? They’re his, taken from some place in his brain that only your mind can access.

The door is heavier than you remember when you leave the interrogation room and it echoes when it slams shut behind you. Everyone, bar Wanda and Tony who have both seen you do this once before, is staring at you as if you’re going to snap on them too. Blissfully, your mind has shut everything out in order to try and recoup from what you’ve done. It won’t last long. Wanda hands you a wet wipe and smiles sadly, knowing, or maybe feeling, how much you hated doing that to someone.

To climb inside their skull and take the precious privacy of memories is the loss of your humanity. To take that sacred space from someone is the unholiest sacrament you’ve ever taken. Despite the gnawing hole in your chest, you’d do it over again if it means saving lives - even if it ruins one or two in the process. You’ve had many years to come to terms with what you can do if you put your mind to it.

Though, you suppose, that doesn’t make it any easier.

Nobody speaks as you clean your face and neck. Sam does, however, gesture to the chest of your shirt where your shirt is stained. You ignore the look on his face and turn to Tony. “It’s in Central Park,” You’re almost surprised when your voice is just yours, not overtone or undertone to pollute it, “No specific target, not really. Just to create fear. The group will take credit. They probably set Tanner up to take the fall because, for all intents and purposes, he’s a single man with no living family. It’s buried four paces from the tree with an x carved into it, set to go off in three days at exactly noon. I can write down the coordinates for you.” Tony grins and makes to clap you on the back, but you step away and rub at the bridge of your nose. “Don’t touch me.”

He holds his hands up, still smiling even though everyone else in the room recoiled when you snapped. “Sorry, Cullen. Good job in there. Although, will the special effects cost me more?” Underneath all of his jokes, you catch the worry in his mind as yours begins to open back up. It always works like this - the emotions are always the first to come back because they’re the building blocks of thought. Before mankind had speech, they had feelings.

And before they had feelings, they had instincts.

Several people in the room are fighting down their instincts to tear into you because you’re a threat. Blanketing that instinct is agitation and some terror at your unknown. Sam can barely contain his instinct to learn, mind humming with bright curiosity and a healthy dose of fear. Wanda and Tony are both fighting the urge to bundle you up, followed by the love and affection that they normally have when they think of you.

Your jaw snaps together with an audible click as Tanner comes back into focus, the shadow of his mind nearly drowning you. It arches over the room, the celestial body that is the human mind reaching out for the connection that you severed when you pulled away from him. It nearly takes you, too. It’s only when you’re nearly unconscious, body swaying and knees slowly buckling and eyes rolling to the back of your head, that Wanda realizes what’s happening and catches you with strong arms around your waist. Her bare arms slide against yours and you latch onto her mind; it’s bright and strong and wraps around yours to protect it. It takes only a second to get your bearings, but a second is enough for the sharks in the water to catch the scent of blood and strike. It’s Steve’s fists shaking that let you know he’s about to speak, but his thoughts that let you know he’s about to say something horrible. They’re muddled, running about three hundred miles a minute, but you get the gist of what he’s thinking past the fog of Wanda’s skin against yours.

“So nobody thought to inform the team that there’s a bio-weapon on the compound’s campus?”

“Steve!” Sam exclaims, looking more shocked than he actually feels. The term had floated through his prefrontal cortex once or twice since your eyes had flooded white. “Chill out, man.”

“No, I will not chill out,” Steve sneers, “Didn’t anyone think that was important?”

“I’m sorry,” Tony interrupts, moving to stand between you and the Captain, “Weren’t you the one who yelled at me for calling someone a weapon of mass destruction?” You groan deep in the back of your throat when Wanda’s emotions flash through you like lightning and she immediately lets you go, moving to sit next to Natasha on the metal table that lines the wall opposite of you. The distance helps, but there are a lot of strong personalities in one room and you’re a little more open and sensitive than usual.

Your stomach churns and you think about pulling your phone out to put on some music, but that might make Steve actually snap. Bucky knocks him on the shoulder with the back of one hand, “Cool off, pal. You hardly get to take the high ground here when you essentially started another world war for me.”

“That’s different.” Steve grits out.

“What’s your name, kid?” Bucky ignores him, leaning around Tony to talk directly to you. He repeats your name after you give it, grinning, “Does this mean you’re pokin’ around in all our heads now?”

“Probably,” Natasha supplies before you can answer, swinging her legs. “You saw what happened in there. I’m surprised we’re not leaking CSF out of our ears.”

“It’s not like that, I can’t do stuff like that,” You protest weakly, leaning against the wall, “Besides, you and Barnes are like steel freakin’ traps. I don’t have shit on you ever.”

“What about me?” Sam tries to take a step forward, eager and bright in the darkness that surrounds the outskirts of your vision with the tension in the room, but Steve stops him with a heavy hand. “I bet you don’t have anythin’ on me either.” He boasts from behind his friend’s grip.

“You’re an open book,” You shake your head, trying to bite back your small smile, “Always have been. I can catch your thoughts practically before you have them.” Tony finally relaxes as you push off of the wall, putting a hand on your shoulder and carefully avoiding touching his skin to yours. “Tony and Wanda, too, but that’s only because I know them so well.”

“If you can’t fry us from the inside out, what can you do?” Steve narrows his eyes at you and it’s almost like he’s aiming his thoughts at you, trying to test how you’ll react. Your name, wondering about your file, wondering about your life from birth until now, some scenarios that involve grievous bodily harm to you should anything happen.

You don’t need to be a telepath to get the memo: Steve Rogers does not like you.

“Mind stuff,” Tony supplies when you’ve been silent for too long, focused on how much one man can possibly hate a person he’s just met. “Y’know, the Edward and Jasper Cullen combo. Without the confederacy and racism, of course.”

“Mind reading,” Wanda fills in when only Sam and Natasha get the reference, “And, with intense focus and strain, peeling away the layers of the human brain that protect from people like us. I’m not as good, of course, because mine’s not exactly natural, but what you saw was the extreme end of the spectrum.”

You nod, leaning further and further into Tony’s grasp. She’s right when she says it’s the extreme side of the spectrum - you’ve only reached that far into someone once before and then, when you were nearly a decade younger than now and not as half as confident that you really were hearing thoughts and not just voices, it left you bed-bound and comatose for eight months. Even now, with another ten years and endless experience under your belt, the only thing keeping you from woozily toppling over is Tony’s hand on your shoulder. “Mostly it’s just thoughts and their constructs. Instincts. Emotions. Every mind is different and every person thinks differently. I just have tools to put the puzzle together and figure out what it means.”

“What about Steve?” Natasha cocks her head, taking a sharp left in the conversation. “He’s going to have a stick up his ass about this until you tell us if he has a steel trap of a mind, too.” And, shit, they’re all looking at you. You hate being looked at, being watched, being feared. If you were normal, if you couldn’t read someone’s thoughts or pry them open like an overripe fruit, nobody would pay any mind to you.

Tony shakes you to bring you back to earth and his hand barely glimpses over your bare bicep. You get coffee and good morning kisses and burning around the metal in your chest before you step away from him too. You curl in on yourself, tucking your shoulders up and crossing your arms over your chest so nobody will be tempted to fucking touch you anymore. Your stomach is rolling as the dark edges around your vision threaten to take you again. You just want to leave, run away, make your way into the forest like you used to dream about as a child.

Sucking your teeth, you look away from everyone and try to figure out how to explain what Steve’s mind is like. “He’s like a fucking beacon,” Is what you finally settle on, “It’s like he’s projecting every thought he’s ever had, or standing next to my ear and shouting down a megaphone.” When you glance back everyone has bristled, which is to be expected. They deal with a lot of confidential information - Steve reads every mission report from the agents. He reads the team’s, too. “I don’t try to listen, but man you’re loud. But go stand in an elevator with someone while they read their grocery list for three hours and see how much you actually pay attention to what they’re saying, though. I don’t retain anything if we’re ever close enough for me to latch on.”

“Stop reading my thoughts.” He says, hands balled into fists at his sides, “Get out of my head.”

“I would get out of everyone’s head if I could,” You spit back, looking at him just as angrily as he’s looking at you, “I get that even being alive with these abilities is nothing but a huge invasion of privacy to you, but have some empathy. Do you think I like havin’ everyone in my head twenty-four-seven? The shit I deal with that I can't explain to anyone? If I could stop doing this, I would - even if it fucking killed me.” The silence that falls is nearly suffocating and it does nothing to help you pull away from the black hole suction of Tanner’s mind. You rub the bridge of your nose again, fingers moving to smooth over your forehead, and squeeze your temples. The pressure in the room is driving you to the edge, and if you don’t get away soon you’ll either crack everyone in the room open like walnuts or fully mind-meld with Tanner and lose the essence of who you are.

“Oh,” Steve volleys back, head rolling back dramatically, “Right, have empathy for you.”

“You don’t even know me,” It doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone in the room as you begin to shuffle back toward the door. Your head feels like it’s going to explode if you don’t get away from so many open and prying minds. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough,” Steve says coldly. His chin tilts up, a small but sharp smile on his face. It doesn’t startle you because you can practically taste his thoughts at the back of your throat. He’s throwing them at you now, wanting you to see what’s coming before he says it. That doesn’t mean everyone else in the room isn’t surprised at how strangely he’s acting - and you know the next thing he says isn’t only going to hurt you but hurt Wanda as well. “I know enough to know that anyone who can do what you do is a monster.”

The paper taped to the front of your door is bright yellow and horrifying. You know what it says the second you lay eyes on it because Tony and Wanda have been floating the idea of making you a member of the A-Team for days after they peeled you off of Steve Rogers in the interrogation room. And, well… So, yeah, maybe you got a good punch in and, yeah, maybe you were suspended for a week without pay but who wouldn’t have done that? Who wouldn’t have felt the wash of excruciating pain from one of their best friends and sought retribution for a shitty thing said? You’d do it again if you were being honest. Since you threw that punch Steve Rogers hasn’t said one bad thing about you or what you can do - at least, not when Wanda can hear.

It’s something, you guess.

The paper on your door is exactly what you think it is: a fucking eviction notice signed by Tony Stark himself. He cites nonpayment and noise complaints despite the fact that he is not your landlord nor have you had any complaints or missed payments. The smiley face after his signature is enough for you to know that he already has an apartment for you ready and waiting in the Avengers wing. You unlock the door with your key and find all of your things gone.

Sighing you toss the key into what used to be your hallway and turn around. You just want to go to bed, really, because work sucked today and has been sucking since word got out that you’re a mind reader who attacked Captain America. (Gee, wonder how that got around.) By the time you make it across the compound to where Wanda and Tony are lounging unnaturally in the common room grinning at each other when they catch sight of you… Your back aches and your nerves are fried.

“So, I will be killing you, Stark. It will be a cruel and unusual death. I’ll probably violate the Geneva Convention for fun.” You drop your bag near the couch, kick his feet off the coffee table, and then land another kick to his shin. He yelps. “You can’t just move my shit out of my apartment without asking and put me in the same wing as Ye Olde National Hero That Wishes I Was Dead.” Wanda pulls you into the seat next to her, draping her arm around your shoulders. Thankfully, you’re both wearing long shirts but you still pull your sleeves down over your hands just in case.

“But we’ll be so much closer to each other. We can have movie nights.” She pouts at you because she knows it’ll work, and it does. “You’re not even in the same hallway as Steve.” You feel the weight of his name on her mind because their relationship still hasn’t healed despite how ardently he’d apologized after Tony enlisted Sam to push you from the interrogation room. You’d heard his voice echo down the hallway, paired with Natasha and Tony lighting into him over his attempt to make it right.

“Hey now,” Someone says from behind you, “You shouldn’t lie about that.” Sam comes into view, grinning at the way you tilt your head over the edge of the couch to see him. “Hey, what’s up, Vulcan? Get your little love note from Tony?” Sam had warmed up to you rather quickly after he saw how easily you extracted information from that little Hydra-wannabe-freak and how easily you would throw yourself at people who could crush you to protect the honor of your friends. He moves around the couch to perch in one of the large, cushy chairs. You wrinkle your nose and shake your head as he laughs.

“You can call it a love note when he finds a bucket of pig’s blood above his Iron Man suit before your next mission,” You reply coolly, “But yes, I did. I assume all of my furniture is already set up? Clothes unpacked? Privacy rifled through because you have no boundaries?” You cut a dark look toward your friend - and now, technically, boss.

“Of course it is, and of course I do.” Tony says, reclining like he hadn’t been massaging his sore shin for the last few minutes, “And Wanda isn’t lying, per se, Feathers. She just doesn’t know I had to make changes to the housing arrangement.”

Wanda makes an affronted noise. “You said that the room between Natasha and I was free and that would be the best place. Because of the mind-stuff.” You look between them, and hone in on Tony - but he catches on to what you’re doing and snaps his mind shut. Christ, you wish that Wanda hadn’t taught him how to do that so effectively. He used to be so easy to read.

“What did you do, Tony?” You sit up, moving away from Wanda as something like fear swells in your stomach. It’s probably the look on your face, but he looks almost ashamed and shifts uncomfortably. “Sam?” It becomes clear that Tony isn’t going to answer, so you look to another ally for any sort of answer. The smile slips from his face and he shakes his head.

“You’re between Buck’n Steve. I’m across the way, though.” He shrugs and you scoff, looking back at Tony.

“That’s what we’re doin’ now?” You snarl, pushing off of the couch just to pull away from Tony as he does the same. He says your name, ready to explain why he’s done what he’s done, “No, no! You know what he said to me - what he thinks of me. This may be a joke to you, but that man has single-handedly ruined every friendship I have outside of this team, Tony. Do you get that?” You swear you’re not going to cry, but your throat is burning in the sort of hollow way that indicates that you’re absolutely going to cry. “This is such bullshit.”

Instead of crying, you turn and run. Everyone watches the familiar mask slip over you, the way that you turn on your heel and head for the back garden of the compound. There aren’t a lot of people who know of or go to the back garden and that’s why you like it there. It’s small, overgrown, and when you sit or lay in the middle you can’t be seen unless someone is nearly standing on top of you. Once upon a time you’d tasked yourself to take care of it until that left you feeling vulnerable and just a little too seen without the tendrils of vine that tend to get out of control and hide your body. You crawl under one of the bushes and find the hollow you’d made for yourself, settling in on your side so you’re fully hidden.

This is the quiet that you like. There’s nobody around, so no need to put your headphones in. Just you, your breathing, and the rustling of leaves and flowers. It’s the only real quiet that you get - that you’ll get for the foreseeable future. The Avengers are notorious around your office for almost being like a pack. When there’s one, there’s always another lurking around somewhere. You suppose that comes from whatever trauma bonds they’ve formed living and almost dying together for so many years, but you’ve lived most of your life in a self-imposed solitary confinement of sorts. (Until Tony found you, that is.) The quiet helps you sort through your thoughts, and as you let the sunshine filter through the foliage above you and warm your skin you try to think of what you’re going to do. You can’t spend the rest of your life with headphones in your ears, volume turned up to eleven just so you can keep some semblance of dignity and self esteem.

But you can’t quit, either.

It’s a conundrum, because leaving means that you won’t help people. What’s the point of being able to read minds if you can’t help people with it? You can keep yourself safe, keep the team safe, keep civilians safe. You can pull information without ever making contact with a target, you’re perfect for undercover ops, perfect as a plant to support undercover ops. Your powers make you useful, and you’ve always known that.

The clear air and warm sun presents you with a solution: if Steve Rogers is the only one that hates you for what you can do, you have to make yourself integral to the team. You have to prove that you belong, that you’re simultaneously not a threat but also one of the biggest threats. it shouldn’t matter what he thinks of you, but it does. Of course it does. You’re not immune to hearing the stories of the nation's number one hero throughout your childhood. You’d found a fucked up little comradery in his story: someone who thought he was useless but wanted more, someone who had done everything in his power to make himself important and strong, someone who’d faced more than anyone could ever imagine but still kept going, someone who did good despite everything they saw.

And, just perhaps, you harbor a crush on the man after seeing him in real life your first week at the data analyst job. So what? Who didn’t have a crush on the six foot four American hero? You’re pretty sure even Tony has a little bit of a soft spot for the Good Captain’s strong jawline and broad shoulders.

You sigh, a little sleepy as the sun warms you. The thoughts of what you’re going to do fade away as you drift to sleep, relaxing into the grass and other leaves that surround you. It’s nice to be able to relax fully, not worried about what you’re going to overhear as you let your mind wander. As sleep begins to take you further and further into their grasp your mind opens up - like hiking through the mountains and then coming to a split: the humdrum of your everyday life and struggles are the mountains, careening into the open air and sleep is opening up your eyes to the sky between them. You relish in that, the moments between sleep and wake when you’re most relaxed.

You’re always half-conscious of where you’re at when you’re asleep, never fully resting, so when someone enters the garden on the other side you catch onto their mind right away. It’s always harder to figure out who’s mind you’re invading when you’re like this - light and half gone - so it doesn’t dawn on you that you’re hearing Steve until it’s too late to get up and leave. Slowly you wake up, trying to pull yourself out of his head, but it’s hard to do that when he’s thinking about you. Your name crops up again and again - he’s worrying about what to do with you, but in an abstract way that’s hard to decipher what he means. Clearly Steve has thought about this before so he’s not exactly spelling things out for himself, so it’s hard for you to understand what he means when he thinks things like I wonder how Tony would take it and I’m getting ahead of myself, here. He’s frustrated, that much is clear, and he’s sitting on the other side of the decrepit, overgrown, unused fountain. Too close for you to pull out your phone and start some music in your headphones, definitely too close for you to get up and escape. You’re stuck.

It feels like more of an invasion of privacy than normal, which makes your stomach churn. A lot of your life is spent trying to be the least invasive you can be for the comfort of others and, while the rest of the team doesn’t care that you do what you do, he’s made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t like you or your telepathy. So now, curled up in your safe place with Steve twelve or thirteen feet away, you can’t even enjoy the day before you have to spend the night on the other side of his wall. Your thoughts are so loud, so upsetting, that Steve’s fall to the wayside.

At least there’s that.

By the time he gets up and leaves you’ve made the decision that the garden can’t be your spot any longer. If there’s a chance that Steve will show up in the back garden while you’re there you’ll just have to find another place to go for quiet. It’s just another sacrifice you’ll have to make because of the way you were born. It’s another sacrifice that nobody knows you’re making.

When you finally extract yourself from your hiding spot the sun is dipping toward the horizon and your joints are stiff. You’ve calmed down from the initial shock of being stuck on the other side of Steve’s wall and come to terms with it. Plus, Bucky will be on the other side of you and he’s blissfully silent. You’ll struggle with having Sam across the hall, but if you spent eight hours a day with headphones in when you were just a data entry grunt, you can probably handle eight hours a night with headphones strapped to your skull like you're going through medical tests.

The common room is empty when you walk through, but it’s not like you need help finding your room. All you have to do is follow the sound of Sam and Bucky’s laughter, followed by a groan from Steve. Once you’re in the right hallway it’s easy to find your room - Tony has left another little note on your door and you rip it off without even reading it and try to make as little noise as possible. Sam’s thoughts don’t change, but Steve’s takes such a sharp turn toward you that you freeze in place. You know it’s a moot point because he can hear your heartbeat and he’s thinking about how he can hear your heartbeat. True to Tony’s word, your furniture is in the same spots that it was in your old room - down to the socks you left behind your couch three days ago. This helps you throw yourself blindly toward your bed, snagging your headphones on the way so that you can drown Steve and Sam out - and hopefully get some sleep.

As the music kicks up and you have something more than thoughts to focus on, the tears well in your eyes and crest down your cheeks. There’s no telling how long you’ll have to stay on the Avengers before you can fade into the background - there’s no telling how long you’ll be able to stay on the Avengers, really. How long can you sacrifice yourself just to save other people? How many months before you lose who you are in an interrogation room to try and bring justice about? How long before you can’t stand to be around Steve and his thoughts that still stray to you?

The first time Steve thinks a complimentary thought toward you is during a group training exercise in preparation for a mission that’s coming up. You’re off to the side with Peter - who thinks way too fast for you to pick up anything more than a word here or there, thankfully - when you catch a thought from another observing agent. It’s a big deal to be offered an observational spot when the Avengers are training, so the fact that your subconscious filter for nefarious thoughts picks up on anything from the other agents is surprising. The thought makes your stomach twist and you squint your eyes toward the man that they're coming from.

They’re lewd - that’s not really surprising because people have the right to think lewd thoughts and if you weren’t you nobody would know they were having them - but this man’s thoughts are leaning more toward dangerous than horny. Natasha’s face swims in his head, his inner voice thick with lust. His thoughts come in waves as he watches Natasha spar with Bucky, but none of them are on how lethal the fight would be if it were anyone besides Nat and Bucky on the mat together.

I bet she’d taste good.

I wonder if she’d scream.

I bet if I found her alone I could -

Your head begins to spin and you clamp a hand over your mouth and partially collapse into Peter’s side. The man’s thoughts turn darker and darker and you’re stuck, forced to listen to them. He doesn’t even know and that might be the worst part. Peter calls your name slowly, shaking your shoulders when you don’t respond.

“I’m fine,” You finally say, despite the way that you’re shaking and the fact that you didn’t even hear what he said - not really. The man’s thoughts take up most of your bandwidth because he’s so eager, and so loud, that you can’t even reach for the team’s minds to cover them up. “It’s fine.” Blood swims behind your eyes, but it’s not real. The man wishes it were real.

“Do you need me to go get Tony? Or - or Wanda, maybe?”

“I’m fine, Peter.” You shake your head and push yourself back up to support yourself. It might be because you’re focusing on the man in your quest to not focus on him, but you’ve missed the fact that Bucky and Nat are done sparring. You also realize that his thoughts are the only ones you’re catching, even with Peter sitting on the mat next to you. You’re not peeling back at his mind’s defenses like you’d done to Tanner but his mind is in such clear focus because of the danger his thoughts present that you might as well have been opening him up layer by disgusting layer.

When he gets up and makes toward Natasha on the edge of the mat, you move without thinking. Peter calls your name again, drawing more attention than you’d care for, but the man doesn’t look away from his target. When you reach him it’s like your vision tunnels. The only thing you can think about are the disgusting images in his head, the way he’s planning on asking Natasha out so that he can get her alone, the things he wants to do to her. Without thinking about the consequences to what you’re about to do you shove at the man as soon as you’re able to. He stumbles sideways but catches himself before he eats shit.

“Hey, what the fuck?” The man, Rick someone thinks, is almost two feet taller than you. He’s built like a super-soldier without the serum but that doesn’t deter you. “What was that for?”

“I know what you’re planning,” You stare him down, snarling, “I know what you want, and it’s not goin’ to happen.”

To Rick’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch. He does, however, think: What is this freak going on about? “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He glances over his shoulder at his friends, gesturing at you and snickering. You laugh darkly, lips peeling back over your teeth, and shove at his shoulders again.

“Fine, you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about? Spar me and you can go on and ask the Black Widow out.” He pales and your grin widens. “Oh, do you know what I’m talkin’ about now, Rick?” It's easy to slip into a person that you're not, just like you had in the interrogation room.

He scoffs and crosses his arms, mind sizing you up in all of the ways he thinks he could hurt you. “I’m not going to fight you. I’d break you like a twig.” Rick squints his eyes like he’s said something important but his thoughts are still half on Natasha - who’s watching you with curious eyes. Most of the team is, actually, and Peter is whispering harshly to Tony.

“So do it,” You challenge, jerking your chin up with a feral grin on your face, “If you break me like a twig you can ask her whatever you fucking want,” You keep your voice low so that your threat can’t be heard, “But you won’t win. I’ll stomp your ass into the ground and make you wish that you'd never been born.” That must be the straw that breaks the camel’s back because Rick heaves one of his meaty fists back and goes for a sucker punch. You’re one step ahead of him, because you’re you, and you take one step back to avoid it. He tries again, but you duck out of the way and slide around him to sweep his leg out from underneath his body. Rick stumbles but you don’t give him any time to recover before you’re on him, wrapping your arm around his neck from behind and using his own weight to drop him on his chest to the mat. It takes all of twenty seconds.

He struggles to unlatch you from his neck, but can’t get a good grip because as soon as he manages to get his fingers around your arm, you pull tighter around his neck. His thoughts are scrambled as he tries to figure out how to get you off of him and turn the tides of the pitiful fight he’s put up, but you’ve already decided that Rick will either tap or you’ll keep pressure on his throat until he passes out. Part of you - the dark and vengeful part that gets stuck in other people's heads and sees the most disgusting, evil parts of humanity - wants to keep his throat pressed against the crook of your elbow until he goes limp and cold. That part of you wants to neutralize the threat he presents, but there's a rational part of you that knows a thought is not a crime. There would be no justification to kill him - that doesn't mean you can't teach him a lesson, though.

Rick begins frantically tapping when his vision begins to tunnel, and you can practically taste his fear. His skin pressed to yours heightens everything about his thoughts, blurring your own until they're nonexistent and you can't hear anything but the floundering, heart-stopping fear that blooms in his chest when you don't let up. You want to kill him, want to erase his fucked up thoughts from the earth forever but you can't. When Rick goes limp in your arms you drop him, taking several small steps away from where his body is splayed face down on the training mat. You’re heaving in breath like you’re drowning, feeling phantom blood dropping down your arms, off of your fingers. It’s not real but it’s real, it’s Natasha’s, it’s swimming in your brain and pooling in your mouth and making your body shiver as it cools on your skin.

The blood is not real, but it feels like it is.

Tony is the first to reach you, but Wanda isn't far behind him. Your chest is heaving and your head is spinning but they help ground you as you collapse in on yourself, whispering the things you'd heard to just get them out of your head. Tony, to his credit, holds you tightly against his chest as you sag and confess to sins that aren't yours but you've had to take on because of the things you can do. His skin pressed to yours is a balm, but he's shaking, too. His thoughts are turning dark in the same ways that yours had and, well, so are Wanda's. It's overwhelming.

The bright side of having two people who know you so well is that they know when they have to pass you off to someone else or risk sending you hurtling over the edge. Tony's chest rumbles with his voice as he does his best to remove your arms from around his waist, "Cap, need you to take over here. I've got something to deal with." Somewhere in your haze, you realize that Steve has taken you into his arms, but stiffly. He’s practiced and sure in avoiding your skin and it almost makes you weep. Coming off of your adrenaline is rough - and you want nothing more than to feel someone’s skin on yours. You need the balm of someone who’s not afraid to touch you, someone to tell you that you are not a weapon, you are not dangerous, you deserve to be held.

Steve doesn’t say any of those things. He takes you back to the common room just to get you out of sight of the observing agents, but the walk there is a blur of aching muscles and the beginnings of a headache. When he drops you on the couch you begin to spiral, panic welling in your chest at the thought of what’s about to happen to you. You’d attacked someone unprovoked for what they were thinking. Thoughts are not crimes - but he was going to act on them, you rationalize. He was on the move. Still. Still. Still.

Steve has dumped you on the couch and left the room, there’s no doubt in your mind that your tenure as an Avenger is coming to an end once Tony gets a hold of you. You curl around yourself as the throbbing in your head begins to recede and other thoughts begin to filter in from people in the area. Steve must be close because his are the loudest. He must be in the kitchen and, as much as he hates the fact that you can read his mind, you focus on what he’s thinking. His thoughts are a bright spot in the dark cloud that’s grown over you in the moments since Rick’s thoughts started coming in clearer.

Maybe some water. Looks like a panic attack - what did Buck say helped?

He doesn’t sound like he’s angry and that makes you calm down a little bit. At least he’s trying to take care of you, although it sounds like he’s fumbling around the shared kitchen like he’s fumbling over whatever Bucky’s told him about how to calm down panic attacks. You haven’t moved except to curl into the fetal position so when Steve comes back with a wet and cool washcloth for your face he practically has to peel your arms away from your head. The moment his fingers wrap around your wrist his thoughts are injected into your head like he’s speaking them out loud.

-Good form. Surprisingly quick. Must be the mind reading thing, can see the attacks coming before the opponent moves.-

He presses the washcloth to your forehead and you shudder, leaning into the gentle touch. It’s strange and you’re surprised that he didn’t just leave you on the couch to suffer until someone else found you - but you won’t mention anything about that. Steve Rogers is being nice to you and, better yet, he’s thinking positive things about you. It’s like Rick actually did snap you like a twig and this is a fever dream. Or a death rattle.

-Quick fight. That agent didn’t even stand a chance. Bet I wouldn’t either if we sparred. Glad we didn’t get to that. I’m not sure that I could do that thing that Wanda’s been trying to teach me-

His thoughts screech to a halt even though he doesn’t move his hands from your head. Clearly Steve has realized that he’s been feeding you his thoughts like an IV; you can feel the embarrassment welling up in the back of his head as he tries, and fails, to occupy his mind with anything but the replay of your short but impressive takedown of Rick. Finally, you pull away from his hands and sigh. “Sorry,” You move the washcloth over your eyes so that you don’t have to look at him as he kneels in front of you, “Know you don’t like me pokin’ ‘round in your head.”

To his credit, he only hesitates for a few seconds. “Do you always react like this? Almost pass out when you’re in someone’s head like that?”

“Didn’t go searchin’,” You practically groan, “Didn’t have to. Always tried to find the bad thoughts to keep an eye on people havin’ ‘em. Rick was loud.” You jump when Steve’s hand curves back over your shoulder and that’s when you realize that you’re shaking like a leaf and starting to cry. “His were bad. Had to do somethin’ before he acted on ‘em. He was goin’ to, otherwise, I would have just dealt with it like I have before.” It doesn’t make sense as to why Steve’s thoughts haven’t turned sour, but you’re not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“See a lot of this stuff?”

“People don’t believe in mind-readers,” You shake your head and immediately regret it when your stomach rolls and you groan lowly, “And, and thoughts aren’t always intentional. Some are intrusive. Hard to tell the difference when you’re not the one havin’ em.” You have to be imagining the turn his thoughts take - clearly, Rick actually got one good hit in because Steve’s being nice, sweet even, to you. It’s strange, but you’re not going to complain. The skin-to-skin contact is so nice you’re almost afraid that you’ll start sobbing when Steve pulls away again, the sound of him standing making your lip wobble and your body shudder.

“Hold on a second,” He says like he’s the one reading your mind, “I’ll go get a bowl of ice water and another washcloth so that you always have a cool one.”

Steve goes back to normal after that day. Tony had come and informed you that several cadets had reported Rick for inappropriate behavior but nobody had any proof until you beat his ass. He was proud of you, but worried about how you reacted. He’d never seen that before, and neither had Wanda. Scared Peter half to death, too, but you assured them it was normal. Told them to imagine someone describing what you’d heard out loud and then imagine not getting sick to their stomach or losing their cool. Then everything goes back to semi-normal.

Natasha finally lets you in, and that’s about the only thing that really changes. The both of you become fast friends and you know it’s real because you can’t read her thoughts. She doesn’t have to be afraid to be around you when she’s in a bad mood or just having a bad day, making the bond that you form much stronger. It seems with her acceptance of you, the rest of the team follows suit. Sure, Tony and Wanda had already been your friends - family, really - and Sam had been interested in being your friend but after they saw Natasha suggesting books for you to read it was like they all decided you’re one of them. A real, bona fide Avenger.

If only your parents could see you now.

Even Steve stops giving you the stink-eye when you join them for movie night, typically squashed between Nat and Bucky or curled into Wanda’s side with a blanket barrier between the both of you. It’s like the day he’d nursed you through the migraine until Tony and Wanda came to the common room had flown a white flag between the both of you.

You still don’t go back to your garden, though. And you miss it, especially on days like today when you’re stressed out about your first real undercover mission. If you fuck it up, and you won’t - can’t, you’re sure that the progress you’ve made in making yourself integral to the team will be gone. (And so will the first real friends you’ve made in a long, long time but that thought makes you crank your music and hide out in your room so you don’t even bother with that.)

The mission isn’t even really a mission - you’re going into a country club to figure out who the mark is; the intel that Tony was given only says that there’s someone there funneling girls from middle-eastern countries to America illegally for… Well, for nothing good.

So you’re going to go in, hang out at the country club and hopefully pick through the target’s mind and figure out who they were. After that, they’d send in Wanda, or maybe Nat if they thought she wouldn’t be recognized, and take down whatever smuggling ring was set up inside of the club. You sigh and try to get over the nerves of going in alone. Nobody there if you get overwhelmed, no way to muffle the thoughts from all sides, the weight of the world on your shoulders and nobody there to help you carry it. Although, hasn’t that been your life before the Avengers?

At least, you thought you were going in alone. The day of the mission finds you dressed to the nines, location transmitter tucked into a fake crown on one of your molars and comm disguised as a hearing aid tucked over your ear. Clint had warned you that they programmed the comm to squall if your head got too close to someone else’s - something that the older models of hearing aid it was made to look like did. When you finally made your appearance at the car that Tony rented out for you, complete with Peter undercover as a young driver, Steve was there. He was dressed to the nines in a black suit - it made his already large frame loom larger and his broad shoulders seem never-ending. Sweet Lord Jesus Christ Above.

“I can do this on my own,” You say as you approach, frowning at Tony. You know he’s the one that put Steve up to accompany you and the man confirms it in his thoughts. “I know I spent years being an insignificant analyst, but I’m good at what I do.”

“I know that,” Tony cuts a look toward Steve at your jab, and Steve has the decency to look and feel a little guilty, “But if we send you with an Avenger, you’re more likely to have to see and talk to a lot of people. It makes everything easier.”

“So why not go with you?” You cross your arms and try to pry Tony’s defenses from his mind so that you can find any ulterior motives that you know he has, “It makes more sense for Tony Stark to be at a country club.”

“I told you,” Steve leans against the car like he doesn’t have a care in the world, “Doesn’t make sense to have me there.”

“Come on,” Tony claps you on the shoulder and shakes you a little bit, “Live a little. Cap gets all embarrassed when people swoon over him. It’ll be fun.”

-It’ll be real fun when I put the shield through your suit during training. Could’a gotten anyone else for this mission, but had to pick me because he knows-

Steve’s mind doesn’t snap shut like Tony’s, but he does push you out of it rather quickly before he can finish the thought. You ignore him, for his sake and your own, and scowl at Tony, “Fine. You’re technically right that I’ll get to come in contact with more people, but it makes my job damn hard when they’re focused on an Avenger and not their next pickup.”

With you on board, the mission starts quickly. Peter is nervous driving you to the club, but that much is to be expected from someone so young and won’t cause any concern at the valet. He’s to stay in the car, headphones in, and pretending to study while you and Steve are inside.

Steve hasn’t had a thought since he pushed you out of his head. He hasn’t locked his mind down like any of the others are slowly learning to do - he’s just not thinking. There are waves of feelings, and instincts, but no concrete thoughts. It makes you feel shitty, but then you wonder if he’s doing it for his own peace of mind or for your benefit. Either way, you should probably tell him to knock it off because one of the perks of being able to read your partner’s mind on a mission is having a one-way link to set up plans without having to say them out loud. You won’t bring it up, though, because your relationship with Steve has finally stopped being enemies forced to share a wall and has become people who can stand to be in a room together sometimes. It’s not much in the scheme of things and still hurts your feelings - because you still have that ridiculous crush on the man, but it’s nice.

The country club is huge. The ceilings are easily thirteen feet high and dotted with grand, hanging chandeliers. The walls have arches, expensive paintings, and large stained-glass windows. It’s more lush and expensive than anything you’ve seen in your life and the spark of jealousy has you gritting your teeth. You hate rich people, have a distinct disdain for the way they hoard money while there are so many people who could use just a fraction of what they have - but yet, you find yourself wishing you lived in the lap of luxury.

With your arm taken in Steve’s, you suppose you do live in the lap of luxury. Being an Avenger doesn’t pay the best, and you’re acutely aware of just how many people on the team are exactly the thing that you find yourself hating. Tony has more generational money than he knows what to do with - even without counting how much money he’s made on his own. Steve has enough backpay to pay off the college debts of the state of Ohio. Bucky was given a settlement when it was revealed that, despite Steve and the other Commandos rallying for the Army to retrieve his body, there was no search made for him which allowed Hydra to do what they did.

You blink, take a deep breath, and push those thoughts from your focus. Steve looks down at you. People are starting to notice him, now, but that’s not a hard thing to do. Out of seventy people in the room, about one-third have their thoughts turned to Captain America and the person on his arm. “Are you okay?” It takes you a second to realize he’s spoken out loud and shifted to block your view of the room. He’s frowning.

You smile as politely as you can, trying to calm him. “Peachy. It’s just a lot. Where would you like to start?”

“The bar?” Steve leads you further into the room and more thoughts turn his way, “We could start with a drink, and then mingle?” You hum and slip your hand down to press just the tips of your fingers against his bare wrist. He stiffens but manages to keep his cool, despite cutting you an unreadable look.

“Easier to communicate,” You have a wisp of a smile as you meet curious eyes, trying to focus on the thoughts that swim between your ears.

-Why’s he here?-

-Who’s with him? Why would an Avenger bring a date to-

-Holy fuck, it’s Captain America-

Can you hear me over everyone else? Steve isn’t looking at you, but his voice cuts through the noise. It’s high and clear, a distinct dichotomy to his speaking voice. Before you answer, your mind wanders to whether or not that’s how he sounded pre-serum. You lean against the bar with him, pretending to be perusing the menu while you tap your finger once against his wrist, sliding a line, and then tapping three more times. He orders matching glasses of wine for both of you and doesn’t respond.

The bartender is looking closer at you than at Steve, and you wonder if you’re as nervous as you seem. His thoughts aren’t untoward, not really, just wondering if you’ll like the dry white that Steve’s ordered. (You don’t, and won’t. Not like you’ll be drinking any - unlike the super-soldier on your arm you’ll get tipsy, your mind will get fogged, and the mission will be compromised.)

It’s not until Steve passes you the glass, smiling at you like he has a secret or wants to tell one, that you focus back on the mission. Good, he thinks, I suppose it will be easier this way.

You take a micro-sip of the wine and try not to scrunch your nose at the taste. “The wine is really good. Thank you for ordering, Captain.” He huffs under his breath, a twinge of annoyance tickling the back of your senses. So he doesn’t like being called Captain, which is interesting. You resolve to keep that in mind as you survey the room, looking for anyone who’s more nervous than anyone else. Thoughts come and go as you shift your focus.

-Yes!-

The thought is so sharp and out of place among the throng of people trying to get up the courage to speak to Steve that you physically flinch, hiding it by pressing your face into the bicep of the man who, in theory, hates you. You take a deep breath and shake your head when Steve opens his mouth to speak. It takes a lot of focus to be able to hone in on someone with just their thoughts, but you manage to do it by taking your skin off of Steve’s and putting his suit sleeve between your hands and his wrist again. The thoughts come loud and clear then, and your eyes trace the room for the head they could be coming from.

Everyone’s distracted by Star-Spangled Asshole over there with his stupid little date, nobody will notice if I sneak off… Fuck, the God damn door’s locked.

You take Steve’s wine and set it down on an unoccupied table next to your own glass, and lead him to the small dance floor that’s shown up as the afternoon progresses. He takes position without a peep. Clearly, he knows you’re on to something or listening to someone. He’s good enough of a dancer to lead you in a way that makes it seem like you’re the clumsy one - his dancing gives you just enough time to catch sight of the only person frowning at the emergency exit.

“You’re a lovely dancer, Captain,” You finally glance up at him, and then let your eyes slide back to the doors, “Where’d you learn?” His answer goes over your head as you use the small talk as an excuse to keep your mind on your newest, and only, lead. You hope that Steve won’t be offended that you’re making small talk but not listening to his answers, but really, what’s another thing about you for him to hate?

If I’m not at that meeting in fifteen, Frank is going to kill me. If I don’t get the pictures of the girls from Frank, Chris will kill me and then I’ll be double dead. How am I supposed to get paid if I’m double dead?

In your surprise that the man is thinking away his whole plan, you accidentally stamp on Steve’s toes. Of course, you’d mentioned it to Steve before - nobody believes in mind readers. But still, not a lot of people think as frantically about what they’re doing as That Guy is. Two names are better than one name, but one name with the last name attached would have been the best. Still, they have to be connected in some way to the country club, and maybe Tony can figure it out.

“Oh!” You smile up at Steve a second after he jerks back from your clumsy feet, “Sorry, I was just thinking about the party last week.” You reach up under the pretense of fiddling with your hearing aid, and click the connect button on the comm. Steve’s eyes catch the motion and he begins the dance again, as if you hadn’t nearly stumbled over yourself and toppled over. Several thoughts turn your way and they’re… Less than flattering. You sigh and soften your smile, until it could almost be called fond. “Did you see how antsy Frank was to get to that meeting? And all Chris wanted to do was look at pictures.”

To anyone else, it was idle small talk, but to Peter, in the car, it was clear that you were giving information. You had all the confidence in the world that he’d be on the phone to Tony faster than you could blink. Hell, he was probably already on the phone with Tony and relaying the information as Steve’s eyebrows rose as the clicking of laptop keys began to softly play from your comm.

Get it together Derek. Oh, shit it’s raining now. Oh, that sucks.

“And Derek,” You continued, laughing a bit under your breath as if he was an old friend, “Such a klutz. Can’t tell a push from a pull door.” Steve spins you and catches sight of the man panicking at the emergency exit. A frown pulls on his lips for a moment, before he’s back to acting the night away with you, looking down at you in a way that anyone else would see as sentimental. But you understand how Steve feels about you, what you can do, and know that he is an incredibly good actor. An unreasonably good actor, since nobody else at the club is looking into his eyes.

There’s a pulse where your hands are connected, skin slipping against skin, and it startles you. Steve’s thoughts come through louder and clearer than ever before - he’s thinking with purpose. He’s thinking so you’ll hear him. He’s thinking at you. Good work. Three names is even better than we were hoping for.

You read a little too much into that, a frown tugging briefly on your face before you remember that you’re being watched. It melts into a smile easily and Steve watches the way it changes with an unreadable expression. It’s nice, dancing with him. Just a little too nice, and it makes the saliva in your mouth sour. It would be one thing if you only had a crush on the man, but he despises you. Or, he did. Maybe now, holding on to you and dancing like he might like you, he only… Dislikes you. Tolerates you. Realizes that you’re just a person saddled with an impossible ability and you’re drowning under the weight of it.

You wonder if he ever looks at you and sees himself.

The thought dies as he tracks Derek over your shoulder, putting a little fond smile on his face - although you know its fake - and ducking down to breathe the man’s movements into your comm. It’s closer, intimate, and you press your lips into a thin line to repress your shudder at the way Steve presses close to you. “I should get back home,” You finally say, “My babysitter said that she has an exam tomorrow. It’s no fair to her for me to overstay my welcome.” It won’t make sense and will definitely look untoward, because the two of you have only been in the club for forty-five minutes. If that. But you can’t handle being so close to Steve, even if he’s done whatever he’s learned he can do with his thoughts and shut you out of them despite your hands in his.

Steve catches both of your hands in his, smiling down at you. “Allow me to walk you out.” And your brain half short circuits because for a brief moment he lets you in. Your mind lights up with his thoughts and they’re scrambled, frantic, anxious. Your name is there, your face, your lips, your favorite color, the scent you put on specifically to blend in with the rich and famous. Steve’s mind is awash with you and it’s so much, too much, that it makes you dizzy. He seems to catch on the moment you turn to look at him, swaying on your feet with question in your eyes. His hands leave yours and find a home deep in the pockets of his slacks. You watch ruefully as his face hardens, imperceptible to anyone around the two of you.

“Of course,” You finally say, voice slow and quiet. You hate watching people close off from you once they realize their private thoughts aren’t private. It sits heavy in the back of your mind, though, that he was thinking of you. Not the mission, not your powers, not how awfully close he had to be to someone he seemed to hate. Just thinking of you in a way that nobody else had, not in a long time. Not if they knew what you can do. Nobody has ever loved you before - nobody can love you - and you’re not about to start convincing yourself that Steve will be the first.

Abruptly, as if the two of you hadn’t spent the better part of three minutes staring at each other and saying nothing, you turn toward the door. He follows you outside where it’s raining while you ask Peter to bring the car around.

“I’ll be right there,” The teenager confirms, “Also, that Derek guy is getting into a Jeep Wrangler and leaving. Should we tail him?” You jump when a heavy hand curls around your elbow, but you tell yourself it’s because Tony’s voice is crackling to life on the comm and not because Steve is pressing close again.

“I have agents already prepped for that. Just get Thing One and Thing Two out of there before someone realizes we’re onto them.” Peter hums and you hear the car kick to life in the background.

Steve, you realize, doesn’t have a comm in. You turn to relay what Tony said to you just to find Steve already nodding along as if he’d heard. He might have, you think. He can hear your heartbeat through the plaster and drywall back at the compound. Still, he’s looking at you as if he’s waiting for you to relay it, and when you don’t speak - he frowns.

“About what you heard,” He clears his throat and looks away. You’re used to that, really. Tony used to do it after he realized you picked up everything and Sam still does it sometimes. When people figure out that you’re a walking privacy violation they get embarrassed and when that happens they can’t even look at you.

Another thing that your powers have taken away from you.

With a wry smile, one that Steve doesn’t see because his eyes are closed and he’s flushing, you console him. “It’s fine. I understand this is the last thing you want to be doing.” You hesitate on his name and choke his title back, trying to keep the peace between the both of you. His eyes flash to yours, but only for a second, “I told you the first day that we met that if I could change this part of myself, I would. Good work I’ve done be damned.” The smile on your face then is as sad as it is sweet, and Steve looks lost. “It’s not fun to be alienated in a way that nobody else can understand.”

God, and if you were to look back on it, you never would have said that. But you do, and it’s out in the world and in Steve’s head - which is still blessedly silent. Maybe that’s why you miss Derek’s thoughts growing louder and louder, getting closer to where you’re standing faster than Peter’s are; you’re too focused on Steve and his thoughts and how the moment today stands in dichotomy to the moment on the interrogation floor.

Maybe you’re just too focused on him in general.

Derek’s thoughts hit you like a freight train just a second before you hear the squall of struggling tires on the pavement. Knew they were following me, knew it, knew it! You watch from Derek’s eyes as he guns it straight for where you’re standing with Steve - and then you’re back in your own body and finally reacting. You turn to Steve and grab his lapels, shoving him out from underneath the fancy awning. He stumbles out into the rain before his feet get tangled against each other and he tumbles to the ground, shouting your name.

Going for the date, take the Captain down by hurting the person he’s with. He’ll be so guilty, won’t be able to think, won’t be able to get me.

You surge backward into the brick wall at the last moment, Derek’s thoughts filling with rage once he realizes that he’s missed you. Fuck! Fuck, no! Frank is going to kill me. Well, maybe not if I kill both of them. The car takes a dangerous u-turn and revs as Derek stares you down, sweating behind the wheel. “Peter!” You call into your comm, “What’s the holdup?” Steve springs to his feet, brow furrowed and battle ready.

“I’m almost there!” Peter’s voice cracks and you hear the humming of the engine in the background as he presses his pedal to the metal.

“You should hurry!” You dart into the rain when Derek aims the Jeep Wrangler toward you again. Crashing into Steve’s side you urge him away, the both of you already soaked to the bone. “You have to get out of here. He’s aiming for me because he knows you’ll get off of his tail to help if I’m hurt.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Steve’s thoughts are loud, angry, and you wonder what it will be like to be on a combat mission with him. “Move!” His arms wrap around your body and he swings the both of you into the bushes on the other side of the driveway, stumbling to his feet and tugging you out of the other side of the foliage.

If he thinks I won’t run over those bushes, he’s wrong. I’m going to make that meeting, and I’ll make it without an Avenger on my fucking tail!

“You’re playing into his hand!” You have to yell over the rain and the screaming of Derek’s tires, “Get back to the car with Peter, I can handle myself.” Steve’s jaw sets and he takes a glance behind you, body tensed to move again but you’re also watching the world from Derek’s eyes and the way that he’s definitely going to hit the tree that stands among the bushes of the road verge. You stand your ground when Steve surges toward you to take you off of your feet once more, holding him in place as you shrink into him and close your eyes.

“We have to move - !” His voice raises to a shout and breaks on the last word but you grit your teeth and hold him still. If Steve really wants to move, he will. You know he can overpower you and you hope that he doesn’t. Derek is half-blind with fear and rage and he’s aiming directly for you, not paying attention to anything in the way. Your hands clench in the back of Steve’s jacket as you hold him to you, trying to convey that he’s safe as long as he stays where he’s at.

The crash from the front corner of the Wrangler hitting the large and sturdy tree makes your ears ring. You feel more than hear Steve gasping, his arms tightening around you as he takes a step back in shock. The world spins around you when you close your eyes and look through Derek’s eyes again, and his thoughts are as scrambled as the Jeep Wrangler is. It crashes in an arc around where you stand with Steve in the rain, not even coming close to hitting you. Your knees buckle when parts of the bumper come off, striking the back of your calves and Steve keeps you upright even as the pain streaks through you and your knees give out.

Peter is there half a second later, and then a second after that Tony is in your comm, telling you to scram because the agents are only a minute out. Steve shoves you back toward the road verge and you take the path that was cleared out by the Jeep. Peter is there in the sleek car, face pale and shocked behind the wheel. Steve darts around you to throw open the passenger door, thoughts intent on throwing your body in and hoping he can make it into the back seat before Derek gets his wits about him. You grit your teeth and throw your body against his, snagging the pistol you’d felt in his waistband out as he stumbles again.

“What the fuck?” He shouts.

Derek is getting out of the ruined car, hysterical and terrified. His thoughts spin around you as you put your body in front of Steve’s - between his body and the gun that Derek is wielding. It’s like that motherfucker is my head, have to stop that. Have to get to the meeting, have to get the photos, have to get the girls It’ll be my head! Mine! If I don’t get this done, can’t do that. Can’t have that. You aim Steve’s gun for Derek’s center mass, but you don’t shoot. Not yet. His thoughts haven’t turned and you haven’t felt that jolt that comes when someone prepares to shoot in the back of his mind. Steve is in your head, too, wondering why you’re not shooting and why you’re in front of him, and how to regain control of the situation so that he can suffocate the fear building in the front of his consciousness. He thinks about bodily picking you up but Peter’s frantic voice is distracting him.

You hold your ground, gritting your teeth so that you don’t peel Derek like an overripe pear. His eyes are focused on the gun you’re wielding and the distinct lack of trigger discipline. He’s wondering if you’re the better shot and you wink at him.

Rogers isn’t the one in my head.

The realization puts him on the backfoot. “You can’t beat me!” You call into the storm, hoping he’ll hear, “I’ll know you’re going to shoot before you will!” Derek’s gun begins to shake and Steve’s breath halts in his chest. “Do you want to take that chance, Derek? Want to see who has the faster trigger finger?” An unmarked car pulls fast into the parking lot and sirens begin to wail in the distance. The commotion finally caught the attention of the club and someone inside must have called an emergency number. The hesitation is written all over Derek’s face, especially when he glances over his shoulders to see agents in Kevlar rapidly approaching. “Surrender yourself.”

Steve’s hands tighten on your shoulders, but after a moment Derek puts the gun down.

The moment you’re out of medical, you’ve shed your dress clothes and changed into something comfortable. There’s no need for a debrief because it was supposed to be just a recon mission and Derek had cracked like an egg the second he was put into the backseat of Peter’s car with you - so you’re free for the night.

It takes you just a second to make sure Steve is in the gym before you escape with your phone and headphones - both upgraded as an apology from Tony - to the Garden. True to your personal promise, you hadn’t been back since the day you’d been trapped in the bushes by Steve being there. But you need to go back - you need silence. You need just a few moments of fucking freedom from thoughts in your head that aren’t yours, and you need to be able to get it without explaining to someone why you need them to leave the weird, abandoned garden so that you can get it.

You leave your music loud enough to numb your mind through the compound, smiling at people who wave at you or say something you’re in no mood to figure out. When you clear the back doors you’re free, cutting your music and taking in the soft sounds of nature. The garden isn’t empty when you arrive, and it makes you stop short when you find Natasha perched casually on the fountain. There’s stress in your back seeing her there, but you can’t read her mind so it’s fine. It has to be fine.

She hears you coming and turns to you with a small smile on her face. She sighs your name, head tilting to the side. “So you’ve finally decided to come back.” It makes your steps falter, but you still wade through the overgrowth to sit next to her, leaning your back against the grand statue in the middle of the fountain that nobody takes care of.

“I shouldn’t be surprised you knew about the Garden, and yet I am.”

“Who do you think told Steve about it?” You sigh, unsurprised that out of everyone Natasha would have picked up on the fact that you don’t come here for his sake. “It’s nice that you’ve decided to come back.”

“Steve is in the gym.”

Natasha leans into your side, one hand gripping yours tenderly - in a way that only a few lucky people are allowed to see her. “How is he doing, by the way? Keeping you out of his head?”

“What do you mean?”

She cuts you a look that has you flushing, “Please. Either he’s really struggling or you’re playing coy. He’s been practicing with Wanda since you moved into his wing.” That makes you frown because, God, that just makes you feel worse. Your entire life is lived around making people comfortable with what you can do and you’re searching for a solution to the problem when Natasha shakes you lightly. “He’s doing it for you, not for himself.”

“Sure,” You snort, “It’s for my comfort.”

“Seeing you after Rick did a number on him.” She hums, leaning her head on your shoulder. You sag into the human contact and the blessed blankness of Natasha’s mind. “He was worried. It finally got his head out of his ass about how embarrassed he was.” There’s a lilt to her voice that you don’t really understand.

“Nothing new for someone who spends an extended period of time around me,” You mumble, feeling yourself get sleepy against her body heat, “People who can do what I do don’t get friends, or days off, or relationships. Doesn’t matter what I think of what he thinks of me because those are personal thoughts.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Natasha’s hand comes up to pet the side of your face, making you sigh. It’s so nice to be touched by another human without getting their thoughts injected into your mind, “What I mean is that, for a while, Steve was taking our reports to Data instead of emailing them. He was coming back flushed, and talking about how there was someone there who kept their head down and worked hard, never looked his way, and didn’t react to the fact that Captain America was handing them a report. Sometimes he’d come out of the elevator like that, too.”

“Hm?” You’re not following her. At least, you don’t want to be.

“I’ve known him for a long time. When you walked into Interrogation he was caught off guard to see you there. Tony had told us he was bringing in his Special Weapon. Never expected you to show up.”

“I wish he’d stop calling me that.” You grumble. Natasha pinches you and you squirm away.

“Let me finish,” She narrows her eyes at you, but there’s mirth behind her eyes. You sigh and curl back into her, wondering if this is better than the hour you were planning on spending alone or not. “When Steve realized you could read minds, I’m sure every thought he’d had around you came to the front. Poor guy looked like he was going to shit himself.”

“They didn’t, at least not how you’re insinuating.” You sighed, remembering what he’d actually thought and then biting the bullet to tell Natasha even though they were his private thoughts, “He thought I was dangerous. Came up with some really creative ways to kill me, though.” She laughs, jostling you. “Seriously, he should teach some of those as self defense.”

“The thoughts came later, then. Call his reaction an instinct, but he’s been beating himself up for it since. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, so keep your mouth shut. He came to me, terrified that you’d heard every single thought he’d had about that person.”

“I would never tell them,” You frown, shrugging your shoulders, “I may be a confidentiality risk on wheels, but I’m not a jerk.” She sighs like you’ve mortally offended her and you feel her head shake against yours. “The things in their heads stay in mine - most of the time. I thought I’d managed to convince you all of that already.”

“I have to spell it out for the both of you, huh? The emotional labor of a best friend never ceases.” Her hand drops from yours and she pats your thigh before extracting herself and stretching in front of you. “He wasn’t worried about you hearing those thoughts because he thought you’d tell - Steve is worried about you hearing those thoughts because it would be him telling.”

“I don’t understand.” You say, hoping to backpedal the conversation to something other than the convoluted idea that Steve Rogers could feel the same warmth in his chest looking at you that you feel when you look at him.

Natasha cuts you a look that says you definitely understand me you stubborn little motherfucker; then, she smiles over her shoulder at you and then she’s gone, disappearing around the corner before you can process what she’s said without saying. That’s one thing that you’re still not used to about her: the fact that you can’t read her mind means that you have to try and parse her meaning from her words and body language like you’re… Not you. It makes you feel incredibly uncomfortable but also incredibly normal. A true, blue catch-22. Your stomach swirls with unease until you curl up on your side in the fountain, the concrete hiding you from view and making you focus on the unobstructed sky overhead.

Absentmindedly you hum a Mazzy Star song, something that you like to listen to when you’re not using music to numb your extra sense so that you can live like a regular person. You wonder if anyone has shown Steve and Bucky things like Mazzy Star, or if people are still trying to shill them what they think the two men out of time will like instead of expanding their world view. Maybe they don’t want to remember the before.

You don’t want to remember the before.

Before Tony, before the Avengers, before you figured out that you can’t be peeling people apart at the seams just for shits and giggles. Before you found yourself tipping face first into a personality and memories that weren’t yours - things you still see in your nightmares.

Before you almost died.

You were a different person back in the before. More open, easier to talk to, trying to make and keep friends. You tried to have things for yourself but in the moment you opened up the man who was trying to kill you, say the things that he’d seen and done and said and thought, the moment your brain started whirring like an overheating laptop and then went dark to protect itself… You knew when you woke up eight months later your life would be nothing but lonely, watching from the outside like the only sentient person in a movie. You sacrifice, you push people together if their thoughts match and there’s a mutual interest, you have four different degrees just for fun because you don’t need to study.

When you hear someone approaching the garden you get up and dust yourself off, ready to give them the space that they need.

It’s almost surprising to see Steve wading through the unkempt foliage, but it’s not. The surprising part is that he doesn’t seem angry to see you. He almost seems relieved that you’re there.

You step out of the fountain, white-knuckling your phone. “Sorry,” You smile wryly, “Didn’t know you were comin’ out here today. I’ll, uh, head out.” The only way out is past him and you try to hustle before he says something that you’re not expecting - he’s doing whatever Wanda taught him to keep you out of his head and you’re happy. Really, you are. It just puts you on the backfoot and sends anxiety twisting around your spine like a ribbon.

Steve reaches out and grabs your elbow, still careful not to touch your skin with his. “Do you do this a lot?”

While you’re trying to process what he’s asking, you blink slowly at him and his painfully earnest, blue eyes. Steve almost looks like he’s in pain, and his voice sounded like he was struggling not to let it break over his words. “Uh,” You finally manage, voice nearly lost to the light wind and the shake that’s permeating your whole body, “Not lately, no. Just had some rough stuff, y’know, floating around in my head. Figured some fresh air would do me good.”

“No,” He shakes his head and then takes another step toward you. Instinctually you match his step forward with a step backward, his voice somewhere in the back of your head calling you a monster. Nat’s voice is there, too, telling you something you’re unwilling to believe but her voice is so much quester than Steve’s. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I’m following, then,” You clear your throat and have to look away from his face because it’s almost unbearable. You’re used to people looking at you a certain way - even Tony and Wanda look at you in That Way sometimes - but the way that Steve is looking at you… He’s bearing his soul more than any moment in time when you’ve been in his head. It’s unsettling in a new way, making heat and goose flesh crawl up your back and crest over your neck. “Look, I’ll head back to my room so you can enjoy the Garden.”

Steve takes another step toward you but you’re so shocked that he’s so close, looming over you. It reminds you of the way that he danced with you, the way that he looked at you even though he was acting.

You blink slowly, meeting his eyes, and remember the way that he thought about you in that moment before you both left the country club. Your throat tightens when you start to piece everything together and something inside of you, a big something that’s been there since you woke up from your eight month coma, tells you that it’s not right. Can’t be true. Steve sighs and his eyes flutter shut. “Do you…” He chokes on his words, like he’s not sure what he wants to ask you, “Do you sacrifice a lot for other people?”

“Don’t we all?” Your answer is knee-jerk because you do not want to go there. Not with anyone, but most certainly not with Steve.

He doesn’t open his eyes but his fingers tighten on your arm, his other hand moving to ghost over your shoulder. It’s almost unnerving to see Steve so unsure of himself. “That’s not what I meant.” His voice comes out small and strangled. Instinctually you reach up and clasp his bicep, dipping your head to try and see his face as his head turns toward the ground. It doesn’t take more than a second to convince yourself that you’re imagining the flush that’s crawling up his cheeks, making the soft freckles stand out against the ruddiness of whatever he’s feeling.

“Steve…” You’re lost for words and he sighs through his nose. It’s startling when his eyes snap open and he pulls you toward him. Your arms are stuck out at awkward angles in the hug, but you let him hold you close because… Well, again, you have a crush on the Good Captain - but also because you can feel him shaking.

“How much do you sacrifice for other people? How much do you give up for them that they don’t even know - that they don’t understand?” You struggle to hear him over your own blood rushing in your ears because you can feel his voice rumbling from his chest to yours. He’s clutching you like you’re his lifeline, like he’s drowning and you’re the only thing that can keep him above water. Maybe it’s what he’s asking or maybe it’s how he’s so warm in the dying light of the day, but you finally secure your arms around his waist.

“It’s not a sacrifice,” You finally whisper into the front of his shoulder, where you’ve planted your face so that he can’t pull his head back and see how you’re on the edge of breaking, “It’s just what I do.”

Steve shudders. “I didn’t know - I’m so sorry.” If you didn’t know better - and you don’t, because he’s doing a beautiful job of keeping you out of his head despite how clearly emotional he is and how the two of you are pressed together from head to toe. “The things I’ve said, I’ve thought…” His voice breaks.

“You’re not your thoughts, Steve,” You try to reassure, “I understand that.”

“I called you a monster,” His head shakes once and then it drops against your shoulder, “I called you a monster because I’m a coward and I was afraid. Afraid that you’d heard, that you knew about how I felt. How I feel.”

“Steve, it’s fine.” It’s really not, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“It’s not fine.” It seems he knows that.

Eyes fluttering shut against your own will, you inhale his cologne. He must have showered after the gym and the familiar scene of At The Barber’s makes you relax against him. “People have said worse. What,” You stutter, unsure you want to know the answer to what you’re going to ask, “What brought this on? You don’t have to feel guilty for my sake.”

Steve pulls back and you can feel his eyes on the side of your face - he doesn’t stop holding you though. You’ll take it. You’ll take it with you into lonely nights and being alone and your cold bed. In those moments you’ll remember how he feels against you and how his eyes feel on you and what it feels like to dance with him. “Nat told me that you stopped coming out here because of me.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“Did you?” He tries to catch your eyes but you won’t meet them. Can’t see the pity that’s in them - or the guilt that’s there. He says your name, mangled by the emotion in his throat, “Please, please look at me.”

“Yes,” You admit when he manages to catch your eyes, “I did. I can go anywhere to think without being spied on. You can’t.”

Steve says your name again and presses his face even closer to yours. “I’m so sorry. For everything - for calling you a monster and thinking those horrible things and taking this away from you. I’m sorry you’ve sacrificed anything for me.” The honesty in his voice takes your breath away.

“I’d sacrifice everything for you, Steve.”

He blinks, shocked, but you’ve never been more sure of anything. Even though the beginning of your relationship with him was rocky, the months spent living and working alongside of him has solidified that not only do you look up to him and what he’s sacrificed, but your crush has a foundation that’s unshakable. Steve flounders for a second, searching your eyes but then he surges forward.

The kiss is something that you’ve imagined in the place between wake and sleep - but the real thing is so much better. Steve kisses like he’s apologizing and sacrificing and begging at the same time. His hands cup your face when you sigh, hands clutching in the back of his t-shirt to draw his body closer to yours. You can feel your body heating up underneath the thrumming of shock, feel yourself reacting to the way Steve whimpers against your mouth and follows your lips when you gasp for air. God, he kisses like he’s making up for lost time and like he’s desperate to tell you something that he can’t express with his words.

Steve, in short, kisses like a God.

You’re still struggling to catch your breath when he presses another chaste kiss against your lips - and then against your cheekbone and next to your eyes and then another on your forehead. “Steve…”

“I’m yours,” He confesses in a soft voice with his mouth pressed against your temple, “I realized that while we were dancing today. Holding you like that, seeing how incredible you are and how much I must have hurt you… I’m yours, if you’ll forgive me. Always have been, I think.” You shake against him, unsure and unstable.

“Steve…”

“You can say no,” He whispers into your skin, “You can say no and nothing will happen. I’ll keep my distance, I’ll be respectful.”

“I’ve never…” This time you pull back to look at him and the way his eyes are swimming makes you dizzy - in a good way. “Nobody ever wants me after they have me. It’s - it’s okay, but you can’t… It’s not going to be like you think. It never… I never work out. You have to know that. I can’t be friends with anyone who can’t block me out… How can you want…” How can you want me?

Steve’s eyebrows pull together and he shakes his head slightly. “We’ve been practicing, me and Wanda. I can keep you out and, and… I don’t care.” He says firmly. “I don’t care if you can see into my thoughts. I… I did, I cared a lot. I have to admit that, but that’s because - I’ve thought a lot about you before. I used to go to Data just to be able to see you,” His cheeks flush with color again but his eyes never leave yours, “I was tryin’ to get the courage to ask you out properly when you walked into that interrogation room and…” Steve sighs, eyes falling shut only briefly before they open to find yours again. His eyebrows are still pulled tight, wrinkling his forehead and making him look contrite. “I don’t know what I was thinkin’, saying those things. Thinking them.”

“You shouldn’t have to hide your thoughts from your partners,” You’re not sure why you’re pushing him away while you’re still wrapped in his arms, but he’s not budging.

“I know,” He breathes, “But I don’t care. I don’t care because it’s you. You’re good and you’re self-sacrificing and you’re… God, I don’t even know how to describe you.” Steve kisses you again, stealing your breath, “If you’ll have me, I’m yours. I swear it.”

You take a few shallow breaths, trying to digest your thoughts while he gazes at you like he did while you were dancing. “Steve…” He closes his eyes like he’s expecting a fatal blow and trying to come to terms with it but you can’t do that to him - won’t do that to him. “If you’ll… If you’ll have me I’m yours,” You parrot his words back to him, “If you can stand to be with me when I can do what I can do, you have me. You’ve had me, Steve. You have.”

He kisses you again and you don’t even flinch when the first of his tears drop against your cheeks.

[kankuroplease]

Ik it’s pretty early to be asking this, especially since we didn’t even get to the point of her existing- kakuzu x Riki hc wise- but could you share some sycee hcs

I’ve had some time to think about her/what her life may be like, so I do have some headcons

Sycee named after an ignot because Kakuzu chose it.

Shortly after her birth, Riki took her to Konoha to visit her mother’s grave and claim her sword for Sycee.

She was an eerily easy baby, only fussing when she was hungry or needed to be changed

Very observant of her surroundings as a young child

Listening to the wildlife all around and people watching

That’s how she figured out their family isn’t the norm

Most mother’s aren’t mixing poisons in their kitchens/let their kids sample them and most fathers weren’t taking their daughters on bounty hunts

She was given some independence as long as she followed her parents rules; 1. Give no personal information 2. Stay out of villages 3. Always carry a weapon with her 4. Don’t hesitate to kill someone that wants to harm you 5. Don’t follow them when they’re working

She struggled making friends because of how mature she acted and her training compared to the countryside civilians. Play tag? Why? What’s the goal. Want to sword fight instead?

Her being so young and curious led her to break rules 2 and 5, which ultimately led to her being held hostage

She doesn’t remember much but the man’s blade pressing against her face, the burning pain of it cutting her flesh and the rain of blood falling on her.

The thick scent of iron while she slipped on blood soaked stones and stepping over bodies still haunt her dreams

She later learned that her life came at the cost of many innocent people that day and the guilt of that eats away at her

But after those events and her parents war path to retrieve her, Riki would bring Sycee to join Madara in the cave.

She hates being cold, the dark, and she doesn’t know her grandfather so of course she hates it

Listening to her mother and grandfather talk about these delusional ideologies and plans would frighten her

Not as much as Zetsu did though 💀 that creature can stay FAR over there

Honestly helped her develop her poker face and ability to remain silent

On one hand, she’s sure she can tell her father she wants to stay with him, but on the other she’s not old enough to hold her own and not be a burden during his hunts, so she’s essentially stuck

Fhl

The only silver lining were the times her mother would take her to stay with her father which, thankfully, was a regular occurrence

When grandfather brings home a half crushed boy, she really wants nothing to do with the whole situation

But she is curious enough to watch the bandaging process

Noting how her mother’s attitude started to change after this new kid arrived

Telling her she needs to train harder and always doing that that hand fidget thing she does when lost in thought, more and more

Sycee followed her mother’s wishes and did train harder to put her at ease, but she drew the line at telling her anything she overheard

She actually easily amused and giggled whenever Obito had a little freak out before going silent again

By then, Sycee knew about the Akatsuki, her parent’s involvement, and Madara’s plans for an “ideal” world

And she wants nothing to do with it or the war it would bring. The nightmares from the aftermath of her hostage situation make it so she never wants to be responsible for the lose of innocence

She counted the days until she could claw her way out of the hellmouth she was born into

Once she was old enough, she moved to Amegakure simply to cooperate on a surface level, but avoided actually joining the Akatsuki/her parents suspicions

Working as an assassin, she takes on the worst of the worst. Earning her a reputation as someone with a death wish, but truly it’s just she can’t bring herself to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it

She even was able to make friends with a few of the working women around Ame, who get a thrill out of hearing about her missions

They gave her a copy of icha icha which she threw out her window in shock after finding out it was THAT kind of book.

She wouldn’t be self conscious about her scar anymore, but she also doesn’t like the attention and questions it brings

It’s the most free she’s felt in a long time. With the only downside being she doesn’t hear many crickets or see a lot of butterflies

Occasionally teaming up with her father, just to see him.

Often combining her wind and fire chakra’s to create large fire whirls to capture and incinerate their targets no Kakuzu isn’t happy if the body isn’t identifiable, but she’s also working here

Ignoring Hidan as much as humanly possible. As a result, he thinks she’s hard of hearing

Neither Kakuzu or Sycee correct this assumption and just share knowing glances

Or Sycee will just give him the middle finger

[the-whumping-hour]

Day 2 - Solitary Confinement

@febuwhump DAY TWO ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

CW: Lab whump, isolation, vague depressive thoughts, it as a dehumanizing pronoun, threat of forced medical coma, implied revenge murder, mention of electrowhump, mention of execution, mention of starvation as a torture tactic

Notes: Welcome to the AMF! This one honestly made me insanely fucking sad. Ayeli uses she/they pronouns. Dr. Haley Chavis-Sakye is Ayeli’s personal researcher, essentially, and “Dr. Garcia”... well, let’s just say he’s a pretty important guy.

***

Really, right now, all Ayeli wants is a watch.

It’s been five days now, she thinks, if she’s been counting the meals right. It’s hard to when it’s all the same: instant mashed potatoes and cold scrambled eggs and applesauce with a new single set of plastic silverware each time. Maybe that’s a small mercy, if anything is; if not, she would’ve had to melt her restraints again to grab the spoon from the floor every time she dropped it, and who knows how many volts that would’ve cost her.

But they think they’ve had twelve meals so far, and they know they’ve eaten all but two of them– like hell were they eating without that spoon– and if the timing’s right their restraints should be opening any minute to let them go to their tiny bathroom and change their robe and kick at the walls for a few minutes and throw things at the one ceiling tile above their cot that looks a bit more fake than all the others. They know they’re being watched. They should at least get to put on a show. 

She doesn’t even know what she did. She really doesn’t. At least not anything that she hadn’t done before, with the refusal to speak and the energy surges that broke their intercom for several weeks last time. One too many times, apparently. And now she’s here.

If they stare at the light long enough, they start seeing Marcy in the afterimage. 

Three minutes later, as expected, the restraints pop open, and as expected another white robe is on the bathroom hook. She doesn’t know who’s coming in, or from where. At least they have the decency to knock her out on semi-routine intervals. In her usual room, they never have that courtesy; the moment the lights start flickering, everyone’s out with their tranqs and she’s out cold for as long as they feel the need for her to be. Here, she can’t hurt anyone. Here, the walls don’t yield when she kicks at them. She does it once, twice. It doesn’t change much.

Or, wait. There’s a hum coming from the ceiling.

It’s very faint, barely perceptible, and Ayeli realizes it must’ve started during their kicking, or before it, because nothing they ever do prompts a response anymore. Not when they tried to break the faucet off the wall yesterday, or when they screamed at the top of their lungs for ten minutes straight two days before that. No, this is a change. 

Rarely a good thing with the esteemed Alexus Metanatural Foundation.

“Ayeli Astian,” the voice is a familiar one crackling over the intercom, soaring and terrifying and every emotion at once as her leg freezes before another kick. Dr. Haley never bothers to come when she’s done something wrong. “I’ve been making your plea deal. They’ll get you out of here by Sunday.”

They can’t help it, they laugh. Alone in a white sterile room with nothing but the off-putting fake ceiling tile above them. “When the fuck is Sunday?”

There’s no answer. As expected. “There is a condition, though.” Fuck. There’s something serious here, something bad. Haley always sounds hesitant when it’s something bad.

 “They’re putting you out for three weeks.”

“...what?” 

“I'm sure this is hard for you, it’s just… Dr. Garcia needs an unconscious subject for several trials, and I… the team agreed to do this. I hope you understand. At least you’re not… aware of it. It’ll be nothing, Ayeli.”

Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Everything is nothing at this point.

The intercom clicks off, and Ayeli sees red. There’s no reason to scream. And they all think there’s no reason for her to do anything. Nothing but be a fake dead body.

And they think it’s bullshit.

And that’s the last thing she thinks, in fact, before something cracks, and the walls splinter with heat as the lights go out, and the ceiling tiles pop into ash.

—

“Sir, please, if I could just explain–”

“Your project just killed five people, Chavis. I’m not sure what there is to explain.”

“Listen, it’s… it’s got issues, I know, it gets scared when it’s alone, it gets scared to go to sleep–”

“Chavis, we are talking about the largest institutional threat in years. This is not a sales pitch.”

“If we could just up the power control, anything, I know you still want them as a subject…”

“No, Chavis, you know who wants it? Copán wants it. Herrets wants it. Best case, we put them on a boat and never see them again.”

“Sir, please,”

“Would you like the worst case instead?”

“Dr. Garcia, I…”

“No. Right now, it gets no energy, nothing for a week. And then we discuss action going forward.”

[grimmmviewing]

S1E11: “Tarantella”—C+ (Watched 3/10/24)

Woman on the phone: “What do you think?” (of an art opening)

Cut to man’s perspective looking at a blonde woman: “Not really my taste.”

After the problematic landmine that was “Organ Grinder,” this episode of Grimm comes as something of a relief. It’s just such a reasonably solid episode of the series but not remarkable for the most part. It’s relatively comfortable watching by comparison. I wouldn’t even say that the C vibe of it is bad absent the contrast—It’s a very fine episode, but it’s also telling that I have so few notes for it when some of these recent pieces have been creeping steadily higher and higher in terms of word count since there’s so much I want to cover.

Maybe it feels ironic to call an episode that opens with attempted sexual assault “comfortable,” but I really don’t think there’s too much tension or fear here since the way that the lead-up is framed, together with the opening quote and maybe the title, sets up pretty obviously that this is a “classic” predator-prey reversal cold open (deal)—a man and a woman, an amorous and/or dangerous setting, but Who Is Really The Hunter Here? Nick and Hank more or less walk through this premise explicitly once they’re on the case: “So who was seducing who?”

Exactly how original any of this story is, I can’t say for certain, but having consumed media like this for years, it certainly feels familiar. There’s kind of a twist in that Lena is a reluctant murderer, though the concept of a killer who strikes in clearly-defined cycles, essentially giving the cops a clear time window in which to either solve the case or risk her slipping through their fingers, feels not exactly novel. Her husband also being a Spinnetod felt like a nice late-game surprise, though. Nick ultimately catching Lena by knocking her into a net at the docks (an obvious web substitute) is very cute, and her fleeing from him during this sequence by climbing and jumping fares better visually than Billy Capra’s similar attempted escape back in “Lonelyhearts” since this scene takes place at night, making the action look a little more credible.

The ending feels appropriately ambiguous: It’s Nick realizing Lena’s daughter is also a Spinnetod (and the episode leaving unspoken what that entails for her future) and Lena herself in jail, emerging from the shadows of her cell to reveal she’s rapidly aged since she failed to complete the cycle. This really is a solid way to end things, rather than having anyone verbalize a moral or else maybe including some nod to the series’ overarching narrative or anything like that. The creatives behind the show exercise something like restraint or a light touch here.

One critical note I did take down, however, was how they have the cleaner/housekeeper who finds the second victim’s body do the classic try-the-light-switch-but-it-doesn’t-work thing—presumably to heighten the horror of the moment, though the cliché really stands out here because… Why doesn’t the light work? I guess Lena scrabbled up to the ceiling and… removed the bulb or something? I think it would have been better/less goofy to have the woman not try the light and just go to open the curtains and find the body in the process.

I don’t think this other note really “counts,” but when Charlotte, the reformed Spinnetod, tells Nick her age as a dramatic reveal of the consequences of not doing the ritualistic feeding, I immediately thought of The Simpsons bit at the top of this post. It’s a fun twist and maybe a little inherently goofy even without that Simpsons knowledge. It is also nice to get some Wesen info from someone other than Monroe, which has long felt like a narrative get out of jail free card, just like the veritable library of books in Aunt Marie’s trailer.

Seeing Nick interact in a non-violent way with the wider Wesen world is very nice. My favorite parts of this episode are definitely the ones that continue to push on the concept of Nick being the weird creature/monster from their perspective. “You’re not real, you’re a scary story we tell our kids,” says Monroe at one point. I didn’t care for the scene where Nick finally pays a visit to the seemingly harmless Wesen that have been spying on him, though, since he ends up threatening them and just behaving like an asshole (read: like a cop?) instead of trying to prove through his actions what he claims when he tells Monroe he’s not like those Grimms they’re all afraid of.

Or, to reach a little, maybe it’s intentional: Like the Spinnetod creatures are compelled to be what they are, so too is Nick compelled to be what he is. Maybe being antagonistic toward even goofy rodent folk is in his blood somehow? It just doesn’t have the same sense of tragedy to it in the episode itself, however.

[hostilecityshowdown]

Xentex may I pwease request some diesel, our fav Big Daddy Cool… Maybe shit diesel gets into hanging out with his best friend Razor or some hcs u have on their relationship <3

:3 this is long. i'm a mad man. /j everything is generally pre-hunter

diesel's the default wheelman, no matter whose name the rental car is under. razor has full control over the radio, however, and prefers smaller vehicles for short trips - more excuses for touching diesel's legs when he fusses with the radio

rule number one of sharing a hotel room with razor ramon: never move anything he leaves on the bathroom counter. if he can't find his comb, he'll gunk up yours. if he can't find his clippers, he'll clip you right in the jaw

they're the annoying friends who try to tell you a story but spend the entire time going "and then he-!" "but…" "remember when-" and bursting into laughter, but not, uh… not actually ever finishing a sentence, unless it's each other's. they speak their own language. the 123 kid keeps a road journal and has a whole section dedicated to trying to decode their language. hbk, on the other hand, can parse them with perfect clarity, but they usually talk about things he wasn't around for, so he never has enough context to translate

diesel learned rule number one the hard way. and he has a "spare parts" bag in case raze misplaces an essential and gets the bright idea to “borrow” diesel’s. razor keeps a small collection of back up sunglasses for diesel, who routinely loses his

they usually agree on takeout/restaurant orders, which is… the problem. they end up having to order double of almost everything to have enough to share. this is exclusive to when they’re alone together, otherwise, razor and kid are always sharing food, and hbk and diesel are doing some advanced math to figure out how to get the best bang for their buck

diesel doesn’t like bringing razor to most of his old haunts in detroit, but razor’s the complete opposite and, besides! he used to drag diese with him when he prowled around the miami strip when they were working dallas’s club together. razor’s a local favourite everywhere he goes in florida (excluding clearwater. diesel doesn’t know what happened in clearwater and, honestly, razor probably doesn’t remember either, but those aunties running the cubano restaurant sure do. diesel likes tampa better, anyway)

they like invading gorilla position and watching the cctvs! they always try to pester whoever’s back there into giving them headsets. usually they get chased off because they provide their own colour commentary and can’t keep it down

diesel likes practicing spots with razor. he usually plays it safe, but he’s pretty beat-by-beat about it. raze, in contrast, uses it as the perfect opportunity to rib diesel. you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the amount of times razor’s directed him, surprised him with a small package or an inside cradle, and waved kid in for the three count

hi i love trans!diesel i’m never letting him go. *hands you him.* razor loves being diesel’s wingman when they go out, sure, but he always gets a little bit jealous: that’s his big guy! that’s his best pal. besides, none of these assholes drinking beers at a lounge or strip club are going to treat diese right. maybe this is actually all a set up for razor to have an excuse to be protective and possessive? and to show him off? he really adores diesel’s body, pre medical transition and during all stages of it, and he gets a Little big headed about knowing it so well he’s the only one who can actually appreciate him. he’s the one diesel entrusted with his privacy, he’s the one diesel put down as an emergency contact, and he’s the one who wrote the check for his first operation (granted, it was ddp’s bank account the funding came out of, but that’s another story). if any of these guys think something is off, or wrong, or different about diesel, he’ll pop his top. just the thought of letting diesel take someone back to the hotel room alone and not being treated like he’s any other guy drives razor up a wall

^doesn’t apply to women as often, though, but uh. they prefer to share, anyway, and hbk is usually the one charming all the women as soon as he gets the chance. can you blame him? he’s surrounded by muscleheads and teenyboppers. if diesel has to play bodyguard for shawn outside of work hours, the whole operation usually falls apart. plan b: boys’ night!

diesel loves razor’s chest and lays on it a lot :) especially when they have enough downtime to watch movies, or they found somewhere to lounge around backstage waiting for matches. diesel thinks the optimal time to lay on razor is post-match, pre-shower

when they travel together, razor’s always the guy wanting to stop at the weird roadside attractions and welcome centres. diesel prefers to drive straight through, especially on a time constraint. if kid’s with them, he’s always recording, but razor’s got an excellent eye for photography and loves taking sneaky candid shots of his pals

[estellamiraiauthor]

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 23)

Well this one was mostly about a really depressingly heavy conversation.

As always, spoilers under the cut!

So, the two-month jump in time here, from August to October. This was something that took me a long time to decide to do. I tried many times to start a chapter that would pick up right where the last left off, but it was just a situation where nothing much HAPPENED for a couple of in-universe months.

I could have added more fluff here, because the slow development of the relationship is really the only change that IS occurring, but again, I was trying to get a major publisher to buy this so I had to keep it under a certain word count and make sure the plot wasn’t TOO slow. So instead I went with a little domestic montage to show the comfortable little routine they have, and how Teru is taking care of things like cooking and washing wigs while Rei takes care of him by writing and producing the album. I also used this scene to show how Chizuru fits into that dynamic, doing laundry and taking care of Rei’s income from his more mainstream music.

We also get an argument between Rei and Chizuru. I sort of wish I’d gone into this more, but essentially I think she’s annoyed that Rei won’t take better care of himself and thereby sort of creates more work for her. It’s partly genuine concern for him but partly purely selfish—but not really in a bad way. As she’ll tell Teru later in the chapter, she’s ready to move on, but Rei makes it hard by refusing to move on or even accept his situation in a lot of ways. But Chizuru deserves to be able to move on, even if Rei can’t.

THAT SAID, she’s sort of going after the wrong thing here, and I wish I’d made that a little clearer. I think Chizuru sort of has this idea that, in general, DOING something is better than working with the status quo, and so if any new treatment or anything is suggested, she wishes Rei would try it… while I think Rei is both traumatized enough by hospitals that he doesn’t want to do anything unless it’s absolutely necessary or guaranteed to help, and also afraid that changing anything might actually result in things getting worse. (This is VERY much one of those areas where Rei is just like me… I really don’t like the idea of doing ANY elective medical procedure or taking medicine that’s not life-saving… like, I’ve never been on the Pill, and I won’t even consider something like LASIK because of the tiny, tiny risk, so obviously anything more serious like the options mentioned here would be an obvious HELL NO from me.)

ANYWAY. Chizuru is concerned that Rei doesn’t really take his pain medication a lot of the time, but I think she’s partly being ignorant. I did a lot of research on chronic pain, and especially on traumatic brachial plexus injuries (which you can Google if you want the depressing details) and in a lot of cases medication doesn’t really work (which Teru sort of acknowledges internally here). And on top of not actually eliminating the pain, you can of course become addicted, and I also think Rei just prefers to have his mind completely clear, to not interfere with his creativity. So while SOME of the things he does are definitely more than a little self-destructive, not taking very strong prescription painkillers that don’t actually work all that well is not actually a terrible choice.

Anyway, Rei makes Chizuru carry their stuff “because she’s so worried about him”… their relationship is super interesting to me and I wish I’d need able to go into it in more detail! Feel free to explore in fanfic etc. ;)

The next important scene is during the break at rehearsal, when Teru invites Rei to have lunch with the band, but of course he refuses, so Teru goes to buy him something to eat and Seika, the only one who can see what’s going on here, tells him that he really does need to tell Minori, even though he shouldn’t have to come out on anyone’s timeline but his own, because his relationship IS affecting the band at this point.

Seika says “sleeping with”—which is the norm to HIM, an allosexual gay man. But Teru and Rei ARENT having sex, and I really wish I’d made the ace-spectrum stuff more clear because some reviewers have seemed to think that it’s because of Rei’s disability and I think it’s not? It’s self esteem, partly, which in Rei’s case stems from disability, but also just that… they’re fine at this point with not doing any more than what they are? Some people like to take it slow and that’s ok!

Still, the people who were kind of expecting a steamy romance novel probably collectively lose their shit here. I’m really sorry I called it romance….

Anyway! There’s a little more arguing over Saki’s song and then, after Rei goes to sleep, Teru gets a call from Chizuru. I think at this point, the argument in the morning has kind of reminded her that she is ready to stop being Rei’s platonic life partner or whatever… but she still worries about him living off “alcohol and painkillers and no dinner”. I think she just wants Teru to take over so she doesn’t HAVE to worry, because she does want to know that Rei’s ok. She just doesn’t want to be throne in charge of keeping him that way.

So she asks Teru to meet her, and basically dumps all of Rei’s medical records on him. There’s a lot going on in this scene, and a lot of it kind of hinges on the limitations of modern medicine, which of course harkens back to all of those ignorant “This horribly disfigured character had plastic surgery and now looks completely normal” fanfics. I knew that one of the questions my readers would have was why Rei wouldn’t at least have done as much as he could to try to restore his appearance, and the short answer, provided here by Chizuru, is that really anything less than perfect wouldn’t have been good enough for him. He still wouldn’t look “normal”, so to him there’s no point in being LESS disfigured, unless “less” is “not at all”. Chizuru understands this, I think, but she doesn’t agree with it.

She also offhandedly says that Rei could “hire a chauffeur if he wanted to”, which I think shows that she DOESN’T really understand all of the psychological damage that the accident did. It frustrates her that because SHE has been able to move on after also losing a boyfriend that night, she thinks that Rei should also be able to “get over” certain things… again, even though she probably understands academically at least that it’s not that easy.

The last thing she mentions here as something Rei could do but won’t is amputating his paralyzed arm. This is something that I actually considered for the last couple of chapters, when they meet again after four years apart, but the reason I decided against it is because, again, it isn’t really guaranteed to actually help anything. The pain from that particular injury is essentially phantom pain. The nerves have basically been completely severed, so the pain comes from signals being sent and nothing coming back, so the brain says HOLY FUCK SOMETHING’S REALLY WRONG. Amputating the limb wouldn’t fix those nerves or the phantom pain, so the best it could do is, as Chizuru says, maybe alleviate some neck pain by eliminating dead weight. But I don’t think Rei would see that as a good enough trade-off to losing his arm (and losing any hope of some miracle treatment down the line, which is extremely unlikely, but I do think he has that stubborn little bit of optimism about him as well).

All of that is a very, very short passage in the book, but I thought it was really important to establish both that yes, there were things that Rei COULD do but simply chose not to, but also that there were reasons why, to him, those weren’t good options.

After this, Chizuru talks about her own past. She also lost a boyfriend, Aeternum’s bassist Taka, in the accident, and sort of ended up with Rei as a sort of antagonistic life partner because they were both the only survivors. In Chizuru’s case, she wasn’t even in the car, but went up to Sendai with Taka’s mother and ended up staying. She says that the four who died all had families who came for them, but that no one came for Rei. 

I didn’t really get to go into it at all, but I have a whole backstory for Rei’s family. He grew up in a farming family (which in Japan does NOT mean poor; if you own enough land to farm you’re local royalty), but was the youngest of MANY brothers and while I wouldn’t call Rei “effeminate” necessarily he was more into music and art than physical labor. Since his family had other heirs who were more aligned with what they thought a male child “should” be, he pretty much lost contact with them when he moved to Tokyo on his own at 16. He does HAVE living relatives, but no one who would’ve been contactable at the time.

I also mentioned specifically here that he would’ve been in the hospital for over a year, which I think is important to establish both his extreme dislike of hospitals and how long it’s taken him to re-adjust to “normal” life.

Japanese hospitals treat patients like prisoners and I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

ANYWAY. There’s a lot packed into this scene I guess, and I’m not sure I did the best job of conveying it all to readers who might not already have the background. I’m really just reminded of how much I love Rei and how writing him is always one giant breath of catharsis.

[purplesurveys]

1633

What color was the last nail varnish you wore? Can’t remember all that well as I rarely have my nails painted. It might have been purple, maybe? Purple with some glitters. I kind of remember getting that done a few months ago.

^ Do you own any shirts in that color? I don’t look too good in purple so I don’t have any clothes in that color.

What color was the last lipstick you wore? Burgundy.

^ Have you/would you ever dye your hair that color? Sure, why not? I’m open to any color as long as it isn’t a neon shade.

How long have you owned the mobile phone that you currently use? Just over a year.

How about your laptop? And what brand is it? This laptop has been going strong since 2017, man. Six whole years and counting. I made the most use out of it throughout college and in my first working year, but given that I only ever use it for doing surveys these days it’s enjoying a much longer lifespan than I expected it to have.

I got some nice new mugs recently. What does your favorite mug look like? It’s this one from Starbucks:

Do you own any mugs with a picture of an animal on them? Yeah I availed a fanmade kit from a local shop in celebration of BTS’ anniversary two years ago, and a mug was part of the inclusions. It has a number of the band’s symbols as designs, like stars and a whale.

Do you own any items that have your initial on them? No I’m not a fan of personalizing my things.

Do you own any items that have a Disney character on them? As far as I know, no.

When was the last time you had a box of chocolates? What kind were they? My mom’s godmother recently visited the country after 25+ years and she got a box of chocolates for us. I haven’t gotten to checking it out much as I’m not a super big fan of chocolate haha but it’s essentially different variations – there’s chocolate with coffee filling, another with caramel, another with coconut, etc.

How long have you had the headphones/earbuds that you currently use? It’s been at least a couple of months.

^What color are they? White.

The last time you checked the mail, was there anything for you? Nope.

Is there anyone you’ve had regular video calls with, during the pandemic? No, I hated video calls at the time. It’s only been recently when I started to be more comfortable with them.

Do you remember what you were doing at 8PM on Saturday? I was having dinner with my family.

Of all your relatives & close friends, whose birthday is closest to yours? Dev’s is just a day before mine.

Did you have a cake on your last birthday? What kind? Nope. I opted for ramen instead, haha.

What were some of your favorite foods/meals as a child? I couldn’t get enough of Pancit Canton as a kid that eventually my mom stopped getting it for a time because of how unhealthy it can be to be eaten regularly. 

What were some of your favorite drinks as a child? Eh, just water. I’m not so adventurous when it came to beverages.

Are there any foods/drinks that you loved as a child, but dislike now? For the most part it’s the opposite for me because I used to be a REALLY picky eater and now I’ve learned how to eat and love everything, hahaha. A favorite 180º change of mine would probably be curry; I used to dread it when I found out that’s what was for dinner, and now I could have it literally everyday.

Which of your physical features do you receive the most compliments on? My figure, hands, and eyelashes. What traits/qualities do you have, that you believe others appreciate? I’m good at reading people, so I go ahead of them in terms of things they might be needing help with but might be too shy to raise. It’s stuff like, “Do you need a ride home?” “Do you need me to pay for this first?” “Do you need me to go talk to her?” and the moment their eyes light up that make me think they do appreciate the initiative to an extent.

Do you have any friends that you communicate with every day, in some form? Angela is the person who best fits this. We do talk everyday these days.

When you woke up today, what kind of mood were you in? So groggy. I slept at around 3 AM, so when my mom woke me up to prepare for church I wasn’t exactly awake awake yet.

What was the last food or drink you had, that you hadn’t tried before? Wasabi powdered fries. Turned out really good and not spicy at all!

What was the last song you listened to, that you hadn’t heard before? Bittersweet by Seventeen’s Wonwoo and Mingyu, and LeeHi. Instant fan.

When do you next plan to eat something? Do you know what it will be? Probably in a couple of hours and most likely it’ll just be something light to pass the hunger.

So, to finish, what’s your favorite position to sleep in? On my side, clutching a pillow.

[angria]

For yesterday's session, the main theme we discussed was learned helplessness and hopelessness.  Which I have heard of before, but nothing in detail.  It made sense, once T started to describe it.

I did some research once I got home and found little (reputable) sources.  But, did come across this basic definition:

“Learned helplessness is a mental state where someone, who is forced to bear repeated adverse situations, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid these situations.  This happens because past experiences have made them believe they don’t have the ability to avoid them.  Essentially, they’ve trained themselves (and their brain) to believe they have no control over the situation, and so they don’t even try.” (source)

T put it in the context of retreating to what is familiar, even when you are no longer in that traumatic situation and have the coping tools to challenge the adaptive behaviors.  For example, he said I retreat to the familiarity of self harm, hopelessness, and suicidality when I come up against challenging situations or triggers.  There is “safety” in the familiar and it was a way to survive in the past.  But, it no longer is necessary as a way of coping.  It gives a false sense of “security.”  He continued to explain that the trauma brain likes to view things as all or nothing, 0 or 100%.  For me right now, J leaving is 100% bad and I cannot deal with it 100%.  But, he pointed out, that isn’t true.  Because I am dealing with it.  I have to since life goes on and I’m still alive.

I shook my head, getting ready to argue:  No, I’m not dealing with it!  I can’t handle it!  I can’t handle this when it keeps happening!  People always leave!  There is no hope!  T pushed back and said I do have hope.  I have to have hope because I’m still here.  I’m still alive.  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have hope.  My entire face was scrunched up and I challenged him back.  No, there is no hope.  Hope has to do with the future, trying to achieve a goal or an event happening.  T said, “There is hope in the day to day, not just things in the future or external situations.  You have to have hope in regard to yourself, not just the external.”  My entire face was twisted in confusion and he kind of chuckled, stating that he can see the gears moving in my head, figuring out a way to argue against him.  Before I could say anything, he added that I need to be intentional and recognize the daily hope and hope in myself.

He then asked, “What keeps you going?”  I finally just said there is no hope in the day to day.  I just go through the motions, doing what I’m supposed to do.  There is no connection to it or emotional gratification.  Shaking his head, he told me I need to validate what I achieve during the day, even things that seem inconsequential or what people take for granted.  “What are some things you achieve daily?”  Getting ready in the morning, I guess.  Of course I have to qualify it and said I have no choice, so it doesn’t count.  I have to get ready–get dressed, do my hair, brush my teeth.  T said it does count and it is a choice.  I don’t have to get ready.  It is an achievement that I need to validate.  

I think this is when the switch flipped and I started to dissociate.  Because I kept insisting it wasn’t a choice.  I didn’t have a choice when I was younger.  Mother forced me to be presentable or else I would be punished.  And even in that, I didn’t have a choice of how I wore my hair or how I dressed.  She would control all of that.  Because otherwise, it would reflect badly on her as a mother.  Everything had to be perfect.  The timeline started to blur and I became confused.  There was no choice.  There is no choice.  Right?

Not sure if T could tell I was floating because I quietly said I felt fuzzy.  Nodding, he said he was challenging a lot of deeply ingrained beliefs and perceptions of self.  So we tossed the ball back and forth until I was more grounded.  At the end, I said I was still fuzzy.  “But, is it less than before?”  Yes, I guess?  I can’t remember how he said it, but he basically pointed out how that was an all or nothing statement.  It wasn’t whether I was fuzzy or completely grounded.  It was that the dissociation lessened.

I just don’t know how to even catch myself when I think or say those types of statements or make those evaluations.  It is so automatic on top of me viewing things not worthy of validation or not counting as achievements.  Not even considering the level of vulnerability in seeing the hope or giving the validation that sets off every red alarm in my head…cue the self harm and suicidality in response.  No, must be kept in place–worthless, hopeless, nothing.  Anything else is a threat.  Which I know is coming from the trauma brain since not believing I’m worthless was a threat in the past.  

Why does this have to be so hard?  Like, I try to do what he says, but then my head just starts screaming at me or it flips on the dissociation. 

I don’t know how to do this.

[auliasbookcorner]

Review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Book 11 of 2022

Start Reading Time: 21 May 2022

Finish reading Time: 30 May 2022

Page Count: 371

TRIGGER WARNINGS: RAPE, SUICIDE, CHILD ABUSE, VIOLENCE, WAR, RACISM, BULLYING                                                                                               

This is the spoiler-free part of the review. I will put up a spoiler alert before going into the review that contains spoilers.

No amount of warning in the world could have warned and prepared me for the waterfalls and waterfalls of tears I'd shed as a result of reading this book. No, I was not just crying; but sobbing. I was sobbing, and it was really embarrassing to see. Thankfully, no one saw me. So, maybe that's one of the important things to know before you read this book, especially if you're a crybaby like me; don't read this in public, and it is important to have tissues at arm's reach while reading it, other than that, my tip is just be prepared to read one of the saddest stories you'll ever read.

I'm a lover of good poignant stories, I love it when authors make me cry with the stories they tell because it means the book and the story is doing a good job of making me invested in the story. Also, because I'll be crying about something other than my life for once. And in the last week I had been crying about Hassan, the childhood best friend of Amir, the narrator of this book. I had been crying about their friendship, and how it ended. I had been crying about Sohrab. I had been crying about the situation in Afghanistan. I had been crying a lot, and now I can't even read or hear the words "For you, a thousand times over," without getting teary eyed.

This book is about friendship & brotherhood. It's about a son who's desperate for his father's approval and love. It's about the war and it's impacts on civilian lives, but especially children. It's about a family secret. It's about an unconditional love and loyalty that's unrequited. But, ultimately, it's about regret and redemption.

I love this book. It's definitely not an easy read, but the story's incredible, heartbreaking, and poignant. It is told beautifully by the author, and it definitely left a strong impression on me.

To give you a brief non-spoilery synopsis, the story is about Amir, the narrator of the book, during his childhood in Afghanistan, before the war, in the 1970s. When Amir's not in school, he spends most of his time playing with Hassan, the son of his family's housekeeper Ali, who's been with them since Amir's Dad was a little kid. Amir's Dad thinks of Ali as his brother, because they grew up and played together like brothers, and now Amir and Hassan are also growing up and playing together like brothers, just like their fathers. Amir's Dad is a successful business man and respected in their community, and they live in the most beautiful house in their neighborhood. Ali and Hassan, although they're thought of as family by Amir's dad, they are essentially servants working for Amir's Dad. Ali and Hassan live in a modest hut in Amir's family's house's garden, and that's also where Hassan was born. Also, Ali and Hassan are Hazara, an ethnic group in Afghanistan that's looked down on by some people there, and Ali has some physical flaws that were the reminders of the polio he suffered in his childhood, that made him a target of bullying from the children in their neighborhood. Yes, the children straight up calling him names to his face. But he never once retaliated against them.

Hassan is one year younger than Amir and he's illiterate, due to lack of education. However, Hassan loves hearing the stories that Amir read to him from books. Hassan looks up to Amir and is extremely loyal to him, that whenever Amir is being pushed around by other kids, Hassan will bravely defend Amir and take the punches for him. Hassan loves Amir and will do anything for him. But for Amir, he's not even sure if he can honestly call his relationship with Hassan a friendship, as he's never thought of Hassan as a friend, but more of someone who would do anything he wants him to do. And, for Amir, nothing's more important than earning the love and approval from his Dad, who always seems to be too busy to talk to him, or disappointed by him. So, in little Amir's head, he was determined to do anything to be able win his Dad's love and approval, at any cost.

Then, on one winter day, the opportunity to earn that love and approval arises. Amir knew that winning the kite fighting tournament and getting the last fallen kite would make his Dad proud of him, and thus, he’ll win his Dad’s love and approval. So, he promised himself he's gonna be the first winner and he's going to get the last fallen kite. What happens on that winter day will forever change not only Amir's life, but also Hassan's. Amir would learn that getting what he wanted is not always as sweet as he imagined it to be, and he would learn that the cost would be too high, and it will haunt him for the rest of his life.

🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨

From this point forward in the review, i will mention spoilers, plot twist and the ending, so if you don’t wish to be spoiled, you can skip the rest of the review and come back once you’ve finished reading this book

Here are my favorite things about the book:

Hassan. I may be biased, but I'm convinced that he's an angel. Despite all of his shortcomings, he still goes through life with a smile, and a pure and kind heart. Hassan is the most precious character with the most heartbreaking life story since Jude from "A little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. We all go through life wanting to be or have someone as pure, loyal, loving, brilliant, hardworking, kind and precious as Hassan, and I think one of the reasons most of us don't become or have someone like Hassan in our lives is because most of us are more like Amir; cowardly, selfish, always looking for approvals from others. Their tragic story taught me an important lesson, it made me question myself about the kind of person I choose to be, and whether I like that person, or if I would regret being that person, later in my old age. My heart broke for him, and again for his son. But oh, how thankful I am to have come to know and love these characters, because they've inspired me to be stronger and be kinder despite this cruel world slowly crushing my soul.

Amir. He is the most frustrating character I've read in a while, although he does get a great redemption arc, and by the end of the book, I think he's redeemed himself. But what makes me like him is because, as much as I hate to admit it, I can see a little bit of myself in him. I hate him because he's such a coward and selfish, but he knows that, and he hated himself for being that way. I think he just didn't possess the courage to do the right thing, at the time. But his conscience is screaming at him for years, and even decades later, ever since that winter day, that he must do the right thing. Regret is a powerful thing, I think all of us can agree. And finally, he did the right thing with Sohrab, although at that point it was too late to apologize to Hassan. I like that Amir is depicted so realistically; he is incredibly flawed, and he made irreparable mistakes, and he's immensely regretful and ashamed of his mistakes. Also, knowing that he got a second chance to do right by Hassan by rescuing and raising his son as his own (even though it doesn't make what he did to Hassan right) is incredible and it gives me a lot of hope. Also let's not forget the fact that he was just a child when he acted selfishly and decided to not help and defend Hassan that day, he thought his father hated him for a long time because he was weak and his mother died giving birth to him, he blamed himself for his mother's death, and he was kept in the dark for decades by his own father about the truth about his relationship with Hassan, or as his own father would put it, he was robbed of the truth by his own father. It brings forth the realization that the father that he has looked up to and idolized his whole life, is only a human who made mistakes, just like him. I agree with Rahim Khan, that Amir should also forgive himself, as we humans can only live, do our best and when we make inevitable mistakes along the way, we try to learn and do better.

Sohrab. This amazing, resilient and strong little man tugs at my heartstrings and I love him with all my heart. I was so heartbroken because of all of the horrible things he had to go through and endure, and when THAT scene at the hotel bathroom happened, I legit almost threw my phone across the room and scream into my pillow, because I'M NOT READY FOR ANOTHER SAD ENDING SUCH AS JUDE ST. FRANCIS'. THAT scene was so freaking real, I was gonna DNF the book at that point. But oh God, was I RELIEVED when I kept reading and found out the ending. However, I still do NOT appreciate that scare, MY POOR HEART IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH FOR THAT. And, even though the ending is bittersweet, I love that it's an open ending, i think it's believable and it gives me hope that Sohrab will be alright, after all.

Rahim Khan. I think he's so underrated in the book, but so much of the story was able to progress the way it did because of his interventions. I love that he was the one who encouraged and supported Amir to become a writer, I love that he found Hassan and his family and asked them to join him to live in Amir's family's house, I love that he's the one who told Amir the truth about his father and his relation with Hassan, and I love that he's the one who helped Amir to right his wrongs, even in his dying days. I think he's the voice of reason and truth, and I'm just so thankful for his existence in this story. Although, I do wish we got to see and know that he died peacefully and among his loved ones, but I'll make peace with his mysterious ending that the book gave me. I'd like to imagine that he'd find Homaira and die peacefully beside her.

Afghanistan. This book taught me about Afghanistan better than my Geography teacher. Through this book, I have fallen in love with the culture and the people of Afghanistan, and it opened my eyes to the cruelty and suffering that the war brings to the innocent civilians, but especially the children of Afghanistan, and to say that I'm devastated is an understatement. I can honestly rant for hours here but I won't. Instead, I would encourage you to make a donation, if you're available to do so, to any legitimate charities for Afghanistan. Or, in any small ways you can help, maybe through prayers if you're a religious person, or in any other positive ways you can.

The writing style. The pacing. The message. The storytelling. I think I have found my new favorite author and I am beyond excited to  read more of his works.

Usually, I would mention the things I don't like in the book here, but honestly, I think there's not one thing I can criticize about this book. I'm not saying it's perfect, as I know other people will find a lot of flaws with it, but for me, this book is just simply beautiful, and I personally don't have any critics. Well, if I really have to give any criticism, I think I'd say that it has a little of torture porn in it that makes it hard to read at times. But I think that the author didn't include it in the book just for the fun of it, I think it's appropriate given the context of the country being under the tyranny of Taliban, and it depicted the true cruelty of Taliban. Although, I do agree that it's a little too convenient that Assef, the childhood sociopath bully, grew up to be an important figure in the Taliban, and then comes face to face with Amir again, just like in their childhood. But that's just as far as my criticism goes for this book. Otherwise, I think this book hits all the right spots, and I love it.

Here are my favourite moments from the book:

When Amir & Hassan were celebrating, and hugging each other after winning the kite competition, and when Hassan told Amir "For you, a thousand times over".

When Hassan told Amir the story he made up was the best story he'd ever told him, without knowing that Amir had made it up to fool Hassan, but Hassan ended up sincerely loving the story, and Amir kissed Hassan on the cheek, and he told Hassan that he's a prince, and then Amir wrote his first ever short story that same night.

When Amir promised he would buy Hassan a TV with colours.

When Amir's Dad stood up to protect that lady from the Russian officer.

When Amir graduated from High School and his Dad was taking pictures of him, and surprised him with a new used car for him.

When Amir was having a heart to heart talk with Sohrab for the first time.

When Sohrab was trying to talk in English and he said, "Tank you wery match." (this is so adorable, i just wanna squeeze him)

When Amir said “For you, a thousand times over,” to Sohrab, and Sohrab smiled for the first time in a long time, and Amir was running for the kite for Sohrab, just like Hassan did to Amir decades ago, that winter day.

Here are my favourite quotes from the book, but WARNING: these quotes contain "onions" and will most likely make you cry:

"Ali never retaliated against any of his tormentors, I suppose partly because he could never catch them with that twisted leg dragging behind him. But mostly because Ali was immune to the insults of his assailants; he had found his joy, his antidote, the moment Sanaubar had given birth to Hassan. It had been a simple enough affair. No obstetricians, no anesthesiologists, no fancy monitoring devices. Just Sanaubar lying on a stained, naked mattress with Ali and a midwife helping her. She hadn’t needed much help at all, because, even in birth, Hassan was true to his nature: He was incapable of hurting anyone. A few grunts, a couple of pushes, and out came Hassan. Out he came smiling."

"Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.

Mine was Baba.

His was Amir. My name.

Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975—and all that followed—was already laid in those first words."

"With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little."

"“When you kill a man, you steal a life,” Baba said. “You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?”"

"“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”"

"The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense, anyhow. Never mind that we taught each other to ride a bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully functional homemade camera out of a cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile.

Never mind any of those things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing."

"But his favorite story, and mine, was “Rostam and Sohrab,” the tale of the great warrior Rostam and his fleet-footed horse, Rakhsh. Rostam mortally wounds his valiant nemesis, Sohrab, in battle, only to discover that Sohrab is his long-lost son. Stricken with grief, Rostam hears his son’s dying words:

If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting . . .

“Read it again please, Amir agha,” Hassan would say. Sometimes tears pooled in Hassan’s eyes as I read him this passage, and I always wondered whom he wept for, the grief-stricken Rostam who tears his clothes and covers his head with ashes, or the dying Sohrab who only longed for his father’s love? Personally, I couldn’t see the tragedy in Rostam’s fate. After all, didn’t all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?"

"One day, in July 1973, I played another little trick on Hassan. I was reading to him, and suddenly I strayed from the written story. I pretended I was reading from the book, flipping pages regularly, but I had abandoned the text altogether, taken over the story, and made up my own. Hassan, of course, was oblivious to this. To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys. After, I started to ask him if he’d liked the story, a giggle rising in my throat, when Hassan began to clap.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“That was the best story you’ve read me in a long time,” he said, still clapping.

I laughed. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s fascinating,” I muttered. I meant it too. This was . . . wholly unexpected. “Are you sure, Hassan?”

He was still clapping. “It was great, Amir agha. Will you read me more of it tomorrow?”

“Fascinating,” I repeated, a little breathless, feeling like a man who discovers a buried treasure in his own backyard. Walking down the hill, thoughts were exploding in my head like the fireworks at Chaman. Best story you’ve read me in a long time, he’d said. I had read him a lot of stories. Hassan was asking me something.

“What?” I said.

“What does that mean, ‘fascinating’?”

I laughed. Clutched him in a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“What was that for?” he said, startled, blushing.

I gave him a friendly shove. Smiled. “You’re a prince, Hassan. You’re a prince and I love you.”

That same night, I wrote my first short story."

"But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant! Had I really thought that? Of course I hadn’t. I hadn’t. I treated Hassan well, just like a friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why, when Baba’s friends came to visit with their kids, didn’t I ever include Hassan in our games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one else was around?"

"“Please leave us alone, Agha,” Hassan said in a flat tone. He’d referred to Assef as “Agha,” and I wondered briefly what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy."

"And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."

"“I’ll buy you one someday,” I said. Hassan’s face brightened. “A television? In truth?” “Sure. And not the black-and-white kind either. We’ll probably be grown-ups by then, but I’ll get us two. One for you and one for me.”

“I’ll put it on my table, where I keep my drawings,” Hassan said. His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he’d accepted the fact that he’d grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had."

"“I’m not sure I want to fly a kite today,” I said.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Hassan said.

I shifted on my feet. Tried to peel my gaze away from our rooftop. “I don’t know. Maybe we should go home.”

Then he stepped toward me and, in a low voice, said something that scared me a little. “Remember, Amir agha. There’s no monster, just a beautiful day.” How could I be such an open book to him when, half the time, I had no idea what was milling around in his head? I was the one who went to school, the one who could read, write. I was the smart one. Hassan couldn’t read a first-grade textbook but he’d read me plenty. That was a little unsettling, but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed."

"Then I was screaming, and everything was color and sound, everything was alive and good. I was throwing my free arm around Hassan and we were hopping up and down, both of us laughing, both of us weeping. “You won, Amir agha! You won!”

“We won! We won!” was all I could say. This wasn’t happening. In a moment, I’d blink and rouse from this beautiful dream, get out of bed, march down to the kitchen to eat breakfast with no one to talk to but Hassan. Get dressed. Wait for Baba. Give up. Back to my old life. Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing on the edge, pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last."

"“Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!”

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you a thousand times over!” he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph."

"I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.

I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That’s what I made myself believe. I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?"

"I thought about Hassan’s dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is no monster, he’d said, just water. Except he’d been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom.

I was that monster."

"I hit him with another pomegranate, in the shoulder this time.

The juice splattered his face. “Hit me back!” I spat. “Hit me back, goddamn you!” I wished he would. I wished he’d give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I’d finally sleep at night. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us. But Hassan did nothing as I pelted him again and again. “You’re a coward!” I said. “Nothing but a goddamn coward!”

I don’t know how many times I hit him. All I know is that, when I finally stopped, exhausted and panting, Hassan was smeared in red like he’d been shot by a firing squad. I fell to my knees, tired, spent, frustrated.

Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward me. He opened it and crushed it against his own forehead.

“There,” he croaked, red dripping down his face like blood. “Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?” He turned around and started down the hill.

I let the tears break free, rocked back and forth on my knees. “What am I going to do with you, Hassan? What am I going to do with you?”"

"“It was Homaira and me against the world. And I’ll tell you this, Amir jan: In the end, the world always wins. That’s just the way of things.”"

"Then I saw Baba do something I had never seen him do before: He cried. It scared me a little, seeing a grown man sob. Fathers weren’t supposed to cry. “Please,” Baba was saying, but Ali had already turned to the door, Hassan trailing him. I’ll never forget the way Baba said that, the pain in his plea, the fear."

"I was sorry, but I didn’t cry and I didn’t chase the car. I watched Baba’s car pull away from the curb, taking with it the person whose first spoken word had been my name. I caught one final blurry glimpse of Hassan slumped in the backseat before Baba turned left at the street corner where we’d played marbles so many times."

"That was when Baba stood up. It was my turn to clamp a hand on his thigh, but Baba pried it loose, snatched his leg away. When he stood, he eclipsed the moonlight. “I want you to ask this man something,” Baba said. He said it to Karim, but looked directly at the Russian officer. “Ask him where his shame is.”

They spoke. “He says this is war. There is no shame in war.” “Tell him he’s wrong. War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

Do you have to always be the hero? I thought, my heart fluttering. Can’t you just let it go for once? But I knew he couldn’t—it wasn’t in his nature. The problem was, his nature was going to get us all killed."

"“Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place,” Baba said. My mind flashed to that winter day six years ago. Me, peering around the corner in the alley. Kamal and Wali holding Hassan down. Assef’s buttock muscles clenching and unclenching, his hips thrusting back and forth. Some hero I had been, fretting about the kite. Sometimes, I too wondered if I was really Baba’s son."

"That summer of 1983, I graduated from high school at the age of twenty, by far the oldest senior tossing his mortarboard on the football field that day. I remember losing Baba in the swarm of families, flashing cameras, and blue gowns. I found him near the twenty-yard line, hands shoved in his pockets, camera dangling on his chest. He disappeared and reappeared behind the people moving between us: squealing blue-clad girls hugging, crying, boys high-fiving their fathers, each other. Baba’s beard was graying, his hair thinning at the temples, and hadn’t he been taller in Kabul? He was wearing his brown suit—his only suit, the same one he wore to Afghan weddings and funerals—and the red tie I had bought for his fiftieth birthday that year. Then he saw me and waved. Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard, and took a picture of me with the school’s clock tower in the background. I smiled for him—in a way, this was his day more than mine. He walked to me, curled his arm around my neck, and gave my brow a single kiss. “I am moftakhir, Amir,” he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look."

"“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime, Amir,” he said."

"Afghan men, especially those from reputable families, were fickle creatures. A whisper here, an insinuation there, and they fled like startled birds. So weddings had come and gone and no one had sung ahesta boro for Soraya, no one had painted her palms with henna, no one had held a Koran over her headdress, and it had been General Taheri who’d danced with her at every wedding. And now, this woman, this mother, with her heartbreakingly eager, crooked smile and the barely veiled hope in her eyes. I cringed a little at the position of power I’d been granted, and all because I had won at the genetic lottery that had determined my sex."

"Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people’s lives. My whole life, I had been “Baba’s son.” Now he was gone. Baba couldn’t show me the way anymore; I’d have to find it on my own.

The thought of it terrified me."

"I have been dreaming a lot lately, Amir agha. Some of them are nightmares, like hanged corpses rotting in soccer fields with bloodred grass. I wake up from those short of breath and sweaty. Mostly, though, I dream of good things, and praise Allah for that. I dream that Rahim Khan sahib will be well. I dream that my son will grow up to be a good person, a free person, and an important person. I dream that lawla flowers will bloom in the streets of Kabul again and rubab music will play in the samovar houses and kites will fly in the skies. And I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you."

"“I’m a dying man and I will not b e insulted! It has never been about money with me, you know that. And why you? I think we both know why it has to be you, don’t we?”

I didn’t want to understand that comment, but I did. I understood it all too well. “I have a wife in America, a home, a career, and a family. Kabul is a dangerous place, you know that, and you’d have me risk everything for . . .” I stopped.

“You know,” Rahim Khan said, “one time, when you weren’t around, your father and I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I remember he said to me, ‘Rahim, a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.’ I wonder, is that what you’ve become?”"

"Here is another cliché my creative writing teacher would have scoffed at; like father, like son. But it was true, wasn’t it? As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us. And with that came this realization: that Rahim Khan had summoned me here to atone not just for my sins but for Baba’s too."

"There is a way to be good again, he’d said. A way to end the cycle.

With a little boy. An orphan. Hassan’s son. Somewhere in Kabul."

"I looked at the round face in the Polaroid again, the way the sun fell on it. My brother’s face. Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again. He was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in Kabul.

Waiting."

"It was on this soil that my grandfather had gone on a hunting trip with King Nadir Shah and shot a deer. My mother had died on this soil. And on this soil, I had fought for my father’s love."

"Somewhere over those mountains in the west slept the city where my harelipped brother and I had run kites. Somewhere over there, the blindfolded man from my dream had died a needless death. Once, over those mountains, I had made a choice. And now, a quarter of a century later, that choice had landed me right back on this soil."

"Zaman dropped his hands. “I haven’t been paid in over six months. I’m broke because I’ve spent my life’s savings on this orphanage. Everything I ever owned or inherited I sold to run this godforsaken place. You think I don’t have family in Pakistan and Iran? I could have run like everyone else. But I didn’t. I stayed. I stayed because of them.” He pointed to the door. “If I deny him one child, he takes ten. So I let him take one and leave the judging to Allah. I swallow my pride and take his goddamn filthy . . . dirty money. Then I go to the bazaar and buy food for the children.”"

"“WHAT’S SO FUNNY?” Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this. I remembered the day on the hill I had pelted Hassan with pomegranates and tried to provoke him. He’d just stood there, doing nothing, red juice soaking through his shirt like blood. Then he’d taken the pomegranate from my hand, crushed it against his forehead. Are you satisfied now? he’d hissed. Do you feel better? I hadn’t been happy and I hadn’t felt better, not at all. But I did now. My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed."

"You were right all those years to suspect that I knew. I did know. Hassan told me shortly after it happened. What you did was wrong, Amir jan, but do not forget that you were a boy when it happened. A troubled little boy. You were too hard on yourself then, and you still are—I saw it in your eyes in Peshawar. But I hope you will heed this: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer. I hope your suffering comes to an end with this journey to Afghanistan."

"When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt. You are still angry and I realize it is far too early to expect you to accept this, but maybe someday you will see that when your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, like you, was a tortured soul, Amir jan."

"And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father’s remorse. Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good."

"“Your father and I were nursed by the same woman.”

“I know.”

“What . . . what did he tell you about us?”

“That you were the best friend he ever had,” he said.

I twirled the jack of diamonds in my fingers, flipped it back and forth. “I wasn’t such a good friend, I’m afraid,” I said. “But I’d like to be your friend. I think I could be a good friend to you. Would that be all right? Would you like that?”"

"Found the Polaroid snapshot of Hassan and Sohrab. “Here,” I said. He brought the photo to within an inch of his face, turned it so the light from the mosque fell on it. He looked at it for a long time. I thought he might cry, but he didn’t. He just held it in both hands, traced his thumb over its surface. I thought of a line I’d read somewhere, or maybe I’d heard someone say it: There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood. He stretched his hand to give it back to me.

“Keep it,” I said. “It’s yours.”

“Thank you.”"

"“But why did people hide it from Father and you?”

“You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And there’s an answer , but not a good one. Let’s just say they didn’t tell us because your father and I . . . we weren’t supposed to be brothers.”

“Because he was a Hazara?”

I willed my eyes to stay on him. “Yes.”

“Did your father,” he began, eyeing his food, “did your father love you and my father equally?”

I thought of a long ago day at Ghargha Lake, when Baba had allowed himself to pat Hassan on the back when Hassan’s stone had outskipped mine. I pictured Baba in the hospital room, beaming as they removed the bandages from Hassan’s lips. “I think he loved us equally but differently.”

“Was he ashamed of my father?”

“No,” I said. “I think he was ashamed of himself.”"

"I remembered something I had read somewhere a long time ago: That’s how children deal with terror. They fall asleep."

"I throw my makeshift jai-namaz, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember I haven’t prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn’t matter, I will utter those few words I still remember: La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid with its bright diamond lights and towering minarets. There is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need, I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is. I bow to the west and kiss the ground and promise that I will do zakat, I will do namaz, I will fast during Ramadan and when Ramadan has passed I will go on fasting, I will commit to memory every last word of His holy book, and I will set on a pilgrimage to that sweltering city in the desert and bow before the Ka’bah too. I will do all of this and I will think of Him everyday from this day on if He only grants me this one wish: My hands are stained with Hassan’s blood; I pray God doesn’t let them get stained with the blood of his boy too.

I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine, my lips are salty with the tears trickling down my face. I feel the eyes of everyone in this corridor on me and still I bow to the west. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I’d always feared they would."

"Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab’s door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

"It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life.

Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it.

Sohrab’s silence wasn’t the self-imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under."

"“Do you want me to run that kite for you?”

His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I thought I saw him nod."

“For you, a thousand times over,” I heard myself say.

Then I turned and ran.

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight.

But I’ll take it. With open arms."

"Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.

I ran. A grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. But I didn’t care. I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the Valley of Panjsher on my lips.

I ran."

This is now officially one of my favorite books of all time, Khaled Hosseini is my new favorite author, and this story and its characters will stay with me for a long, long time. This book is only the 2nd book that I rated 5 stars this year so far (the 1st one was A Little Life), and I think it shows just how much I love this book and how great it is (if this long-ass rave review didn't already). It also shows that my rating is much more serious this year compared to last year when I rated so many books with 5 stars. This book reminds me how much I love reading, and how good it feels to let a book break your heart, then slowly pick up the pieces and put it back together, and make it whole again.

PLOT - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

WRITING STYLE - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ENTERTAINMENT LEVEL PAIN LEVEL- 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

BOOK COVER DESIGN - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL BOOK RATING - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[wheretheresaway-theresawilliam]

Chapter 41: The Horror Attraction [Epilogue]

Word Count: 859

TWs: Death mentions, gore mentions, unsanitary mentions

⛤⛤⛤

Getting hired at Fazbear’s Frights was just as easy as getting hired at Freddy’s had been, perhaps even easier. Michael was very glad the interview didn’t have to be in person. It had been a wild few years since he essentially died two deaths and kept living… he felt like a cockroach. Luckily, this was only a minor speed bump. He knew where his father now resided, and he knew he lived on, if only because other employees had claimed the haunted attraction was actually haunted.

He was also glad that the tradition of only having one nighttime security guard lived on, even at a partial museum housing valuables collectors would love to get their hands on. Frankly, the whole idea behind Fazbear’s Frights made him sick. How quickly some people had moved on from grief, disconnected from the horrific realities, and turned a profit from it.

On top of that, the place was cheap, practically as rotten as Freddy’s had been when it had been abandoned. Michael could’ve designed a better horror attraction with a blindfold on, his hands tied behind his back, and his only tools being a hammer and a bag of dry macaroni. Why people would waste their money on this experience, he’d never understand. It wasn’t long after he had settled into the office chair, covered in an awful, scratchy brown fabric, that he was reminded that he wasn’t alone. The lights buzzed and pulsed while faint whispers floated in Michael’s ears. He jumped when a familiar figure appeared on the desk.

“Michael???” Charlie tilted her head. She looked tired.

“Well, there’s no fooling you, is there?” He quipped, still tensed despite the welcome face.

“What are you doing here???” She slipped off the desk and stood. “I thought you died!”

“Funny story--”

“And why are you purple?? Is that a wig??”

“Slow down, Charlie!” He laughed dryly and began to explain what had happened to him, and where he had been since then. “I shouldn’t have abandoned you… it was stupid of me to go to Circus Baby’s that night…”

“Hey, it was your sister, it was only understandable… you couldn’t have known Norman was going to drop off SpringBonnie, either. I just wish you had told me your plans…”

“Because you’re still here. Yeah, I fucked up on that one…”

“And so is he, as well as the others. Got any new ideas?”

Michael nodded. “Why else would I be here?” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I’m going to burn it all to the ground. My theory is, if I destroy what physically tethers you here, you’ll finally be able to move on.”

“Won’t you get charged for arson?”

“Hey, that’s only if I get caught. Besides, I’ve been legally dead for… four years, I think? They’d never suspect a corpse.”

Charlie grinned. “So, what name did you use this time?”

“Fritz Smith.”

She laughed. “What kind of name is that??”

“I don’t know, I saw it on the internet somewhere.”

“The internet??”

“Oh my God. That’s right, you’ve… completely missed out on where technology’s gone since the eighties… you would’ve been a bit too young… there’s not really enough time to explain, but I guess it’s like… electronic books? Anything you’ve ever wanted to know, in a newer, faster package. I use it sparingly, seems like too much power for one person in my opinion.”

“Huh.”

They both froze. Something was shuffling heavily towards them.

“Him!” Charlie hissed. “Quick, play a sound to distract him!” She pointed at the office’s soundboard, meant to be used to control all sounds and ambience in the attraction during the day.

“He’s not that stupid, is he??” Michael asked, briefly impressed.

“It’s not that, the suit reacts to noise and he can’t do anything about it. The guard before you figured that out at the last second… I’m not sure what excuse the owners gave as to why ‘Springtrap’ migrates toward the office at night, but it must be something that keeps employees from freaking out and quitting immediately.”

“Springtrap?”

“The new trademark. I suppose SpringBonnie isn’t that scary, now, is it?”

“I don’t know, I think its backstory makes it plenty unsettling.” He could see its shadow on the wall through the two-way mirror between the office and the hall. “I think I want to see what’s become of his sorry arse.”

“I promise you, you don’t…” She looked him up and down. “But I suppose you yourself are also a corpse. Good luck.” With that, she disappeared through the neighbouring wall, leaving Michael to face the demon that was his father. Springtrap lurched into view. The suit had fallen into complete disrepair, its foam and fur torn, the colours muted with age. Even its once charming bowtie was now nowhere to be found, discarded after years of mistreatment. Michael covered his mouth. He could see William’s punctured and misshapen innards through the holes in the suit, formed tightly with the metal structure within. He was thankful he had lost the ability to smell at this point, between himself and his father he was sure this place stunk like the depths of Hell.