#cannot stand being alone cannot stand other people maybe i should stop self medicating and start talking to the voices

[yesimwriting]

The Needs of Pain

A/n as promised,,, here is my gift to you bc I finished ap gov today :))

The darkling x heartrender!reader story based on the whole ‘no one but me can hurt you’ thing :))

Warnings: sexual innuendos,, attempts to sexualize pain if you squint, kinda lemon-y

I kinda want to write a smutty part 2 let’s see lol 

Summary: after a training injury, Kirigan reveals how he views the dynamic of your relationship and figures out how to best help you work through the pian 

--

In an odd way, the most painful part of my injury had been the wound on my pride, not my shoulder. Though the pain that begins beneath my collarbone and continues down my left shoulder is not exactly pleasant. I can’t bring myself to pity myself too much as I stare at the extent of my burns. There’s a war going on. People die, people lose loved ones, I have to tolerate pain for an hour or two before a healer can be sent to be. 

I told Genya I’d be fine in the medical wing, but she insisted that I wait for a healer to be sent to me. The people here look up to me, if news of my injury got out, especially considering it’s a training wound, morale would take a blow we can’t currently afford. Genya had looked relatively sympathetic when she told me that many healers were occupied considering how difficult training had been and I had told her I could bear the weight. 

Now, in my room, staring at the basin full of water, I’m starting to regret my desire to be self sacrificing. I dip the towel in the water, squeezing out the excess before daring to dab the fabric on the outer edge of the wound. The feeling is fire against my skin all over again. An instinctual curse leaves me as I drop the towel on the counter that surrounds the basin. 

Arthur hadn’t meant it. I can still hear the frantic apologies tumbling from his full lips. He should have been more focused on the task at hand, he should have never stopped to look at me, at the way I could control so many living things at once. In some odd sense, his distraction had been a compliment. Many of the girls here would sell anything to have Arthur’s attention, even if it resulted in such a careless mistake. 

I grimace, picking up the towel and preparing to start again. I should at least clean it before the healers have to deal with both a physical injury and an infection. The sound of my door flying open and then shutting angrily is enough of a distraction for me to accidentally dab the towel against my skin too harshly. I curse again, turning my head towards the bathroom door. Did Genya exaggerate the severity of my wound? Are the healers that desperate to get to me? 

I turn on my toes, towel forgotten by the basen full of water as I approach the door that connects my room with the bathroom. “I’m--” Words meant to calm a frantic healer stick to the back of my throat as soon as I register all the black in the room. General Kirigan. Great. He no doubt heard about my injury after prying it from Genya and now he’s here to scold me for the childishness of it all. To be injured because a boy and I just couldn’t help ‘make eyes at each other’. All he does is insult my refusal to become bitter just because I was born possessing power. 

“You’re what?” His words are a different level of callous, darker than the shadows he creates with the will of his mind alone. “An idiot that let herself be sent back to her room instead of demanding to see a healer?” 

That’s an odd thing for him to focus his anger on. At least it’s not fully directed at me. On instinct, I half turn, attempting to hide my injury from his piercing eyes. My instinct tells me he should never see me so mortal. “Genya recommended it,” my words are determined yet calm, “It’s such a small injury it isn’t worth risking everyone’s morale. A healer will come here when one is available.” 

His face tightens in what must be some kind of disgusted disbelief. “Foolish girl--have you no instinct for preservation?” 

Every decision I’ve made since being injured made sense before he spoke to me. The fierceness of his voice leaves my face warmer than it was a moment ago and reminds me of the stem of my dislike for him. General Kirigan speaks and I am left a clumsy child. “Some things are more important than one’s self.” I expect he’ll turn that into something else to mock or belittle about me. “And it’s not a grave injury it’s barely--” 

The distance between us seemed so great less than a second ago, but he’s closed it so quickly, grabbing my left wrist and extending my arm forward so that I can’t hide anything from him. “You’re burned.” There’s the slightest bit of surprise coloring his words along with something else I can’t interpret. “How did you get burned?” 

Kirigan doesn’t know. My stomach knots, anticipating embarrassment. “Training incident--I was standing too close to an Inferni.” 

His grip on my arm tightens. I grimace as he pulls me forward with no regard for my injury. “Who?” The voracious way he says the word leaves my thoughts trembling. He is a void of darkness, starving for a victim to snuff the light out of.  

When my thoughts settle, I cannot bring myself to tell him the truth. “I didn’t see, I was distracted by the burning.” I exhale slowly, desperate to escape the flames behind his eyes the way I could not escape the fire of earlier. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve been injured worse in training.” His hold on my arm doesn’t loosen, I glance down at his hand, his firm grip on me somehow worse than the burn. “You’ve injured me worse in training.” 

“I may push you, exhaust you, and leave you mad--but I have never done anything that comes close to--that!” The last of his words carry themselves louder than the rest. 

If the skin of my shoulder wasn’t so sensitive I’d try fighting his tightening grasp. The accusation on my part had been a little much, but it was meant to serve as a reminder that he’s not one to care about my comfort or well being. “Why does it matter?” I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze. “You’ve never cared about any of my injuries before.” 

Kirigan releases my arm in a stiff trance, raising his hand to brush his thumb down my cheek. The contact is reminiscent of an extremely different moment. “The first night here you only let a few tears escape you when you were convinced that no one could see them. Do you remember how I turned and wordlessly wiped them away?” His gesture had not been comforting then and it isn’t comforting now. He never wanted to comfort me, he wanted to assert some strange power over me. “I let those tears fall because they were because of me and I knew it was for the best.” I say nothing, letting his thumb ghost tears that will not come. “The moment I discovered you, what you could be, you became mine.” 

“I am no one’s.” The reaction is instinctual, a pride my mother instilled in me. My voice is too loud, too brash. “I am my own.” 

I brace myself for his anger, but all I receive is the slight relaxation of his lips. “It’s things like that give you so much potential in other ways.” His voice is a jagged rock caressing my skin, not minding the scrapes it leaves behind. “You’re a fair plaything, as well as useful.”  

He’s speaking so gently his voice borders on vulnerable. Something in me warms, but I can’t tell why. I know that Kirigan finds joy in my discomfort--why else would he belittle me so often? “The healer will be here soon.” 

“Yes,” he makes no move to leave, instead Kirigan grabs my wrist again, forcing me to turn so that he can analyze the extent of my burn, “Which is why I will ask you again…” I try to catch his gaze, but his stone stare is focused on my burned shoulder entirely. “Who did this?” 

“I told you.” He can never know. “It was a training accident.” 

“And someone is responsible.” 

I let out a breath, tired of feeling so incomplete. I just want to be healed and go to sleep. “Why does it matter?” His fingers trail up my arm patiently, my body betrays me by shivering. “Accidents happen, you’ve put me in more risk than--” 

“I’ve always intended to break you one way or another,” his voice is more supple than it’s ever been before, “Your goodness is too tempting to not tarnish.” He turns my wrist over easily, ignoring my slight wince. “But if someone else were to do it…” Kirigan trails off, expression tightening in a way I can’t read, “I don’t let others break my play things.” 

Some strange resolve in my chest cracks at that. “Kirigan--” 

“Who are you protecting?” He moves his free hand, placing it without reservation on my shoulder. “Not telling me will only make it worse.” 

Thoughts of Arthur paying for such a small mistake leaves my stomach rolling in guilt. “Make what worse?” 

His expression tightens again. I wait for some kind of rebuke. Kirigan’s lips part as if he expects to criticize my naivety, but instead of speaking he turns sharply. He doesn't release his grip on my wrist as he leads me into my bathroom. 

“What are you doing?” 

Kirigan ignores my surprise, releasing me to pick up the towel I was so quick to abandon. “If you’re too good to take a healer from someone, you should at least avoid infection.” 

“I’m not an idiot, I was cleaning it.” The sharpness of my tone is ignored, Kirigan simply places one hand on my forearm to keep me in place. “Wha--”

 He brushes his thumb over my pulse gently in an effective attempt to silence me. I part my lips in hopes of protesting, but something odd reflects across his eyes. It must be some trick of the light because his expression seems...hesitant. Maybe even concerned. And then cool fabric is pressed into my burn. I bite my tongue so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t bleed. 

“Saints.” 

His expression shifts to that of almost amusement. “I think I’d like to hear you curse in a,” he exhales softly, fingertips trailing up my forearm, “Slightly different scenario.” 

The shock of such a bold innuendo clears my mind from thoughts of pain. But the most startling thing is that the innuendo isn’t entirely unwanted. In the wake of my surprise, he presses the wet towel into my wound again. I fight against a grimace, but that doesn’t go unnoticed by Kirigan. Instead of mentioning it, his free arm touches my uninjured shoulder. For the first time since he’s come here I’m aware of how improper my attire is. I changed out of my starched kefta and into a silk nightgown in order to leave my shoulder unbothered. Genya had helped me change, bearing all of my grimacing and pained curses. 

I should push him off of me. Kirigan can get away with a lot because of his status, but I by no means have to allow something like this. I should not feel shy, I should not be embarrassed. He’s the one that’s out of line. I look up into his eyes, prepared to yell at him for being so out of line. But when I meet his eyes, I see something so un-monstrous I am left breathless. There’s a gentleness to the way he tilts his head downwards, eyes never leaving mine. Is he asking for permission? Permission to--to what? I stay frozen as his lips brush against the unmarred side of my collarbone. His touch is almost enough to make me forget pain ever existed. He pulls away enough that I can feel his breath against the base of my neck. Thoughts I’d never dare speak are banished as the towel presses against my skin again. My face cringes immediately, but he’s quick to press his lips to the base of my neck, lingering kisses melting into my skin. 

“I thought you said you were fine.” His chiding is half-hearted, whispered between two brief kisses against my bare ski. 

He dabs the towel on the burn again, but before I can think to complain, his lips are against my skin again. This time, his lips part slightly allowing his teeth to graze over my pulse. Kirigan pulls away slightly, expression hardening, “I’m almost sorry about this part.” His words leave him in a whisper as influential as sin. 

“What part?” My voice feels foreign in my throat. 

Kirigan doesn’t reply, but then I feel the sharpest pain yet. The towel is cleaning the worst of the burn, the ruined patch of skin that will never recover without supernatural intervention. The gasp I let out is that of a bird with shattered wings. A cry forms in the base of my throat, but before it can leave me, Kirigan’s teeth bite into the skin above my pulse. The pained sound is reduced by my shock, twisting in an odd combination of some kind of pained sound and something dangerously close to a moan. 

He releases me with one last soft brush of his lips, straightening his back and retracting the towel. “There.” Kirigan drops the towel onto the bathroom counter. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

I can still feel the ghost of his lips, tongue, and teeth against my skin. I understand now. Each kiss had been a way to distract me, to lessen the pain. Something odd swells in my chest as I try to will my eyes to stop watering in pain. 

Kirigan presses his lips together, pressing his hand against my cheek again. His thumb brushes the few stray tears that escape me. “Don’t cry,” his tone is pure velvet, “I won’t tolerate tears in your eyes caused by anyone else.” He tilts his head oddly, hand sliding down my cheek before gripping my jaw, “I can provide reason for your tears if you’d like.” 

Inhaling deeply, I continue to stare at him. Today has been so sudden. He’s flirted with me through strangely sexual insults and threats before, but never has he been so forward about it. 

“I’m fine,” I force my voice to remain clear. He nods once. A soft rap at my door has me turning away from him. “The healer--I shoul--” 

“Come in,” he calls, voice clear and leaving no room for argument. 

My eyes widen. To be caught with him here could be detrimental for my reputation. Kirigan pulls away, something sharp playing at his features, something almost humorous. 

He leaves the bathroom like this is his own room. “Her wound is clean, work quickly.” I walk out of the bathroom in a strange trance. Kirigan’s gaze lands on me as I enter the main part of my room, “I need her at her full strength for what I have planned.” 

There’s a heaviness to his words, a weight that tells me he means more than what his words imply. Goosebumps erupt across my skin as I try to banish the thoughts of his mouth against my skin between inflictions of pain, blending together to create the most intense sense of fight or flight I’ve ever experienced. 

Kirigan begins to approach the door to my room. “I’ll be checking on her later.”

--

People that asked to be tagged in this/expressed interest:

@luminous-99 @voyevoda-thejoy @voidmalfoy @i-padfootblack-things @all-art-is-quite-useless @buckverse @mandowh0re @uhanddreag  

@we-love-our-bandz 

[hitsuackerman]

Why Did It Have to be Him? pt. 1 (Aizawa x Reader)

a/n: okay ya’ll this is purely self indulgent because i have been simping so hard for this man lately. anddd the fact that my guilty pleasure for Aizawa is student-teacher scenarios huhuhu (splashes holy water on self) that being said... i hope ya’ll like this :)

Warnings: Student-Teacher relationship, Age-gap, Cursing

Link to Part 2

Masterlist for other fics :) here

Today was like any other day.

You woke up and did everything that needed to be done. With how routine it had become, things were quite a blur. One moment you were changing in your house and the next you were now face to face with your fellow class 1-A people.

With the minutes dragging by, you could feel your heart beat faster. Fingers growing numb at the sensation of seeing him again. Heat building up between your thighs at the mere thought of his presence.

Despite the volume of the class rep's voice telling you all to sit down, your ears were more focused on the classroom doors. Any moment now, he would enter and the silent and devouring longing would happen once again. Your teeth instantly chewed on your inner cheek when the doors slid open.

"Okay, class." He began. "Change into your PE uniforms. We will work on your quirks today."

One by one, your classmates left the room. His eyes followed their movements one by one. Landing on you, he could feel his heart clench and his mind working overdrive. Both your eyes met yet no one dared to break the contact.

"Hurry up and catch up with the others." He instructed. "Tell them to be ready in 20 minutes."

"Yes, Aizawa-sensei."

He knew that look too well. The way your eyes would linger on his face and slowly make their way down. He could see how your pupils were dilated with the small distance between the two of you. How many weeks had this been going on? Placing a hand on your back, barely touching the fabric of your uniform, he led you out of the room and went to the teacher’s lounge.

‘Damn this.’ You cursed yourself. What started off as admiration came spiraling down after the Summer Camp incident. How did it end up like this?

Yes, you knew who he was. The moment he entered the classroom on the first day of class, the bandages and the dead look on his face was all too familiar. How could you not recognize one of your favorite heroes? Sure there was Vlad and All Might, but there was just something about your homeroom teacher that made you want to tug on the line of student and teacher.

This was just a crush, right? The way you can’t stop staring at him, how you’d want to run your fingers through his messy hair, or even just trace his jaw line with the tip of your finger. Just when you thought it would all stop, that’s when things went out of control.

You were currently aiding Recovery Girl in cleaning up the medical cabinets. She had just finished healing a rather nasty bruise on your thigh due to your clumsiness. Yes, there was still a patch of black and purple, but you opted not to have it bandaged since there wasn’t a need for it. As a thank you, you offered to help her finish the easier tasks.

When you were about to leave the school, you bumped into a skinny blonde figure.

“Young (L/N).” All Might called out to you. “I need your help. I cannot seem to find Midnight or Present Mic anywhere.”

Willing to help the number one hero, you followed him towards a lounge with Principal Nezu and Vlad all dressed up. However, all them seemed to be focused on the curled up yellow sleeping bag nested on the floor.

“We truly apologize for this inconvenience but we need your help.” Principle Nezu began. His small furry paws pointing towards your homeroom teacher. “Is there any way you can persuade him to leave his cocoon and change into something more formal? You may use your quirk if needed.”

“I’m not sure if he’ll listen, but I’ll try.”

Slowly walking towards the yellow caterpillar, you went on your knees and poked his back. Your fingertip felt just how soft the material was. No wonder he could sleep anywhere in this thing. Poking a little harder, there was still no response.

“Sensei…” You warned him. “If you won’t get up, I’ll have no option but to use my quirk on you.”

“You do realize you shouldn’t have told me that?” He turned around and faced you. His hair even messier than before. Eyes red from sleepless nights and the stubble thickening. “That wasn’t a smart thing to do.”

“But it did get your attention.” You replied. Tucking in a strand of hair behind your ear. A small smile on your face for winning his attention.

“They stooped that low to call a student…” Aizawa said as he finally unzipped himself from his yellow sanctuary. Relieved sighs could be heard around the room. Standing up, he took the suit and went to the comfort room to change.

Sitting down and basking in the awkwardness of the situation, your eyes darted to the screen. Reporters were now waiting for the two homeroom teachers to appear for an interview. Gritting your teeth, your mind wandered to Kirishima and the others who were now trying to rescue Bakugo.

Returning back to the room, Aizawa was now suited up and immediately your mind went boom. His hero costume did a fine job in hiding all those muscles. Absentmindedly swallowing your saliva, your eyes savored the view of a clean Eraserhead. Your theory had been proven right, his binding gear really covered his broad shoulders.

“Do me a favor and hold this.” He asked. Handing over his gear.

Not expecting it to be a little heavy, your eyes widened and your thoughts ticked. Every single minute, he had to carry this around. No wonder he’s got a good back. Feeling the sofa dip, you glanced at your homeroom teacher.

‘My god. His side profile. Holy shit he looks so handsome.’

Bringing up his hands, he began to rub his face. A small grunt escaping his mouth. Rummaging his pocket, he took out his eye drops and finally gave himself the relief he needed.

“It’s not good to stare, (L/N).” He commented as he returned the eye drops in his pocket.

‘Shit. I stared for too long. Crapcrapcrapcrap.’ Your cheeks burned from embarrassment. Thankfully, the other people in the room were too busy staring at the monitor. Say something, you told yourself.

“I, uh, I was just thinking that maybe you should lose the stubble.” (Y/N). HOW IDIOTIC COULD YOU BE? “I-I-I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that it would make an impression to the reporters that the school is really taking things seriously…”

Aizawa just stared at you. He knew you were chewing your inner cheeks. The way you held on to his binding gear tightened. But the slight tint of pink on your cheeks made him wonder. You were still feeling things after all this time? Maybe he might take your suggestion. Of course for the media, not for his student.

Excusing himself, you heard the doors open and close once more. Mentally, you slapped yourself. You could smell it now, detention and maybe a bit of scolding. Your shoulders fell and you began to fidget with the cloth.

“Okay, everyone, remember what we talked about.” Principal Nezu began. His small feet tapping on the ground. This was the first time you saw him all serious. Facing you, his eyes scanned the room and back at your sitting body. “Where’s Aizawa?”

“He probably forgot something.” You replied.

“Tell him to immediately go into the press room once he arrives.” Upon receiving your confirmation, both he and Vlad exited the room. When they opened the doors, you heard the cameras flashing and the murmurs of all the reporters.

“Are you alright?” You asked All Might. The look on his face seemed rather disturbed. His phone trembling in his fist.

“If you’ll excuse me, young (L/N). I have to attend to this urgent matter.” The tone of his voice laced with anger and concern. And just like that, you were left alone in the lounge. The sound of the monitor bouncing on the walls to cover up the silence.

You jumped a bit when the doors opened once more. Strands of Aizawa’s binding gear fell to the floor. Quickly picking and putting them back into place, your eyes landed to your homeroom teacher once more. For a moment, your breath hitched.

Even though his hair was messy, you saw that he was now clean shaven.

‘Holy mother of gods. That is a sin, right there.’ Not wanting to linger on him, you focused on the screen and tried to cancel the steps of his footsteps going towards you.

“Is this okay?” His voice was tired and dead. Yet there was a tiny bit of curiosity in them.

“Y-yeah…” Stare at anything but his face. Save your pride and respect the line. You repeat to yourself. “They, uh, Principal Nezu said you should head over to the interview room when you arrive. And now that you're here, you should go to them.”

“Thank you.” That’s all he said. 

Straightening his tie, you couldn’t help but look at him. When he finished, he looked at you. Almost as if he were asking if it was straight enough. Giving him a thumbs up, you furrowed your brows when he took something out from his other pocket.

‘Does he have two eye drops or something?’ You wondered.

Taking a hair tie out, he fingered through his hair and tied it in a half up half down.

‘OH MY GOD. HOW CAN HE HIDE SUCH A FACE?! HOLY SHIT.’ If anything, you were sure your jaw had dropped and it was all to clear that you were thirsting for your teacher right there. Being hypnotized by his kept look, you failed to realize that he had inched his way closer and closer till he was only a step away from you.

“(L/N).” His voice was low and husky. Authoritative but restrained. “You know I do not tolerate any of this.”

You snapped yourself back to reality. Bowing your head with embarrassment, you took a step back to give him space.

“I apologize, sensei. I didn’t mean to.” The beating of your heart echoed to your ears. You were sure he could hear them at that distance. “It won’t happen again.”

With that, he left you alone and proceeded to join the interview.

Letting go of the breath you had been holding, you clenched your chest and flopped to the sofa. Breathing in and out, you tried to calm yourself and the situation that had just unfolded. Biting your lower lip, you held onto the fabric and let a few tears slip from your eyes. Expelled. You were sure of it.

With the interview over and the gut wrenching fight of All Might versus All For One, you decided to drop everything and go home. There were just too many happenings for a single day. The comfort of your own bed and a tub of ice cream was all you wanted at this point.

“Excuse me, but I really should get going.” You informed the group.

“Take a taxi.” Principal Nezu offered. “You may drop by my office tomorrow for a reimbursement.”

“It’s okay, Principal Nezu. My house is only a 20 minute walk from here.” You bowed and bid farewell.

“(L/N).”

‘Crap. Is he going to expel me now? Why can’t this wait till tomorrow and not in front of everyone… fuckfuckfuck.’

“You are my responsibility. I’ll walk you home.” Aizawa said. Not even waiting for a response, he said his goodbyes and left the room with you.

The walk towards your home was nothing but awkward silence. His coat hung on his arm while his binding gear rested on his shoulders once again. Footsteps and the occasional honking of the horn were all you could here. The minutes dragged by slowly and you wanted to make a run for it to save yourself.

Finally, you spotted your apartment. That felt like the longest 20 minute walk you’ve ever had.

“This is my stop. Thank you for taking me home.” You bowed.

“How did you get that bruise?” He asked. His eyes resting on your thigh. The look on your face told him you had forgotten it was there in the first place.

“I fell down the stairs.” You responded. Scratching your cheek.

Crouching down, he inspected the bruise.

‘What the hell are you doing, Shota? Do not touch her skin.’ He internally yelled at himself. There was really nothing to it, he reminded himself. All he needed to do was to poke the bruise and give you the necessary treatment for it.

Shivers crawled down your spine when you felt his calloused finger touch the purple patch of skin. The moment he poked it, you felt your stomach tingling and heat building up. When they said there was a thin line between pain and pleasure, they weren’t kidding on that one. Feeling him poke it once, your breath hitched and a small, barely audible, moan escaped your mouth.

‘Oh god. Oh god. He did not hear that. He definitely did not hear that.’

But he did.

‘Stop this right now, Shota. She’s a goddamn student.’ The small moan you made was enough to make him curious. The rationality of this situation was screaming negativity. However, your skin was just so soft to the touch. And that moan? He wondered what other sounds could he make you do. ‘Fuck. No. This is Wrong.’

Standing back up, he cleared his throat and placed his hand in his pocket. He felt his heat rising and definitely did not want you to see that. Thank goodness it was dark.

“Sorry about that.” His eyes still fixed on you. “Recovery Girl did a good job on healing it. Just give it some ice therapy and it’ll be gone in a few days tops.”

“I will. Thank you for the tip.” You took your keys from your bag and gave him a shy smile. The touch of his skin on yours still lingering on your senses. “I better get inside now.”

“I shall take my leave then.”

With that being said, you unlocked the door and went inside. Not wanting to look back knowing just how delicate the line was. Once the hatch clicked, you slid down to the floor and tried to gather your thoughts. Times like these you were glad you lived alone.

“Why did it have to be him? Why did he have to touch my thigh? Why did you have to moan? Fuckfuckfuck” Burying your face in your palm, you scolded yourself why you let your emotions get out of control.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Aizawa had let his hair down. The chilly wind brushing his face. His unwanted friend had now settled down. His focus was on his hand. Specifically his finger. It was only for a few seconds but all he wanted was to maybe have one more opportunity to touch your skin. Clenching his fist, he placed it back into his pocket.

“What the hell did you just do, Shota?”

[avversiera-writes]

‘till death do us part - chapter 7 [tobirama senju/you]

Chapter 7 - Make Him King

Summary: Tobirama gives Hashirama a chance to make it right. Unknowingly, pieces fall into place, pushing Tobirama to finally step up. 

Words: 3.4k

A/N: okay, somewhere in this series, i did say that Hashirama stepped down as Hokage because of his depression, his self-destructing way of gambling and maybe alcholism. I did not accept the fact that Hashirama's death was GLOSSED OVER, so I am slowly making preparations of how to go about it. Depression is serious, and it affects not only you, but the people around you. I hope I did it justice implying it here because you know this is the ninja world, there is no such thing as mental health to them apparently. I also did put in like little easter eggs that most of these characters here suffer a form of ptsd, exacerbated by the situations they are put in, but I will leave it to you to draw conclusions. Maybe it isn't enough, but the lack of evidence can sometimes be telling.

the Senju brothers will make up, they are siblings after all, and they have a really strong bond. these are just tough times.

anyways, get ready for the last chapter LOLLLLS 

cw // VERY SLIGHT knife? blade play??? listen to two weeks by fka twigs when you get to it HEHEHHE

available on AO3. 

<< Chapter 1 - Allegiances // Chapter 2 - Union // Chapter 3 - Love Like You // Chapter 4 - Look to the Horizon // Chapter 5 - Return // Chapter 6 - How to Steal a Crown 

While you dry yourself, Tobirama prepares hot tea and sets up the fireplace just outside the living room to keep the heat going. You settle yourself on Tobirama’s makeshift study in the living room, and study the ledgers he presented to you, and his upcoming plans that the village is gradually adapting. You sip at the hot tea, and thank Tobirama when he puts a thicker blanket on your shoulders and the two of you spend this late hour in silence, going over the papers that Tobirama arranged on the table. 

 “Tobirama, this is all well and good–amazing–really,” you praise him for his plans–they are more than what you can imagine. Tobirama has such an intelligent mind, and each time, he never fails to surprise you. “But, some of these take years and a lot of money to apply.” 

“I know,” Tobirama drones on. 

 “I do not know if the village will hold,” you say, trying to find the right words to express what is on your mind. “Appearance-wise, we are quite strong, but these...are incriminating evidence. Someone is always out there, looking for an in, a weakness, and technically, this is tyranny.” 

 Tobirama nods stoically, and his eyes darken. 

 “If someone usurps your brother’s place unexpectedly,” you begin, but Tobirama finishes your sentence. 

 “Then Konoha is doomed,” he concludes and he meets your eyes. You see sorrow and determination in them, his preparation to do the worst to do good.

 “Everything you have worked for, have fought for, will fall apart,” you affirm. “It is one thing to build these walls and these incredible infrastructures...but we are dust without labor and money and you know this already.” 

 You glance at your husband, wondering why you have to lay out his thoughts for him.

 Tobirama stands up and he starts to pace. 

“Tobirama, you know what to do,” you aver, and you set down the book you are holding. You watch the way his jaw tenses. “What are you waiting for?” 

 Tobirama continues to pace, and you can clearly see the wheels turning in his head. “He will never forgive me for this.” 

 You press your lips together, and you let out a heavy sigh. “Does this count as a coup?” 

 “What?” Tobirama snaps, his eyes getting fiery by the second. “Of course not. We can get a council together and vote. We’re not killing anyone.” 

You sigh in relief. “Well, good. You know you won’t stand a chance against your brother.”

 “I am glad to know that you have such unwavering faith in me,” Tobirama sneers. 

 “Okay, okay, calm down,” you try to pacify him. 

 “Stop joking around,” Tobirama commands. 

You gesture at him to keep going. You begin to fill your cup with tea again, but Tobirama takes the teapot and pours it himself. 

“I froze the village funds temporarily so that I can give back what was taken,” Tobirama says. “But it will not last.” 

 “My students are still in my family’s land,” you begin slowly. “I can write a letter and ask for some money to be delivered, if that can help.” 

 Tobirama nods, and he sighs in relief. “That will help. The other daimyos are still hesitant to loan money, and well, we cannot let the word spread too far.” 

“The daimyos love their money.” You sigh, and see Tobirama crack a small smirk. 

 “Now, obviously, this is a temporary solution,” you facilitate the conversation. “What are you going to do now? These plans...Tobirama, they require proper management and judgement, and from what you have told me, your brother is not up for this.” 

 Tobirama’s forehead knits in frustration. 

 “It is not betrayal,” you reassure him. “He will learn to forgive you with time.”

 “I will give him one more chance to get it together,” Tobirama asserts, but the both of you know well how things are going to go. 

You finally release a breath you have been holding. Things are happening too fast, and too soon. You are not ready to give up your husband for the village, but he is someone who never steps away from responsibility. Not when he has the means to make everything right. You wonder if you are encouraging another storm.

//

Tobirama leaves before lunch, leaving you alone in a messy house that for some reason refuses to make itself habitable. Despite your efforts of moving your stuff in, it still feels empty. For now, you just try to clean what you can without being too exhausted, and you peek into Tobirama’s study, trying to decide if you should touch anything and risk his lecturing about how particular he is about his things. 

You leave it alone for now, and you decide to wander around the house. You observe the garden, and the small pond in the corner, walk on the cobbled stone paths that seem to wind all over the place. The house seems very traditional compared to the small apartment that you used to stay in, that this transition to a bigger house makes you feel so little and vulnerable. You want to fill it up with something, but then you do not want anything unconventional in the house and alienate yourself from it. No, you want something inviting, and warm, a foundation to build a life on. 

 You are not much of a gardener, since you have spent more time holding weapons rather than flowers, but you decide to try your hand on it so that you can fill your time and occupy your mind. You go around the village, looking for simple decorations, and new curtains and bedsheets, seeds of flowers you want to try and raise, and you focus on your self-made tasks. 

While going around the market to shop for dinner ingredients, you spot Hiruzen talking to a lady with light brown hair, who seems to be looking at him, unimpressed, but you can spot the softness around her eyes. You decide to stick around, pretending to mind your own business, to observe what’s up, and when the lady leaves, you decide to approach Hiruzen, whose ears are slightly blushing from the encounter. 

“Hm, who was that?” You ask casually.

 Tobirama’s favorite student starts, and he turns to you, like you caught him red-handed. 

 You raise an eyebrow, and Hiruzen shakes his head, finding no reason to keep this a secret from you. 

“Her name is Biwako, she’s studying to be a medical-nin,” Hiruzen clears his throat. He relieves some of the stuff you are carrying. “How are you and Tobirama-sensei?” 

 You shrug, and you give Hiruzen a playful smile. “But I want to talk about you and Biwako.”

 “Sensei,” Hiruzen protests. 

 “Fine, fine,” you chuckle. 

Hiruzen seems to have grown older, it’s hard to believe that they were just pre-teens when you first met them. Now, he is even getting ready to date and it makes you almost nostalgic. 

 As you two near your home, Hirzuen’s face changes to a more serious one. He seems to be stringing the correct sentences to say. His forehead knits, and lips purse, and you sigh. 

 “Yes?” 

 “Tobirama-sensei met with my father and the other clan leaders,” Hiruzen starts. “Is something...wrong?” 

 You stare ahead as you walk, trying to think about how to go about this. 

“Your sensei will not penalize you for deducing on your own,” you tell him. “For now…” 

You stop short from the gate of your house, sensing a presence in it. 

 “I will take it from here, okay?” You send Hiruzen a reassuring smile, and take your stuff back from him. “I will see you soon.” 

Hiruzen’s puzzled look does not get better, but he does as you say and leaves. You enter your home and find your sister-in-law waiting for you by the engawa. You look around, trying to see if she brought her sons with her or her personal maids, but she is alone. 

 You set the rest of your things on the porch and you gesture inside to let her in. 

 Your heart thuds against your throat. Mito looks refined and elegant as always, and this is emphasized by the fact that the current state of your house is in disarray. You almost feel ashamed, but you note that the air she weaves around you is serious. You are not really sure how to act around her yet, but you remember her kindness towards you before your wedding. 

“I won’t be long,” Mito suddenly says. 

 You nod and avert your eyes as a sign of respect. 

“I know that someday your husband will be Hokage,” Mito folds her hands in front of her. “I did not imagine that it will come so soon, and in this way.” 

 “Tobirama is only trying to help,” you say evenly, but even to you, it sounds lacking and unconvincing.

 “Save your words,” Mito cuts sharply. “I will talk to my husband to step down willingly, if it comes to it.”

You look down at the floor. You hear her move towards the door. 

 “I hope that this does not cause a rift between us,” Mito suddenly says. “I do not hope to alienate you. I think we could be friends, if you choose to act on behalf of friendship. This is my hand being extended to you.” 

You hold your breath until she leaves, and you let it out, feeling the need to sit down. This is why you hated your husband’s politics. It suffocates and it hurts others even if you do not mean to. You wonder how Tobirama does it. He probably finds it fun despite the stress that it brings him. 

 You forget any thoughts of gardening for today and you search for your swords. 

// 

You twist the katana in your hand, slowly forcing the other half of your body to get back to working condition. It is not as flexible as before, but the pain is completely gone, and not even a visible scar is left. Focusing your energy at the point of the blade, you go forward and wind it back to strike at the air. Then, quickly keeping the sword in a straight line, you stab at the air, and your body fluidly follows to flip forward. You let your thoughts pass through you and you deliver them out, like an act of contrition.

 You flip your sword again, your wrist twisting to wind behind your arm behind you back, and you rest your blade on your shoulder blade. 

 Taking a deep breath, you wait for your heartbeat to steady itself. Sweat drops from your temple, from your neck to your chest, and the cool late afternoon that sweeps by immediately provides relief. 

 You feel Tobirama’s presence come up from behind, and you whirl around, unwinding your arm from your back, and you point your sword towards him. 

 Tobirama regards you, his face easing to a more smug expression. 

 You use the flat tip of the katana to tip his chin upwards, and Tobirama’s eyes narrow, anticipating your next move. 

 An inexplicable hunger tears through your body, and you bring your sword down to his chest, tracing lightly at the lines, until it stops short on his collar. The warm afternoon changes, and suddenly, your skin is humming and it flushes with heat. You watch as Tobirama visibly swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. You undo his clothes by cutting the front of his yukata open, revealing his naked and defined torso. 

Biting your lower lip, you lightly press the sharp edge of your blade to the center of his abdomen, drawing blood, and the sight almost makes you light-headed. You do not know what has gotten into you, but it makes you want to drink in Tobirama and get your fill. 

“Everything is arranged,” Tobirama states, and he knocks the blade aside with his palm, catching you off-guard and seizing the moment to his direction. Then, he grabs the blunt edge of the blade and uses it to pull you closer to him. 

Your mouth latches itself to his mouth and you devour him, licking the neck muscle that juts out when he flexes his jaw, and you travel further down, to the base of his chest and suck the blood that you drew out. Your free hand grabs at one of Tobirama’s arms to placate him and prevent him from touching you, and you look up coyly, meeting his fierce eyes. Then, you take the blade to his neck, and regard him from a distance. 

 In this moment and in another Senju household, Mito is talking to Hashirama and she is trying to steal him back from the claws of the demons that live in the shadows of every contrived reality. 

 And you are getting ready to throw your own husband into the fire. 

 “And if it doesn’t work?” You ask, and you meet his eyes levelly. 

Tobirama finally gives the words life. “I will take up the mantle.” 

You lower your sword, your emotions and the pride you feel for him clashing against each other. 

“I haven’t had you for long,” you murmur. 

 Tobirama stands there, unsure of what to make of your comment. “Preposterous,” he snaps. “I’m not dying.” 

 You raise an eyebrow. 

“You understand the responsibilities it demands of me,” Tobirama explains as if you already don’t know. 

 Gods, you have spent so much time fearing for him over it. 

 “Shut up,” you whisper. 

You plant your sword to the ground, and you go to him and you capture his lips into yours. Tobirama’s hands immediately come to your waist, and he returns your kiss with the same fervor. You take his face into your hands, and you relay to him your heart. You open yourself more and more to him, and maybe it is reckless. Maybe you will lose everything, but nothing is set in stone. 

Tobirama presses your body against his aggressively, and he carries you in a swift movement, and lays you down on your back on the engawa. He violently pulls apart your clothing, and rips it off you. His mouth ravishes your neck, the dips of your collarbone. His hands fondle your breasts, and kneads your waist, and you writhe under him, his every touch making you more euphoric by the second. You close your eyes, and you arch your body towards him, yearning for him to take you. 

 You gasp out your want, and he presses a soothing kiss on your collarbone. You hear his breathing, loud and overwhelmed, and then, he fucks you senseless on the wraparound porch of your house. You stifle your screams, as they sound almost guttural, but Tobirama takes your wrists and pins them above your head as he grinds into you at a rapacious pace. He leans over, and kisses you on the lips, insistent and tender, and you let him in, closer, and even closer. 

 Your eyes snap open as Tobirama ruts against you, and your hips and your legs shake from pure ecstasy. You see Tobirama’s eyes, and you feel his desperation and the fight that he has yet to continue inside his mind. 

 You bite Tobirama’s shoulder as you come, and Tobirama fucks you through it, his hips snapping wildly, and you feel him unravel inside you with a growl and you keen, tears involuntary flowing out from your eyes. 

You gasp, as your high continues to make your body spasm–every touch sends jolts of pleasure that wipes your mind white. Tobirama leans over you to cover your body with his, not yet pulling out. He plants light kisses on your temple, your cheekbone and your ear, and he whispers your name, and three words that he always saves for you. 

 Tobirama has only said it once before, but he has said it to you more than anyone has.

Your fingers come up to brush his cheek, and you hold him closer, showing him that you heard him. You feel his fingers clutch your hair, and then he slides his hand under the back of your head. 

 He meets your eyes and you remember him like this, all soft and broken open for you. This is the Tobirama that you have always seen beneath his many and complicated layers. It took a while to pry them apart. You want to hope for the best, but maybe Tobirama’s pragmatism is rubbing off on you. You know that it is simply time. 

You crack a tired smile. “You say the worst things.” 

 The surroundings are dark now, but you can make out the amused expression on his face. “I did say it first.” 

You chuckle, and Tobirama hooks your legs around his waist, and then picks you up by sliding his arms around your back to carry you into the house.

//

The council is gathered in a closed off room somewhere undisclosed in the village. This is a meeting about Konoha’s village funds, and a scare tactic to make Hashirama get his act together. The council filled with the clan leaders are eyeing each other, sensing the tension between the two Senju brothers. 

 Tobirama jots down anything that may be of importance, and when the meeting is adjourned, Hashirama abruptly stands up before anyone else could move. 

 “Alright, what is this?” Hashirama finally demands. 

 “Brother,” Tobirama interrupts. “Do you not mind?” 

 Hashirama seems to have grown his claws around his brother. “I do not like what this council insinuates.” 

The days of fighting are finally weighing on the two of them. 

 Tobirama watches his brother carefully, and he looks down on the paper, unable to read his writing. Technically, they cannot really abdicate him without the presence of the fire daimyo, so he does not know what Hashirama is talking about. This was only supposed to get the village on his back. 

“Fine,” Hashirama snaps. “I quit. You be the Hokage then.”

The room erupts into chaos, and Tobirama stares at his elder brother, aghast. Hashirama storms out of the room, and Tobirama glances at the council, for once, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

 Tobirama chases after his brother, and they stop moving once they make it outside. 

 “Elder brother, I beseech you to take back your words,” Tobirama almost sounds pleading. “The village still needs you.” 

 “I single-handedly almost destroyed what we built,” Hashirama almost shouts as he whirls around. “You know well that you are the only one who is capable of leading it, of making the harder decisions I could not make.” 

Tobirama crosses his arms, and he falls silent. The air grows thick with their auras, but it is not to fight with each other. 

 “I do not want to lose anyone else,” Hashirama confesses brokenly. “This village means nothing if…”

Tobirama angrily says, “If Madara is not here? After all this time, you forgive him?” 

 “You and your paranoia towards the Uchiha!” Hashirama shouts back. “He was a member of this village and you actively opposed him!” 

 “I did what I had to do!” Tobirama snaps steely. “For you! For this village!” 

 “Keep telling yourself that!” 

Tobirama shuts his mouth, and he backs off. 

 A breeze passes by, carrying the sound of rustling leaves. 

Tobirama lets out a shaky breath. “Brother, please.” 

 Hashirama turns to walk away, and Tobirama clenches his fists. 

“I need you to be with me on this,” Tobirama begs. 

 Hashirama stops. “You never needed anybody in your life, Tobirama. That’s why our late father left you to your own devices. You do well on your own."

 “Elder brother,” Tobirama protests.

Hashirama turns his head to regard his younger brother. “I will always be there for you. You are my family, but you must remember to thank your wife. I did not give you this seat.”

 Tobirama’s eyes narrow, and he grits his teeth. 

 “She gave you that seat, and now, she will suffer because of you.” Hashirama walks away, leaving a stunned Tobirama. 

He watches his brother’s figure disappear in the distance, and an impossible weight places itself on his shoulders. He looks to the sky, but it does not grant any reprieve, after all, he did set the motion for these series of events, along with his wife. He only has his ways, and his undying loyalty to his brother and his family. There is no time for him to consider himself. 

This is the way he has made it, but for the first time, he does not know the right from wrong below the picture perfect goal of peace, and their village. There is him, in the middle of it all.

  To be continued...

Epilogue: The World As He Made It >>

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[thatgoblin]

Small Town Affairs Chapter 4

Summary: Hazel is an Omega in the small town of Tin Springs, Midwest America. She’s trying to live her life after breaking up with the local sheriff, John Walker, and his mate, Brock Rumlow. New people aren’t something that happens often, but when a new pack comes to town her whole life goes from a small mess to a complete disaster in the best way.

Warnings: Domestic Violence, Assault, Sexual abuse, Himbo Bucky, Misogyny, will update as story goes.

Chapter 4

Peggy gave me the silent treatment that morning and while I wanted to tell her she was being childish over the night before, I didn’t have the energy in me to do it. So, I did my morning routine and got to work with little words exchanged between us. Lunch time rolled around before I knew it. Clint was bringing me food which was the only saving grace of the day so far. I clocked out after letting Peggy know before booking it out the back.

“Hey,” Clint said, as he sat in the patio chair with several take out boxes. “How’s it going today?” He asked as I flopped into the chair opposite of him, groaning as I covered my face with my hands. “That good, huh?”

“Just fantastic,” I huffed before sitting up. “Did you have any trouble at the restaurant?” I asked, looking at the boxes before finding mine. Wait, there were three boxes and three drinks. Who else was there?

“Hello.”

I looked up to see Helmut walking over with a smile as he waved to me. Waving back with a nervous giggle, I wanted the ground to just open up and swallow me whole.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I sighed, giving Clint a dirty look. He looked anywhere but at me as he twiddled his thumbs and whistled as Helmut took a seat next to me. “Hi, how are you?” I asked him, looking to Helmut with a tight smile of my own.

“I’m good. Clint said he was having lunch in town with a friend and asked me to join,” Helmut said, turning to look at Clint as he shot his own dirty look at the blond. “He gave the impression that you knew I would be joining.”

“Funny how he left that part out for me completely,” I said.

“Who’s hungry?” Clint asked with a grin as he opened his box.

“Forgive him, he means well, but I’ve been telling Howard that he should really get him looked at by a psychologist,” Helmut said.

“Hey! I’m perfectly sane!” Clint cried, sitting up. “The military had me tested.”

“It was the American military, it barely counts,” Helmut said, giving me a suffering look. “Poor thing.” I couldn’t help the smile as I giggled while Clint glared at Helmut. Okay, he was funny and good looking. The guy had those points going for him.

“You were in the military?” I asked as Clint stole Helmut’s pickle spear from his sandwich.

“Yes, we all were. Well, almost all of us in the pack,” Clint said. “Howard was a private contractor for a while, selling arms before he stopped developing them and turned his business into a medical research facility.”

“Wait, Howard is Howard Stark? The billionaire, genius, philanthropist Howard Stark?” I choked out.

“Yep, that’s him,” Clint said with a proud grin.

“I gave Howard Stark a lap dance,” I whined, making a face.

“It’s okay, you also gave Helmut a lap dance too,” Clint said, making both me and Helmut choke.

“I swear to god Clint,” I said, glaring at him. “You want to die or something.”

“Howard always says my self preservation is lacking,” he smirked, leaning back in his chair.

“You should definitely work on that,” Helmut said, shaking his head.

“So, military?” I asked, trying to bring things back away from lap dances.

“Yes,” Clint said. “I was in the Marines and went through sniper training, Howard made things go boom, Helmut was a colonel in the Sokovian army, and his mate Bucky was in the US Army with his friend Steve Rogers.”

“Wow, that is a lot of military experience,” I said, raising my brows. “You were a colonel?” I asked, looking at Helmut. “I thought that was like after years of service. Like, many more years than what you look to have.”

“Thank you,” Helmut said with a chuckle. “You are correct in that I am much younger than most colonels, but I went to a military school growing up as well as a military university.”

“He’s also a land Baron,” Clint added. “So, he’s Colonel Baron Helmut Zemo.” My eyes went wide as I looked from Helmut to Clint.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yes. I do have a land title back in my home country,” Helmut said with a deep sigh. “Clint, maybe you could allow me to speak for myself before I let it slip about how you started dating Howard as a mission from your former position.

“What?” I asked, grinning as I looked between the two. “Is he serious?”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. Oh, hey, look at the time. I told my sweet, wonderful mate that I love dearly that we would be back in, well right now. Who knew time could fly so fast?” Clint rambled, chuckling as he looked at his watch.

“I’m not ready to leave yet and I drove,” Helmut said, relaxing back in his seat. “I still have to finish my food as does Hazel.”

“Yeah, I’ve still got at least 10 minutes left of lunch as well,” I said, giving Clint a smirk as I picked at my food.

“Fine, I’ll leave it alone,” he said with a groan.

“Good choice,” Helmut said with a hum. The last bit of lunch was spent talking about the town, how the pack was settling in, and how work was going. It felt refreshingly normal and healthy that I didn’t want it to end.

“Now I should really get back to work before Peggy comes looking for me,” I said, checking my phone. “I had a nice time today though. Thanks for the food, Clint.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll start bringing you lunch everyday if you want. Howard works remotely now from home and it’s mostly just business meetings. I get bored during the day,” Clint said.

“What about you?” I asked Helmut. “You wanna start coming everyday for lunch too?”

“As much as I would love to, I cannot. Unlike Clint, I have a job,” Helmut said with a chuckle.

“Oh yeah? What do you do?” I asked, gathering the trash.

“I make and sell sculptures,” Helmut said. “I most often use clay as my medium. I find it therapeutic. As does my mate, Bucky.”

“Bucky’s your mate?” I asked, freezing up a bit. Fuck. “I mean, you two look good together,” I said, shaking it off and smiling. Of course, the one guy I started to like was already taken.

“I’ll be in the car,” Clint said, quickly exiting the situation.

“He is, but we’ve been discussing for a while about opening up our relationship to someone we both were interested in,” Helmut said once Clint was gone, shifting in his seat. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. There was no way I could have another relationship with two Alphas. Everything in me panicked and I didn’t even realize that I was shaking till Helmut touched my hand. “Hazel? What’s wrong?”

“Look, uh, it was nice meeting you again. Properly this time,” I said, jerking away as I stood up. “I’m sure Clint is waiting for you in the car-”

“Hazel, wait,” Helmu said, standing up as well. He wasn’t demanding or accerting Alpha scents, that was what made me stop. “Please, I did not mean to offend or presume.”

“What did you mean then?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as I involuntarily shrank myself as much as I could.

“I meant I would like to pursue you as a romantic partner, but if that is not something you would like, then I would very much like to be your friend,” Helmut said. “Even if it means that we never become more.” Could I do that? He seemed genuine and unlike any other Alpha I’d dated before, he wasn’t trying to force it or bargain with me for what he wanted. He was concerned with what I wanted and what I needed. But John had been like that at first too. Brock not so much, but John had been a friend first too.

I wanted to trust Clint that he wouldn’t let someone close to me that was like John or Brock. Unlike John or Brock though, I didn’t live with Helmut and Bucky, so I had a place to go if things went south. Maybe. . . Maybe it was time to try to move on in some way from my wrecked past.

“Okay,” I said with a nod, relaxing. “Friends. Even if nothing happens. I could always use a few more of those.”

“Thank you. I assure you, friends are good to have,” he said, smiling again.

“Especially if they’re Baron’s,” I said, chuckling as he rolled his eyes. “I do need to get going though. It was nice seeing you again and having actual time to talk to you.”

“I agree,” Helmut said with a hum. “Here, before I forget. I’ll give you my number and you can message me to talk or spend time together.” He started to dig in his pocket for pen and paper before I stopped him.

“Here, just put your number in my phone,” I said. He nodded, offering me his. We exchanged numbers before handing the phone’s back. “Send me pictures of your sculptures. I wanna see them.”

“Of course,” Helmut said. “Would it be okay if I gave you a hug?” An Alpha was asking if they could hug an Omega? The panic from earlier began to feel unneeded as he was proving to be a totally different person than who I was used to dealing with.

“Yeah, I’d like a hug,” I said, my cheeks flushing a bit as we stepped closer. Helmut wrapped his arms around my shoulders, resting his chin on them as I wrapped my arms around his middle. Our bodies slotted together so easily and his scent had me nuzzling against his chest. It was the most content moment with another person that I’d had in so long that I swear I would have jumped into his arms to be carried away to nest if he’d asked.

I could have stayed there all day, but I knew I had to get back to work. Slowly, I pulled away, his arms sliding down mine to grasp my hands and give them a squeeze.

“I’ll message you later,” I said, feeling a dopey smile spread over my face. “Be safe getting home. Tell Bucky I said Hi.”

“I will. Have a good day at work,” Helmut said, slowly shuffling away. At the back door, I gave him one last look before heading back inside.

Oh, he was something else.

“About time you came back from lunch,” Peggy said from her register.

“Sorry, got uh. . . Got caught up in something,” I said, logging back into my register and time card.

“What is that?” She asked, looking around confused before walking over to me. “Is that. . . Did an Alpha scent you?”

“No, we just hugged,” I said, unable to hide the smile.

“It was the bearded one, yes? From the other day?” She asked, leaning in to keep our voices down so no one could eavesdrop.

“Yeah. His name’s Helmut and he’s from Sokovia,” I said. “We’re not. . . Doing anything really. We’re friends. That’s it. It’s what I’m comfortable with.”

“Well, good for you,” she said. “You deserve a bit of happiness. Just let me know if he turns into a prick and I’ll make sure he disappears.”

“Peggy!” I gasped, grinning at her. “Thank you though, I appreciate the thought.”

“Oh, it’s not a thought, I have a tractor with a, what do you call it, a backhoe. No one will find him,” she said, looking at me over her glasses.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” I snorted. The sudden moment between us was comforting, showing me that things weren’t ruined. “Look, about last night, I’m sorry I got awful. I was stressed and money is tight, and a lot of pent mental nonsense from the last few years kinda blew up all at once.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed all that I did,” she said with a sigh. “It’s easy to believe what everyone else does and not question how things are. I also shouldn’t have pushed on the subject. I overstepped boundaries and that may have been some maternal instincts. You’re like family to me and I want you to be happy and healthy, so that may have come across less than helpful. If you need some help with anything, just let me know, even if it’s just to have a cup of tea and some quiet time in the garden. I’ll even scrounge up biscuits as well.”

“Between you and Clint, I’m going to be forced out of my hermit routine,” I said, chuckling as I shook my head.

“Good,” Peggy said. “You need to get out of that routine. Just because it’s safe doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”

“I know. I’m having lunch with people and not hiding behind the building anymore,” I said.

“You’re still behind the building, you just have company,” she said with a smirk.

“Yeah, yeah. Baby steps,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Just don’t shut everyone out anymore. Even if it’s not me, Clint is a nice person and it seems so is the rest of the pack. Let someone, anyone in,” she said, moving towards the office, pausing to give my shoulder a squeeze. “I know it's been hard since Ethan left, but you have to take care of yourself too.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze back. The mention of that name made my chest tight and I felt the air knocked out of me slightly. She was right though, since Ethan moved out of state I’d shut down and relied on John and Brock solely till recently. It was time to change that.

“Good, now get back to work, you lazy git,” Peggy smirked, walking back to the office.

“Rude!” I gasped, laughing at her wink.

At least things were back to normal, if not better, between us. I felt less burden and with Clint basically declaring that I was his lunch partner I was a little less on my own. Did it scare me to open up again? Oh fuck did it, but it was better for me and I didn’t feel that constant hovering of dread. Well, as much as I used to. Yeah, it was better and I could only hope that it kept going up.

Of course the universe had to say no.

At the end of the day when I was home and making dinner when Nick got back to me.

[Nick SMS]: Sorry, Haze. We don’t have any more positions for servers or dancers. If something opens up, I’ll let you know.

The urge to hurl my phone at the wall was great, but my lack of money to replace it was greater.

[Hazel SMS]: Thanks anyways, Nick. Keep me in the loop in case something happens. I’ll be by later this week to get my stuff from my locker.

My options were dwindling and the more I thought about it the more depressed I became. What was I going to do?

[scribblestatic]

Both hero classes stand outside in their uniforms that morning. For 1-A, there’s a hint of nostalgia coming to them, remembering the first day they officially became students at U.A., while 1-B is curious as to what will happen. 

The paper test that had been handed out to them and filled earlier that day was already weird. Instead of asking questions like “What’s 2+2,” or “How many bottles of dish soap does Johnny have,” it asked more personal things, like “I keep my promises,” or “There is a train heading down the tracks. There is one person tied to the tracks on one side and five people tied to the tracks on the other. You are standing at the lever. What do you do?” None of the questions were multiple choice, only essay statements requiring a one to two sentence answer. It felt different to their normal tests, that was for sure.

All Might, Eraserhead, and Vlad King all stand behind the short girl who appeared just about the age of the students, if not a little younger. She’s suited up in a gym uniform like the rest of them, wearing cute little red sneakers much like Ochako’s pink ones. She’s also got her hair tied up into a ponytail at the back of her head. They can’t see her eyes under her curly green bangs, but her peach lips show a pretty smile. All of them hold clipboards.

“Hiya~!” she greets with a megaphone speaker, standing under the shade of the parasol that All Might is kindly holding for her. If anything, it makes the students pay extra attention to her words. “Thank you all for being so kind as to fill out those little essay questions I gave you! Don’t worry about those, I’ll tell you why I made them later. Anyway, we’re going to do a few physical exercises, after which I will individually evaluate your quirks in a place with air conditioning! After that, I’ll be hard at work, so you likely won’t see me again until tomorrow, okay? Everyone, do your best!”

A few of them cheer with a bubbling of excitement, though others remain fairly muted.

They end up doing some of the exercise tests that 1-A did when they first arrived—ball throws, sit-ups, bar pull-ups, grip strength, standing long jumps, sidesteps, standing long jumps, the works. However, after a short rest period, they would do it again, this time without quirk utilization.

“Uhm,” Kaminari raises his hand. “Why do we need to do that? I mean, not to be rude or anything.”

Kobayashi writes for a moment longer before tapping her pen against Eraserhead’s arm, leading the man to glare at her a bit. “Let’s say you’re in a situation where someone like your teacher here has their eyes on you. Except they don’t have your health and wellness in mind like he does. They’re trying to kill you, so they eliminate your quirk.” She looks up at him, and though he can’t see her eyes, he feels her gaze on him. “You don’t want to be helpless without your quirk to protect you. Also, if you think about it, Eraserhead’s strength is completely separate from his quirk. So the fact he can support and restrain several people with his capture equipment all at once and disarm villains using weapons is purely because of his body strength alone. I find that fantastic, so I’m going to make sure you guys don’t become like the villains he faces and wimp out the instant you can’t use your powers.” She reaches over and taps All Might’s thin arm as well, surprising the man. “Even All Might in his thin form, looking like a willow tree that’s about to blow over, can judo throw a heavy-weight villain, break a wrist with one hand, and incite the fear of God into a villain with just his gaze. Don’t underestimate the power of your muscles and your instincts, and don’t forget to use them!”

The students ooh and ahh a little at the teachers, All Might blushing just a tad and Eraserhead ignoring the new, approving gazes from 1-B. Vlad King simply stands there, trying not to look despondent.

“How exactly did you know about the wrist breaking, Young Kobayashi?” All Might whispers as the classes get ready to do the exercises again.

“October 27th, 2214. New Orleans, Louisiana. News of a thin, lanky man, identified only as a person working with the All Might Agency, broke the wrist of a white American male robbing from the beignet shop he was visiting. It was deemed both self-defense and an accident by police as he hadn’t intended to use such force despite having a knife aimed at him. The robber pissing himself, however, was simply a result of the recognition of his actions. The witnesses agreed, though none of them had seen the expression on his face. A camera inside the beignet shop did catch the expression, however. Police still decided not to punish him for protecting himself and lauded the man as a hero. The shop owners also gave you a free box of beignets.”

“...How did you know that last part?”

She smiles up at him innocently. “You find a lot of things from finding secret camera footage. Besides, I have a skill of finding what I really want to find out by looking at something else entirely.” She turns away again and starts walking over to the ball throw circle to watch the first student to walk up. “Eyes are everywhere at all times, All Might!”

The three teachers are silent for a moment. Vlad King coughs in his fist.

“...I like beignets as well.”

Eraserhead shrugs. “Never had one.”

All Might blinks at him. “You should try one, Aizawa-kun. They’re rather delicious.”

——

The kids didn’t understand why Kobayashi-san was wearing a gym uniform like the rest of them. She hadn’t done any of the exercises, so it wasn’t like she needed it on.

They realized she was preparing for the quirk tests instead.

On the inside of one of the big gyms, she was standing in front of Bondo-san, arms raised to the air, with the sort of glittery smile that didn’t at all match her request.

“Cement the lower half of my body to the ground, please.”

“Eh?! B-But…”

“No buts! Only mine cemented to the ground with your quirk, please!”

“Eeeehhh?!”

“Woooow,” Kaminari murmurs. “Didn’t see this side of her at the cafe.”

“Right?” Mineta murmurs back. “...Kinda like it, though. Weirdly sexy, isn’t it?”

Eventually, Bondo does as she asks and uses cement on her up to her waist. She writes furiously on her notepad as she mumbles, occasionally stopping to ask Bondo questions or to pat the cement-like substance.

“Very similar to Cementoss, but very different, Cannot summon cement from the ground but can produce it like a viscous liquid with a solidifying factor that has the ability to loosen at his will—” Her head whips up to look at him, and he jolts. “Can you create armor or shields with your quirk?”

“I...I-uh…I don’t know? I’ve...never tried that.”

Her head tilts. “Have you ever tried molding this substance to your desires after it’s out of your body, or perhaps imagining it taking a specific shape pre or post-summon?”

Some of the nervousness leaves Bondo as he scratches at his chin. “I...I think I did a long time ago, as a little kid...I haven’t since...should I...try again?”

She nods furiously, then starts scribbling furiously again. “Needs additional, non-human tests for armory potential and defensive uses, must use test dummies for formation and alteration testing to—” She pauses, gasps, then scribbles more. “Check for potential cast creation for on-site first aid medical assistance and—”

Bondo listens for a while, staring at the girl before poking at one of the holes in his head. Some of the things she was mumbling, he’d never considered, or had abandoned after a point. But maybe...she was onto something. Well, the teachers had said she was an expert. He could see it now.

“Alright~”

The singing voice startles him out of his thoughts, and she’s returned back to normal, no longer mumbling up a storm like she’s summoning a demon.

“You can let me out now!”

“O-...oh! Of course…”

The glue-like adhesive loosens and slides off, and she steps out of it without a single stain on her clothes.

“Now harden it again.”

Bondo jolts. “Ah, uhm...I-I kind of...can’t? O-Once it’s loosened, I don’t...can’t control it anymore.”

“Hmm…” She quickly writes something down. “I think it’s within the realm of possibility for you, though. You should start with small amounts and try experimenting there. Your quirk and you are stronger than before U.A., even stronger than two weeks ago.” She smiles at him with a toothy grin. “Never say ‘you can’t’ until you absolutely can’t!”

Bondo feels his chest warm, and he nods firmly. “O-Okay!”

——

The day continues much like that, students able to relax and watch as they each show off their quirks to the best of their abilities. Though, Kobayashi would often throw in some random requests, like with Asui, where she asked her to pick her up with her tongue to test its flexibility while holding objects, or with Kaminari, when she asked him to try shocking her just a bit, though not enough to hurt her to try and test his control. He ended up shocking her stronger than anticipated, leading her to squeak in pain. He stopped immediately, gasping as a worried expression marred his face but she immediately assured him it was alright as she’d asked for him to do it.

“Besides, a shock like that could be vital to restarting someone’s heart! The fact you were able to do one that low means you could attune your power to the level of a defibrillator.” She pats his shoulder with a worried smile of her own. “Your quirk doesn’t only have to increase and hurt people. Besides, I’ve heard that some friends use you as a charging port. That’s only 12 volts of power, and you can do that easily! We just have to bridge the gap between strong and weak charges. Your quirk is more versatile than you think, Kaminari-kun.”

“Defi..brill...ator…” Kaminari blinks, wide eyed. “...That’s those shocky things in movies, yeah? The shocky chest things.”

“Yep!”

Kaminari looks at his hands and doesn’t say another word than his thanks as he heads back to the crowd. He keeps looking at his hands as the tests for others commence.

She asks questions, pries at their quirks, does tests with them, and investigates their own studies. Almost each time, the heroes in training found they hadn’t asked something about their own quirks and were amazed they hadn’t thought about it themselves. Yaoyorozu was getting excited when the students came back and talked about what the two discussed together, too far away to hear everything.

“I can’t wait for her to see my quirk,” Yaoyorozu confesses, her eyes bright and sparkling. “For her to think of so many creative uses for our quirks...it’s thrilling!”

“She’s a bit weird, but her interest reminds me of my little sister being interested in new things, kero,” Asui says, her smile a tad fond.

“Whose class do you think she’ll be in?” Ibara asks. “She’s going to study with us but council us, too. And, well, class 1-A and 1-B will have hero classes together, but not every class. Those are still split up.”

“Hmm...probably our class,” Ochako pokes her chin. “I mean, we’ve been attacked by villains before, but other than that, we’re a normal hero class.”

The students chat and wonder in their groups, but despite Kirishima’s attempts, he hasn’t been able to get Bakugou to say a single word.

He sits with his legs crossed, hands on his knees as he glares strongly at the weird girl. Just looking at her gets him annoyed, like there’s a bubbling of acid in his chest that’s waiting to explode. After all, she was clearly treating him differently. 

And not in a good way, not the way Bakugou sees it.

When he’d been called up, she hadn’t mumbled like the others said she did with them. She’d asked for him to aim at targets and asked to test the temperatures of his select blasts. She’d asked about his wrists, shoulders, and hearing, and had determined that, at the very least, his eardrums seemed to have developed to withstand a lot of damaging noise. But that assertion had been the closest to a mumble he’d gotten, and the closest to any excitement.

She’d been clear, clinical, almost muted.

The fact she wasn’t going gaga over his quick didn’t fucking bother him at all. What did was that he was treated differently than the others. If she’d been a whole stoic scientist for everyone, he wouldn’t fucking bother, but the fact she wasn’t annoyed the hell out of him.

What also bothered him was just how familiar she seemed.

The others described excited mumbling and a touch of recklessness. That she’d asked questions they didn’t think to ask, some going a tiny bit further than they’d thought she would. Nothing sexual, but more like she was trying to dissect something about them.

He knew that feeling. He knew it very well.

Knew it all while he was growing up until Deku finally, officially gave up his fruitless dream in his third year of middle school.

Instead of writing U.A. on his school prospect list, he’d written some nowhere hole called Yamaguchi High, and some other loser spots. The class had grinned at the fucking nerd, and he hadn’t dared to look up from his desk. They all knew the fucking bastard finally knew his place.

But seeing her made him feel like he was watching Deku mumble all over again.

Their similarities didn’t help. She looked like him down to the freckles. He’d only known one person in his life with freckles, and that was Deku. The green hair was different, too. But it was much longer and a bright shade of moss green than Deku’s hair would ever be, their voices were too different, and she was a girl. She also didn’t cower at his presence, just simply didn’t show the same annoying excitement she showed to everyone else.

What, did she think his quirk was boring? That it was powerless? Did she think he was weak?

Katsuki growls under his breath, eyes narrowing.

He’d show her. Rather, he’d shown her. He is strong, powerful. He’s precise, too, able to hit all those moving targets.

If she had anything to say other than glowing praises of perfection for him during the council day, he’d have a bigger bone to pick with her than he’d ever had with Deku. Unless she had a good fucking reason, but he couldn’t imagine what that’d be. He was strong.

He got into U.A. with flying fucking colors. None of those weak losers in his class were able to stand up to him, even though some of them were strong, like Shuriken Hair and Hot-n-Cold, though the latter bitched out during the Sports Festival. And that Cheshire-looking motherfucker cheated his way to the top, so he doesn’t really count that as a full loss, even though he got that stupid silver hunk of useless metal. No, he’s sure. He’s the strongest hero of their year.

He almost can’t wait to hear what that annoying girl would have to say to him tomorrow.

[cyn-00]

Moreid one shot, 4 - "the first one"

Season 6, episode 1 "The longest night" (at the end of the episode, when the team arrives to the couple's house where the unsub is - the "Prince of Darkness", and Morgan alone gets in)

I know I have just posted number 3 but hey, I felt productive, so...enjoy it while it lasts? I'm sure as hell gonna have a drop in creativity soon and won't be posting for like...weeks.

Also, it's a long-ish one, sorry ❤️ (? I guess? Maybe it's better for you). Note: I think I kept the unsub’s lines pretty much consistent with what he actually said in the show - the concept is the same, words might be different

Y'all this fucking episode...there was SO MUCH Moreid Angst potential...wasted. robbed. Ugh.

Read it on AO3

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

The team along with the police arrived to the home of the couple where the unsub was reported to be, after he let out of the car the little girl he had taken as a hostage.

It was melting hot and the sun was blinding, the bulletproof vests and the obvious anxiousness were surely not making any of it any easier.

Reid had been worried for Morgan all day long. After he was the first to find and succor him at detective Spicer's house in Santa Monica, the night before - where he was tied and kicked repeatedly by the unsub - Spencer wasn't sure he could think straight. But Derek was wired like that: if anybody doubted his capability to keep working efficiently even when hurt, they would get yelled at. Of course, Garcia and Reid got yelled at.

And he had only apologized to Garcia so far.

-

Just before getting in all together, they received a phone call. Spencer was too far to hear what it was about, but as soon as the local pd officer passed the phone to Derek, he gathered that the call was from the unsub. And that he wanted Morgan to deal with him personally.

"Wait- what's happening?" he nervously asked Prentiss, even though he knew exactly what was happening. He just wanted someone external to confirm that his theory was correct, and that he wasn't going batshit crazy.

"I think he wants Morgan to get in." Prentiss answered. Reid was so tense he didn't even register what she'd just said, even being the one who asked in the first place.

Morgan made a few steps ahead with Hotch right behind him. Reid's nerves started to untangle.

But then the man stopped and turned around to confront their team leader. Again: Spencer couldn't hear, but from the look on Derek's face, he seemed enraged just as much as confident in his ability to handle what he was walking into. Reid wasn’t equally confident in such thing, though.

Hotch nodded and stepped away.

"He- he's going in alone?? W- why isn't Hotch going with him? He cannot- Morgan! Morgan wait-" Spencer was about to run toward him, but Emily grabbed his arm strongly enough to keep him from getting any farther.

"Reid," she said softly.

"What?! Are we really going to watch him get killed? He's probably not even completely aware, he's hurt and he didn't even rest for a second like we all told him to do- and the MEDICS, too, I- I get that he doesn't wanna listen to me but at leas-"

"Reid, stop. You going in there is not gonna make things any better. You have to trust him." she reasoned, assertive.

Hotch, still a little far from them both, shot him a stern glare and shook his head, as if saying: "Don't. Let him go."

Spencer calmed down just enough to realize what Emily had just said. Was she intending that if he went in it would only get worse because he was the weak and clumsy one? Same old stuff. Was that excuse ever gonna stop being an argument to persuade him not to do things? Not to help people?

Spencer gave her a deadly glance.

"It's not about me. And it's not about trusting him- I don't trust the psychopath killer on a spree that's in there with Morgan, not Morgan. We should all go in with him, I- I don't understand why I'm the only one who cares, we are a team, right?? That's what you guys always tell me when I'm about to do stupid things or- or try to deal alone with matters that are bigger than me. So why are we purposely letting him go alone all of a sudden? That's EXACTLY what the unsub is waiting for." he explained rationally, but rattling on as fast as he did everytime he was convinced about something - which was...always.

He snatched his arm away from Emily's grip before she could reply with something that would only make him more mad, and quickly strode far from everyone, looking down at the ground while stripping off his bulletproof vest with twitchy fingers. He felt breathless, on the verge of crying and, at that point, even useless and on some measure mocked by his very team- his family.

-

When Reid screamed at him, Morgan obviously heard him. But in that moment, the anger he was feeling caused everything else to shift to a lower level of importance. Even his Spencer worrying about him - actually, it was especially the thought of his boyfriend worrying about him that Derek was trying to push back into a hidden corner of his head: he couldn't let the guilt of making him wait helplessly eat at him in that moment.

He kept walking toward the door. He just wanted to get over with that psychopath and run back in the arms of his lover, apologizing and letting him pet his neck while whispering forgiving words in his ear.

-

Once he entered the house, he heard the unsub talking to him.

"Over here, agent." he said.

Morgan slowly and cautiously walked toward the couple's bedroom, from where the disgustingly over-polite voice was coming, with his gun firmly pointed ahead.

When he got in, the two hostages were curled up on themselves on the floor; wrists, ankles and mouths duct-taped. The "Prince of Darkness" was sitting on the bed between them, denying the couple to even find comfort in each other's proximity; a gun in his hand.

And he was crying. Morgan wasn't sure if it was to try and make him pity him, or if he was actually feeling some kind of emotion besides...pure evil, if that can even be defined as an emotion.

"That's it. You have no way out." he said in an unwavering tone, approaching closer.

"You say?" the unsub laughed.

Morgan slowly but carefully lowered his firearm. "I'm not afraid of you."

"But they are." answered the man - though Derek was reluctant to deem him such - pointing at the two with his gun, making them squeak in fear.

"You see," he continued, still crying. "right after I killed my mother, she looked at me - I don't know if I was imagining it - but she looked at me with relief, sort of. Like I finally set her free."

Morgan scowled. He heated up and raised the gun toward him, again.

"That's what you think you were doing to those people? You thought that by killing them you were doing them a FAVOR?" he asked. The uncomfortable realization of knowing the answer to such question already, triggered in Derek's body the urge of vomiting from one second to another.

Both their guns were aiming right at each other’s heads now.

"Naah " the unsub replied; on his face a grimace akin to a smug, lopsided smile. He stood up from the mattress.

"I killed them because I decided they had to die. Just like...God." his self-complacent grin widened.

"You sick bastard." Morgan spat through gritted teeth, fire in his eyes, sweat drooling down his temples.

-

Two gun shots were fired. Everyone outside heard them.

Reid was suddenly like woken up from a dream - one that left him with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. His heart stopped for a fraction of second only to start pounding rapidly right after; his brain went blank, like static.

It didn't even cross his mind that everyone on the team along with the police were gonna go in anyway: he ran toward the house, forgetting to put on his vest; merely accompanied by his gun and the instinct to rescue the man he would’ve cut off all his limbs for.

Prentiss and Hotch screamed at him with all their breath, but in all honesty he couldn't have cared less. The voices of his two teammates sounded muffled to his ears, as if three layers of thick glass were separating them from him. He had this gut feeling that Derek had taken too much time in there to taste his revenge, and that's exactly what the guy was expecting from him, using it in his favor to hurt him or - more likely - kill him: he had NO intention nor interest in trusting those two again.

Both his thoughts and his steps were suddenly interrupted by someone who jumped in front of him and pressed a palm firmly on his chest: it was Rossi.

"You cannot go in there without vest, kiddo. We're going in."

"Then come with me, but I won't stand here doing nothing! What the hell are you guys waiting for?? I've seen no one moving for fuck 's sake- what, have you given up on him already??" Spencer yelped in response, his voice coming out way less steady than he'd wished to.

Their altercation was cut off by Emily's voice.

"...Reid..."

"What now??" he bit back, annoyed.

She was staring at the front door, pointing at something. Or someone.

Spencer turned around, hoping not to see the unsub, because that would’ve meant he’d got the better out of the two.

His heart stopped - again. His eyes filled up with tears. His bones shuddered.

-

Derek was there, right outside of the door, standing still. His bulletproof vest in one hand, his gun in the other. He looked physically and mentally drained out, breathing heavily as if trying not to pass out on the hardwood floor of the porch; but at the same time relieved that he could feel sensations and emotions again, instead of a continuous state of sheer rage and frustration, all the time: he could feel his eyes prickling with tears, his heart hammering in his ears, his skin cold-sweating from the breeze blowing hot and humid against it.

He was staring at Spencer and Spencer was staring back at him, but neither was making an effort to close the 30 ft distance separating them.

When Spencer saw him taking a few steps in his direction, he stilled. But then Derek froze in spot, as if suddenly realizing that his legs were crumbling under his weight, disabling him from getting more than a few feet ahead; ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be the "strong" one out of the two - out of them all.

JJ was watching from far away. Hotch, Prentiss and Rossi were standing, encircling Reid, like they were all waiting for him to do something, like they wanted to give him the privilege of going toward Morgan first.

Spencer got the hint. He absent-mindedly pulled away David's hand from his shoulder, and finally started walking forward, putting his gun away.

He didn't run. He didn't feel the need to do so: it was like the urge to go and "save" him was gone the moment he came out of the house and everybody saw him, alive, breathing.

Once he was right in front of him, he stared long and deep into his glossy eyes, immobilized. He didn't know what to tell him, and neither did Derek: there was nothing to say, they were feeling too much to think about the right words to speak, to give some sort of hierarchical order to the things they had to get off of their aching chests.

Derek could no longer keep his usual alpha-male show going. He dropped his vest and gun to the ground, falling on his knees with a thud, shedding his first tear since it all started. Nobody on the team had ever seen him that vulnerable - Spencer, on the other hand, was certainly not new to it.

He kneeled down as well, finally getting to wrap his boyfriend in his arms as tight as he could; dwelling on the unfounded, naive and anti-scientific conviction that he could keep his crumbling body whole only with his slim frame, hoping it could act as a glue to stick together the smithereens of Derek’s soul.

Derek hugged him back just as tight, forgetting that the same amount of strength that made him comfortable in Spencer's arms, could actually make it difficult for the skinny man to breathe, squeezed in a body twice as strong - albeit equally tall.

But neither of them cared, in that moment.

He buried his face in Spencer's neck, keeping at bay the volume of his choking sobs and probably soaking wet the collar of his shirt: hiding him from judgemental eyes was a small price Spencer was willing to pay, if it made Derek feel like he was finally allowed to find comfort in him.

Spencer closed his eyes, massaging the back of his neck; uncaring of the sensation of his skin melting from the heat imbuing the air surrounding them, only increased by the warmth of their hug.

-

Derek shifted a little.

"Kid I- I'm so sorry for treating you like crap in the past days..." he finally stuttered against Spencer's skin. He wasn't really expecting an answer: he knew that Spencer - and, to be honest, everyone else on the team - could not but agree on that, and that he’d probably already forgiven him, like they always did when they got mad at each other.

Derek kissed his temple.

"and I love you." he added, once he’d lifted his head just enough to reach Spencer’s ear.

He kissed his earlobe, risking to deafen him with the smacking sound - he could feel the man's muzzle scrunching at that.

"I swear to God I love you, Spencer, I love you so much."

He lowered his face, reclaiming his previous spot on Spencer’s neck, placing kisses on his damp skin - from sweat and tears.

"-love you, I love you, I loveyou-" he whispered in a loop, as if the more he said it, the higher the odds that Spencer’s body could absorb the concept.

Derek himself couldn't believe he was actually saying it out loud - not like that. He knew Spencer knew it, even by just demonstrating it - which was way more important and tangible. But that time he felt like he needed to actually voice it, and the fact that he told him so not that often, convinced Spencer more and more that the way Derek loved him was not the same way he loved the others on the team; each time the three words were repeated, again and again and again, like a gentle but forceful lullaby, wrecking down his wall of uncertainty.

"I know you do." Spencer interrupted Derek’s flowing of whispers, sniffling. "and you know I love you too."

-

Suddenly, he felt some kind of...drop, falling on his shoulder, sinking through the thin cotton of his shirt. He let go of Derek and looked at him: it wasn't the tears.

"Your cut is bleeding again...you should have known better than to just ask for a band-aid." he said, regaining a bit of composure while he cleaned the blood drooling from the other's brow with his thumb, careful not to touch the open scratch.

"It's just a cut." Derek shrugged, wiping off the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

"The ambulance is already here, you should go to the hospital so they can at least put a couple of stitches on it." Spencer insisted, playing the puppy-eye card.

Morgan sighed at how annoyingly and at the same time adorably caring Reid always acted when he was hurt. He resigned to stand up on his feet, prompting at the other to do the same, and they walked together toward one of the two ambulances.

Once they’d stepped out of their timeless, little bubble of emotions and tear-wet kisses and entanglement of limbs and whispered words; they both realized the only ones that had been looking at them for those few minutes were the policemen, mostly confused or even moved, but strangely not mocking: JJ was trying to shoo away some reporters, Hotch was on the phone - supposedly with Strauss or Garcia - Rossi and Prentiss were inside the house. All of them had probably seen the scene but were very good at hiding it.

-

Derek was sitting on the back of the ambulance. The medic hadn't arrived yet. Spencer was standing in front of him, trying to minimize the bleeding with a gauze, and more importantly to prevent any infections.

"I can do it alone, you know?" Derek told him, gazing at him with heart eyes.

"I don't care." Reid responded unbothered, concentrated on the task at hand.

He then removed the gauze from Morgan's cut, letting out a sigh.

"...I- I should stay here, you know? The team might need my help with some stuff." Spencer said in a tone full of resignation and apology, as he feigned to be studying attentively the bloody gauze in one hand, while the other rested on Derek's thigh.

Derek laughed good-heartedly at him. 

"What?? You thought you were coming with me? For some stitches? C'mon now pretty boy. They need you more than I do." He retorted convincingly, but in reality he needed him way more than anyone else did in that moment. He just didn't wanna be a burden.

Spencer slightly frowned at the idea that he wasn't even considering him coming with to the hospital as an option. He didn't argue though, letting the conversation fall in a short silence.

-

"...is anyone around?" Derek asked, lowering his voice.

Spencer squinted his eyes at him, confused. He backed up a little and checked: they were all pretty far away. The rear side of the ambulance, where they were, was facing the other way, so clearly everyone just saw the front of it. He got closer again.

"Uh, no? I think they're all-"

He couldn't finish the sentence because Derek - who perfectly knew no one was around and, even if there was someone, he didn't care - had already pulled him closer by grabbing his arm and pushed his lips against his, all of a sudden. Spencer's waist so thin that his strong arms could've wrapped around it twice.

Spencer was definitely caught off guard - just like most of the times Derek kissed him out of nowhere. One would think he'd got used to it, by that point.

Admittedly, he’d been meaning to kiss him since the second he saw him getting out of the house - which was half an hour before that. He just couldn't bring himself to do it, in front of at least 30 people. But now that he felt like he could, he cupped the back of Derek's neck with his hand, guiding his head as he pleased, in order to draw his mouth deeper into his.

Derek spread his thighs a few inches so that Spencer could come closer - like there was any space left between them.

He stopped all of a sudden, gasping for air, resting his forhead against Spencer's with his eyes still shut; an attempt of closing out whatever other sensation could distract him from relishing a few seconds longer in the sweet taste of Spencer’s mouth, still clinging onto his tongue.

-

"I wanted to do it as soon as I saw you." Derek broke the silence with his confession, distancing himself a little to look into Spencer's eyes; caramel specks brought out by the sunlight. 

"I had the gut feeling you were going to be the first one to look for me when I fired that shot. I knew it was gonna be you." he added, tucking an untamed, brunette curl behind his boyfriend’s ear.

Spencer bit the inside of his cheek, choosing to reply non-verbally by leaning closer and parting his lips again to lay another kiss on his - because, how could he not, after he said those things. 

But they heard footsteps approaching.

-

They quickly got away from each other. Reid's body suddenly remembered how hot it was outside, and that situation surely wasn't helping.

The medic along with Rossi appeared from the side of the ambulance.

"The bleeding stopped...plus, it looks very clean. Good job whoever did it!" she congratulated, after taking a quick look at Morgan's cut. Reid and him exchanged a knowing glance.

"Alright, we can go now, agent Morgan. We still have to stitch it up a little. Sorry if I kept you waiting." she apologized.

Derek kept his eyes on Spencer. 

"No problem." he answered briefly, trying to hide a smirk. He actually wanted to thank her for having given them the time to do...that.

-

While Morgan got inside with the medic and the ambulance left, Rossi stood silently next to Reid, with his hands in his pockets. He had clearly captured all the exchange of looks between the two. And Reid's messy hair, breathing rhythm and rumpled shirt were just a few other clues that they hadn't simply been talking.

"You guys know that we know. Right?" he finally put a halt to the awkward silence.

Spencer’s eyes remained glued to the ground, but widened instantly - as if he shouldn’t have expected such a comment, sooner or later...

"...I- I guess." he answered, not even bothering to make the effort of denying it, aware that it'd be useless. The blush he was trying to contain made him wonder if, maybe, he should've considered that option. Not that he was any good at lying.

Rossi snorted and patted Spencer’s shoulder. "I'm just happy you two have each other. We all are."

Reid finally raised his gaze from the tarmac to look at him with puppy eyes, without saying anything. What was there to say? Morgan and him had both been feeling like it was way more than just friendship since day one, even though they had actually been "dating" only for a year or so. It had to happen, it was clear to everyone on the team BUT them. Talk about being blindly in love.

David left the kid alone with his thoughts, strolling away toward Emily, who - Reid realized just then - had been grinning at them from afar all along, with her arms folded on her chest.

"I'm happy too" Spencer smiled to himself.

[jordanrosenburg]

Big Mouth Season 3 - Very Much Still Important

Review of Season 2 and 1 , major spoilers ahead

Alright, I finished watching season 3 the other day, and I have to say bravo to the writers, because they always manage to leave us wanting more. What truly awaits these pre-teens this summer? I’m happy that they’re done with seventh grade, but will the next season be about summer vacation, or will we get to see them go right into eighth grade? There’s been news of a spin off about the world the hormone monsters live in, will that be what holds us over until season 4?

Right from the first episode, I knew it was going to be a good season. The show continues to have a good balance between what is happening to both girls and boys at this age. I remember being in the seventh grade, and second guessing every single fashion choice I made. I didn’t really have a figure until ninth grade, but there were other girls that were already blossoming, and I felt self-conscious. Was I pretty enough? Am I frumpy? Is my hair too frizzy?

This season did another great job of showing not only what boys are going through at this age, but also the girls. Because the boys can’t control themselves, and because no one tells them to, the girls are forced into an absurd dress code by this scum bag:

I think we have all had a Mr. Lizer in our lives at some point. The guy who comes off as nice and caring is really just misogynistic and creepy. He mutters under his breath about he hates the girls, especially Jessi. Not to mention that he made Lola think the foot rub was all on her. At 13 of course she would think, how would she know any better? What he did was disgusting and wrong, and I’m glad he got fired. 

I’m proud of the girls for taking their bodies back. It was brave of them to take a stand and show that the dress code was stupid. They may not have done it in the best way, but they still proved a point. 

Nick and Andrew are a topic I’d like to discuss. We’ve know since season 1 that these boys have been best friends for a long time. We also know that they’ve been growing apart since season 1. Andrew was the first to go through the hormonal change, and Nick was left to catch up. In season 2 Nick went through three different hormone monsters while trying to figure things out with a girl he liked. Andrew stayed hung up on Missy, and somehow got involved with Lola, which just messed up everything else for him. He slowly started to realize that he was becoming a lot like his father. This season Nick got obsessed with his phone, and even though Andrew made many attempts to talk and hang out, he realized that Nick really is just a douchebag. They had their seasonal fight, and instead of becoming friends again, Andrew expressed how he really felt. Nick stopped being there for him. I don’t think Andrew is in the right, but he did recognize that their friendship had become toxic, and enough was enough. 

The only time Nick was there for Andrew this season was when Andrew started to lust after his cousin. I’ll say it - that shit was messed up. I was grossed out that they went there, but this could be some real shit that boys go through, idk. And Nick kind of encouraged it and didn’t at the same time. The whole thing was weird. 

Nick was wrestling with the fact that Jay was basically living in his house. That’s a major change to go through. He also betrayed Andrew by kissing Missy, and then lying about it. Andrew doesn’t own Missy, and she can do whatever she wants, but neither one of them thought about how the kiss would hurt the people around them. And then when Nick realized he didn’t like her like, he just cast her aside. 

Missy went through a lot this season too. She finally got a hormone monstress.

Side note, did anyone else feel sad that Connie didn’t say bubble bath once this season? No one else? Okay, moving on. This new monstress pushes Missy out of her comfort zone. Missy is able to keep some of her boundaries, but something about acting in that play opened something up for her. I loved when her and Jay wrote the fan fiction together. I can’t remember when I first started reading fic, may have been in seventh or eighth grade, and I always thought it was weird thing for me to like. Then I had mentioned it to a friend in ninth grade, and she’s still my best friend ten years later! I was happy to see that Jay didn’t make Missy feel weird or ashamed. I wished we could’ve seen more of this new friendship. AND Missy was the one to get the uniforms disbanded by wearing her same old clothes. I hope she’s able to find a balance with her newfound self. 

And poor Jay, he is one of the funniest characters on this show. You never know what he’s going to say, but it’s usually obscene. I lost it when he said something like, “my balls are going to shit”. 

We get another close look at Jay’s home life. His family leaves him at home for spring break, and he tries to not let it bother him. He embraces Nick’s family, and becomes a better person by living with them. They discover that he has ADHD and just needed aderol. Unfortunately, Jay sells his medication to his friends, which makes him go back to the way he was. TAKE YOUR MEDS MY FRIENDS! Jay eventually goes back home, and shows what he can add to his family, and they finally accept him. Jay too also comes to terms with his sexuality, and discloses to everyone that he’s bisexual, and he’s okay with it. But no one takes him seriously. He has a heart to heart with the new girl Ali, who told everyone she was pansexual. I know Andrew Goldberg has apologized with how he went about this, but I’m just gonna say that Ali came on a little too strong. All sexualities and gender are valid, periodt. 

Jay also called out his friends for fetishizing the fact that it’s “hot” that Ali likes everyone, but it’s not as cool when he comes out as bisexual. He felt hurt and unvalidated. We see you Jay! 

Now it’s time for our girl Jessi. 

This girl CANNOT catch a fucking break. I was happy to see her figure her body out. That can be straight up awkward, and it can make you want to give up. I love how they showed it with a water rapid, good use of metaphor. And she has been such a good friend to Matthew, covering for him with Adrian. But who is there for Jessi? At one point it was her, Andrew, and Nick, and one of them said, “At least we have each other. Virgins til college”. At that age I can see how that might be a bad thing, but I know a lot of people who were virgins in college. They didn’t graduate that way, but they came in that way. That was the most I saw of the three of them really interact this season. It’s crazy that these last three seasons are all things that happened over the course of a school year. 

I need space to say, I am fucking done with Jessi’s mom. Jessi has been more than gracious with letting her mom become who she is. Shannon should be able to explore, and it’s okay that she got divorced, but she has not gone about anything in a good way, and now she’s just starting to be selfish. When Jessi hears her mother orgasm, is it hilarious for us as the audience, of course, but as a 13 year old girl, I would be so mad and mortified. Not only does Jessi have to deal with Shannon and Cantor Dina breaking up, but her dad has begun to see someone new, and now her mom wants to fucking move?! I would have been so pissed off. Again, Shannon should be able to live her life, but she has a young daughter. Couldn’t she wait to go to the city until Jessi is at least in high school? College? Why not let Greg move back in to live in the house with Jessi? 

Jessi comes to terms with it at the end of the season, and I think that’s really big of her. I’ll be sad if she ends up getting uprooted. That damn depression kitty needs to leave her alone too. Not one of her friends bothered to check on her about it either, and Nick and Andrew knew she was depressed! That shit doesn’t just go away. 

THE FAB FIVE

I was living, henny! I didn’t know which episode they would be in, but this was just amazing. I am so glad they all made voice cameos for this. JVN stole the show of course, and it was so funny to hear they all swear. When Bobby went off about how little the other guys do while he did a whole “fucking” room renovation??? HE WAS RIGHT AND HE SAID IT! And the bird noises Antoni made??? Incredible. Would have loved to see him shrieking into the microphone. I do think the funniest line was when JVN said, “the dumb ones pound the hardest, henny”. I fucking died. They really lightened the mood, and what a great redemption for coach Steve! I am so glad he got his job back. 

There are many other things to get into with this season, but what I’d like to end on is that the kids really grew up. People don’t stay friends forever. I had friends in middle school that I did not stay friends with in high school. Even high school I didn’t keep the same friends. Obviously we want to see these kids make things work, but I still think it was very grown up of Andrew to tell Nick he forgave him but didn’t want to be friends anymore. I think when we’re kids we stay friends with people, or keep ourselves in certain situations because we want to be around cool people. I’m very curious to see where this show takes us in season 4. They all went through a lot, and 7th grade really is the most awkward year of them all. So who knows, maybe 8th grade will be better. They’ll have had a whole year of new hormones under their belts. What do y’all think is in store for our friends next? 

[cuddliestbear]

Alright....11 PM VENTING TIME BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MUH ANXIETY AND BUILT UP BAD FEELINGS

Trigger warning: mentions of panic attacks, emotional and mental abuse, suicide and self harm

So, I used to live with my...for lack of a more apt term, Father for an extended period of time (from 11-ish to 18 exactly), so seven years. He married an absolute horror beast of a human with uber conservative everything is a sin family.

So, in short i endured about seven years of emotional abuse and verbal degrading from all members of the family with this man(if you can even apply the term) standing idly by or backing them up. I get that him and my mom had different parenting methods. Its just how it is. And that would have been fine IF the hell hound herself hadn't fucking changed him as a human. Before he got married? He was a great dad, sure he worked a lot, but he actually talked to me, like had conversations with me and didn't speak to me like some lower life form just because I was 11.

Like every parent, there were days that were good and bad, I got snippy and talked back sometimes because well, as I have been told hundreds of times, I am my mother's child.

Now, skipping past the good days before the marriage and into the thick of it. I was degraded about how I was as a person on a daily. Basis. Told that I read too much, should go outside more, told I didn't dress good, told me that it was immature to still like any sort of toys, etc. It started with that. Simple things that maybe if I was really squinting, seemed sort of rational.

Then it escalated. You behave just like your mother, you'll never amount to anything, why are you so lazy, you are so antisocial, you're clothes are wrinkly you look like a homeless person, you are useless around here, you can't even clean a pan right are you stupid? ,etc. And worse things that for sake of my own sanity in seeing it in text form, I won't reiterate.

How condescending they were!

You're really going out like that?

Do you even care about your grades anymore? Are you even trying? You must be stupid to be doing this badly.

And other sublter things like.

Making me feel like an insignificant speck in the household of about eight children. Being told that because I am the eldest, I should be an example. At the point I turned fifteen, I was miserable.

We had just moved to florida, new state, away from my "bad influence" of a mother. Who now I would go months without talking to or seeing. Not allowed to call her, wasn't allowed a cell phone, even to contact my mother. Wasn't allowed to have friends over unless they had met their parents several times and even then, usually it was a no. I holed myself up in my room because whenever I exited I was subject to ridicule and criticism.

Ridicule amongst family members? Normal. This type of ridicule? No. Not normal, not okay.

I ended up cutting to punish myself for being as worthless as they told me I was. I spent more nights crying myself to sleep than I spent falling asleep normally.

I contemplated suicide many more times than anyone knows. Than any of my friends know. They have tumblr so they will see this probably. I nearly did commit suicide at least five times within my biological father's home, because I was worthless, I meant nothing and I had no one. But, I'd always remember my mom and little brother when I was about to enact. And I stopped. I never got admitted to a hospital, because any blood I shed I cleaned up and always wore long sleeves and once I heard that "cutters are attention seekers" I started in areas no one would see. I never wore shorts anyways if I could help it.

Going past all of that, I have left my sperm donors house, I live with my boyfriend. Every few months they try to contact me. And every few months, I block or delete their message because every time I see their name or number panic sets in. I have nearly gone into a full blown panic attack tonight because he made a new facebook page just to contact me.

I am at my limit. No matter what I try to do with myself or my life, I can't fucking escape them. Maybe I'll talk to him again one day. Maybe me ignoring him is childish and is proving to all of them that I am just a coward and worthless and immature. No. I may be afraid but I don't answer and I block him for my own mental health. I neglected myself for almost two years after leaving them, because I never learned how to give a fuck about my own mental or emotional health. I still unnecessarily apologize for things that don't require it. Loud noises make me panic and cry. Any sort of yelling causes me to freeze up in fear. I can't even go into Ihop anymore because that's where he used to work and I have no idea if he still does. I look over my shoulder whenever out in public late at night in places I would never have been allowed to on my own before. I search crowds in supermarkets for any familiar faces to know whether I need to escape or not. I cannot enjoy most outings to their fullest anymore, even if it seems like I am completely engaged. I am still looking over my shoulder.

It has taken 2 years of therapy and medication to realize that I am not worthless, that I am loved and wanted around and that I mean something to the people around me. It has taken 2 years to realize that I am not a piece of shit. I have been away from that place for 3 years. I fear abandonment because of how absolutely alone I was for so long. I fear rejection because I spent seven years being rejected by the very people I lived with. I fear punishment for small mistakes such as spilling drinks or making a mess, even if I am going to clean it up anyways. Nothing is a 'whoops' every moment is wracked with guilt over tiny insignificant mistakes.

Why am I typing all of this? Why am I retelling my story? To let people in those same situations understand that the people treating you that way are the problem. It has taken me years and the help of my boyfriend, mother and best frienda to realize that people making you feel like less of a person are the people who are lesser, not yourself.

Be brave, get help if you can, and remember above all else. You are NOT alone.

[werevulvi]

At this point I feel like I'm just floating between two identities. Like what does it really matter what I decide to call myself? Says the desperate and jaded. I feel like I need to juggle my two different perspectives for a while. I will mostly use tumblr for it when I lean more gender critical, and probably use fb instead when I lean more towards trans thinking, until I figure this shit out for sure. Thus, I will keep being a dysphoric woman here on tumblr, and nonbinary on my fb account. That way I can juggle my two conflicting sides without feeling too much pressure to "just make sense already."

To clarify, my views are mainly gender critical, but it wouldn't be wrong to say that I'm still flirting with TRA views on gender, dysphoria and transition. Essentially, bio sex is the only actually scientifically proven and tangible thing about this all. Laws etc should be based on sex. Sexual attraction is based on sex. Then dysphoria is also a real medical condition, like it's an actual distress and I don't think it's solely caused by social factors. There are lots of different types of dysphoria, alright. As for gender, however... I don't believe in it, but... basically I just respect that other people have an inner sense of gender (like that's their interpretation of their feelings) while I'm still highly critical of WHY they have that interpretation. And I can’t fit myself into my old thinking of gender at all anymore. It is completely alien to me. The spell has broken and I cannot cast it again.

As for my dysphoria, basically what I'm dealing with is (a probably very rare kind of) atypical dysphoria. I like some aspects of female on my body, but not all. I like some aspects of male on my body, but not all. I feel like I should look like a hybrid of male and female, and I feel both belonging and disconnect to/from womanhood and manhood. It is a constant push and pull in both directions, uncomfortably kneading me into a serene middle-ground. That middle-ground is not a compromise; it is a very peaceful and harmonic place for me to be. It's where I'm relieved of my dysphoria. I used to avoid it my whole life, until I finally stopped fighting myself. There is tranquility here, at this inbetween, that I didn't know existed. I'm clearly dysphoric, but I am not FtM - I'm FtX. I do not give a single fuck if you think nonbinary is real or not. What I'm telling you now is: this is my dysphoria and it simply is what it is. Then what you wish to call it and what I wish to call it does not matter.

Anyhow. I just wanted to give that little debrief of my dysphoria so that you'd hopefully understand why I'm struggling so much with labels, because it's not so straight-forward. Another thing I very much want to clarify is that labels are means of communication for me - NOT identity. Just like I use the label lesbian to communicate what my sexual orientation is. That has a clear purpose. For the same reason we call ourselves men or women: it has a clear purpose. Then my question to myself, my oh so eternal question, is: what is the best label for me to communicate to others what I am and/or how I wish to be perceived?

Problem 1: What I wish to communicate (that I'm a bio female person who's happily transitioned) is not the same as what I wish to be seen as (person of indeterminate gender.)

I don't know how to feel about that what I'm mostly assumed to be a male who identifies as a woman. Do I feel bad, ashamed or guilty, for looking like a bad stereotype of trans women? Yes. I think I fear that I will come across as mocking trans women, because my looks are deliberate. I feel bad for copying gnc men. My affinity for feminine stuff like lipstick and dresses, and my absolute refusal to let go of those things, makes me feel guilty in a feminist sense. I don't believe that the way I use femininity is harmful for myself, because I've adapted it to fit my needs of comfort as well as my social goals with it. It is not sexual, it is not restraining or hindering. It is not adhering to societal standards of beauty - if anything it's mocking that.

Yes, I am mocking femininity, but I also use it because it makes me feel less naked, and more expressive. I'm always accompanying my femininity with strong masculine features such as deliberately visible facial hair and body hair, etc. My femininity is not my womanhood, but it is a highly important way for me to express my personality, symbolically. I do not want for people to oogle my naked body, or a careless sack of clothing that I've rushed into - I want for them to see my personality, so that they'll get an idea of who I am before talking to me. But despite all that... I still feel guilty for being genuinely feminine. How can I be authentic, if no matter where I turn, I feel guilt, shame, or fear?

Problem 2: As soon as I claim the nonbinary label I miss calling myself a woman, and as soon as I claim myself as a woman, I miss calling myself nonbinary.

Do I have a gender? Yes and no. It depends on how I look at it. Do I need to have a gender? Not really, but it's easier in most aspects of socialising if I do, because of my appearance. Do I want to have a gender? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

I feel like I went into the gender store and bought too many. Now I sit here with a useless pile of trash that cost a fortune. I am terrified to get rid of it. There will be consequences if I do. I've been building up to this moment for almost two years. I am still building up to it. The pile is stinking and I need to take it out to the garbage disposal, but I can't make myself do it. What if I'll need it later? I'm too nostalgic for my own good.

Problem 3: When I don't want to have a gender I'm a proud woman based on my sex, but when I do want a gender, nonbinary feels more right. I can't really make a gender in my brain and then stick to it. I keep picking it up, then tossing it away, then picking it up, then tossing it away, and so on. I want to have the gender cake and eat it at the same time. Sometimes I feel proud to be woman, who takes testosterone and loves her lesbian pussy. But then it gets increasingly uncomfortable and I'd just rather not be anything specific. Then I flip to view myself as a hybrid of man and woman and that feels comfortable and uplifting. Until it doesn't anymore and I miss taking pride in being a woman, and I just don't know what the fuck is up with that.

Perhaps my "identity" is split off from my dysphoria? I dunno what I meant with that thought. Perhaps it came from my lack of social dysphoria. It's just social anxiety over looking weird.

Oh I wish I could try living in a perfect society with no sexism, and see if I'd then always be comfortable with calling myself a woman and freely be this bearded, deep-voiced, charming lady in a gothy dress, wine red lipstick and a pearl necklace, with no need to beat myself up for not being "woman enough." Because I worry that is why I keep reaching for the nonbinary label. Maybe it is out of fear? Maybe the reason I feel good about calling myself nonbinary is rooted in just wanting to be left alone to be a beautifully virilized woman, because I'm never given the chance to be that kinda woman.

It breaks my heart. You know that? You should.

No matter how much testosterone I take and no matter how much I love the effects of it... I am forever female and I love that too. No way in this despicable hell... would I ever want my sex erased. It's profoundly important to me, and such is my transition. I think that is why I stand with one foot in self-loving and the other in the medical result of dysphoria. My body is a cocktail of this and that, a little bit tit for tat, and I revel in its strange combination of exquisite flavours.

I feel like I have transcended the concept of gender, but as a happily transitioned, dysphoric woman, I have a very hard time conveying that to the rest of my little world, and the world at large. What is a woman who is happily transitioned to a goal that falsely mimmics the visual effects of certain intersex and hormonal conditions? Who am I to glorify the visual results of others' suffering? Oh I dunno, but I probably have more respect for them than I do for myself, if that counts as an excuse.

What am I? And how do I move forward in society, as honestly as possible?

What I am... is in the eye of the beholder. Depending on your ideology, you will have a different opinion (boldly assuming that you'd even care at all) but what I think is... there is no one correct answer. Thus, in my desperate search for that one true answer, I cannot win. All I can do is pick whatever makes me the most comfortable, but the only thing that would soothe me is the ultimate truth. (No, that's not it. Keep scrambling.)

I have become a biologist obsessed with finding the truth of God with a microscope. No wonder people are beginning to question my sanity.

("Are you okay?" Uhm no, I don't think so.)

What I need to figure out, is if gender serves me, and if "woman" serves me. But they both do, and I have to make a choice. There I stand, finding that they both serve me, unable to make a choice.

(Somewhere around here, I started going off on a tangent and lost myself in the endless whirls of my heart and mind. So I rolled back the tape, and here I am again. The rest in an over-write.)

How do I see myself? I see myself both as a woman and as nonbinary. Sometimes I need my gender, sometimes I don't. What I am is still the same, but there are many different ways to label me correctly, and THAT is what chafes at me.

Problem 4: I do not want to have a politically charged label. Woman has become a political statement for me, because of my appearance contradicting that statement, and the statement contradicts my dysphoria. It being so politically charged makes me uncomfortable. I wish to just exist as a woman, not declare myself as one. Nonbinary is equally a political statement, of rejecting gender norms which are harmful to everyone. Nonbinary strips the bearer of their sex, and releases the pressure on them to conform. There is the catch. Woman, instead strips the bearer of the freedom to not conform, but releases the pressure of gender. And there I think I've hit the nail on the head. What I wish for... is a label which does not strip me of my sex, nor forces me into conformity to look like my sex. Woman should be that label, but the only way it can ever be... is to put on that armour and fight for it, which I don't want to.

The label woman is too heavy for me, as a male-passing female, to bear in this gender-obsessed world - while nonbinary feels like a betrayal, both to myself and all other women. Nonbinary feels like a happy fantasy, until it shatters upon my realisation that it is not real. Woman feels like the powerful authenticity from the bottom of my chromosomes, until reality hits that it's a very difficult label for me to wear. Then I run away scared into my happy fantasy, but I am tired of continuously shattering and rebuilding myself.

What I want is to fully embrace my womanhood, without running back to the trans community again and again, to cry about how cruel reality is, and please validate my special trans feelings, which of course... the zombies do. I feel like I have Stockholm Syndrome for the trans community. I feel hurt by its sexism and homophobia, which is aimed directly at me as a gender-breaking woman and as a female-exclusive lesbian, yet I keep running back to it, pleading for validation as the utter coward I am! Because I am terrified of being a woman and a lesbian in the real world... while looking like this. I love the way I look, but I am scared and I am ashamed of facing my reflection with pride, as a woman. Because that means something more. It doesn't "just" mean that I'm female, it also means that when I with pride call myself a woman... I am reclaiming the one thing which I ought not to. No one shames a trans man or dysphoric enby for wanting a beard and loving taking testosterone... but the second a "cis" woman does? You know that is different. Cis is a lie, but I am real. I'm a woman, and I love testosterone flowing through my veins. My true beliefs... lie with radfem, and I'm only "making space" for gender in those beliefs to not hurt my loved ones' feelings.

How am I supposed to handle and move beyond this? Will it ever get easier?

Problem 5: It's not the nonbinary bush I have been beating around... it's the radfem bush. I have not been honest about my sense of self, anywhere else than here on tumblr. I do not want a gender label on my feelings. Gender is so harmful and I need to stop being its martyr. Can I accept and respect other people for having genders? Sure, whatever, I don't particularly care what people choose to call their feelings, as long as laws aren't being built around those feelings. But I can't for the life of me stop squirming at the idea of ME having a gender again. It is uncomfortable. Get the fucking parasite off me! Gender has been poisoning me again lately. It was a mistake to look into it again. It has been clouding my vision, because I forgot what truly matters: To look like whichever gender expression I wish, to act out whichever gender role I want, to treat my dysphoria however I see fit for myself, but not to lie about what I am: female=woman.

Problem 6: I am free without gender, but I am also incredibly vulnerable. As if I was completely naked before the whole world. Then even wearing a clown suit feels better in comparison.

Solution: I need to break up with the trans community. That toxic relationship has been going on for way too long now. I don't care if I lose all of my friends over it. I need to break free, and liberate my womanhood, because I have been shackling her. No matter how hard it is. I need to face my fear, guilt and shame. I need to tell myself that it's okay to hurt, but that it will get better. I need to stop reaching for nonbinary whenever I feel scared and ashamed to be a woman. I can cry about how hard it is... but never give up.

My dysphoria does not define me, and I refuse to let it.

[trylonandperisphere]

ASK POLLY APR. 1, 2020

‘I Don’t Think I Can Handle 18 Months of Isolation’

By Heather Havrilesky

Hi Polly.

So the world’s falling apart. I’m seeing quotes from experts that predict this will go on for 18 months or more. I don’t think I can stand the stress and isolation all that time. I have mental-health challenges, so I think I might crack. And I’m not sure our infrastructure can endure it either. I have a medical condition that’s stable and doesn’t put me in danger of COVID-19. However, I worry the strain on the health-care system will take away my treatment, leading to a slow death. And then there are the usual worries about things like food. Will the supply chains hold up six months or a year from now? How do you see all this happening and not start looking for an exit? I’m willing to admit that I’m weak or entitled. People around the world deal with this all the time. I don’t think I have it in me. How do I find some strength and hope?

Feeling Weak

Dear Feeling Weak,

On any day of your life, a million terrible things could happen. Every morning, you have to force all of the awful possibilities out of your mind. You do this because there is no alternative.

I’ve always been a very fearful person. I’ve always been sensitive to the fragility of the human body and the myriad ways lives can be ripped apart. My dad died when I was 25 years old, and it made me even more fearful. Then I had a baby.

Imagining all of the bad things that could happen to the baby almost sent me over the edge. I felt like someone had removed my liver and now I had to hand my liver over to other people, and ask them not to drop it or neglect it.

One day I came home, and my husband was holding my liver in one hand while stirring a boiling pot with his other hand, all the while talking to my stepson in an animated, cheerful fashion.

I freaked out. “You are going to kill me,” I said. “Calm down,” he said. “Stop being so overdramatic.”

My heart started racing even more (Pro tip: The words “calm down” are never calming!), but I washed my hands and then took the baby away from my husband. And then through gritted teeth, I said something like this: “You are going to listen to me very closely. Don’t talk. Just listen. I am in a very, very particular, unfamiliar, fragile place. I have never felt this way before. I’m going to have to describe it to you. You are going to have to listen. You do not have to understand or believe that I am remotely sane. You can continue to believe that I am irrational. But if you do not listen closely and respect and honor my needs around this fragile feeling, this marriage will end. Period. This is not negotiable.”

I wasn’t someone who threatened to end my marriage, ever, just to be clear about that. I needed to communicate clearly that we were on perilous terrain.

We retreated to the bedroom and talked for a long time. I told him what I needed in order to raise a baby with him. He told me the reasons he thought I was nuts. I told him that I was fine with him thinking I was nuts. He could continue to do that. Of course my views were not utterly rational. Rational was not the point. Calming down was not the point. He needed to understand how high the stakes were for me. Even if there was a .0001 chance that my baby would drop into the boiling water, the stakes were too high for me to endure those odds. He didn’t have to understand my feelings, he just had to operate as if he had the same feelings, for my sake.

It took a lot of persuasive talk, and tears, to get my husband on my side. It was exhausting. But by the end of our talk, my husband got it. He agreed to behave in ways that were guided by high stakes and my irrational feelings and to never say the words “Calm down” to a woman whose liver you’re holding. And if ALL OF THAT sounds nuts to you, that’s okay. These were the conditions I knew I required in order to raise a baby with someone who was more careless than I was in every way. These were the things I needed in order to share a house with this man and trust him to raise a family with me.

After that, I felt better. And my husband never told me to calm down when I described the toddlers who get left in the car or run over by a clueless grandparent backing out of the driveway. He took on the low-odds possibilities until he was worrying about them himself. I turned him into a slightly neurotic, hyperaware parent. I formed him into a seismograph, in my image. Call it twisted, I don’t give a fuck. It worked. We were aligned. We fought less. We kept our kids relatively safe from harm. Maybe we became obnoxious. Maybe we were paranoid. I still don’t care. I didn’t feel alienated and alone in my marriage, because I dared to get very, very specific about my needs.

And once I knew I had someone on my side, I started to calm the fuck down. I made a resolution to keep all of the looming threats in mind without INTERNALIZING and VISUALIZING and LOSING SLEEP OVER the millions of ways a baby could die or become injured. Any time I went from safeguarding my kids to picturing something awful happening to them, I learned to stop myself.

Doing your best to avoid disaster is practical. Repeatedly imagining disaster, on the other hand, is wildly impractical. Once I realized how jittery and anxious I was feeling, I steadfastly refused to indulge my imagination when it came to my baby. I resolved not to become a pile of nerves quivering on the floor. I wanted to breathe and feel happiness and survive parenting without being transformed into a shadow of my former self. I wanted my kids to be aware of danger but not paralyzed by fear at all times.

Mistakes have been made, that goes without saying. But the decision to never fixate on terrifying outcomes when it came to my kids was very important. I could still fixate on bad outcomes FOR ME. But that was (and is) a world apart from doing it about my kids. Eventually I didn’t have to try anymore. The second I pictured something terrible, it was just: NO. CAN’T.

Everyone is different. Everyone experiences different conditions as threatening or scary or paralyzingly awful. We all have to respect these differences while relentlessly standing up for our own needs and asking for exactly what we want from the people who are closest to us. That means becoming a tiny bit shameless, I should add. It took a shameless amount of assertiveness and belief in my own particular sensitivities as a seismograph to ask my husband to behave as if he, too, were a seismograph. I had to get very specific. I also had to let go of the need to be right and seem rational. I had to own my role as the Chicken Little of the family.

“Pretend the sky is falling with me,” I told my husband, and he did. It was an act of love and solidarity. I was so grateful for it. It kept us glued together at a vulnerable time, when we could’ve fallen apart for good. I didn’t have to hate myself for being a chickenshit or a seismograph. I could relax because someone was on my side.

That story probably feels pretty divorced from your circumstances, but it’s not. For you to feel comfortable safeguarding yourself while also refusing to fixate on the millions of horrible outcomes that could befall you specifically and all of us generally, you need to stand up for the particulars of your mental health. You need to look closely at your specific emotional challenges as a human being, and you need to say: This is how it feels for me. I feel like I want to find an exit. I feel like I can’t survive this. I feel like I am not strong enough.

Here’s the suicide hotline for anyone who’s been feeling that way: 1-800-273-8255. Commit to reaching out to someone when you’re feeling bad. Everyone is struggling right now. We’re all in the same boat at some level. It’s important to understand that moments of extreme darkness will come and go, and things could get a million times worse and still be survivable. Put your faith in human connection: It makes all the difference.

If you have close friends or a partner or a family member who can listen to you describe your very specific Chicken Little–flavored needs and desires and align themselves with you, and show solidarity for your (sometimes irrational!) experiences of what this moment means, then call that person or those people. Open up to them, and explain your needs, and get them to understand.

But let’s be clear: Finding people who will join you where you are is very, very hard. It’s hard for all of us, always. If it feels impossible? Guess what? You’re not alone. Try your best. And if/when that fails, I want you to write everything down for you, until you clearly comprehend who you are and where you are and how you’re feeling right now.

This is not about descending into darkness in any permanent way, mind you. This is simply about painting a picture that someone else might understand, a persuasive portrait of how you’re experiencing this moment. This is you saying to yourself: YOU ARE HOLDING MY LIVER OVER A BOILING POT OF WATER. This is you crying and telling yourself: I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS. DO YOU FUCKING GET THAT?

This is you making your needs crystal clear. This is you standing up for who you are, without shame. Does that really matter, all alone in your apartment as the world crumbles around you? YES, IT DOES.

This is you saying: I deserve to have my needs met. Think about all of the times you were treated like your needs were irrational, like you needed to calm down and shut the fuck up, like you needed to stop being so in the way, so inconvenient, so absurd, so laughable, such a wreck. I’ll bet you can think of a lot of examples.

Use this moment to get your own back. Take this opportunity to say to yourself: I don’t fucking care if I’m fragile and irrational. I’m going to honor my needs without shame.

Don’t skip this step, even if it seems beside the point. Honor your needs, without shame. That’s number one.

Number two is: Protect yourself. Take very good care of yourself. Feed yourself well, exercise, get plenty of rest. Stay aware of the threats so you can do your best to avoid those threats. Put energy into making yourself feel as healthy and resilient as possible.

Number three is: Resolve not to fixate on the millions of terrifying possibilities you cannot control. You can make this choice now because your peculiar needs matter. Remember? You’re honoring your needs without shame now. One of your needs is this: Avoiding the terror here. You said it to me for a reason: You aren’t strong enough to hold these terrors inside your head for 18 months. So don’t do it.

Are you strong enough to survive for 18 months in isolation? Yes, you are. You’re strong enough as long as you’re honoring even your most irrational needs without shame, being very safe and careful in areas that are within your control, and letting go of all of the circumstances beyond your control, as in banishing them from your fucking head permanently.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (Read it if bleakness makes you feel stronger. If not? DO NOT READ.) is about a man who’s struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. As the man and his son travel south toward the ocean, looking for food and shelter, the man tries hard to avoid big questions and unknowns that might threaten his ability to survive. Because he has a boy to take care of, he becomes extremely practical. He protects his boy and he keeps moving forward, no matter what. There’s a sense of calm beauty underneath the horror of every word McCarthy writes. Showing up for whatever comes next is beautiful. You don’t have to be a hero. You just keep moving.

I probably wouldn’t have sat my husband down and insisted that my irrational view was going to need to be honored, back when we first had a baby together, if I weren’t convinced that our ability to raise a baby and stay together depended on it. It took something bigger than myself to force me to finally stand up for my very specific needs and persuade another, very skeptical human being to hear me out and get my back.

Today, you’ve been faced with a challenge that’s much bigger than any challenge you’ve faced before. The stakes are high. This enormous calamity dwarfs you and exists outside your thoughts and feelings completely. You have to treat yourself with extreme care under these conditions. This is an opportunity for you to finally stand up for what you need at every level, in a very concentrated and intense way that is fully justifiable and concrete. This is a chance for you to design a map that you can use to navigate this disaster and every other disaster to follow this one, guided by your very irrational, specific desires. This is your time to learn to blot out the parts of the world that are just too gigantic and out of your control for you to metabolize, and focus on what you can actually control and have influence over instead. You have to avoid big questions and keep moving forward. You’re about to achieve a sense of mastery over your life and your understanding of yourself, while letting go of what you can’t control in a permanent way. These high stakes are a blessing disguised as a curse. Take this blessing.

What sustains you? What can you create, every day, to bring you life, to build up your strength? What beauty is lurking underneath these terrors? As Ranier Maria Rilke wrote, “No feeling is final.”

The path before you is simple. You wake up in the morning and you put Chopin: Nocturnes in your headphones and you look for joy. You embrace every tiny glint of beauty and every scrap of hope hiding in this small, enclosed life. You surrender to the reality of this “borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it,” as Cormac McCarthy put it. You eat this divine silence, this dark longing, this lonely sweetness, this solitary dread. You sit in your quiet garden and welcome the weather, good or bad. No feeling is final. You are strong enough.

Polly

[rakuyokoyo]

Chapter 285 Spoilers/TBE Spoilers

Days like today, I wish I just sucked it up and published TBE last year. Maybe then I could’ve caught up to where BNHA is at right now (though highkey doubt).

Note: major BNHA manga spoilers, major TBE spoilers

I’ve briefly mentioned a few times about how amazing it was to sometimes see ideas I’ve come up with years beforehand become canon by pure coincidence. In just One Piece alone, an idea that I came up with around a decade ago when I first started Romance Dawn actually showed up with Momonosuke and Trafalgar Law. At first I was thrilled and excited because even though the nuances were slightly different, the main ideas were EXACTLY the same and I’ll point them out once we hit those moments in Romance Dawn.

Something I did not really expect, however, was this to happen with BNHA.

One of the reasons why I love this story from a writer’s standpoint is that I’ve never been able to accurately guess what would happen next in BNHA. The ironic thing is, the one point of the plot I wanted to add but didn’t know how ended up matching with Horikoshi’s idea.

Basically, Kana is a character that mirrors the origin trio in many ways. With Todoroki, their views on family and Quirks foil each other, and I love writing about the two because there’s always something so comforting about they way they’re there for each other. With Hawks, he and Kana see Quirks as both a gift and a curse, and their different philosophies of the hero world is (in my opinion) what makes their love so sad and lonely.

Midoriya’s a bit of a basket case for me because he doesn’t foil quite as cleanly as Todoroki, Hawks, or Bakugo, but rather than having perfect foils and parallels, Midoriya is just someone that becomes important to Kana in every aspect of her life. His relationship with others, his sense of self-sacrifice and heroism, and his determination to be the best and not let his Quirklessness stop him from becoming a hero is a major source of inspiration for Kana. He gives her a purpose, something that’s so important for people like her who’s never even thought or desired a future.

And then we have Bakugo. I always have trouble writing about Midoriya, but for the longest time, I had nothing that I wanted to write about when it came to Bakugo. Todoroki, Midoriya, Hawks covered all the grounds for Kana and then some, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit him in. 

But as I developed Kana’s character as well as her backstory, the Overhaul arc became a major turning point for her and it became very clear to me how Bakugo could fit into Kana’s life.

This wasn’t intentional, but rather than focusing on the past which is how Kana parallels with Midoriya, Todoroki, and Hawks, Bakugo and Kana also grapple with their present and the future, and I realized how many similar things Bakugo and Kana actually go through. Post-Kamino arc they’re forced to become quite close due to something devastating happening to Kana. And then... chapter 285 leaks came out today.

Basically, once Bakugo and Kana become close, Kana gets a premonition from one of the main antagonists—an OC named Eve who has the power to see the future with multiple restrictions. Unlike Nighteye’s Quirk, Eve’s Quirk shows a possible future. Whether it’s a very likely or very unlikely future depends on how many times her mirror shows that future, and unlike Nighteye’s, Eve’s future predictions can be changed. Its major weakness is that the future in the mirror may not always be accurate (and no one knows how likely or unlikely it’ll be), but it’s advantage is that if there is a bad future, everyone can take precautions to stop it. Eve is a pretty unique antagonist (after all, how can she ever lose if she knows what will happen in the future?) and there’s a few more restrictions on her Quirk, but this is the main idea.

I intended Eve to show Kana a premonition of Bakugo dying, but I had no idea where to include it. When this arc started and I saw a city about to potentially get destroyed, I thought ‘aha! This is the perfect place to squeeze my original scene in!’

Little did I know Horikoshi would ACTUALLY do it in the arc I intended to! I’ve included three excerpts from three different chapters below.

—

This chapter was written on August 23, 2019, a year before Chapter 285 was leaked. The title is Beginnings of Endings.

Note: some spoiler names/titles/plot will be omitted with an (omitted).

“(omitted)” She snapped, azure eyes vibrant like those of a fire’s. “Dealing with the (omitted) was my problem anyways! Stop sticking your nose into it!”

“Hah?!” He cried, standing up with fists clenched to his sides. “You’re the one who’s being a dumbass about this! The white-haired brat said it, didn’t she? Her futures are reversible if we make an effort!”

Kana gritted her teeth, drawing a fist back. “Shut up!”

(omitted)

“And?” He asked weakly. “What was going on?”

Kana shook her head. “I don’t know. But there was so much debris around us—probably the aftermath of a battle. You were bleeding out in my arms. I-I don’t know if I’d tried Overdrive and it didn’t work, but your wounds just looked so fatal…”

“Did I say anything?” Bakugo asked, crimson irises locked into azure.

“(omitted)” Kana said quietly.

The two continued to look at each other silently for a few seconds, Kana with tears continuing to fall slowly, while Bakugo gave her a quiet, passive gaze.

(omitted)

Dim, grey eyes flashed, engulfing him in light. When it disappeared, he realized that he was seeing the aftermath of a battlefield. Crumbled buildings scattered debris everywhere, but it was almost deathly silent compared to how loud the actual fight must’ve been.

“Bakugo!” He heard Kana’s cry. The girl ran towards a bloodied body in the centre of it all. She was wearing a white shirt with her usual thin ribbon and maroon skirt. Her hair hung loosely below her shoulders, and her skin looked marred and injured.

—

This excerpt is from a different chapter called Where Hands Cannot Reach, written on September 10th, 2020 (two weeks ago).

She suddenly stood up and began to run, much to the shock of Tokoyami and Dark shadow. “Kana!”

“GO!” She screamed, forcing herself to face them. “Go and get help! Do whatever—whatever you can to save him!”

“They’re too far, Kana-chan,” Dark Shadow said. “You’re the only medical support around—”

“If I don’t go, Bakugo will die,” she screamed, shaking her head in despair. “Kei—Hawks might have a chance if you can find anyone else.”

“Bakugo will?” Tokoyami said, eyes widening. “Why... how do you know that?”

Dark Shadow looked down at the hero in his partner’s arms with worry. “But his wings—”

“Focus on his life first and not his Quirk!” Kana cried, reaching into her inner pocket and throwing a glass vial towards Tokoyami who caught it with disbelief. “I don’t know if that’s enough—it probably isn’t, but I need to find Bakugo and Midoriya first. That… that should at least keep him alive. Try to get to Momo if you can—she knows basic first aid.”

Kana sprinted, tears rolling down pale cheeks as she tried to grasp her bearings. Bakugo had been surrounded by rubble in Eve’s vision, which likely meant that he was close to Shigaraki.

—

And finally, an excerpt from The Ending We’ll Write, which was written on July 4th, 2020.

“(omitted)” Kana mumbled, looking at the ground awkwardly at the entrance to his room. Her toes dug into the floor and her fingers fiddled around, cloudy azure pupils averting his gaze. The boy stood up from his bed and reached for the gauntlets on the desk, tightening them around his wrists with a quiet click.

“What do you want, (omitted)?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Kana’s mind immediately quickened with the answers. What do I want? I don’t know. I think I saw a future where you die—today—so I want you to stay home. But I know you won’t do that. I want to be able to come home tonight. Eat shabu shabu or sukiyaki with everyone at the end of tonight with all of our limbs attached. I want this to not be the end for us because there’s still so many things I want to talk to you about, and I haven’t even thanked you or repaid you for everything—

“(omitted)?”

His voice was quieter and without the exasperated irritation that usually came from calling her name.

Why are you looking at me like that? She thought, carmine clashing with azure. Don’t look at me like that. Like you’re the one worried about me.

“If you have something to say, spit it out,” he said, the usual coarseness returning to his voice. “Get rid of that pathetic look, as if we’ve lost already.”

Kana bit back a scowl. “I can’t help but worry sometimes, okay?”

He gazed at her quietly. “How many people do you think we’ll lose today?”

“I don’t know,” Kana said softly, “but what are the chances of no one getting hurt and no one dying? Probably slim to none.”

—

I had to hide so much but I hope this can somehow show what I was trying to do. When this arc first started, I saw it as the perfect chance to include Eve’s premonitions, but I’ve written a lot about it even before this arc ever started. And now to see Eve’s premonition (that I intended on it not being true anyways) actually come to life is sort of insane for me.

To be honest, this premonition was supposed to be a bit more about Hawks and Kana, as the second excerpt shows her decision to abandon Hawks to save Bakugo. But hey, if Horikoshi is going to make Eve’s future canon, I’ll run with it.

I highly, highly doubt Bakugo’s injured (much less dead), but it’s just enough angst for me to work with. Seeing my ideas collide in One Piece was frustrating because I wasn’t able to use my ideas (for a hint and some spoilers, something about Momonosuke was supposed to be Falco’s, and something about Law was supposed to be Amare’s), but this time, I was actually able to integrate my plot and what I wanted from Bakugo almost seamlessly into TBE, so I’m absolutely thrilled.

No updates planned at the moment. I’m just having fun writing all these crazy chapters in TBE! Maybe more things will match up in the future.

-Koyo-

[tcfkag]

Spoonie Life: My Last Week (fun with complications)

So, I’m having a really rough week. It feels like literally the second I get a break from one thing or a handle on another, then another thing pops up. I never get a break and it is exhausting. And sometimes it just makes you feel so alone because even those that support you - and I have a hugely supportive community of people in my life - just can’t understand. I’ve been feeling increasingly depressed and anxious and alone and my therapist does not have any availability to see me...possibly for months. So I wanted to just write up everything I’m going through because sometimes that helps but also because hopefully some of you may have gone through some similar things (esp. blood clots and ovarian cysts) and could give advice and/or just support. 

Here’s a (not so) short summary of shit that’s been going on lately (in list form because why not). Don’t feel like you have to read it all. I know everyone has their own things going on. But I just needed somewhere to vent and while I shared some of this on FB, I also feel freer to be honest and just fully disclose how hard this is for me here. Sometimes that’s one good thing about this hell site - less reason to self-censor and try to sound positive/hopeful/happy when I really truly am not.

Last Monday (the 15th), I finally finished three months of IV antibiotics I was on for an intra-abdominal abscess (an infected collection of fluid that was right underneath my diaphragm which meant that, for a while, it hurt to even take a breath). 

Good news right? Stopped it about a week ago which is awesome because the antibiotics were infused two hours x three times a day (i.e. six f*cking hours a day that I was connected to an IV bag).

But, I knew I would need a follow-up CT scan that was scheduled for this past Wednesday....and who knew what that would show.

Towards the end of last week, I started feeling very tired all the time. And then my physical stamina just suddenly....decompensated abruptly. I would get tired doing anything. Monotasker and I went to the grocery store and halfway through, I had to sit down (or risk passing out). After a few minutes, I told him “we need to get out of here” so we rushed through the rest of the basics we needed. And then while he checked out, I sat on a bench near-by. My heart was racing, I was out of breath, I was dizzy and light-headed, and just generally felt like I had run a 5K. 

The first couple times this happened I thought “well, maybe I’m out of shape, I *haven’t* been working out at ALL lately. But then I remembered, it was what - a week ago that I attended NYCC where sure, I got tired sometimes and had to sit down once in a while, but it was nothing like this. And I knew that fitness doesn’t decompensate like that....it’s sad that when confronted with such a serious health issue that my first reaction was to just....blame myself. Right away.

So last Sunday (a little over a week ago), I went into the ER to get checked out. I hoped it was something SIMPLE, like dehydration or maybe my anemia had gotten worse or low levels of some kind of electrolyte imbalance. Anything that could be handled in a single evening. Three guesses about whether that was really the problem (though if you’ve followed me for more than a hot minute, I’m sure you know that the right answer is...because of course, NOTHING is ever simple).

At the ER, they decided to do the CT scan I was supposed to have that Wednesday just to make sure there wasn’t anything they were missing. And while the abscess they had been treating was largely unchanged (so they are going to stop the antibiotics), they also found that I had a blood clot in my pelvis. This is my third blood clot but the other two (a DVT in 2008 and a PE in 2015) were both post-surgical. This is my first blood clot that happened “spontaneously”. The admitted me to the hospital for about 48 hours and put me on a heparin drip until they could get a blood thinner arranged to release me and send me home. 

A few observations and factoids about blood clots and their treatment for those who are interested.

People with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (i.e. IBD) are more prone to blood clots. If you have IBD (or any autoimmune disease actually), you should be aware of this risk and know the signs of blood clots (esp. after surgery) and make sure to take preventative measures like standing up to walk around on long flights.

 Traditionally, blood clots were treated with the blood thinner warfarin (Coumadin is its brand name). It takes a few days to get to the correct level in your blood, so you have to be on injections of another blood thinner Lovenox (twice a day, at home, injected yourself) until your “INR” reaches the right level in your blood. While on warfarin you have to have regular bloodwork to check your INR - every few days at first, then weekly, and if you’re on it long term the tests become less common.

This is very challenging for me - after ALL the health issues I’ve had, my veins are completely shot. Even basic blood work is a challenge.

There is a newer genre of blood thinners out there called DACOs - you’ve probably heard of them (they include Xarelto and Elliquis) which are better for a couple reasons, I guess, but the main one for me is the lack of required blood thinners. Three guesses on whether my health insurance approved them? NOPE. They sent me into pre-authorization hell (which frequently means “nope never going to happen” but in this case I hope means “well if your doctor pushes hard enough, we’ll give in eventually).

Question: has anyone gotten one of the DACOs approved? Is there anything specific that you had to prove? How did it end up working out?

If you are someone who menstruates, just be aware - going on a blood thinner can cause your period to start early (mine started less than two days after starting them - at least a week or two early) AND it will make your period longer and heavier. 

P.S. - the GYN I saw yesterday said that Xarelto would make that even worse which leads into a later part of this post, but basically she said it was really important that I get my IUD replaced if I was going to be on Xarelto long term.

Since this is my third blood clot, it may mean that I will have to be on blood thinners permanently, which I’m not looking forward to AT ALL. Because really, do I need another medical complication? The answer is no. No, I do not. WHICH MAKES THE NEXT PART OF THIS POST IRONIC.

So this is the part of the post that I could actually use some advice on. 

So for a while, maybe as long as a year, every CT or MRI I’ve had has included a note from the radiologist saying that a benign ovarian cyst was seen on the scan (or sometimes it was called an “inclusive cyst” from the ovary into the peritoneal area. It would sometimes “recommend follow up with a GYN”. Okay....fair enough.

When I asked my GI and my PCP about it a long while ago (maybe even two years ago), they both sort of just said “sure you should see an OB-GYN about that at some point” but really didn’t follow-up on it. And then time passed because I had a LOT of other health issues that took precedence.

Sometime nine-months to a year ago, I started having pain in the area where my rectum used to be, especially when I was sitting at my desk at work. There were days it was so bad that I could not sit directly on my butt at all and had to constantly find different positions. And on those days, I would frequently also have pretty severe pain in my pelvis. For months I basically ignored it...again, I have chronic pain and I had bigger fish to fry. Again, it got put on the back burner. Until one day it was so painful I was crying at work. So I called my PCP who also called my GI and he looked at my scan and said “it’s probably that cyst, you should see a GYN....” Still no urgency (and my PCP even said “I don’t know i it’s that - sometimes doctors like to blame cysts when they just don’t know what else is wrong.”) Again and again, this cyst was acknowledged but treated as no big deal - a nuisance to be dealt with eventually.

Side note: at no point in this did my PCP or my GI bother to ask me about pain with sex, despite that being a somewhat obvious question.

So nine months ago (or so), my PCP finally did get me a referral to see someone in the minimally invasive surgical OB-GYN office. I called to make that appointment and was told “you cannot see a surgeon until you’ve seen one of the GYNs” so I got an appointment for several months later with a GYN in the office. 

Then, I had to cancel two different appointments with her because I kept being sick and/or in the hospital...and of course, each new appointment was two-three months later. 

So my appointment with the GYN (who was lovely) was yesterday. She told me that my cyst (which is in both the ovary and the peritoneum) is now the size of a GRAPEFRUIT! It is almost certainly to blame for the pain I get sometimes in my (former) rectal area and the pain I have when I have sex. She said that even if it’s “benign”, if it’s symptomatic like this, I shouldn’t have to live that way. For the first time, I had a doctor who I felt like was taking this issue seriously even though it wasn’t related to my IBD and was “just” a lady issue. (Though to be fair to my PCP, she has taken it seriously in the past, but it’s just not her specialty).

This GYN also said she’d be willing to take me to the procedure room and sedate me to put an IUD in, whether I have surgery or not because I had such a bad experience getting it last time!!! I really loved that she took my concerns about that seriously. Bless her.

So the (very extended) upshot is that I made an appointment with the minimally invasive surgeon who I was supposed to see SIX-NINE months ago (who, amazingly enough, had an appointment available MONDAY) and I may need to have another surgery to take care of this cyst. This cyst that wasn’t always the size of a grapefruit....but years of being told that it was benign, to “check it out” eventually, and having all of my other health needs take precedence has now left me here. With a huge cyst that has ruined my sex life and is starting to seriously impact my everyday life too.

TL;DR? I have TERRIBLE LUCK. ESPECIALLY this week. And I’m just feeling absolutely overwhelmed, lonely, and frustrated. And if you’ve had experience having surgery for an ovarian cyst, especially one that’s “including” on something outside the ovary, I’d really appreciate your thoughts on the procedure and whether it helped and was worth it.

[shanlulu-writing]

Levi x Reader I am all yours - Part 4

Well.... This was a roller-coaster to write.. The thing with free writing is the characters take you where they want the story to go... so even I'm shocked! Without spoiling the end of the chapter, the story isn't finished. Thank you everyone for your support, and I love all the comments that you leave for me, and I will respond as soon as I am able. Let me know what you think and if you would like to see anything in the next chapter. Also Could you let me know whether you prefer all out smut in stories or more left to the imagination? (This is for all fanfics, not this one) Much Love Lu xxx Warning - Strong Language and Mature themes Part 4 “We need to clean the wound. You don't want to die of sepsis do you?” His voice may have softened slightly, but that still didn't stop you struggling to get away from him. His arm clamps around you tightly even preventing you from squirming, so you resign yourself to fate. You rest your head in your hand in annoyance as he walks you to the medical room...

“What?” You hear Sasha cry out in surprise. Levi drops you down on one of the beds, creating a small cloud of dust to plume into the air around you. You look at your teammates with an expression of exasperation. Jean was silent, with one eyebrow raised.

“Doctor over here as deemed it necessary to diagnose me with death due to a cut on my leg.” You look at your leg again, as much as it hurt, you didn't think that you would die from it. Sasha comes over to have a look and grimaces, while Levi washes his hands.

“I cannot diagnose you with death, however, I can pronounce you dead if you wish.” He answers dismissively. You roll your eyes at him and catch a smile from Sasha as she turns to clean up the medical items she had used to patch Jean up. Jean flits his eyes between you and Levi, obviously suppressing a grin himself.

“I think we should go and see if we can make some tea don't you Jean? Give everyone a pick me up, and get our strength back?” You eye her cautiously as she motions suggestively to Jean to move.

“Right.” Jean gets up and strides out of the room. “Keep her in one piece Levi. We do need to get home.” Levi pays no attention to him as he sifts through the supplies in a cupboard next to the sink. You sigh as you sit in silence, feeling quite awkward, you weren't used to this feeling. He wasn't shouting at you, or making weird comments. In fact, the air was calm, which set you on edge even more.

“Put your leg properly up on the bed.” You do so without complaint and watch as he cleans your wound, hissing when he caught part of your torn skin. “You whine like a girl.”

“If you hadn't noticed, I am a girl.” You retort, frowning.

“Oh, I had. Just like every other male in the corps.” The words were cutting, with a premeditated sting to them.

“Well, I would hope that most people could figure out I was female, Levi. Otherwise, I would really worry about the people who were to lead humanity to salvation. Don't you?” Your frown had not left your face, it was starting to get stupid, did he honestly think that you had been with every single guy who had even looked in your general direction?

“Tsk.” He finished cleaning your wound and bandaged it to the best of his ability. He didn't make much eye contact with you at all, almost as if he was avoiding you or your questioning. You swing your legs round off the bed and stand up gingerly. The bandage wasn't too tight and seemed to stay put.

“Levi, can I ask you a question?” You astonished yourself that you were being polite to him. So was he, as it was the first time you saw him make eye contact with you for a while. His blank expression doesn't change but he nods as he washes his hands again after cleaning up. “What did I do wrong earlier? I thought I had done everything we had been trained to, but you were seriously pissed at me. I want to know why.”

He stopped what he was doing, placing his hands on the sink and leant on them. His head bowed, his hair in front of his eyes and he gave an audible sigh. He was acting strange like he was fighting with something, or maybe trying to stop himself from shouting at you.

“You know what forget I asked-”

“No.” He said sharply. He didn't move from his position, he could have been a statue. “You didn't do anything that I would not have done. The reason I was pissed with you... Even if Erwin has told you that we are equals, you, all of you, are my responsibility. I was not able to do what I should have. I was angry with the situation.”

There was something that you had never heard in his voice, there was sadness. He actually had real feelings, and as much as the child in you was giggling at the revelation, you couldn't help but feel the tug on your heart. He was hurting. Whatever had happened in his life before this point, the events of today must have triggered, a painful memory.

“Okay... Is that it?” You were careful with your tone.

“No. I had already told Erwin that I didn't want you on the mission. However, it seems through all my best efforts, you are here, injured, and it is no one else's fault but mine.” You were astonished to see this side of him. You disregarded a lot of what he said as wallowing, but you saw some real emotion there, even if it was just in his voice. You quietly walk over to him, with a new sense of empathy for the idiot who had made your life a misery and place your hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

“Do Not Touch ME!” He roars at you, spinning on the spot and grabbing your wrist tightly. “Don't fucking dare do that again, brat!” You are so surprised by it, something about his reaction really cuts through you. You were so stupid to think that you had actually made a connection with him, to think that you might have caught him with his guard down. It was rare that you offered a hand of comfort, but to be so harshly rebuked for it hurts you deeply. Before you can stop yourself you feel your eyes well up with tears.

“Let me go.” You whisper angrily through tears that were now falling down your cheeks. You wrench your arm away from him and run out of the room. That was it, he had done enough, that was his last chance. You stupid fucking idiot, a pathetic moment of weakness, and he just threw it back in your face. Serve you right!

You run down the hall, and throw yourself into a room and slam the door behind you. You sink down to the floor and sob. Everything that had happened came flooding out as if the barriers had been opened, and with your legs pulled up to your chest you cry into your arms. You hear Jean call for you after hearing the commotion, and listen to Levi making up some crap about you having an emotional outburst because of the Titan and to leave you alone.

After a while of crying, you shake yourself from your self-pity and put on your professional face. You go to one of the bathrooms and wash your face. Your eyes were puffy a blotchy, from what you could see in a cracked mirror on the wall. Gorgeous. You sigh, as you walk out and make your way down to the stables. As you pass the front door, you turn on your heels, remembering your items were still in the room off to the right. You quickly walk in and pick up your bag, and go to leave again.

“(First name)” You hear the cold tone of the Captain. You do not respond, or even acknowledge he even spoke. You continue out of the main building without uttering a word, you pass Jean who starts to speak to you, and stops when he sees your ashen stare. You pack your items back into the saddle bags, stroke your horse and check the reins. All good. You were ready to go.

“Er, hey. Are you okay?” Jean asks quietly.

“I'm fine.” You respond, without any emotion in your words. “Are the rest of you ready to go?”

“Yeah, Sasha is just getting Hanji's notes now and then we are all set.” Jean seems taken aback by your blank expression and short answers.

“Good. We will leave as soon as she has them.” You mount your horse and trot out of the stables. You shift in your saddle as you feel your wound on your leg hurting in that position, it was going to be a long ride home if it hurt the whole way back. Jean readied Sasha's and his own horse and waited with you in the courtyard. Sasha soon joins you and mounts up.

“Where is your gear (first name)?”

“I have lent it to Levi to use, as he is obviously more qualified than I to use it, and seeing as his is broken at the moment, I am left with no choice.” Your tone was matter-of-fact and to the point. You see Sasha frown and look at Jean, he shrugs and looks back to you.

“Look, whatever argument you and Levi had, don't take it out on us.” You look back at them, still feeling hollow from the crying. You didn't want to act so cold, but you didn't want to end up crying again either. To act so weak, to be taken down so easily by him, and it wasn't just him that you were upset about. You had to at least give yourself some credit, it was just the last straw, holding everything in for years and not truly dealing with it, it was bound to happen at some point, just a shame it had to be him to break the proverbial camels back.

“Sorry, I just don't feel like talking at the moment.” Levi walked out, went to the stables and soon returned with his own horse. He was wearing your gear but still held the same disinterested expression, as always. You turn away from them, and set off at a slow trot, hearing them behind you, you quicken your pace and ride as fast as you can back to headquarters.

~

You sigh deeply as you embrace the hot water pouring over you. You had needed this, it felt like a million tiny fingers massaging your body. You had ridden hard, to the point where you had almost broken formation on several occasions, and in complete silence, much to the annoyance of the Captain. People had avoided you when you walked in, your aura must have screamed 'leave me alone' and they had thankfully obliged.

You rouse yourself from the soft caress of the water and get out wrapping a towel around you. You dry off to the point where you can put your underwear on and cover up again with the towel. Walking out into the dorm, you see it's empty, and you are glad. The last thing you wanted was to be harassed by stupid questions. You pull your trousers on, under the safety of your towel and do up the button. You are just about to throw on your top when you hear the door open and someone walk in.

“(first name) I wanted to speak to you.” You groan, recognising the voice.

“Captain Levi, I would like you to leave, I am still half undressed and I have no want to talk to you.” You feel your annoyance rise at his presence, you make sure he knows of your displeasure. He walks further into the room, ignoring what you had just said.

“I would like to explain myself.” His tone, even being monotone was not harsh, you raise an eyebrow.

“I don't care what you have to say. You made yourself perfectly clear at the outpost. I don't care what you went through, your attitude stinks, when all I was doing was trying to do was help.” His eyes harden.

“You will listen to what I have to sa-”

“(first name)!” You hear as Eren enters the room, interrupting Levi, he glides past him with ease and walks straight up to you, completely oblivious that you were still only wearing underwear and towel on your top half. “I'm so glad you are back home safe.” He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you into an embrace, with his head nuzzled into your shoulder. You try to prise yourself from his grasp, shocked as you were at the display of affection, he was warm against your cold naked shoulders. Eren lets you go and places a chaste kiss on your cheek, you flush instantly. “I am really glad you are back! I'm going to run some errands for Erwin, but once I have finished, we should have a catch-up.”

He winks at you and walks away, staring triumphantly at Levi, who, when your eyes fall on him, was seething with anger. His fists were clenched, turning his knuckles white, he was tight-lipped and glaring at you with malice.

“What?” He just stood there looking at you, not saying a word. “Levi, seriously, what is the matter?”

“You. You just don't know when to fucking quit, do you?” You frown, he was back to his old self again, Mr Happy-Go-Fucking-Lucky.

“Quit what? I didn't do anything! Why do you believe that I instigate everything? I was in here getting changed, minding my own business. You were the one who waltzed in here unannounced.” You fold your arms defiantly.

“You and Eren-”

“Let me stop you there. There is nothing going on between me and Eren. Even if there was, it has nothing to do with you.” With that he tutted and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with a thud, leaving you completely stunned with what had transpired. What the heck was going on? What was Eren playing at? You needed to have words with him.

You quickly change into a long-sleeved dark green top, not exactly standard issue, but while you waited for your shirt to be cleaned, it was the closest thing you owned. Shoving on your jacket and scarf, you scurry out of the room in search of Eren. It didn't take you long to find him, in fact, he seemed to be loitering outside the mess hall.

“Eren.” He looked at you with a warm smile. “We need words.” You grab the arm of his jacket and take him down one of the quieter corridors away from the hall. He eyes you cautiously, and genuine concern. “Look, I don't know what you're playing at, but pulling a stunt like that is only going to get me more shit from Levi.”

“On first name terms now, huh?” His face changes to an expression of discontentment. He folds his arms in annoyance.

“No, don't you start as well. Eren, please, the last time you played on it, I almost ended up getting killed or don't you remember?” You place a hand on his folded arms and move into his line of vision. “Oi! Don't start acting like him! You aren't a spoilt brat!”

“I just can't stand the way he treats you. I was coming to find you anyway, and as he just so happened to be there, I wanted him to see what treating you right actually means.” His eyes soften, and he smiles at you again.

“Aw, that's cute and all, and I appreciate what you were doing but please try to tone it down around him, as it's only going to put me in the shit and make my life worse.” You smile at him, feeling warm inside, his concern for you really made you happy.

“And you just look too good in just a towel.” He quipped, moving out of arms reach, laughing as he ran down the hallway. You chase after him, yelling to come back and let you smack him, funnily enough, he didn't do as you said.

After a while you lose him, and bending over, with your hands resting on your thighs, you breathe heavily. As much as he was a pain, he really was fun to hang around, but that kiss on your cheek made you feel weird. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't feel right, Eren was your friend and you never really saw him as anything more than that. Your mind darts to Levi, not that he would ever believe you.

Why would you need to justify that to him anyway? It's not like you had feelings for him.....Right?

“(last name)” You straighten from your resting position and see Commander Erwin standing in front of you. You salute, as is required of a Cadet. “At ease. I wanted to speak to you. Would you please join me in my office.” You gulp and nod, and begin to follow him. What had you done wrong now? Levi had probably been spouting shit about you again, no doubt. Even now he was still making life hard for you, but if he was involving Erwin, then he was stepping it up a notch.

“Please sit.” You sit down in his office as he closes the door behind you. “I know you are probably wondering why I called you here.” You nod and wait anxiously for what he had to say. “I would like to say well done for your work on the mission. If it hadn't been for you, then we would have lost Captain Levi, and probably the rest of the team.”

“Oh, I didn't do anything that we hadn't been trained to Sir.” You explain quickly.

“No, but your quick thinking made sure we had no losses, and that shows that you really are an asset to the Corps. However..” Here it comes! “The interactions with Captain Levi leave much to be desired. It has caused a lot of disruption to the workings of the squad, and as much as it saddens me, I think it would be best to transfer you to either the Military Police or the Garrison.”

“No!” You gasp and leap from your seat. “No, sir! You can't do that! I love it here! I would die for any of my teammates if it meant saving even one life! It wasn't that way when I first joined, but now things have changed. I cannot leave.”

“I am sorry, but I have to do what is best for the squad, not just by you. You and Captain Levi should be kept away from each other at all costs, and the only way we can do that is transfer you. I understand that it is not all your fault, Levi is as much to blame, but we cannot afford to lose Levi from the front lines.” You feel the tears fall down your mortified face.

“When do I go?” You ask quietly.

“Tomorrow. Again, I am sorry.”

“May I be dismissed?” He nods, as you blink through your tears. You slowly walk out the door and close it behind you. You feel your world shattering in front of you, it felt like you were dying a death of heart and mind. You cover your mouth to stifle a sob and begin to run down the hallway, narrowly missing Levi in the corridor, presumably on his way to the Commander's office. You didn't know where you were going, but away, away from all of this, away from everyone.

You keep running until you are outside and hidden in a small thicket of trees. It was quiet here, and backing into a tree you fall to the ground, weeping miserably. It felt like your heart was pouring out of you, your soul disappearing with every sob, this is what death must feel like. Levi got his wish, he had completely finished you off.

You had never felt this way before, even when your family had been killed after the onslaught of Wall Maria. Their loss had been hard to bear, but you knew that in the end, they were finally free. This was different, this was having your living breathing, slightly strange adopted family ripped away from you. To have that snatched away because of someone's dislike for you was just too much.

Not long after, you feel hands reach along your arms and pull you from where you were sitting. You fall into their arms, uncaring as to who, or why they had come to you. It didn't matter anymore. You feel the arms wrap around you tightly, their body warm, and heart beating steadily. Your eyes stayed shut, wondering whether you were in the arms of an angel, ready to take you away. A little over dramatic, a little voice in your head whispers, which is soon drowned out with the noise of more sobs. You must have stayed there for what felt like hours, really in truth it was probably only half an hour, just being cradled and you felt no need to see who was holding you. In fact, it was probably better that way.

Your sobs had quieted to irregular breathing, and your mind starts to clear. You become more aware of your surroundings and shift in your position. You realise the only one who would sit like this with you is Eren, of course, it would be, he was such a good friend. Your eyes flutter open, the sky was dark now, having just turned to dusk. You raise your head.

“L.Levi?” You stammer. A rush of emotions wash over you; fear, anger, sadness, none of which are good, apart from the strangest one which lingered behind, curiosity. “What... What are you doing?”

“I was hoping you would listen to me now.” You glare at him weakly, not moving from your cradled seating.

“Taking the advantage I see.” You sigh and wipe the dampness from your face, feeling disheartened it wasn't Eren. “It doesn't matter what you have to say, Levi. Erwin is sending me away.” You feel him tense unexpectedly.

“Yes, I am aware.” He says distantly.

“Look if you bothered to hold me like this, at least act like you give a shit. You are the reason this has all happened. I am losing everything again because you can't get a grip.” You feel yourself start to well up again, you wipe your eyes again instinctively, trying desperately to save face. Not that there was much point, considering you had just spent the best part of an hour crying.

“I don't like that it is happening. It was never meant-” You shift to look at him directly, your temper becoming hard to keep under wraps.

“It doesn't matter whether you meant to do it. You orchestrated all of this! Think about this logically, this was bound to happen. Erwin wasn't going to stand for it much longer.” You watch as his head falls, hiding his features. He seemed really odd again, and even though he wasn't shouting at you, you didn't really like it.

“I did it to protect you.”

“Protect me?!” You explode, standing up in the same instance. “Protecting me does not usually include trying to get that person killed or thrown off the squad! Protecting someone is making sure they don't get hurt and keeping them safe.”

“That is what I tried to do, Idiot.” He stands up, and looks at you intently, his eyes void of any expression. It makes you even angrier, if he was here to comfort you, he was doing a really bad job.

“Well, a good fucking job you did there!” You growl at him. “I can't actually believe you. If this is your way of protecting me... Wait, why are you trying to protect me?”

“It doesn't matter why. My reasons are my own. I will not have you interrogate me over this.” All feeling had gone from your heart, you felt numb. Levi was just rubbing salt in the wound. You stride up to him and slap him.

“Don't fucking bother.” He grabs your hand, and pulls you closer to him, winding his second arm around your waist.

“Brat. Listen.” You try to escape from his iron grip without success. “I did this, against my better judgement.” He relinquishes your wrist, slides his hand behind your neck and places a kiss on your lips. Your eyes widen in shock, but you cannot move. It was happening again. This guy was in desperate need of a psychiatrist. It was different from the last one, almost tender. Even though this was much more enjoyable than the last one, you pull away.

“What are you doing?!” You try to lean away from him.

“As I said, going against my better judgement.” His eyes lock with yours, his gaze almost searching for something and goes to kiss you again. You shake yourself away, even though the feeling of kissing like this was better than you had imagined.

“Levi, stop. You can't keep doing this. You can't take what isn't given and expect something in return.” He releases you abruptly, his eyes hardening with a furrow on his brow. He turns from you and begins to walk out of the thicket.

“If that is what you chose then so be it, brat.”

“Chose what?” You call out without a clue as to what he meant. You received no response.

~

“He said what?!” You hear Eren and the rest of the table shout in horror.

“He can't transfer you!” Sasha exclaims. “You saved our lives, and you are one of us!” You look around the table, all of their faces were the same, shocked and unbelieving.

“Well, It is happening. Nothing that can be done about it. I leave first thing in the morning.” You lower your head, it was here that you felt the happiest, where you realised you had true friends. Armin places his hand on your arm and rubs it gently.

“At least you won't have to deal with Titans on the front lines anymore.” You knew he was just trying to comfort you, but it still didn't lessen the blow.

“Armin, she never had a problem with that in the first place.” Mikasa joins in. “Look (first name). Maybe after a little while, you can transfer back after it has quietened down. Then you can just come back.”

“It's all his fucking fault.” You notice Eren glaring at the Captain at the other end of the hall. “I have a right mind to tell him to fucking leave!” You watch as Jean places a forceful hand on his shoulder to make sure that he doesn't move.

“There's no point Eren. It isn't Levi's decision, and they would probably just kill you if you started acting out.” Jean reasoned.

“Look, there's no point debating the issue. I'm leaving, I cannot change that. No one can, but I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, for being here for me. I never thought that I would have people who care for me, and I just wanted to let you know that I really treasure every one of you.” You get teased for being mushy and sentimental, but they manage to make you laugh. Something that only they could do. They really were special.

You retire to your dorm early to pack your things, a few girls came in and out to pick things up and wish you farewell as you were leaving early the next morning. It was harder than you thought, your personal effects only amassed the size of a satchel and you sat on the bed hoping to wake from this terrible nightmare.

Your thoughts turn to Levi, his cold eyes and his tight-lipped expression. His unwavering nerve to destroy everything that you held dear. Your hands clench at the thought, wanting to smack him all over again, and then out of nowhere, you feel his arms around you again, holding you gently. His soft lips on yours, hungry for more, it was more than you could handle. Your mind was full of conflicted feelings, putting it down to the fact that you hadn't really had attention like that, ever, was the only course of action. He bamboozled you, and he knew it.

“Looks like you're busy packing.” You raise your eyes to see Levi standing in the doorway. He glances over your bag and walks into the room. “Not much to pack?”

“No. Not really, all I have are memories really.” You say solemnly. “Is there something I can do for you, Captain?” You notice a slight shift in his aura, and muse that he was a little uncomfortable. He stands more rigidly than normal, just generally looks awkward, you tilt your head to the side and try and work out what he is holding behind his back.

“I wanted to give you this.” He hands you a parcel, wrapped in stereotypical brown paper. You raise an eyebrow at him. “It's a book.” He adds quickly. “You will be travelling by cart back to the city. I believe this will help pass the time.” You gaze up at him, trying not to laugh at how strange he was acting, but you could see that he was trying his utmost to be nice, it must have been very painful for him.

“Does it hurt?” You ask, masking a smile.

“Does what hurt?” He sounded confused, once again your humour was wasted on him as looks at you puzzled.

“Taking the stick out your ass.” You laugh as you watch his eyes darken again, you did so enjoy annoying him, maybe a little too much.

“No more than constantly dealing with you, brat. Good Riddance.” You watch as he storms out of the room, this was becoming more common place than him shouting at you these days. He couldn't take a joke, what a bore. One point to you at least. You sigh, good riddance, huh? Well good-fucking-bye to him too.

You spend the rest of your evening tucked away in your dorm, and eventually after tossing and turning you fall asleep. You dream of Titans and Levi. Of him shouting at you, and in your final dream, eventually suffocating you. You wake with a start and find it is early morning, you rub your eyes as the sun filters down into the room. You go over all of the night's dreams and shudder, they hadn't been pleasant.

You make yourself get out of bed and dress in your uniform. You hear a thud on the floor and see the book, from Levi, still tied in its wrapping, and you bend down to pick it up, running your thumb over the top before throwing it into your bag.

Everyone was still asleep when you exited the dorm and made your way down to the kitchens. You were greeted by the cooks who had lovingly prepared you a small packed breakfast and were given a fond farewell. Your heart warmed at the gesture, and you thank them profusely. You leave not long after and walk out into the courtyard. You missed the place already and wondered who would eventually take over your bunk. You walk over to the cart, which was already being packed by members who were journeying back to the city. You shove your bag in, and help them with the bags and other items that would be going with you, you ended working up quite a sweat.

“(first name)!” You turn to see Eren running across the cobbles, and collides with you in an enormous hug. “I didn't want you to leave without saying goodbye... We all didn't.” You look past him and see your friends walking behind him, smiling, they were sad smiles, but they had come to wave you off.

“Thank you, everyone. It means so much that you came.” Sasha offers her arms to you, trying to hold back tears. You embrace her tightly, as only friends would, and feel another pair of arms around you, Armin, had decided to hug you at the same time. Mikasa rolls her eyes, and very unlike her, joins in, shortly followed by Eren. Jean rolled his eyes at you all, smiles and added his arms to the bundle of people. You all laugh after a while, as you break away.

“I will miss you all.” “C'mon (last name). It's time to go.” You give them all another hug, and see Erwin saluting you in the distance, as you get onto the cart you return the gesture. Your eyes scan the courtyard, no sign of Levi, and for some reason, your heart sinks. It would have been nice to get the last word in before you left. The cart rolls off down the path with your friends waving behind. You take one last look at your headquarters and are shifting to sit comfortably when you notice someone standing at one of the windows. It was Levi. You couldn't see him greatly well from this distance but you knew it was him, the hairs on the back of your neck prickled. He didn't move from where he was, he just seemed to be watching you. You give a wave, directed for him, even if he had made your life a misery, things wouldn't be the same without him in it. “Goodbye, Captain Levi.”

I will miss you....

[overdrivels]

Omg, emotionally stunted Hanzo and hesitant hand-holding! Like, after all he's put himself through, his emotions are barely coming back online and his inner monologue is just "hands?!?!" and considerable flailing when in this case Chef grabs his hand "so we don't get separated!"

Hggggggghhhhh I wrote something like this some time ago and I constantly rethink it, hoping that one day I’ll be able to actually include it in the actual story. BUT WAIT. LET ME DO YOU ONE BETTER.

Please have another revisit from a different point of view.

The air, crisp with the snap of an impending winter, chills your lungs as you breath it in. It feels liberating.

The market is as busy as you remember it. Medication and a lengthy preparation time kept you sleeping past the normal time you’d be up and about, searching for the juiciest, freshest, and tastiest of produce. But at 0830, most of them were already snatched up by other more savvy people and chefs who have likely returned back to their kitchens to celebrate their prizes. Now only the more casual crowd remained, a steadily surging crowd.

Agent Hanzo stands right at your elbow, being one of the few agents who were awake when you were plotting to leave and caught you in the act of trying to disconnect yourself from the supplies that are theoretically keeping you healthy. (You’re fine. You can stand and walk with minimal trouble, so a few hours outside shouldn’t be an issue.)

“It is not safe by yourself. I shall accompany you,” he declared like it was a given.

You just didn’t have the energy to fight him. After a few failed attempts to even stand up from your bed, you figured it wouldn’t hurt to have him around in case your body decided to betray you. Athena, bless her, was blissfully complacent in letting you both go once you promised you would take it easy and forced Hanzo to take responsibility for protecting you (and that you’d both return by lunchtime; she threatened to send other agents after you both and you shudder to think of the commotion that would cause).

So far, Hanzo’s been attentive and pleasant company with an occasionally sharp comment that is more witty than barbed and a helpful hanp.

“Is there anything you’d like for lunch or dinner today?”

“Are you so unwell that you are now taking requests?” he asks incredulously, glancing at you briefly with a raised eyebrow before sweeping the crowd with his eyes.

“Very funny, Agent Hanzo. I’m serious.” You pick up a radish and look it over. You can make radish curry with this. Agent Symmetra would probably like that–something closer to home–or maybe radish salad, or garlic roasted radish with feta cheese, or maybe even grate it into a yogurt sauce. “Since you decided to accompany me, it’s the least I could do.” You didn’t have much else you could give to him or do for him anyway.

He scoffs, a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth shows it’s not as condescending or mean as it sounds. “Anything you can make without dropping.”

“That was once! And you dropped way more things than I did.”

“The magnitude is greater,” Hanzo says flippantly, lifting the heavy bags he held so easily back into view. “Whatever you plan on making with this will be payment enough, I’m sure.”

Somehow, you couldn’t help flush a little, unsure if it is meant to be genuine or teasing.

“If you don’t decide soon, I’ll make pepper soup.”

Hanzo just laughs, a light and actually jovial laugh that makes you flush a little brighter. It’s a stupid threat especially against an Overwatch agent, but it’s all you have. But even so, he didn’t have to make fun of you.

“I’m really going to do it, Agent Hanzo.”

He looks at you, a challenging gleam in his eyes that you’ve seen far too many times from other ill-fated agents who think the kitchens are a game. The look makes you burn just beneath your skin.

“Aren’t you supposed to reward me for my services?”

“And I will,” you say with a firm determination. “I promise.”

He has nothing to say to that, but the look on his face speaks for him: we shall see.

For the remainder of your shopping trip, Hanzo remains a quiet but intimidating presence behind you as you continued to pick out your produce. Hanzo still says nothing even after moving through several other booths where you take your time to buy and bargain for large and colorful peppers. He wordlessly takes your bags as you get them, refusing to return them to you even after you kick up a small fuss that quickly exhausts you.

A heavy weight in the middle of your back nearly makes you jump out of your skin and you clench your teeth to hold back the noise of pain that tries to crawl its way out of your throat.

At your ear, Hanzo mutters, “Come.” Without even waiting for an answer, he begins to steer you away. 

“Is someone following us?”

He doesn’t answer, weaving his way in and out of the crowd with you held close to his side. Absentmindedly, you realize he’s quite warm amidst the autumn air. As sharp and callous as Hanzo is, he sure is comfortable. It’s presumptuous, but maybe you could ask him if you could take a nap against him when he has the time. Maybe for half an hour or so. Just once.  

You’re startled out of your thoughts with a quick jostle. “Chef, hurry.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Stay beside me.”

“Do you see something?”

Again, he doesn’t answer.

You can see him scanning the area as though seeking a route. The number of people have thinned considerably, leaving you both exposed. Hanzo keeps you by the walls of what buildings are around, but those are quickly becoming sparse, too. There’s a constant flex in his jaw and it’s clear to see he’s a little agitated.

“Oh!”

You reach for one of his hands–it’s also very warm and very large–and begin to pull with what strength you had even as he tries to snatch it back. You both need to stay together and this is the best way to ensure it even though you’re very sure he can keep up against your injured self.

“Wh—”

“This way.”

You know Gibraltar better. You know its secrets and its truths and exactly how to lose people here. Hanzo, perhaps knowing this, follows obediently after you–he has no choice, you have his hand.

The bags are definitely slowing you both down and a small ache begins to settle around your stomach and sides–the pain medication must be reaching its end, but you push forward through small alleyways that barely fit the both of you until you both made it into the Siege Tunnels where you both took turn after turn into the winding dimness.

“We…we should be safe here,” you huff.

He nods and says nothing, both of you listening, backs pressed against the chilly stone walls, listening for anything beside the echoes of the whispering wind or cries of the many macaques that call these tunnels their stomping ground.

The darkness makes it hard to see anything, but it only makes everything else just so much more apparent especially the proximity between yourself and your bodyguard for a day. You notice you still have his hand in a death grip but you refrain from saying anything: there’s no telling if the danger has passed yet and you didn’t want to risk making any more noise (and he hasn’t tried to pull away again after the first time). It’s embarrassing and downright childish, but you had to admit you felt just a little safer just having him beside you as a solid and warm presence.

You’ve worked alone for so long, it was nice to be in such close proximity with someone who is not looking to you for orders or putting the pressure of work on you. How many years has it been since you were free of expectations? When was the last time you stopped vying for the approval of others?

It must have been a long, long time. All of your actions had you wrung out and stressed, looking over your shoulder at every whisper and imagined gaze. Were the UN after you? Was the Head Chef there? Were your staff watching your every move and judging you? You didn’t ever feel certain even as you rose higher and higher in the world–it felt like each step toward what most people would consider to be an ‘accomplishment’, you became one step closer to uncertainty, trapped by silver walls and isolated from everyone else around you.

This impromptu trip was a good idea even if it made your muscles hurt. Agent Hanzo didn’t judge you, didn’t try to give unnecessary praise or respect, or treat you any lesser. He’s good company with a discerning eye and even better jabs. Maybe next time you decide to sneak out, you’ll tell him first.

Somehow, you realize you’ve closed your eyes as you were thinking. The cool stone at your back and the warmth at your side is intoxicatingly comforting, the shoulder beneath your head is a little hard—  

“Oh! I’m so sor—” You bite your words back, forgetting momentarily you both were on the run, a chill running up and down your skin because what if–.

“It’s fine. I believe we are clear.”

You breathe a sigh of relief. “Great. We can take this tunnel straight back to the Watchpoint. It’s a bit of a walk, but I think it’ll be faster than going back outside.”

You push yourself off the wall with a grunt of effort. After running around so much and taking a break, your muscles refused to cooperate. Hanzo gives you a strong pull with the hand you have gripped tight.  

Again, you flush with the realization. The danger has passed, there’s no reason to keep holding hands.

“Sorry, I didn’t really–I can let go, if you’d like? This must be stopping you from doing your job.”

A contemplative look crosses his face, but it’s difficult to tell in the dark. After a moment’s pause, he gives your hand an experimental squeeze and says, “No. We’ll stay like this. So you cannot get lost in the dark.”

There’s a hint of a wicked smirk in his voice that’s somewhat playful and again, a warmth blooms just underneath your skin; a mix of embarrassment and indignity.

“I can find my way around with my eyes closed!”

“Shall we try? I will not warn you of walls, just so you are aware.” Regardless, he walks with you, close to your side.

“I don’t want Athena to send a team after us, so next time!”

“Next time.” The way he says those words sounds like he’s testing them in his mouth. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, but you swear you can hear his smile. “Next time.”

[scruffandyarn]

That One Time Scruff Wrote an Avengers Fic (part 9)

That One Time Masterlist

Bucky x enhanced!female!reader

Warnings: profanity, physical pain, medical testing, guilt and fear

Thanks, as always, to these wonderful human beans:  @siriuspiggyback (you are the absolute best) @fangirl-library (you kick-ass, wonderful person) @written-loki-imagines (thank you for your fantastical support)  @bkwrm523(where would I be without you in my life) @thejamesoldier (you’re amazing and deserve every good thing) @samingtonwilson (you’re super duper awesome) @invisibleanonymousmonsters (thank you so much for all your inspiration) @feelmyroarrrr (this is all your fault, still love you)

@shirukitsune @electraphyng  @l0kisbitch @yafriendlyfangirl  @marydragneell

Previously: Loki was still sitting in front of you, his arms hovering close to your head.  Except, his skin–his skin was blue.

As soon as he saw your eyes open, he dropped his arms and his skin returned to a normal color.  “We are done.”  He moved to stand.

“Wait!” You grabbed his arm to keep him on the floor with you.  His skin was still cool to the touch, but you held on.  “What the hell was that?  What are you?”

“Explaining my past was never part of our agreement.”  He yanked his arm out of your grasp.  “You have refused to follow my directions.  I will not be helping you.”

“Hold up.  Following your directions was never part of our agreement either.” You glared at him, in spite of your protesting head.  “We made a deal.”

“Very well,” Loki sighed.

Now: Between the meditation Bruce insisted you start practicing and whatever magic Loki was doing to your brain, it took two days before Loki finally deemed your brain relaxed enough to start with the ‘happy place’ shit.  Hell, when you walked out of Loki’s room on that second day, you swore you could almost see the hint of a smile on his face.  Of course, that could have been because he had actually trapped you in upholding your end of the oath.  But, given that his emotions were leaning towards the positive, you chose to accept that you were making progress.

.

“Where are you right now?”  Loki’s voice seeped into your brain.

“The moon.” In your mind, that’s exactly where you were.  Currently, you were sitting on the edge of a crater, your feet dangling, as you looked over the barren landscape.  “No people, no animals--I’m all by myself.”

Forget the mountains.  This was where you needed to live.

But then, you’d be alone.  

With nothing but your thoughts.  

Forever.

The image around you began to flicker and fade out.  “Fuck.” Your eyes popped open and you gasped for breath.

Loki frowned.  “What was wrong with that one?”

You supposed you could understand his irritation.  First, you’d imagined your cabin in the woods, but then a bear came out of nowhere to eat you.  Then you’d tried the bottom of an ocean, only to be met by a giant jellyfish that had wrapped you up in its stinging tentacles.  And now, the moon was proving to have its own nightmares.

“Aliens?” You tried, weakly, not wanting to reveal what had actually scared you.  Although, there was no point in lying--he was the one person who would know when you were.

For whatever reason, though, he let you play it off.  “You Midgardians consider me to be an alien.”

“Yeah, and that’s pretty terrifying all on its own.”

“We are wasting our time if you cannot imagine your brain as a space.”  He sighed.  “Why don’t we end our session for today?  You can spend the afternoon trying to think of a place where nothing will eat you or sting you or whatever about your planet’s moon was scaring you.”

“Fine.”  Your head wasn’t feeling so groovy, anyway.  Maybe after a nap, you could dink around online to find something that could inspire you as a possible ‘happy place.’

Loki watched you, curious, as you grabbed your tablet from its spot next to you on the floor.  After a few quick taps, you knew exactly what you needed to know.

“Guess I’ll be eating a little later.”

“What does that thing tell you?”

“It lets me know if there’s anyone in a particular room I want to go in.  It’s set up with F.R.I.D.A.Y. and she can help me avoid people when my head starts to hurt.”

“At least one of you in this forsaken place has a sense of self-preservation.”

“Fuck!” Yet another place you tried to invision had been completely ruined by some unforeseen fear.  In your frustration, you took your pillow and chucked it across the room.  “What am I doing wrong?”

Nothing was working.  Not the heat of the desert.  Not a cool, dark cave.  Not a boat abandoned in the middle of the water.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“What can I help you with?”

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go to get away from people and scary things?”

“I believe the North Pole is the only place completely devoid of humans.”

“That sounds--”

“Of course, there are many carnivorous animals that live and hunt in the region.”

“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“And with Global Warming, the polar ice caps will soon be melted and succumb to the ocean.”

“Great.  Thanks.”  You flopped back on your mattress.  Just what you needed to have in your brain right now. Polar bears and freezing like Jack in Titanic.

Relief flooded your veins.  Something was going on because this feeling wasn’t coming from you.  It felt like the greatest weight you never carried was suddenly lifted from your shoulders.  God, you could almost believe you could fly.

“What is going on?” You opened your eyes to see Loki staring at you crossly.  You pressed your hands to your head, trying to stop the lightheaded dizziness.

“I believe the mission is complete.  Which would explain the relief you are feeling.”

The room was starting to spin. “Mission?”  

“You are aware you are at the Avengers’ compound, are you not?” He scoffed.  “The Avengers seem to have this proclivity towards saving this ridiculous planet, so that is where the Captain, the tin soldier, and the female spy have been for the last week.”

“So, when I got angry--”

““Was when the three of them were first given the assignment.”

“And the fear?”

“That was the day they were supposed to be finished with their mission.  It took longer than originally thought.”

“Oh.  Well, I guess that makes sense.”

“Can we focus now?  The sensations you’re feeling aren’t going to go away with all this frivolous talking.”

“Right.”

“You’re a tough woman to find.”

“Steve.” You forced a smile as you looked up from your tea.  “How can I help you?”

He was not sporting any of the bruising you’d spotted on Natasha when you’d passed her in the hall on your way to get something to drink.  Maybe she’d taken the brunt of the physical abuse?  That didn’t really seem like something he’d do, though.  Bucky had told you how Steve had always been a scrapper, even before he got all buff.

Maybe it was a supersoldier thing?  That’d be cool to be able to heal from everything quickly.  Would that mean you could get over all the headaches and nausea super quick?

“--to Bucky?”

Oh shit.  You should probably pay attention.  “What?”

“Stop.” He sat down across from you.  “Why haven’t you talked to Bucky?”

“Steve--”

“He was healed.  He’d been fine for months.  One conversation with you and he’s doubting everything.”

Anger was bubbling just below his calm demeanor.  

“I didn’t--I didn’t mean to do all that.  I promise, it was never my intention to reveal--”

“I get it, I do.  But he needs your help.  He’s been sitting on this for days, questioning if he’s really in control of his mind.  You said you’d meet with him about it.”

“I said I’d try.”

“And have you?  Can you honestly say you’ve tried to talk to him about what’s going on in his head?”

Fuck.  “I don’t know what’s going on in his head.  I can’t get a read on the Winter Soldier.  I just know he’s there.”

“Why can’t you just tell Bucky that, then?  Why hide from him?”

“He’s gonna want me to fix it and there is nothing I can do!”  Your head was pounding and you couldn’t separate Steve’s frustration from your own.  “Do you have any idea what it’s like?  To see people you love in pain and know there’s nothing you can do to help them?”

“That’s called being human, having empathy.”

“No, not like this.  I experience their pain--I live it.  Every bit of it.  I know what it’s like to lose a brother to cancer.  I know what it’s like to have the love of my life sign away twenty years of our life together.  I know what it’s like to bury my child.  I even know all about how it feels to see my best friend on death’s doorstep because he was always so sick growing up.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but you pressed on.

“It’s not just empathy.  It’s that ripping out my hair, clawing at my skin, sobbing until I choke heartbreak that drowns me even though I’ve never had a brother die, been married or a mother.  I’ve been afraid that I’ll have to watch you die even though my only experience with that is thanks to Bucky’s trip down memory lane when I was sick and he had to carry me to the lab.”

You’d worked yourself up only to realize you had nowhere else to go with your speech.  No one ever seemed to really understand the burden you lived with.  Pain that wasn’t your own lived and grew inside you.  Trying to alleviate it was always considered selfish because it was never yours to begin with, just yours to suffer through in silence.

“Look, I can’t say I get what you deal with, because I don’t.  But I think Bucky would.  He’s spent the majority of his life the same as you--having absolutely no control.  He knows what it’s like to have his mind at the mercy of others.  And if you tell him that you can’t fix it, he’s gonna accept that because he knows he can’t fix it either.”

The information you’d read about one James Buchanan Barnes came back to your mind and shame started to trickle in.  The life he’d had--the one that HYDRA stole from him and replaced with the worst possible existence you couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Yes, you had experienced feelings that were never meant to be yours.  You’d never wanted them, but you knew them.  But that was it, wasn’t it?  You knew those feelings.

Bucky had spend most of his life not knowing.  Of having everything ripped from him.  Of not feeling anything.

“Fuck.”  

You felt like such a whiny little shit.  Some superhero you were turning out to be--hiding from your problems, refusing to help someone who just wanted to know what was happening in his head.  

Steve should have just punched you in the throat when you started whining and complaining about what you went through.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, when I can, I will.”