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celestie0 · 1 day

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gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.12 how you get the girl

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 12/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 11.3k

a/n. man the color scheme for this chapter is kinda giving BRAT lolol...i mean gojo IS brat. anywho, i don't have much to say at the beginning of this chapter but i do have a LOT to say at the end of it sooo see y'all at the bottom!! hope u enjoy. also BIG THANK YOU to @whereflowerswenttodie who beta read parts of this chapter for me n convinced me not to scrap it lol

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

11:03am you: hi! 11:03am you: good luck today 11:03am you: incase i don’t see you

11:05am Gojo Satoru: Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t you gonna be on the field for your newsletter shots?

11:07am you: i mean yes but idk where i’m gonna be stationed so 11:07am you: it might not be on UTokyo’s side of the field

11:08am Gojo Satoru: Okay then I’ll look for you before the game starts

11:10am you: no pls don’t. coach yaga thinks i distract you. i don’t want to get yelled at again. he scares me :(

11:12am Gojo Satoru: Haha you’re silly 11:13am Gojo Satoru: East side entrance at 2 11:13am Gojo Satoru: Be there

11:14am you: or be square?

11:15am Gojo Satoru: Yea whatever shape you wanna be in is fine cutie

It’s a bright sunny day outside, perfectly blue sky with a scattering of fluffy clouds seen outside the window of your shared room in your apartment, and you realize spring is fully here from the way birds chirp past the glass. You’re stuffing your camera case full of chilled Kodak film rolls, your last stash left, and it’s the last piece of equipment you pack before slinging the strap over your shoulder and heading out the door.

Mina had offered to give you a ride to the stadium since your car’s still at the shop, but you’re happy you opted for the bumpy bus ride and although you come close to low-grade concussions from the bang of your head to the window at every other speed bump, the music in your ears while someone else is operating a public transport vehicle helps you think creatively before shooting shots.

It was surprise enough that Mina of all people was going to this game, and when you questioned her about it in the morning, she looked at you like you were absurd to assume anyone from UTokyo wouldn’t be at this game, and sure enough, it’s all anyone on Instagram has been repping on their stories or talking about in the bustling minutes before lectures. Even Utahime was going to this game, and she hates all intercollegiate sports. You knew the game was a big deal, given the way Coach Yaga was yelled at via email by the Dean of UTokyo to make sure the team wins today because a multimillion dollar Nike sponsorship would be greenlit by the prospect (for some reason you were cc’d in an email chain among divisional higher-ups, but you weren’t opposed to snooping in on conversations that were entirely outside of your tax bracket).

It’s because it’s the second to last home game before the season ends, and apparently this has been statistically the best season the UTokyo D1 Men’s Soccer team has played since the new millenia. No pressure to the players on that fact, but failure wasn’t much of an option for them anymore.

And you can feel the stakes the second you step inside the stadium. Packed would be an understatement, there were people flooding the aisles, overbooked for the sake of the university pocketing an extra buck no doubt, but spectators could care less since they were able to at least get in on the basis of that irresponsibility in the first place, despite the stadium’s capacity having long been reached before the pregame festivities even start. Banners and signs drape over railings with the school’s striking blue and golden colors, every single replay screen is lit up and brightly pixelated at every north, south, east, and west entrance for inclusive viewing. As you pass VIP security and make it into the lower field-level entry, the scattered chants from the crowd amplify in volume and you almost wince a little to yourself from the noise. The stadium felt like a living, breathing entity, pulsing with the collective heartbeat of everyone inside.

You’ve never been more overstimulated in your life, except instead of finding it frightening, it was electrifying. And for once, you think you can understand what an athlete must feel when playing on their own home turf surrounded by those that are wholeheartedly rooting for them.

Hana is quick to spot you, panic clear across her face as she regards you with a couple pages with your assigned vantage points, a rushed briefing session, and then she’s darting down the sidelines to make sure equipment is set up appropriately where needed. She’s understaffed, given you told Utahime about Kai’s little intervention last week and she made a nasty point to the university (and possibly a handful of legal threats) and they relented in firing him. So now the three of you were down a photographer, and the extra work shows in the instructions she gave you as you skim the sheets.

A glance at your phone tells you it’s close to 2pm, and your eyes take in the expanse of green on the field. UTokyo’s players practice kicking shots off to the right goal post, while YCU’s players practice shots off to the left. You can’t spot where Gojo is, but you faithfully head down to the East Side entrance like he asked you to.

When you round the corner, you almost crash right into an Ichiko mascot, but swiftly dodge, and then you stop in your tracks when you see Gojo standing right at the concrete entrance. He’s leaning back against the adjacent wall, arms crossed at his chest, and he’s stretching his neck side to side with a creased brow, an intense look in his eyes, lost in serious thought, scanning the wall across from him like he’s mapping out plays in his head.

When you approach him and catch the corner of his eyesight, he leans off the wall and flashes you one of his so extremely charmed to see you grins on reflex, and suddenly there’s nothing your senses seem to pick up on except him. Like everything else around you just disappears.

“Hey, you,” he says when he comes up to you, and you walk him like a dog back to a corner that’s tucked further away from noises and sights. You lean your back against the wall now, the coolness of concrete seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and he stands a step in front of you. Your hands toy with the strap of your camera.

“Are you ready to win today?” you ask him, and look off to the right into the flourishing seats that are still being filled to the brim, “clearly there’s no pressure.”

He breathes in deep, and releases it slowly, like there really was tension to relieve. “We’ve got no choice but to win.”

“Is that something Coach Yaga says to you guys often?” you ask him, because the man recited the same thing about five times in that email chain. “Also, apparently you take years off of his life.” Another thing he recited about five times in that email chain.

Gojo only addresses what he wants to address, as per usual. “Yeah, it’s something he says to us often.”

“So,” you say, “what did you want to talk about?”

He looks at you puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

It’s hard to assume that he didn’t have something to talk about with the intention of telling you to meet him here, because this is the same place you confessed to him a few weeks ago, and so is also the place he so painfully rejected you. But maybe he doesn’t think about these kinds of things as much as you do. “I see.”

His tongue pokes to his cheek as he studies your anticipating expression, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly. “What are we doing? I mean, I like you, and you like me too, at least I hope you still do. Why don’t we—…why don’t we just give it a go already? I don’t see how we can move forward if you won’t at least let me take you out on a date.”

Your hands stop fidgeting with your camera strap from his words, and you lick your lips, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him so your gaze drifts down to his chest in front of you. His uniform is clean, no smudges of dirt or grass, just pure white fabric underneath heat-pressed blue and golden accents, and of course, that signature number 10. You’re sure he’s all you’ll ever think of when you see that number now for the rest of your life.

You know when you want something so bad you don’t know what to do once you have it? Because it almost seems too good to be true?

“I just wanted to let stuff between us breathe for a little bit,” you confess, “it’s just, it was a lot to deal with. Being around you when I thought you didn’t want me the way I wanted you. I don’t know if this is odd to say, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but I just feel like somewhere along the way, I kind of…forgot who you were for a little bit.” This kind of vulnerability would have you running away with your tail between your legs with anyone else, but not with him. Not after everything.

His expression softens, melting away that confrontational energy he had earlier, and he nods slowly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t seem to find words. The presence of them is there, though, you can feel them. But what good are his thoughts if not voiced?

“I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know you again, I guess.” You squeeze your arm in reassurance of yourself because he wasn’t giving it to you. You let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t really know what I’m saying right now, to be honest.”

You can tell he’s at a crossroads, and you think back to this week and his efforts to get you to open up to him again. You know how he feels right now, because it’s exactly how you felt when he rejected you. Like when someone is so close, yet so far, you can feel that they’re within arms reach but never truly. And they’re slipping away for some reason that you may never know, but all you can do is assume that it’s a fault of your own. You’re not really sure what he can do to make you feel secure about this whole thing anymore, and you can see the slight panic in his eyes when he realizes that too.

“I don’t mind waiting,” he tells you, rushed with a desperation entirely contrary to his words, “what’s a week or two when I want to spend a lot more of those with you anyways.” But he takes a deep breath, like he’s already mentally preparing himself for an agonizing wait in his head.

There’s a sound over the stadium speakers, something technical and sporty and goes entirely over your head in dismissal, but to Gojo it seems to have a different effect, as he’s suddenly attentive and stands up straighter, that focused expression on his face from earlier resurfacing. You realize he needs to get back to the field.

“Can we continue this conversation after the game?” he asks you hastily, already turning towards the center of the stadium. And he adds an obligatory, “sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” you quickly agree, suddenly feeling like you’re taking up his time.

He gives you a small smile, unsure in its presentation but pure in its intention. But he can only take one step towards the field before you reach out and pinch the fabric of his jersey to keep him still. He feels the tug of it and fully faces you once again.

“Um. Just a sec,” you say, “I have something to give you before your game.”

“Oh?” he looks at you with interest, “I fucking love things.”

“You have to close your eyes though.”

“…what is the thing…” He squints at you with a what are you up to expression.

“Just close your eyes!” you snap at him.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face and then he closes his eyes. “You’re scary as hell sometimes. Excuse me for being cautious.”

You roll your eyes, useless because he doesn’t see it, and then take a step towards him. You cup his jaw with the palm of your hand, his cheek twitching slightly from the unexpected contact, and then you raise on your tiptoes to press your lips to his cheek. It’s short and sweet with the sound of a peck.

“For good luck,” you whisper, then you quickly lower yourself back onto your heels, take a step back and tuck some strands of hair behind your ear. The ground suddenly interests you.

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times with shock and his hand comes up to brush the tips of his fingers against the spot you kissed him, and then his gaze goes comically dazed when he reaches out to hold you. “Alright, c’mere you,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips as he leans down to kiss you but you laugh and push his face away.

“No no no, only on the cheek for now,” you say with a small laugh.

He does nothing to restrain his frustrated groan. “You can’t do something that cute and then expect me to be chill about it.”

“If you win, then, maybe I’ll let you kiss me for real.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

He’s close, towering over you near this bustling east side entrance that he seems to like so much, and his eyes drop to your lips. “Alright. I like those odds.”

You give him a smile and slip away from him to get back towards the field, and you feel his eyes on you as you walk away.

The pregame events are a blur, with blaring music accompanied by the sounds of the sports announcers clipping across the speakers, finally quieted down in time for the players to line up on the field for the national anthem which was then followed by UTokyo’s alma mater.

You’re stationed on the same side of the field as Minato, UTokyo’s side, while Hana is covering the sidelines of the opposite end with the opponents goal post. Minato’s filling up a cup of Gatorade for himself at the athlete’s station and then he comes back around to find you.

“Are you ready to take your shots? I see Hana wanted you to shoot on film today,” he says to you as he sloshes around Glacier Freeze in a flimsy plastic cup.

You twist your aperture dial with your thumb. “Yesss, all set. I’ll try to keep up.”

He nods at you in approval.

The atmosphere feels nerve wracking. Something felt different about this game, the stakes feeling high. Well, of course they’re high, because if they lose today then they’re out of the tournament. But the stakes feel high for other reasons too, an energy you can pick up on but can’t quite discern.

Your eyes drift across the field where you can see a referee placing a ball at the center of the field. Off to the right, you can see Gojo standing with a few of his other teammates, including Geto, Nanami, and Choso, and they’re all gesticulating to various corners of the field as they discuss what you can only imagine have to do with their plays for today. And you realize— it’s their last college soccer season. Their second-to-last official home match before the championship, and for those of them that haven’t qualified for the national league, it may be their second-to-last match of this caliber for the rest of their lives. One of the final chances that they have to prove something of themselves. The determination was palpable.

The chief referee’s whistle cuts through the air with three short chirps, and that gathers the attention of all the players on the field. UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kickoff, and YCU’s players choose to attack the left side goal.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, the crowd hushing too as all the players take their places on the field. If you feel nervous, you can only imagine how the athletes feel. There’s a rhythm that you’ve learned over the past couple of months getting to know the sport, where players stretch out their necks and kick out their feet and take subtle deep breaths as they survey the stands. Idle moments before the start of the match where they have no choice but to look forward and only forward, so they take a moment to stay in the present for as long as they can gather. You’ve never been much of a sports spectator, and perhaps you’ve only recently had some personal interest in the team, but you realize you feel pride in your school as you stand behind chalk sideline and see UTokyo’s colors scattered across the field in uniform. And fuck, you wanted them to win. You wanted them to win with fierceness and wrath, and it’s a desire you share with the crowd.

Gojo spends a minute talking to the referee before the black and white striped man pats him high on the back in the good sport and urges him towards the center of the field. He lifts his foot up onto the ball, rolling it back and forth underneath the spikes of his cleat, and you can see it in his eyes, even from all the way over here, that he seems to have different ideas in mind for this game too. High stakes. Pre-determined, set with will, evident in the clench of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he surveys the field with his eyes, and you’re lost in the sight for what feels like forever because you can hardly register the chirp of the ref’s whistle.

And then the kickoff starts.

The ball is tapped to Geto to start the play, and the first few minutes were intense as the ball was passed back and forth between UTokyo’s players, placing pressure on YCU’s defense as they inched closer and closer towards the goal. A pass between UTokyo’s #4 was intercepted by YCU and the ball was rushed down towards the left side, the crowd’s horror evident in the uproar as they raise to their feet in fearful anticipation, and with ruthless offense, YCU’s forward takes a clear sink shot towards the goal, and the crowd holds their breath before they watch Choso lunge for it in air, gloved hands firmly grabbing the ball and then pulling it to his chest with a possessiveness you can only expect to see from a skilled goalie, before he crashes down into the ground and the crowd releases relief in the form of rowdy roars.

Ten minutes in, with everyone on their toes, each team tested each other’s defenses. UTokyo were known for stellar offense, especially within the past few years with players like Gojo Satoru and Takuma Ino joining the league as powerful forwards, but UTokyo’s overall offense was still statistically second to none other than YCU. And the pressure YCU was putting on UTokyo’s defense was wearisome to say the least. You glance to see Nanami, who is UTokyo’s best defensive player, huffing and puffing as he stands between two light-footed YCU players in an attempt to guard, and fails an attempt to steal the ball before it gets to the feet of YCU’s striker #6, passed in a split second off to his teammate, with a fake so seamless that it has Choso just a couple inches away from touching the ball before it’s sent flying into the net.

The noises from the crowd are still loud, but dampened in spirit.

With the referees hand signal up in the air, the current score is confirmed. 0-1, YCU.

Coach Yaga calls for a sub, in which he switches Nanami out for who you believe is a 2nd-year defensive player name Yuta you’ve seen around practice with a promising statistical record for interceptions, and you watch as Nanami takes the bench before he swipes the sweat off his face in exhaustion. God. Just fifteen minutes into the match, and YCU already has UTokyo’s defense winded from play.

You bring your camera up to your face, forgetting for a moment that there was still a job to do here, and you position the direction of the lens towards the center of the field, where Gojo takes his place at the ball once more. Yuta briefly passes by him, signaling some play to him by holding up a number three, likely something Coach Yaga asked him to pass on to Gojo, and you see him briefly nod, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes slowly and pulls his jersey up to wipe at the sweat at his forehead.

The referee chirps the whistle, Gojo taps the ball to Yuta, and the play starts.

YCU immediately puts pressure on UTokyo’s offensive play once more, with eager movements to steal the ball, but it’s passed between UTokyo’s players with ease, more practiced and more sure. The kind of play that you and the rest of the school was used to seeing from them. However, Geto loses the ball on a left-back pass, but right when YCU makes attempts to cover field in a long-shot kick towards the left, Yuta intercepts the ball and swiftly passes it to Gojo.

The crowd immediately rises to their feet in anticipation, watching as Gojo shuffles the ball down the field, dangerously close to off-field boundaries, a signature tactic he uses because he knows there’s not a single player in the league that can match him in precision and control to keep the ball in-field on a steal, and he swiftly passes it towards Geto with a side-swept kick, beelining down towards the goal post, in perfect time for Geto pass-back to meet his feet and when Gojo was this close to a net, there was no stopping him.

He draws his right foot back, and explosively kicks the ball forward, chipping the grass under it in the motion, and it’s sent flying towards the goal, and then threaded past the goalie right to the back of the net. The cheers that erupt across the stadium rumble the ground beneath you.

1-1, even match.

UTokyo spends no time celebrating, other than a few pats to Gojo’s back as he nods in acknowledgement, no emotion on his face other than pure concentration and greed. The greed to win, like a righteous sin. He stretches his neck out, panting slightly as he takes his place towards the right side of the field and the referee chirps his whistle to signal YCU to start the kickoff.

They quickly make attempts in moving the ball towards their scoring-end of the field, but face push-back from UTokyo’s defense, unable to make it much further past the midfield line, and you bring your camera up to take a snap of Gojo, who you see is still standing off to the right side of the field. But when you position it and peer through the viewfinder, that space he once stood at was empty. You pull your camera down, and blink at the sight, and then the crowd is picking up in volume once more.

Gojo sprints down the flank, cutting past every defender, and moves towards YCU’s attacking goal, which was a shocking place to be for a center forward, but you could feel his desire and determination to steal this back-and-forth ball, and succeeds when YCU makes an open pass, thinking they were in the clear, only to have Gojo sneak in at the last moment and get the ball at his feet.

The play moves by in a flash, a blur that you or anyone else in the stadium could hardly keep up with it, movements so fast you were shocked a human being was capable of even running that far in such a short amount of time, and in an almost embarrassingly easy play, Gojo makes a fool out of YCU’s defenders as he slips the ball through the legs of his last obstacle before he struck it with sharp precision, sending it soaring to the corner of the goal, past the outstretched arms of the goalie, and into the net.

2-1, UTokyo.

It was electrifying, the feeling that strikes through the stadium, one that reaches you in your own blood. You’re shocked, standing here, after witnessing Gojo score two goals within the matter of minutes, against one of the top three teams in the league. It’s a shock that reaches everyone, including Coach Yaga who’s standing about ten feet down the line from you, his arms crossed, and you see his eyes for the first time as he takes his sunglasses off to get a better look at what he’s seeing.

You trail his sight, dragging your gaze across the field until it lands at Gojo, who is barely acknowledging the encouraging pats and shakes and goodhearted shoves that his teammates were giving him, because he was focused. It might sound crazy to say, but you swear his eyes looked like a fiercer shade of blue, like they were lit up, and you’re insanely glad you’re not one of YCU’s defensive players at the moment because you feel fearful of him even just standing on the sidelines.

Your gaze trails back to Coach Yaga, who slowly puts his sunglasses back on but his brows are narrowed tightly as he crosses his arms over his chest tightly.

The “athletic zone”... You’ve heard of it before. A state of pure focus, of peak performance, where an athlete experiences optimal concentration and a sense of effortless control over their actions. In which they perform at their highest level, where time slows down, any and all distractions fade away, and they’re completely immersed in their sport at hand. At the task at hand.

Coach Yaga seems to pick up on the fact that Gojo was on the edge of tapping into that state.

YCU makes a substitution, and you watch in anticipation as they begin the kickoff.

There’s fire in their veins with desperation to even out the score once more, rushing the ball down the off-field line, one of their center forwards mimicking Gojo’s signature attack pattern, and Yuta struggles to keep up with the expert dribbling of a fourth-year player with more experience on him, so much so to where he completely leaves the ball unguarded and there’s an open shot, but Geto places pressure at the last moment, in a fierce battle for the ball, before YCU’s center forward loses the ball over the goal line.

Choso picks the ball up, tapping on it harshly a few times as he surveys his eyes down the field, and all offensive players begin to shuffle towards their attacking goal in anticipation for the goal kick. He signals his hand down and then holds up two fingers in the air before placing the ball down on the six-yard box. He tightens the strap of one of his gloves, eyes squinting, and you follow his gaze down to a part of the field where you note UTokyo’s best aerial players are located and being guarded by YCU’s defense. And with complete trust in his team, that’s exactly where he kicks the ball.

Geto makes first contact with the ball, his chest colliding with two other YCU players as his head comes out on top and he headbutts the ball closer towards the inner field, and Gojo immediately gains access to it with a bounce of his knee. The crowd holds their breath, fear that they’ll lose the ball to a steal in the split second it spends floating in the air, but Gojo urges it forward with a bounce off of his chest and then rushes it straight down towards the goal post.

You wonder what sight he sees right now. Where you’re dead center, at no angle, lunging towards the sight of an open goal with a sole goalie standing in the center, anticipating to block your shot, and three defenders on your tail. There’s no room for error, no time to think, only instincts that you cultivate in the last leading milliseconds. They say that, in sports, athletes channel one hundred hours of practice in just a brief second on the field. A split second success that was years in the making. You can’t even imagine possessing that level of perfection in your body, or possessing that level of confidence that you can follow through with it in a moment as dire as this.

It was unreal, the way Gojo fades away from all the defenders, and faces no fear when confronted with the sight of the goalie in front of him while drawing his foot back to kick the ball. You lift your camera up at the last second, no time to think about aperture or ISO, just like he had no time to second-doubt a single twitch in his muscles, and his foot makes contact with the ball so harshly that you can hear the explosive sound even among the delirious cheers from the crowd, before he hook, line, and sinks it straight past the goalie’s head, rushing by like a scarcely deflected bullet, and into the net behind him.

3-1, UTokyo.

The whole stadium is momentarily speechless, all players and referees and recruiters and reporters and coaches and employees alike, before the most deafening cheers you’ve ever heard in your life scatter across the stands.

There’s a moment of brief reprieve, where the players can catch their breath while YCU makes yet another substitution, as if they’re just trial-and-erroring it at this point, and the cheers in the stadiums remain idle as you can’t tear your gaze away from Gojo.

It’s one of those moments where you realize that someone who you thought was so familiar to you was actually someone you hardly knew at all. You knew he was a talented soccer player, everyone on campus knows it, potentially one of the best to ever grace the league, and the amount of times you passively watched his plays on a lecture hall projector screen as your professor enthusiastically broke them down during class, even before you met him, was good enough for you to realize that he was insane, a one-in-a-million, a talent you cannot replicate, one you have by divinity. One you were born with.

And yet, somehow, getting to know him these past couple of months, he just felt so human. For someone so seemingly beyond you, he felt so…close? In those moments where it was just the two of you, it was hard to imagine that he was capable of such greatness, and that so many people were rooting for him with wholehearted tears in their eyes and cheers from their hearts, because most of the time, when he was with you, he was just a dorky idiot. You find that your heart is beating fast in your chest, that feeling of being unsure of what to do with what you’ve been wanting resurfacing powerfully.

“This is insane,” you hear Minato say from beside you and you jump a little from your thoughts being interrupted.

You twiddle with your camera straps. “I know…almost done with the first half and we’re up 3-1…I thought YCU are number one in offense for the league?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, that is insane too. But what’s even more insane is that three of the goals so far have been scored by one player.” He tips his chin towards the right sight of the field and you trail his line of sight. “By Gojo Satoru.”

Your brow furrows as you watch Gojo, his hands on his hips and his mouth slightly open as he indulges in a few shallow breaths to gain energy while YCU prepares for kickoff. Three goals, by just one player. Your eyes widen when you realize that is insane, especially for a D1 semi-final qualifying match.

“You know what the divisional record is for most goals scored by a single player during a championship match, y/n?” Minato asks you as he lifts his camera up to take a picture of the area Gojo was standing in.

You shake your head and wait for his response.

He drops his camera down and glances at the photo on his screen. “Four. During Keio Uni vs. Osaka Uni, near the beginning of the tournament back in 1997 by Osaka’s center forward number 24, Yuji Nakazawa. Meaning no one’s managed to beat that record since the new millenia, for a couple decades. Although a few players came close.”

You blink at him, and Minato is jerking his chin over in the direction of Gojo again.

“I think he’s trying to beat the record.”

You can only widen your eyes at Minato in realization, and then the chirp of the referee’s whistle draws everyone’s attention back to the field.

The sports announcers go wild on the speakers, the crowd raving all the same, standing to their feet like the team just won the championship match.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! We are watching HISTORY in the making!! Gojo Satoru, UTokyo’s very own 3-year consecutive MVP, has scored his 34th goal of the season, highest of any player in this year’s season so far, and is now on the road to beat the league’s long-standing record for most goals scored by a single player in a championship match since 1997!!” And the crowd roars even louder as you stare out at the field in awe.

YCU starts the kickoff following the prompt short chirp of the referee’s whistle, and with two minutes remaining on the clock for the first half, make desperate attempts to book it down the field towards their attacking goal, one of their midfielders making a clumsy attempt to strike the ball to the net in the final minutes of the half, and Choso easily catches it in his arms, right before the buzzer of the timer sounds, and the match moves into halftime.

All of UTokyo’s players immediately flock towards Gojo in sportful glee, finally having a chance to surround him and harass him with harsh pats on his back and ruffles of his hair for his play in the first half. Choso even puts him in a headlock because they all don’t know what else to do with their excitement and adrenaline rushing through their bodies. Their win for today was basically confirmed with the way he was playing.

You catch a glimpse of him through the crowd of people, and he has a boyish grin on his face, reveling in the embarrassing amount of attention from his teammates, that focused look from before dissolving into his normal self again. But you can see through him, as well enough as you’ve learned to at least, and you can tell he’s not satisfied. He’s thinking it’s not enough. There’s still more to be done, and it’s not time to celebrate yet.

His eyes scan down the sideline until they find you.

Your heart jumps a second in your chest. He stands up straighter, despite his teammates still clinging to him, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes when your eyes meet.

Cheerleaders take their place out onto the field, performing their numbers with loud music blaring, and the recruiters seated at their white tables get up to roam across the sidelines in discussion with referees and with Coach Yaga and with whatever players they can sink their greedy teeth into, as well as sneak at refreshments while they’re at it. You can see off to the right that Hana has reunited with Minato and she’s showing him some of the shots she took over at the opponent's side.

UTokyo’s players start to make their way to the benches to grab for towels and drinks of water and to sprawl across in rest, and you hear loud familiar laughter approaching as you watch the players sprawl across the benches, so you avert your eyes towards the source of the sound.

You see Gojo approaching the benches, two of his teammates slung with their arms around him in some type of adrenaline-drunken glee as they talk dramatically and theatrically which Gojo entertains with his own drunk-off-of-adrenaline glee. And you raise an eyebrow at his demeanor when he makes eye contact with you.

“There’s my freaky little photographer,” he says, and he’s standing up straight and—wait, is he puffing his chest out as he makes his way towards you? Oh for fucks sake.

Gojo has always been confident around you, for as long as you can remember, but in the fair few moments he’s been cocky, he’s been a menace. And you can only assume the testosterone-induced high of being on the verge of breaking a league record in front of the entire school then subsequently getting homiesexually praised by his teammates for the better part of the past five minutes, not to mention with the crowd and the reporters feeding his ego with a spoon across the speakers, he’s been transformed into the final boss of cocky.

His teammates surround you too, their hands on their hips as they assess you and Gojo when he meanders right up to you, arms held out to hug you, a sleazy sight you’ve seen probably six times this week, and you feel a rush of warmth in your cheeks as you place a hand on his chest to keep him away.

“You’re sweaty and gross, please stay away from me,” you reprimand him, “this is an expensive lens that is not humidity-proof.”

“Hey, you’re the girl that Kentaro socked in the face with a ball the other day at practice, right?” one of his teammates asks, leaning in towards you to take a closer look at your face.

“Oh yeahhh, ‘cause Satoru wasn’t paying attention,” another one of his teammates chimes in teasingly, hardly heard over the loud remix playing in the background as the cheerleaders continue to perform on the field.

You shrink a little from where you stand. Gojo’s got an irritated look on his face and he’s shrugging his teammate’s elbow off of his shoulder.

“I really hope you’re getting my good angles,” his teammate to the left comments before winking at you, and you purse your lips together.

The one on the right leans in too, looking at your cheek with an assessing look in his eye. ��At least it didn’t leave a scar on your cute face—”

Gojo shoves the both of them back and away from you by elbowing them in the chest, and they make deep eugh noises before stepping away and rubbing at their sternums with pouts on their faces.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he grumbles, “she’s mine.”

Your cheeks flush slightly with warmth at the attention, and you watch as his teammates scurry away to adhere to some social hierarchy Gojo seems to possess over them.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Yours?”

“Yes. Eventually. Whatever, did you see me out there?” he turns his torso towards the field and points behind himself with his thumb, “when I—”

“Oh god, you know what’s soooooooooo super sexy to me?” you interrupt him. “When guys are humble.”

“Oh c’monnn,” he curls his arm around your waist and pulls you to him, to where you stumble a little on grass and he holds you when you fall into him with more clumsiness than grace. “Tell me you aren’t at least impressed by me.”

You pout, because you are, and you’d really like to give him some reassurance and validation, but for some reason his cocky attitude is setting you off. “Satoru,” you sigh, wiggling a little in his hug, but he holds you tighter, “I’m working right now. Cut it out.”

He lets go of you at that, sober enough from the adrenaline to realize you’re being serious, but he steps into your space so only you can hear him. “What? Are you embarrassed?”

“Of what?” Your face twists with confusion.

“Of me. Are you embarrassed of me?” he asks.

“No. Why would I be embarrassed of you?” you ask with sharpness.

“I don’t know, just, sometimes I feel like you’re always annoyed by me,” he says with a sigh. “It’s like, you’re really sweet sometimes, and then kinda rude out of nowhere, and it’s sort of messing with my head.”

You pout. “You were messing with my head for weeks.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” he quickly interjects, like he already knew you were brewing up that counterargument, “but you don’t have to act like you’re all disinterested and indifferent just to get back at me for it.” He places his hands on his hips and wipes his temple on the round part of his shoulder when he feels a drop of sweat trickle down from his hairline. “You don’t have to act embarrassed around me either.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you deny, and your cheeks feel hot, and for some reason you feel angry. “In fact, I’m the one that should be asking you that question. Because I still very clearly remember that time you said I was just someone you know in front of your friends.”

He groans and tilts his head back with frustration. “Can you just let that go? Things have changed between us since then. Move on.”

“You kissed me and then pretended I was just a stranger to you in front of your friends,” you grit as you cross your arms. “That’s the level of sincerity that I know from you, Satoru.”

“Oh, okay, so there’s nothing else I’ve done that shows you that I’m serious about you?” he asks rhetorically with incredulity, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

No. That’s not true, not true at all. But he’s pissed you off now and so all logic was to the wind. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re not embarassed of me, and if you’re really serious about me this time, then fucking prove it.” You’re speaking out of spite, and you fear you’ve just set him off too.

“Fine,” he says, and he grabs the microphone straight out from a passing reporter’s hand, replacing it with a gatorade bottle. The reporter stares at the bottle he’s now holding with confusion. “I will.”

“W-Wait—” you squeak out, feeling the hair at the back of your neck bristle in anticipation and a shiver gets sent down your spine. The cheerleaders are making their way off the field at the end of their routine, and you can hear the thumps across the loud boisterous speakers when Gojo whacks his palm to the microphone to make sure the thing was on before he jogs to the center of the field.

The crowd is already cheering, ecstatic to see the afternoon's star player and pride & joy of their school, and Gojo takes a moment to soak in all the glory in comical appreciation with bowing towards all 360 degree angles of the stadium.

“Uhhh,” you hear Choso from beside you, who’s strapping his thick goalie gloves tightly to his wrists, “Why the fuck does Satoru have a microphone while standing in the middle of the field.”

“It can’t be for any publicly decent reason,” Geto muses.

All you can do is watch.

“Hi, uh,” Gojo starts, static blaring slightly across the speakers and the crowd winces with him, “sorry. I’m Satoru, Gojo Satoru, you might know me from—uh, the game you’ve been watching?”

Cheers all around, because as if a single person wouldn’t know who he is. The stands were rowdy and most definitely drunk off of sidestep beers the stadium has been serving all afternoon long.

Gojo is about to continue speaking, when he catches sight of the table of recruiters in the corner of his eye and he turns to face them out of respect. “Oh, yeah, uh, number 10,” he tugs his jersey up at the shoulder to stretch out the fabric, the 1 and the 0 flattened in view, “division player ID 233-997. Coach Yaga keeps my business cards in his purse if you want one.”

“SAAAAATTOOORRUUUU!!!!!” you hear Coach Yaga yell from somewhere in the distance.

“Anywho,” Gojo continues, and the music dims slightly, so he glances at the stop clock on the screen, which shows him he’s got roughly five minutes left to pull off whatever idiocracy he had in mind before the second half of the game starts. “Just here to say that there’s this girl I really like.”

The crowd gets louder, almost deafening, and sonically mostly feminine in (delusional) hope he’s gonna name call one of them.

Gojo’s voice is crisp and clear through the speakers as he clarifies. “She’s standing over there,” he says as he nonchalantly points to your exact latitude and longitudinal direction, “with the big camera slung around her neck that looks like it could pull her down to the center of the earth. Yeah. She’s super cute and I really like talking to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Geto murmurs from beside you, and you glance at him to try to get a read on the situation but you can’t.

Gojo starts to pace across the center of the field now, like he’s working the crowd. “But get this—she thinks I’m not fuckin’ serious about her!!!”

The crowd groans with him in unison. Yep, most certainly drunk. Or high off of glee. Either way, he’s playing them like a violin.

“Huh?” Gojo’s voice sounds distant now, away from the mic, and you can see on the large pixelated screen that he’s being interrupted by someone that looks like one of the videographers, “oh, what’s that? This is being broadcasted? Uh-huh. Oh. I’m not allowed to cuss? Oh fuck, okay. Er— shit, okay. Wait—shoot, okay.”

Choso’s smirk is heard from beside you, and you catch Geto and Nanami shaking their heads in your periphery.

“LIKE I SAID,” Gojo continues into the mic, “the girl I like thinks I’m just messing around, so. Uh. To show her that I’m serious about her, I’m gonna…” He looks up at the sky to ponder, and you can hear people shouting all sorts of suggestions of nonsense from the crowd. And instead of saying proclaim my undying affection for her through a romantic soliloquy straight from my heart in the presence of the entire school, he says—“I’m gonna strip. Yes. Down to my tighty whities, Imma strip.”

H–

Huh?!?!?

You don’t even have time to be horrified or scared, you’re just bewildered beyond belief that that’s what he came up with.

What the fuck kind of reassurance did you ask for. And what the fuck kind of reassurance were you about to get?

The crowd goes wild, it’s no surprise to say everyone and their mothers wants to see him naked, even the straight dudes would dig it for the gym inspo. And he points straight to you, sleazy look on his face and you’re going to ignore the fact that he just winked at you too as he crosses his arms to hold the hem of his jersey and pulls it up over his head in the most raunchy and slutty way a man can take his shirt off.

The music manager is quick with the bit, and is most definitely a fellow Gen Z college student, because Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack (ft. Timbaland) starts playing across the speakers and the crowd goes ballistic.

“Ayo why’s Satoru Magic Mike’ing the field right now?” one of his other teammates calls out through a mouthful of protein bar, “What the fuck did I miss?”

The cameraman does God’s work in a hella zoom-in of Gojo’s sweat glistened abs, then pans up the naked expanse of the perfect taut skin across his chest, and you can’t help but stare even among all your horror. It’s like when a male bird embarrasses the fuck outta himself to attract a female bird sitting on a perch, except instead of within the context of a NatGeo documentary, this was your real life. Everyone wants him, but he’s making a fool out of himself for you.

He pretends to stretch his arms up into the air, a cover-up to flex his biceps, and then he kicks his cleats off, and the socks come off too. Entirely unnecessary, as showing one's ankles is simply too slutty, but alas he’s a whore. And when his thumbs dip into the waistband of his shorts, and there’s anticipating screeching from the crowd, he finally gets chased by security.

Except he’s an intercollegiate D1 athlete, why the fuck wouldn’t he be able to outrun a bunch of dudes in black?

The camerawork on him is phenomenal as he runs across the sidelines of the field, eliciting a wave down the bleachers. So good in fact that you’re pretty sure the camera man could shoot for the Olympic track and field, with the way the stadium’s got a clear sight of Gojo mouthing the lyrics Them other fuckers don’t know how to act from the song still blaring with satirical rage on his face as he makes a fool of the men chasing him around the perimeter of the field.

And then he does it, drops his shorts, discards them with a kick, and he’s down to his tighty whities as promised. Cameraman has got to be displaying some previously undiscovered level of talent as he zeroes in on a shot of said tighty whities, with Gojo’s—forgive me, I need to be crass—huge bulge prominent in Big Dick Energy fashion except his tighty whities have little red hearts in rows across the fabric so do with that duality what you will.

He’s outrun security with a steady grin on his face as he eats up the drunken crowd’s cheers and riots and roars and you feel like you’re the only sane person in this stadium, or maybe you’re just not used to the fanatics of a college sports crowd. You peep the men in black trailed all the way on the left side of the field where they abandoned their pursuit of Gojo.

He taps imaginary pockets at his thighs, very muscular thighs you take indulgence in noticing, as if he expected to find something there, and he looks around when he doesn’t. He shrugs and grabs the microphone of the next passing sports commentator he spots, and then he makes his way back to you.

His breathing is a little shallow, and he inhales deep to catch his breath. “Baby.” The crowd SCREAMS at the way he purrs the word into the mic. “Will you do me the honor,” he’s huffing and puffing, heard across blaring speakers, “of being my lawfully wedded girlfriend?” And then he holds the mic to your lips.

“W-Wha—” you stutter, and there’s chanting across the crowd with words that barely make sense until you finally realize they’ve started to yell say yes! say yes! say yes! “Oh my gosh, okay, yes, fine, now please, for the love of god, put some freaking clothes on!”

The crowd goes wild with cheerful glees, and Gojo shoots fists up in the air in celebration as he runs all the way towards the center of the field with high knees, and you’re gawking at the sight, before he falls backward onto the grass and makes delirious snow angels on the ground. You see Coach Yaga’s vein popping in his neck from pure agitation as he storms off towards the center of the field to knock some sense into Gojo, but you know that Coach Yaga can’t kick him out, because they still have a game to win. The perks of being the most valued player in the league is getting to act like an absolutely insane idiot because you know they still need you in the end to bring it home.

You glance to the right, seeing his teammates nodding slowly then getting back to wrapping athletic tape around ankles and stretching out shoulders, with immediate acceptance of his actions like it wasn’t even out of character for him to do. And you realize again that you don’t know Gojo as well as you think you do.

And then the halftime timer is up.

You see Gojo approach the benches in a quick jog, squeezing some water into his mouth with his green gatorade squirt bottle, and when your eyes flit up to the screens on all four entrances, you see that the cameramen are still all focused on him accompanied by the continued buzz of conversation among the crowd following his public spectacle. But he seems to already be past any semblance of embarrassment as he takes the attention with ease, before he glances up to make eye contact with you and then lightly jogs right up to you.

“Did that prove to you that I’m not embarrassed of you?” he asks you, cocking a brow with a smug look on his face as he gets all up in your personal space.

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly thoroughly and expeditiously embarrassed of you now,” you say, cheeks feeling flush when he leans forward so he can make eye contact with you at eye level. “I’ll have to move to a different country.”

His grin is relaxed. “Yeah well you asked for it.”

“Maybe. But I underestimated what a lunatic you are.”

“You’re my girlfriend now, you’ve gotta get used to it.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. “Satoru–”

“Tomorrow,” he cuts you off, “Hinode pier. I’ll pick you up at six. It’s a date, so wear something cute. And preferably easy to take off.” And then he’s attentive to the chirp of the referee’s whistle in the air before jogging backwards towards the feel and eventually turns on his heel towards the field while you’re left with warm cheeks and a heart that felt like it was moving at a mile a minute.

The timer for the second half refreshes on the screen while you loosely hold your camera in your shaking hands. It occurs to you that you haven’t taken a single photo of him before the start of the kickoff, and so you bring the piece of consolidated metal up to your eyes, peering through the viewfinder and focusing it on the center of the field. And there he was. Your muse.

Gojo lets out a breath, which you can see even from here that it’s shaky and staggered with resistance, and he lifts his jersey up to swipe at the sweat trickling down his face as he eyes the ball underneath YCU’s player’s foot just prior to the start of the second half. There it was—that look again of pure focus.

3-1, forty-five minutes on the clock. And the referee chirps the whistle to start the second half.

It’s immediately evident that YCU has returned to the field following halftime with renewed energy, pressing high down the flank relentlessly past UTokyo’s defense, so fast it was hard for anybody to even keep a steady eye on the ball with the fluidity of their passes. The persistence pays off in the fake double-pass that slips past Geto’s feet, a moment of hesitation in the broken flow of UTokyo’s defense, and one of YCU’s strikers has the perfect line of shot towards the goal before digging his foot under the ball and sending it flying towards the corner of the goal post, scoring themselves a goal within just the first five minutes of play.

3-2.

The pressure mounts at the next kickoff, and with about seven minutes of solid play, with back-and-forth passes, multiple attempts at both goal posts to no avail on either side, it was clear that exhaustion was bustling in the veins of all the players.

One of YCU’s offensive players seems to capitalize on this, jumping on a defensive lapse of a pass Nanami attempted to make towards Yuta, and the ball is swiftly stolen then raced back towards the goal post. Choso prepared himself at the line, light on his feet paired with a solid stance, but in a millisecond of a moment, YCU’s offense unexpectedly passes the ball to a player racing up the midfield, and the player chips the ball neatly into the exposed corner of the goal despite Choso’s attempt to lunge for it in mid air.

Equalized, 3-3 game, momentary shock across the players’ faces, and the crowd bustles with something that sounds less like glee and more life fear. YCU was prepared to live up to and hold onto their title as the league’s number one offense, and as Minato explained to you during your time working in this job, an offensive team isn’t good at scoring goals, but rather exceptional at breaking down the other team’s defense.

Your eyes zero in on Geto, who stands in the center of the field for kickoff, and he’s huffing and puffing. He's the lead of defense for the team, and you can only imagine the level of pressure he feels right now. He glances around to his players, over to Nanami who seemed to share the same level of exhaustion, and then he glances towards Gojo who stood in front of him off to the right. Except you notice that Gojo looks relaxed, albeit still exhausted, but there’s a composed expression on his face even in the moment of heightened stakes. With locked eyes, Geto nods at Gojo and raises two fingers up into the air to signal a play, of which Gojo seems to respond to by closing more distance between him and the goal post prior to the kickoff, positioning himself almost directly in front of it, to which YCU’s defense immediately begin to guard him in a tight radius.

The kickoff begins, with Geto making a few passbacks with Nanami as they close distance towards the field before passing it off to UTokyo’s string of offense and then receding back to their defending goal. UTokyo continues to close distance, raising stakes for YCU as their defense begins to falter under pressure, and the ball gets passed to Gojo, who only keeps it in possession for less than three seconds before he passes it back to Yuuji, a risky decision to make in the second half of a semifinal match, but the first-year swiftly unleashes a powerful shot that rockets past YCU’s goalkeeper, up towards the corner, except–

It bounces off the metal of the goal post, shot off with projectile speed back towards the center of the field, but with razor-sharp reflexes, Gojo headbutts the ball in air, twists his torso and strikes the ball with his foot past a dumbfounded goalie who can’t even move an inch to guard the ball that he already knew was going to sink right into the goal, and that’s exactly what it does.

The stadium erupts with the momentum.

4-3, UTokyo.

It was a sweet moment, one you manage to capture on camera of Gojo running up to Yuuji and ruffling his hair in reassurance, despite the missed goal. Your heart feels warm in your chest, feeling your own sense of melancholy that this was one of the last times they’ll ever get to play together on a team.

Your eyes widen when you glance at the scoreboard, realizing that he’s tied. Gojo is tied for the most goals scored during a championship match. There were less than three minutes left on the clock. UTokyo either preserves their lead, or they risk moving into overtime, which, judging by the exhaustion on the UTokyo players’ faces in the wake of YCU’s relentless offense this entire game, moving into overtime would be a hefty, hefty risk.

YCU’s center forward takes his place in the center of the field, fire evident in his eyes as he glances across the field. YCU are light on their feet, channeling everything in their bodies into these last moments of the game as they prepare to start the kickoff. You glance across UTokyo’s players, and although they look spent, there was a resolute look to all of them. It wasn’t the time to give up or feel at ease even near the end of this grueling battle. Now was the time to play.

The referee chirped his whistle, and the kickoff began.

YCU immediately presses hard, as all their other plays have been all game, in their desperation to score. You can already see UTokyo’s midfielders move sluggishly in comparison to YCU’s offense, a drag to their feet as YCU pushes past the first layer of defense towards their attacking goal. Geto takes an aggressive approach, making moves to steal the ball while Nanami and Yuta guarded both flanks, and there was a relentless pass-off happening that ate up more than a minute of the remaining time.

Nanami succeeds in stealing the ball, but immediately loses it under his feet by a YCU midfielder, who makes a broad pass down the sidelines to YCU’s star forward who then powerfully kicks the ball towards the unguarded area of their goal, a dangerous shot that was clear towards the crossbar and Choso makes a leap for it, high into the air, his glove brushing against the ball, the entire crowd holding their breath in anticipation–

And the ball lands in the net.

4-4, tied game. With one minute and seventeen seconds left on the clock.

There was no time wasted in getting back to center field. No time spent dwelling in the horrific roars of the crowd as they watch with anxiety and fear. No time spent to process or consider or signal any plays. Not even a single second used to catch breath. When there is this much at stake, an athlete thrives on momentum.

To your surprise, Gojo isn’t the one that takes place at the center of the field to start the kickoff. Yuta stands there instead, and you notice his eyes are erratic as he surveys all corners of the field.

The referee chirps his whistle.

Yuta immediately passes it off to the side to UTokyo’s midfielder, who curls it towards their attacking goal with a swift pass to Ino, who closes distance towards the goal, but one of YCU’s defender slips in, undoing any progress they had made in their offense by stealing the ball and sending it back towards mid-field. Forty-three seconds. The crowd’s roars heightened as YCU continued to push forward, thirty yards now from scoring, and UTokyo’s defense was desperate to stop them but their momentum was cracking in the wake of their exhaustion.

It was a moment you don’t think you could ever fully or truly recall, one that you wish you had focused all your energy and attention to so that you could commit it to memory for the rest of your life. The image of Gojo pushing all the way to ten yards before their defending goal, a place where no center forward should really be at in a game like this, but it was exactly what their defense needed. It was exactly what the team needed. It was exactly what the school needed. For the ball to be in his possession.

With twenty-two seconds left on the clock, he steals the ball from right under YCU’s offensive feet, and then charges towards the opposite side of the field. The crowd rises to their feet, thunderous roaring that overtook any and all senses, as Gojo weaves through forwards, center forwards, midfielders, and defenders, covering the entire span of the field in lightning time. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards, twenty hards, ten yards–

In a moment you couldn’t believe, he digs his foot underneath the ball, and sends it flying out towards the goal. There was not even a margin of an inch in which it slipped past the goalie’s hands, past his head, and swiftly flew right into the net.

With three-two-one seconds, the match was over.

5-4, UTokyo’s win.

The final whistle blew, and for a moment, there was silence. As if the world paused to catch its breath. Then, all at once, the crowd erupted with glee that shook the entire stadium at its core. Flags waving, scarves held high, toasts of beer held up to the sky, it was deafening, and it almost makes you want to cry. Thousands of voices shouting in unison, celebrating the hard-fought victory of their school’s team. A type of pride that was fostered, and well-deserved, and long-lived.

You quickly glance towards the field again, and see Gojo standing right at the same spot where he had kicked the last and final goal, staring towards the net. You can’t see the expression on his face, but it surprises you how still he is. Like a statue, staring at the goal with the ball tucked into its corner. The very epitome of what it means to succeed in this sport was right in front of him, and it seemed like he wanted to soak the visual in for as long as he could.

His trance is abruptly interrupted when his teammates swarm in, rushing over like a wave of pure adrenaline. They slap him on the back, ruffle his hair, shout his name, the sounds of gleeful disbelief mixed with exhausted sighs of relief swarming into the air. And Gojo finally melts away from the tension of the match and into the celebration as he weakly returns the embraces of his teammates while he catches his breath.

“IT’S OFFICIAL!! IT’S OFFICIAL!! UTOKYO’S VERY OWN GOJO SATORU HAS OBLITERATED OSAKA UNIVERSITY’S RECORD FOR MOST GOALS SCORED BY A SINGLE PLAYER IN A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!!”

The speakers are blaring the voices of the sports announcers, along with ambient music to match the intensity of the match that everyone had just witnessed.

You should probably be doing your job. You know, take a picture of the huddle of players on the field as they bask in the glory of a close victory, but instead your feet start moving on their own. Like a magnet drawn to him, you make your way towards Gojo, only a slight hesitation in your step as you stop about ten feet away, suddenly unsure. But when he makes eye contact with you, all that fear melts away.

He hastily pats the backs of some of his teammates, acknowledging their praise at the center of the huddle before tightly squeezing past them to make his way over to you. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of pride in your school’s team, but more importantly, in him. What was the acceptable thing to do? Run to him, into his arms, and hug him while he twirls you around? Tackle him to the grassy ground? Kiss him like your life depended on it? You have no clue what the acceptable or sane or normal thing to do is. But he’s made his decision for you when he walks right up to you, his hands holding your waist as he pulls you towards him. He smells earthy, of grass and salt and sweat and of all the hard work he poured into today, the wear and tear of the game evident in the wear and tear of his jersey. He only manages to huff out an exhale at the sight of you, like some relief washing over him just by looking into your eyes. Forget the fact that the crowd was all watching and that all of the screens you could see past his head were focused on the two of you, because all you could hear or see or think was him.

“I believe you owe me a kiss,” he says, huffing as he catches his breath but that doesn’t stop the smile that makes its way onto his face.

You nod your head, giving him your own version of a sweet smile as your arms slide up past his shoulders, crossing behind his neck, and he leans down to kiss you.

You hear a swell from the crowd, some teasing comments off in the distance from some of his teammates, you’re pretty sure you hear Coach Yaga yelling at him to get back to the benches, but it all melts away with the feeling of him smiling against your lips as he kisses you at the center of this stadium.

It was a moment so pure, so sweet, so picture perfect, and for once, you’re not the one behind the camera taking the photo. You’re the one that’s in it.

[end of kickoff ch12]

a/n. aaa thanks a lot for reading!! pls the fucking public stripping scene was so stupid i apologize on behalf of kickoff gojo for his behavior 😂😂 i’ll put him in his cage dw this chapter had some of what i consider to be the most challenging aspects of writing for me (internal conflict, grand public gesture, sports jargon) and so writing it felt like an uphill battle the ENTIRE time i wrote it and edited it. i considered scrapping it sooo many times cuz i just wasn't happy w it...but whatever i can't expect to be 100% happy w every chapter i put out there haha. i think kickoff has become a lil sacred for me since i've been working on it for a while now but likeee...sometimes u just gotta say fuck it we ball (tbh kickoff gojo probably says that to himself before a match) anywho, i am veryy thoroughly excited for what i've got planned for the chapters to follow, especially moving into the last angsty arc before the end of the series!! so i look forward to picking up momentum w this series again :0 honestly chapters 10 through 12 were the most difficult things i've written so far for a lot of reasons, but i have a feeling things will go more smoothly for me creatively going forward since what i've got planned falls well within my writing comfort range oh also there seems to be a little confusion about the number of chapters left, as i know i had originally said 12, but i anticipate that there will be about 18 chapters of kickoff total!! so still around six chapters left before the end :)) much lovee thanks for reading!!

OH WAIT ONE LAST NOTE I'M SORRY i didn’t really have a way of organically incorporating this into the story n i’m not sure if i’ll get a chance to in the upcoming chapters, so i just wanted to share this part of ch7 (gojo’s pov chapter) that is relevant to this chapter:

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant.

the record that gojo broke in this chapter is the same record that his father almost broke before he got the call that he was going to be a dad :0

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes. please do not pressure me for updates or ask when i will next update (read rules); taglist is currently closed (consider subscribing to the story on my ao3 for email updates if you'd like! :0)

taglist:

@megumisdivinedogs @witchbybirth @avatarl0v3r @mwtsxri @asherheed

@wynney @delulux3 @higurumapet @zombriesworld @xenop0p

@phoenix-eclipses @who-can-touch-my-boob @mo0nforme @reagan707 @lost-resonance

@foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @beabadobeee @thexmistress

@tsukikourito @pickuptruck01 @gabriiiiiiii @4y3sh4 @tiredflame132

@cliosunshine @btszn @izayas-rings @semra4 @ethereally-lyann

@drthymby @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010

@joemama-2 @horisdope @banenemilk @nanasukii28 @spindyl

@ri-sa20 @thexmistress @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @sashisuslover

@chwesuh-imnida @megumisthirdog @imjustaweirdnerd @angelicscribe

[taglist is closed]

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ponderingmoonlight · 3 days

Text

How JJK Men React to Seeing You in Their Clothes

Pairings: Gojo x fem!reader; Megumi x fem!reader; Yuta x fem!reader; Nanami x fem!reader

Word Count: 2,5k

Warnings: fluff over fluff, I'm pretty sure I already wrote something like this but I can't find it anymore lol, all scenarios talk about the clothes of the said jjk men being big on you so please don't read if this isn't what you vibe with (but feel free to let me know if you want a version in which their clothes actually fit reader quite well!)

Gojo Satoru

The apartment is unusually quiet as you move through the living room, your bare feet padding lightly across the cool floor. Gojo had left early this morning to deal with some “business,” leaving you alone with nothing but a mess of his belongings scattered around. You’re not one to complain though - cleaning up after him has become second nature after spending so much time together.

As you tidy up his place, you come across one of his oversized hoodies. It’s sprawled across the back of a chair, still slightly wrinkled from when he wore it the night before. The faint scent of his cologne lingers in the fabric, and for reasons you can’t quite explain, you find yourself reaching for it.

It’s soft, much softer than you expected. You hold it for a moment, staring at it thoughtfully before a mischievous grin tugs at your lips. You slip the hoodie over your head, the fabric swallowing you whole. The sleeves are comically long, almost covering your hands completely, and the hemline reaches down to your thighs. It’s so big that it feels like you’re wearing a blanket, and despite yourself, you giggle at the sight of your reflection in the hallway mirror.

You sit down on the couch, pulling your legs up under the hoodie, and let yourself relax into the comfort of wearing something that smells like him. His signature cologne that follows him around wherever he goes, that makes your heart skip a beat every time you smell it. To be honest, you really miss him. These past weeks were so busy that you didn’t really get the chance to see him more than 2 hours before passing out sleeping. What you’d do for a whole afternoon, just you and him…

Not long after, you hear the oh so accustomed sound of the door unlocking, followed by the familiar voice of Satoru calling out, “I’m home!”

You stiffen for a moment, wondering how he’ll react, but you can’t hide now. Fuck, you never wore his clothes before. After all, they belong to him and you have no right to grab his stuff as you please.

Before you can say anything to defend yourself, Gojo steps into the living room, his bright blue eyes immediately locking onto you.

There’s a beat of silence. Then, a slow, amused grin spreads across his face.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” he teases, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.

His sunglasses are perched on his head, revealing his crystalline eyes that seem to glow with delight.

“Did you raid my closet while I was gone?”

You roll your eyes, trying to play it cool despite the sudden warmth creeping up your neck.

“Your place was cold. Figured I’d borrow something.”

Gojo doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he walks over to you, crouching in front of the couch as he eyes you up and down. His grin widens as he takes in the way the hoodie completely engulfs you, making you look even smaller than usual.

“Looks good on you,” he murmurs, his voice lower now, laced with something playful but undeniably affectionate.

He reaches out, tugging on one of the oversized sleeves gently.

“In fact, I think it suits you better than it does me.”

You scoff, though your heart skips a beat at the way he’s looking at you, like you’re the most fascinating thing in the world.

“You think everything looks good on me.”

“That’s because it does.”

His grin is infuriatingly confident, but there’s a softness in his gaze that makes your breath catch.

“But you, wearing my clothes? I think that might be my favorite look.”

He leans closer, his nose brushing against your temple before pressing a soft kiss there.

“You can keep it if you want,” he whispers, his breath warm against your skin.

“I don’t think I’m getting it back anyway.”

Megumi Fushiguro

It’s early morning, the sun just beginning to rise over the horizon, casting a soft glow over Megumi’s small apartment. He’s still asleep, his dark hair a mess of unruly strands as he breathes softly beside you. You’ve been staying with him for the weekend, a rare break from the chaos of jujutsu sorcery.

As you quietly slip out of bed, careful not to wake him, you feel the cool air hit your skin. Without thinking, you look around the room for something to cover yourself with. Your eyes land on one of Megumi’s plain black shirts, tossed haphazardly over the back of a chair. It’s oversized, much bigger than anything you’d typically wear, but you shrug and grab it anyway.

Slipping it over your head, the fabric is soft and familiar, carrying the faint scent of him. It hangs loosely on your frame, the sleeves too long and the hem falling halfway down your thighs. You glance at yourself in the mirror, a small smile tugging at your lips. There’s something comforting about wearing his clothes, like having a part of him with you even when he’s asleep.

As you turn back toward the bed, you freeze. Megumi’s awake. His dark eyes are half-lidded, still clouded with sleep as he watches you from the bed. You can’t quite read his expression -it’s a mixture of surprise, confusion, and something else you can’t place.

“You’re up early,” he mutters, his voice still thick with sleep.

You shrug, feeling a little self-conscious under his gaze.

“Couldn’t sleep. I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed your shirt.”

Megumi blinks, his gaze drifting over you slowly. He doesn’t say anything right away, but you can see the way his eyes linger on the way the shirt swallows you, how it looks like you’re drowning in fabric. After a long moment, he finally speaks, his voice quieter than before.

“It looks good on you,” he finally speaks out, a little awkwardly, as if he’s not quite sure how to compliment you.

“Better than it does on me.”

You can’t help but laugh at how flustered he seems, even though he’s trying to play it cool.

“Really? I think it’s a little big.”

Megumi shakes his head, sitting up in bed and running a hand through his messy hair.

“No. It’s perfect.”

He pauses for a moment before adding, almost shyly,

“You should wear my stuff more often.”

His words catch you off guard, and you raise an eyebrow at him, surprised. Even though you know all too well that Megumi Fushiguro has a soft spot for you, you never really thought about stealing or borrowing his stuff. After all, he is the guy who slaps the back of Yuji’s head each and every day over stealing his sandwich or equipment. And now…he’s telling you straightforward that he wants you to wear his shirts?

“You want me to?”

He looks away, his usual stoic mask slipping just a bit as a faint blush creeps up his cheeks.

“I mean... yeah. It suits you.”

Your heart skips a beat at his admission. Megumi isn’t one for big, flowery declarations, but this, this small, almost hesitant compliment, is enough to make your chest warm. You walk over to him, climbing back into bed and curling up beside him like you always do after waking up.

“Well, if you insist,” you mutter teasingly, leaning your head on his shoulder.

“I might just steal more of your clothes.”

Megumi huffs, but there’s a softness in his eyes as he wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer.

“Go ahead,” he mumbles, tugging at the hem of his loose shirt.

“I don’t mind.”

Yuta Okkotsu

You’ve been staying at Yuta’s apartment for the past few days, crashing at his place while you’re both on a break from missions. It’s been nice: quiet, peaceful, just the two of you enjoying each other’s company without the usual chaos of jujutsu high looming over you.

It’s late in the evening now, and you’ve just gotten out of the shower, feeling refreshed after a long day. As you towel off your hair, you realize you forgot to grab something to wear. Your suitcase is still in the living room, and you don’t really feel like walking out there in just a towel.

Your groan in frustration over your usual absent-mindlessness, eyes landing on one of Yuta’s old sweatshirts, folded neatly on the chair by his desk. It’s a little worn, clearly well-loved, and the idea of wearing something of his brings a smile to your face. Yuta definitely wouldn’t mind you wearing one of his shirts, right? And even if he did…you’d love to see that little blush creep up his face.

Without thinking twice, you pull the sweatshirt over your head. It’s oversized, the sleeves long enough to cover your hands, and the fabric is soft and cozy against your skin.

You’re adjusting the sleeves when the door creaks open slightly. You look up just as Yuta steps into the room, his eyes widening in surprise when he sees you.

“Oh, hey-” he starts, but then he freezes, his gaze locking onto the sweatshirt you’re wearing.

His face flushes almost instantly, a deep red creeping up his cheeks as he stares at you.

“Uh… is that…?”, Yuta stammers, clearly flustered.

You glance down at the sweatshirt and smile sheepishly.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind. I forgot to grab my clothes, and this looked comfortable.”

Yuta blinks, his face still bright red, but he quickly shakes his head.

“No! I mean, I don’t mind at all! It’s just… you look… um…”

He trails off, his eyes flicking away as if he’s too embarrassed to finish the sentence.

You giggle softly, stepping closer to him, to tease the hell out of him even more. That poor innocent boy who doesn’t even dare looking your direction when you stumble in the bathroom in the morning with noting but a shirt and panties on.

Even though you’ve been together for over a year by now.

“I look… what?”

Yuta clears his throat, still avoiding your gaze.

“You look… really cute,” he mutters, barely audible.

“In my sweatshirt, I mean.”

Your heart swells at his words, and you can’t help but smile as you reach out and take his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Thanks, Yuta.”

He finally meets your gaze, his face still red but his expression softening as he squeezes your hand back.

“You can wear my clothes anytime you want,” he says quietly, a shy smile tugging at his lips.

You grin, stepping closer and wrapping your arms around his waist.

“I might just take you up on that.”

Yuta chuckles, his arms wrapping around you in return as he pulls you close.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“Not at all.”

Nanami Kento

It’s late, and Nanami is still out on a mission. You’ve been waiting for him to come home, but the clock is ticking past midnight, and exhaustion is beginning to catch up with you. After all, you’ve had a long and exhausting day at work yourself.

You’re curled up on the couch, half-asleep, when the chill of the evening air prompts you to grab something warmer to wear.

Your own clothes are in the bedroom, and you don’t feel like moving that far. Instead, your eyes land on one of Nanami’s neatly folded dress shirts, sitting on the back of a chair. It’s probably not the warmest option, but the idea of wearing something of his feels comforting, like having a part of him with you while you wait for him to return.

You slip the shirt on, the crisp fabric soft against your skin. It’s too big, of course, the sleeves hanging past your wrists and the hem falling almost to your knees, but it’s cozy in its own way. You curl up on the couch again, pulling the sleeves over your hands and breathing in the faint scent of him that still lingers on the fabric.

You don’t realize you’ve dozed off until the sound of the front door opening stirs you awake. You sit up groggily, blinking as Nanami steps inside, looking tired but unharmed. He pauses when he sees you, his eyes widening slightly as he takes in the sight of you wearing his shirt.

For a moment, neither of you say anything. Then, a small, almost imperceptible smile tugs at the corner of Nanami’s lips.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he observes, his voice calm but with a hint of amusement.

You rub your eyes sleepily, nodding.

“It was cold, and I didn’t feel like getting up.”

Nanami walks over to you, his expression soft as he takes in the sight of you.

“It suits you,” he murmurs, his voice low and warm.

“I didn’t expect to come home to this.”

You shrug, feeling a little self-conscious under his gaze.

“If you don’t like it, I can-”

“I like it,” he cuts in, his tone firm but gentle.

He reaches out, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear before his hand lingers at your cheek.

“I like it very much.”

You smile, leaning into his touch as you look up at him.

“I might have to borrow your clothes more often, then.”

Nanami chuckles softly, his thumb brushing against your cheek before he leans down to press a soft kiss to your forehead.

“You’re welcome to them,” he breathes out.

“Though I have to admit, you make my clothes look much better than I do.”

You laugh softly, your heart warming at his rare display of affection.

“I doubt that.”

Nanami shakes his head, his eyes soft and filled with affection as he looks at you.

“It’s true. But regardless, you’re welcome to them anytime” he insists.

With that, he sits down beside you on the couch, pulling you into his side as he wraps an arm around your shoulders. You snuggle into him, the warmth of his body and the comfort of his shirt making you feel safe and content.

“Thank you, Kento,” you whisper, closing your eyes as exhaustion starts to pull you back into sleep.

Nanami presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, his voice low and soothing as he murmurs,

“Anytime, love.”

Tags:

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@hellkaiserinphoenix @lauv4chuuya @sindela @kayleegomez @sunshine7queen

@magalimachete @gatitam @idontknow1123 @creative1writings @sanicsmut

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corkinavoid · 22 hours

Text

DPxDC John Constantine's How To: Ghost Kids (pt.2)

[<- part 1]

"Oh, yeah," John jerks his head up like he just remembered the fact people are supposed to have names at all. He gestures to the kids, pointing to each of them as he introduces, "Daniel, Daniel, and Danielle."

This time, all three kids flip him off simultaneously. Bruce clears his throat, trying to figure out if Constantine is messing with him and, if so, in which parts. Since, so far, everything the man has said sounds like a poor attempt at pulling his leg.

"I don't think they like those," he cautiously says, and the kids whip their heads at him, nodding furiously. Bruce can't help but be just a little enamored with the way they behave.

"Of, sod off, at this point I don't care what they like," John straightens up with a dismissive, albeit weak, wave of his hands, and rubs his face, "They are menaces. Sometimes by accident, but mostly on purpose. Their grandfather thought it would be easier to handle them if they were not teenagers, and while I agreed with his reasoning at the time, I-" he glances at the kids, who all have displeased grimaces of various levels on their faces, "I have been made to reconsider. I swear that ancient bitch is laughing his ass off wherever he is now."

The kids suddenly grin. They are not very friendly, nor polite smiles - if anything, they look a bit nightmarish. An old grandfather's clock in his study makes a very loud ticking noise.

"See?" John whips his head to look at said clock, the expression on his face bordering on insane. His eye twitches.

If Bruce doesn't do anything now, he might become one of the very few people who managed to witness John Constantine, the Laughing Magician, have a meltdown. So he sighs and decides to solve the problems one at a time.

Which means that no matter how alarmed or suspicious he is, his first move would not be to interrogate either the man or the kids.

"You can sleep in one of the guest rooms, I trust you can find it on your own," he tells John, almost softly, as he catches the girl from slipping away from his lap, "Is there anything I need to know about children before you fall unconscious?"

John slumps with relief, so obviously that Bruce almost smiles. Hardships of raising - or, watching, for that matter - kids, he understands.

"Yes," he breathes out with an air of exhilaration and turns to the kids again, pointing to the middle child, "Danny is the original. He is from this dimension and timeline, that is. Dan," he turns his finger to the older boy, "is in the wrong timeline, he's Danny's future evil self redeemed into older bratty brother. Dani," he switches to the girl, "is Danny's clone, made by his arch-nemesis of a godfather. If she starts melting at any point, wake me up immediately. If any of them start floating, sprouting tentacles, speaking to walls in static, or glowing, don't."

Bruce looks down to the kids. So, definitely metas, that would explain the government trying to get them... Or, no, it wouldn't because he is fairly certain no government is going to blatantly ignore the Meta Protection Acts.

"Don't let them raise the dead, and if you give them food, make sure it doesn't have a face. If you find more than three of them, it means one of them has duplicated, don't worry, they will absorb it back later. Absolutely don't let them touch any guns," Constantine is backing down to the door as he speaks, his gaze flickering from the kids to Bruce and back every second. Like he is leaving a ticking bomb in Bruce's lap, and not three children. "Danny is, comparatively, the most responsible one, the other two are up for any dubious trouble they can get to at any moment. Oh, and their memories are wonky because of de-aging, they remember some things but not others, so if they say something particularly disturbing, it's most likely some random piece of knowledge they managed to keep."

Bruce raises an eyebrow. He did get the part about the kids being, well, abnormal in the matters of their origins, but the disjointed set of rules and advices doesn't help as much as Constantine probably thinks it does.

"Allergies, preferences, ages they were before?" He tries to get at least some more info down before John disappears through the door. Actually, maybe he should send someone to handcuff the man to the bed lest he disappears completely.

"None, but don't let them eat cutlery. Danny likes space, Dani has a thing for exploring, and Dan likes violence." The older kid stirs in Bruce's lap and says something in the direction of Constantine. No sound comes out, but the man seems to get what he's trying to say anyway, "Okay, yes, that was rude of me, sorry. Dan likes... exercise," he ends up with, and that placate the boy enough to slump down and cross his arms. John sighs, "They were seventeen, fourteen, and twenty respectively. Now," he snaps his fingers, and suddenly Bruce can hear the girl - Dani - humming a tune under her breath. So, he lifted the silence spell, it seems.

"Good fucking luck," John wishes to Bruce, earnestly, and all but vanishes away.

Bruce sighs and looks down to the kids.

"Are you hungry?" He tries, and all eyes are on him at once, attentive and unblinking.

"Fruitloops," Danny says, and while Bruce is positive that's the name for a cereal, he gets a feeling that's not what the kid meant.

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chilumi-shipper · 2 days

Text

Soulbound

Zhongli x GN!Reader (Soulmate!AU)

Summary: Zhongli hated the mark on his neck, and he hated whoever the mark bounded him to. But fate plays a cruel joke, matching him with you, as he swore he would love no one else but Guizhong.

Tags: Angst/No Comfort, Short Story, Rejection, Hurtful Words, Hatred to Love

Soulmark - A mark that binds two individuals as soulmates.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Morax had always been frustrated by the mark on his neck.

A glowing, permanent part of his body that marks him tied to a soulmate. He thinks its stupid, for the love of his life was already in front of him, a gray-haired inventor that no carving in his body could ever stop him from adoring.

He finds it unbelievable that his neck is claimed by a soulmark yet Guizhong's remain blank, and he curses Celestia above for such a foul joke.

How could he be for anyone else but her?

When her dust settled in the field of glaze lilies he thought were incomparable to her beauty, he was utterly devasted, his clawed hands held onto his neck, wanting to rip the soulmark that had been taunting him for centuries.

How could he be marked for someone else while the love of his life laid lifeless?

He loathed his mark, everything about it, and he will till his last breath.

...

Zhongli deeply dislikes you.

You are a messy, silly, babbling buffoon.

An adventurer from Mondstadt that embodies the nation's will of freedom. Bubbly, carefree, and loud, much like a fellow god he didn't particularly like.

Despite of his disdain of you, your affection towards him never wavered. You filled his somber days with excitement as you joyfully tell him stories about your adventures, share some new recipes you've learned, even ushering him to talk about obscure Liyue historical facts that you've always found interesting.

He was much too proper to shoo you away, and his cold looks and short responses didn't discourage you to try to make friends with the man that peeked your curiosity.

Ever so slowly, you had pried open his caged heart, planting a small seed that was so distinctly you.

He would have accepted you, he would have seen you as a friend... and yet...

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a faint, familiar mark on your neck, revealed when you put your hair up into a ponytail.

Zhongli knew he truly disliked you.

...

"I don't believe in the marks either, Mr. Zhongli..." You reasoned with him, but his gaze still stung you with daggers.

He caged himself back up, ensuring that you could not care for the little seed you planted, no light would be able to reach it again.

His heart would not open...

No matter how many times he catches himself smiling at your antics.

No matter if he displays every gift and trinket you give him from your travels.

No matter how much he preferred your cooking over anyone else's.

No matter how beautiful you look staring up at him with your doe eyes as you confess your affection.

No matter how frustrated he felt at himself when he made you cry as he rejects your feelings.

Because, for him, how could there be anyone else but her?

...

"Do you see why it could never be you?"

You both stood in front of a monument, surrounded by various plants and objects you assume to be from friends of this ancient goddess.

"I bet she was amazing."

"She was perfect. Perhaps that's why I was not worthy to share a mark with her."

At this point, you were used to his words, how they praise her, how they degrade you.

"You're pretty great too, Zhongli..."

Faith places identical marks on the necks of two soulmates, and the rest is a romantic story of the passion that builds up as people pursue their marks of love.

Fate is cruel to you and him.

"That mark is not for you, Y/N." The Geo Archon says to you, tearing you apart silently, as you stand and take his words.

His heart quivers despite the harsh words coming from his own mouth. Even after millennia of having the mark engraved on his neck, after concluding that maybe he would allow your little seed to prosper even just for a bit, he still chooses to cling onto his hopeless past.

Tears fall down from your eyes, but you remain quiet, only nodding in agreement.

You loathed the mark on your neck.

...

Zhongli opens the cage of his heart a little, allowing him to peak at the small sprout from the seed you planted.

So distinctly you, it was the only thing he has of you.

After letting you leave him at Guizhong's monument with tears still staining your face, he couldn't help but miss you.

He couldn't help but let you finally take your place in his heart, after so long of hating his soulmark, hating whoever the mark tied him to, he fears he has finally accepted faith.

...

"Where is it?" He grips your arm harshly, his hold not faltering as you try to shake him off. His gaze was cold, yet you could still catch the hint of alarm in his eyes. "What have you done?"

After weeks... you return to him... missing something.

You winced at the stress of his words, feeling frightened under his tense hold. "I..." His bruising grip didn't falter, urging you to explain yourself. "S-Surprise...?"

"You..." Zhongli looks at you in disbelief. "How stupid could you be?"

"M-Mr. Zhongli... it's a blessing of the Anemo Archon... I prayed for him set us free from fate."

"Y/N... I..." He was at a loss for words, his heart ached as his eyes searched your neck in vain. "Fate... going against it is painful. It must've been excruciating."

"It was... but this if for you, Zhongli..." You smiled, feeling him loosen his grip. "Because I love... loved you." You fully free yourself from him, rubbing at where he previously held you.

The wind around him picked up, and he hears the faint whispers of an old friend along with it. Whispers of comfort, as he clearly ruined what would have been the light of the rest of his days.

Your soulmark fades, but his remains...

Zhongli loathed his mark, for it bears no meaning, no one but him bears that mark.

As you leave, trying to fade away in the background of his life, you remain under a spotlight in his eyes, for you will always be the one that shares his mark, no matter if it is visible.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

What y'all think of this one? :3

I bet y'all's feelings were hurt hehe

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact #genshin impact angst #genshin angst #genshin impact zhongli #genshin zhongli #zhongli x reader #zhongli angst

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taasgirl · 23 hours

Text

blame - driver!reader x grid

summary: driver!reader goes to war protecting her teammate and best friend, max verstappen.

a/n: this is NOT a romance smau!!

liked by user76, user98, and 6, 872, 014 others f1 Following a breach of conditions set by the FIA, Max Verstappen will serve a mandatory community service period.

tagged: maxverstappen1

ynusername just say ya'll can't handle him and move on!!!

user27 be careful y/n, they'll send you too user46 HAHA SHE'S SO REAL

user51 this is so stupid

user90 who decided this???

user75 Okay I understand him getting community service for the Ocon incident, but for swearing?

user21 they're treating max like he's a child

liked by oscarpiastri, redbullracing, and 2, 379, 918 others ynusername unbothered, moisturised, and definitely plotting to overthrow the fia!

tagged: maxverstappen1

user59 My dreams 5 minutes before my alarm:

user61 y/n and max are never beating the platonic soulmates allegations

user87 Get yourself a teammate that fights the FIA on your behalf @/estebanocon

maxverstappen1 I was going to say something nice then I saw the last photo.

ynusername pls still compliment me x

oscarpiastri I agree with the caption

landonorris ur too ashy to be moisturised

view ynusername's story...

caption only the FIA could ruin a beautiful flight @/alex_albon

liked by carlossainz55, alex_albon, and 1, 256, 280 others ynusername me and bro suiting up to destroy the FIA

tagged: carlossainz55, landonorris

lewishamilton This is why you're my favourite on the grid

ynusername this is why you're the 🐐

oscarpiastri Hey I hope you were joking when you said you'd be turning into a grid terror haha (please be joking)

ynusername don't worry ur safe xx

landonorris WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS Y/N???

landonorris If me and my gang pull up ahh post

ynusername yup you're now my number one target for unironically using 'ahh'

maxverstappen1 I hope I am bro

ynusername there's no one i'd rather serve community service with

liked by fernandoalo_oficial, lewishamilton, and 3, 287, 3389 others ynusername don't worry I won't actually replicate crashgate. however, please know that I have free reign over my radio xx

landonorris Thank god u had me scared for a minute

user49 y/n is taking this too far 😭

ynusername oh i can go further if needed

lewishamilton HAHA this is gold y/n

ynusername when I have the praise of sir lewis hamilton then I know that I'm doing something right

user20 OMG Y/N GOING INSANE ON RADIO IS A NEEEED

user91 y/n is the only reason i'm tuning in this weekend

view ynusername's story...

caption: I have some business to attend to this sunday afternoon

liked by user62, user87, and 209, 557 others f1updates Not shy on the radio so far! Y/N on the formation lap, and she'd already quizzing her engineer.

user83 she's so unserious i love her

user90 This is my sign to strictly watch her onboard today

user41 y/n really is going to put on a show huh

liked by user 34, user75, and 1, 722, 981 others f1updates A few of the unhinged thing's Y/N was saying during today's race. Safe to say that she may be sporting a ban for the next race.

user38 her engineer replying with 'affirm' is so fucking funny to me

user92 And ya'll still wonder why she's my fave driver

user47 THE WAY THIS ISN'T EVEN EVERYTHING SHE SAID

user28 what else did she say??

user47 @/user28 she went on a whole tangent about how stroll is a prick that shouldn't be in f1 😭😭

liked by charlesleclerc, landonorris, and 3, 615, 248 others ynusername FIA knew I'd be too powerful for another race (hey at least bestie doesn't have to do community service).

maxverstappen1 You're insane I love you

ynusername dinner is still on you right?

landonorris NOOOOOO RIP Y/N

ynusername bitch i'm still alive

oscarpiastri Welcome back Kevin Magnussen liked by ynusername

redbullracing She might be crazy, but she's our kind of crazy!

ynusername pls keep me employed ya'll

view landonorris's story...

caption Yes, she still has the helmet on

view maxverstappen1's story...

caption Okay time for us to get to work

eeee i hope you guys liked this, please let me know if you did!

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celestialspritz · 1 day

Text

Why Sims 2 has been so broken the last ten years

This is down to my own research, and I'm not saying it is the one and only reason why the game is so broken these days, but I have some points worth mentioning.

So, you're bored one day. You remember this game you had so much fun playing a few years ago, or maybe as a child. It's The Sims 2!

The game has a few issues than from when you last remembered playing, so you search on google for some fixes for the tiny resolution, and among the countless posts you may find, you may find this:

Or this:

(to the creators and players mentioned here this isn't me making a dig at you, i'm just pointing out some cc that could affect the game from working properly. your stuff is all beautiful :D)

Lesya's game is gorgeous!!! Oh, how can I get it to look like that?

So you, with a clean, vanilla (ugly) game you decide to download a few mods she listed, such as:

Skylines by GCKP (you can get optimised ones by me here)

Skies by Lowedeus (you can get optimised ones by me here)

Trees by Criquette (you can get optimised ones here)

No More Blurriness by Voeille (you can get optimised snow only here)

Cool! And then you notice some cheats than can give the game that open-world, interactive feel. Even better!

And you shove them into your folder and you boot up the game. Everything's going great!

Until...

You search hundreds of posts looking for the fix. Some recommend 3rd-party tools, but they seem to make the problem worse. You reinstall, finding you only wasted your time. Something has to be causing this, but you'd never guess it'd be the mods everybody swore by.

Well, in fact, it is. Partly.

I've struggled with pink flashing since 2019, when I reinstalled Sims 2 after I got a decent computer for once. I did everything above, searched for fixes, found Lesya's blog which was my primary inspiration. It was through Lesya's guide that I was able to make my game look pretty!

These mods, which are a staple in the modding community, are beautiful indeed... but what if I told you that the reason they're so beautiful, is because they're high-quality. With textures soaring up to 4k, when, hang on--

In 2004, 4k resolution was... probably unheard of. With the leading monitor size being 1024x768, what would be the point of using such huge textures on an engine that was designed for monitors of at least this size? Would you be able to see the detail of 4k on a monitor of that size? Definitely not.

The max visiting sims, okay, a little hit or miss. If your sims are all wearing high poly alpha CC, then it's a problem. If not, good luck.

Then comes the cheats I mentioned. The lot skirt cheat expands the view distance a significant amount. With the mergenhoodflora cheat, that displays more trees. Combining the two, what do you get?

A massive view distance, blinded by trees.

With skies and skylines with large textures up to 4k, and trees with textures up to 2k, The Sims 2 will collapse. It's like forcing an old man with health conditions to do 20 situps, again and again.

It'll overexert him, by the very least. And you're overexerting the game by cramming custom content that is not optimised for the engine TS2 was built on.

So please, next time you encounter the pink soup, please check your CC folders, and research changes and cheats before you put them into your game. You will enjoy the game much more if you do this, and won't encounter this problem so often.

Don't use Graphics Rules Maker

Instead, opt for a maxis original Graphics Rules uploaded here by Veronavillequiltingbee. It's essentially a rewrite of an old tutorial I made a long time ago.

Once you download the file from VVQB, open DXDIAG by pressing WinKey+R and typing 'dxdiag'.

This value I've underlined is what you need to put after seti textureMemory. Open the sgr file and do CTRL-F and input seti textureMemory.

Add the value from DXDIAG and then save it.

You can use GRM for adding your GPU to the game, but I do not recommend it for anything but that.

Optimising the game... inside the game

*shoves GRM off the table*

We're going to go into TS2 in-game settings for this one.

These settings are optimal if you play CC-heavy households. It will ease the load on your game to make space for the heavy CC you have in your current household. You can tweak these when you want to take photos outside, but for playing I recommend them all to be off - especially at community lots as there are lots of sims there.

I never see anybody talking about Object Hiding.

Object Hiding hides objects from floors that aren't in view. If you're playing downstairs, objects upstairs won't be rendered, thus minimising the load on your game.

I have reflections and smooth edges off because I use ReShade.

Snow on Ground is optional. Sometimes snow can cause pink flashing, I believe it's due to texture replacements that are huge in size too, Voeille's is 2k. I've linked a resized one above.

This post will be updated with later findings. I hope you all found it informative :]

#ts2 pink flashing #ts2 guide #ts2

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revolutionsingingintherainnn · 2 days

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No Words *ೃ༄

Summary: max defends his girlfriend and gets into trouble

𖤓 mv x reader ⋆｡°✩

𖤓 fluff + slight humour (iykyk) ⋆｡°✩

masterlist ☾☼

y/n had been a fan of formula one since she was a child. every parental figure in her life had been a fan of the sport, so it was natural and she got into it too. thankfully, it also made her realise very quickly in life that she wanted to work in the field of motorsports. she wasn't sure yet, and she was still working her way to getting into the sport, but it was a sure, clear path for her.

after meeting max, and falling in love with him, everything had changed. her family approved of the two of them, obviously, and so had his, though she hadn't cared much about jos' opinion. y/n made it clear in the beginning that she wanted to work in motorsports and she wanted to earn her place. she refused to let max talk her up or anything, because he was the kind of guy who would do just that for his girlfriend. max agreed, and promised to keep their relationship private for as long as she wanted.

it had taken her a few years. she bounced from indycar to motorgp to nascar and eventually made her way to f1 as a journalist. she had gained far more experience than she would've gotten if she had only focused on formula one, and she was confident in her abilities to finally be formula one.

max and her had stayed strong throughout, even if they kept their relationship private. she had met and become friends with daniel, lando, carlos, and all of max's friends. they often played padel together as well. mix the competitive spirits that max and she possessed, it was always fun.

after a year of being in formula one as a journalist, max and y/n had decided that it was time to stop hiding. they skipped the soft launch part, and jumped directly into the hard launch phase that left a lot of fans shook.

unfortunately, it also got her a lot of hate. y/n went from being one of the best journalists in f1 to one of the most hated ones for the same reasons that she was loved. the fans adored her because she was a woman of colour making a name for herself in such a sport, and that her parents had sacrificed a lot for her and she was making them proud. now, she was hated because her success became max's story and how he put in good words for her and how she was only with him for the money.

it broke her heart, but max was someone who had received a lot of hate before in his life, so he taught her all the ways to ignore the comments and focus on what she did best. it helped a great deal, but it also made her determined to prove that her career had nothing to do with max.

it was getting better, slowly and over time. max and y/n promised to never lose their temper on the comments. a lot of interviewers and fans had also asked the other drivers on the grid to comment on their relationship, asking if it was ethical for a journalist and a driver to date. but the other drivers always responded with the same thing, always saying how they've known max and y/n for a long time, and their relationship was no one else's business.

unfortunately, after a particularly hard race, max finally lost his cool.

"well, max, it's safe to say that this particular race of yours wasn't the best that you've performed. what do you have to say about that?"

"uh, nothing, really. we just didn't have the pace, and with some mistakes on my side, i lost a lot of points. but, i'm sure we can cover it up next race." max replied.

"you don't have to worry about us writing a bad article about you. your girlfriend and we will only be writing praises, don't you worry. the only difference would be that we won't take your hard earned money like she does," the interviewer laughed, nudging y/n.

the cameras were all focused on them, there were fans nearby, and other drivers. everyone was watching. it was live tv. the entire world was watching. the thick crowd of an audience had their gaze fixed on y/n, and all she could do in that moment was hang her head and try not to cry.

that's the moment max lost his cool. y/n was standing right there, and the interviewer had disrespected her on a very public platform.

"actually, my girlfriend will always tell me what i need to hear, whether it's good or bad. y/n y/l/n, a well known journalist, who is also standing right there with you, will write exactly what happened on track, because that's the part that she reports on. she made her own career, so fuck you for dismissing all of it." max bursted, before he stormed off.

the interviewer was spluttering, not sure how to react, but completely outraged as he forced the fia to take actions on max's outburst. y/n slipped away silently, needing to go back to max.

later on, the fia decided to punish max for using "language during the fia sunday press conference". their decision: obligation to accomplish some work of public interest.

later, an interviewer asked him if he regretted his decision of defending his girlfriend and getting a punishment, max responded, “no.”

“so, what do you think of the punishment given to you? do you think it’s fair?”

“no words.”

.⋆｡⋆☂˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.

i hope you guys enjoyed this! i had a lot of fun writing this, mostly because i had no idea what my brain wanted me to write, but somehow i kept on typing. anyways, this is my prompt list, so y'all can select a number, give me a driver and i will write it as soon as possible! i also have a google form for a taglist if anyone's interested! you can sent in your requests here :)

#f1 #formula 1 #formula one #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen imagine #max verstappen fanfic #max verstappen #mv33 imagine #mv33 fic #mv33 #mv33 x reader #mv1 x reader #mv33 fluff #fia

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woso-dreamzzz · 1 day

Text

Read II

England Lionesses x Child!Reader

Mary Earps x Child!Reader

Summary: There's a reason you don't have sugar

You hold reading lessons every day at camp because you want the rest of the England team to not be knuckleheads anymore and to prove Mikey from school wrong.

It's not easy to learn how to read so you know you need to come back to make sure everyone has been keeping up with their learning because that's what Mummy and Daddy do to you.

They started teaching you how to read very early so you were fairly advanced when you went to school.

You think Mikey's just jealous because you're a good reader and he's a bad one but, still, you want to make sure to prove him wrong.

Mary always says the best revenge is proving haters wrong. You don't know if Mikey's a hater but you'll assume he is because better safe than sorry.

You've done a good job at teaching everyone though because Maya, Millie T and Tooney all give you some sherbet sweets. They make your mouth go a little tingly when you try them but you like that feeling so the three of them keep feeding you more.

They're responsible for you while Mary's getting the last bit of treatment before you all get on the coach to go to the stadium. Usually, someone else is responsible for you but you did a quick reading lesson for Maya and Millie with Tooney as your assistant so they're supervising you before the journey.

You decide that you really like the sherbet straws they give you and Maya dares you to see how many you can finish before you have to go.

You don't count but it's definitely a lot.

Enough for you to feel super hyped when you're finally reunited with Mary. She's picked out a set of four seats with a table and she's already got your rucksack full of books open for you to pick from.

You're very advanced in your reading for such a young kid but even you struggle a little bit. Now that you've taught Mary to read, she can read very well from the books that are a bit too complicated for you right now so she's in charge of reading them to you as you drive to the pitch.

"Er..." You say as you look at the selection," That one."

"Alright," Mary says, cracking open the book and clearing her throat. She gets about halfway through before she notices how wiggly you're being. "Hey, rugrat, do you need the toilet?"

You frown. "No. Keep reading, Mary."

"Are you sure? I can take you."

"No, Mary. My book, please."

"Alright." Mary keeps reading but she's acutely aware of the way you keep wiggling in your seat.

You seem to think you're fine though. Or, at least, you don't think you need the toilet which is Mary's main worry.

"Okay," She says finally," Go and find someone to hang out with. I need to talk to Tooney."

You seem all too happy to scamper off, practically throwing yourself at Beth across the aisle.

"Tooney!" Mary snaps, interrupting the conversation she and Alessia are having.

"Jesus, Mary! You scared me there!"

"What did you give my sister?" Mary demands," She's never been like this before."

"Like what?"

"Like that!"

Mary points over to where you've decided it's a funny idea to crowd surf over the girls at the front, who are bouncing you a bit as they pass you off to the girls sitting behind them.

"She doesn't do that! She's also not wiggly on the bus! What did you give her?"

Tooney winces. "I gave her nothing!"

Mary narrows her eyes. "What did you let Millie and Maya give her?"

Tooney's eyes dart to them quickly before she clears her throat. "I've got the right to remain silent! Anything I say or do can be used against me in a court of-"

Mary's already moved off before Tooney can finish and she crosses the coach to confront the other two. "I'm not interested in excuses. Tell me what you've given my sister."

Her gaze is clearly intimidating because Maya and Millie fold instantly and Mary's on her way back to her seat, easily plucking you from someone's arms to set you back down next to her.

It seems most of the sugar rush has disappeared now but then another problem makes itself known.

The bus goes over a series of bumps and you make a little aborted movement forward.

Mary recognises the action and whips out a plastic bag. "Here, rugrat," She says," Let it out. Let it all out."

She rubs your back as you throw up. It takes a lot longer than usual to hurl up your guts and Mary narrows her eyes over the top of her seat to look at Millie and Maya.

This is all their fault, Mary knows it.

It's because of all of the sugar you've consumed that you've thrown up so bad and, as she ties the bag shut, Mary briefly contemplates throwing it at Millie and Maya.

"Juice, please," You say and Mary hands it to you," Sorry, Mary."

"It's okay," She says," It's not your fault. Do you want to continue your book?"

You nod, leaning against your sister, energy drained. "Yes, please."

#woso x reader #mary earps x reader #mary earps #woso community #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso

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wannaeatramyeon · 2 days

Text

Meeting Student!Gun Park for the First Time

G/N. 3.2k. Remember when Gun wanted to get his GED? Well. Stranger to~ Masterlists

"How old are you?"

"20."

Press X for doubt, you think, and that's the exact meme you send over on chat.

"20 like 20 or 20 like you're mid 30s and planning your mid life crisis 20?"

You know you're being rude and making a terrible first impression. It's the first day of a new school year, of a new school in fact, and for some reason the class is held on video call and you're all forced to pair off with a classmate for an icebreaker introduction.

It’s already cringe worthy and awkward enough, icebreakers must have been created as a form of torture. To add insult to injury, you're sure this guy is bullshitting you.

"I'm 20." He deadpans.

Momentarily, you’re stunned into silence. It stretches almost a tad too long before you manage to choke out, “My bad. Sorry."

Wow. You're torn between thinking that's a rough 20, this guy has easily got 40 years under his belt and oh no, when is your puberty and hormones gonna kick in like that.

And that's also the exact moment this 20 year old Gun Park takes a drag on a cigarette and you decide that it's definitely a rough 20.

"So what do you do for fun?" You probe, and you have the distinct feeling he might say something like alimony, planning his third marriage, investing in the stock market - whatever someone in their 50s might say but-

To your surprise and glee, his body language turns shifty.

He likes to game he says, like it's a dirty little secret. Amongst other things. Mentions something about training and martial arts and you fight to keep a straight face as it turns out you were also right about investing in shares and the stock market.

Gaming, however, is what you latch on to.

"Cute. I bet I could kick your ass."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yes."

And this is how you ended up at 4am on a school night, playing Tekken with your new classmate and getting your ass kicked.

"One more!" You screech down the mic, after the KO sign appears on screen, mumbling something about cheating and how if you can time this combo just right-

There's a huff of laughter coming through your tinny headphones and an amused "Fine."

Dark circles under your eyes grow. It's been a week of straight losses.

You blame the sleep deprivation on Gun Park, though really you have your own stubbornness to blame.

He never tends to say much during the gaming sessions apart from the odd expletive and you rant enough after each of your defeats for the both of you.

Sometimes this will earn you a chuckle and he will snidely add that you asked for this, you were the one who was supposed to kick his ass. This would piss you off enough for another game or three in the hopes of defeating him and getting to gloat.

Which unfortunately has not happened yet.

With a sigh, you hope your camera quality this morning is bad enough and pixelated enough that your poor sleep habits don't show.

You scan over your classmates, the few that have their camera turned on and find him.

Gun looks completely fine. He looks completely fine in what must be 4k and ugh, you scrunch your nose up in annoyance.

You keep an eye on him through the class. Observe how he's usually paying rapt attention, scribbling and typing up notes every now and then.

It's impressive how studious he is.

In comparison, you're daydreaming. Thinking about lunch, other combos or characters to play to counter his own when you catch on to the back end of a sentence as your teacher mentions ‘this’ is something to pay attention to as it will be on the pop quiz.

Huh? You blink a couple times. What is ‘this’? Unfortunately she swiftly moves onto another topic.

You type out a direct message to the only person you know.

You: I missed that, what did she just say?

Gun: You should have been paying attention.

You: Fuck you man!

You see his eyes dip to the bottom of the camera screen, briefly moving as he presumably reads your message.

He smirks.

That night he kicks your ass again.

Then as consolation, reveals what will be on the pop quiz.

If Gun looked like that in 4k, nothing could prepare you for how he looked in real life.

You're setting up your laptop and notepad in the classroom, the first actual in-person session, when someone takes a seat next to you.

Initially you feel a surge of irritation that they could have sat anywhere else and chose to sit next to you, then you look at the offender and-

Hold on.

You double, triple-take-

Is that?

It must be.

Shit.

It's fucking Gun Park.

You don't entirely regret your initial comments on his looks because this guy definitely does not look 20 but goddamn he looks-

He chooses that moment, when your jaw is on the floor, to turn to you and give you a nod of acknowledgement.

"Y/N."

"H-hi." You manage, and even to your ears it sounds like a simpering fool.

He must have thought so too if the quirk of his lips is anything to go by.

The cherry on top is that you expected this guy to smell like stale smoke, instead all you get is fresh laundry and something faintly dark and heady like leather and cedarwood.

Fuck.

Control yourself, a disapproving voice in your head says. Even that sounds vaguely like Gun.

It does nothing to stop your wandering gaze, peering at him in your periphery when you think he's not looking.

After you have taken your chance to not so discreetly run your eyes up and down his form, the only thing that makes you feel better is his hair. Because yeah he might be hot, but holy shit that must be a gallon of hair gel in there.

The other thing, as it turns out, that makes you feel a lot better is that he doodles.

It’s utterly charming.

Someone like Gun Park doesn't look like he doodles, but in between lines of his chicken scratch (seriously, who can even read that), there's little stick figures.

Maybe all the time you thought he was being studious he was just drawing-

Wait. You squint at the picture.

Is this guy for real?

"Are they fucking?" You whisper, using your pen to point at the page.

He doesn't answer straight away. There's a moment of surprise as he reacts like this is another secret of his he has unwittingly let you in on before his nostril flares and his eyes narrow and you grin in response.

Your grin grows when he grits out an answer. "No. Fighting."

He doesn't call you a dumbass but you can hear it loud and clear tacked on at the end.

"Whatever, pervert." You counter. You guess if you squint even harder then you suppose they could be fighting. Although the way one is lying on top of another is very suggestive. You don't hesitate to point that out to him.

Gun closes his eyes and counts to ten.

Even without a seating plan, one forms.

Places taken by chance on the first day becomes a regular arrangement.

You exchange a few words with your classmates, familiarise yourself somewhat with their names and faces. Pieces of their backstory, why they're here studying for a GED but take your spot next to Gun regardless.

No one really talks to him, you've heard them saying he's menacing and intimidating. Yet when your first encounter of him was mistaking him as someone about to hit mid life crisis, how intimidating can he really be.

Besides, he still doodles his lewd figures that he insists are not in any way shape or form comprising sexual positions. So no, you don't find him intimidating at all.

Gun, as you have come to know, is a man of few words. He is also unsurprisingly not great at literature.

What you don't yet know is he likes to say what he means and mean what he says. His patience only extends to The Art of War, so all the flowery prose and poetry only serves to irritate him.

If Gun glared at you the way he's currently glaring at the textbook, you think you may either burst into tears or burst into flames.

Luckily you do neither of those things but you do take pity on him. Leaning over, you ask him quietly if he needs help.

He doesn't respond but the pen he's clutching in his right hand snaps in half.

Alright then.

Half an hour later, when the class empties out you ask Gun to follow you to the library.

He hesitates, and you add "if you've got time" to give him an out. In the end he doesn't take it and trudges obediently after you.

You very quickly learn that he really doesn't like literature. You're explaining and working him through the analysis and also mildly offended at the bored look on his face.

"This is a waste of time," he interjects and there's a sullen undercurrent to his words.

"Just memorise the analysis then." Exasperation tinges your tone, "That's all you need to do to pass."

He arches a brow at your words.

"They're testing your memory. So just remember what our teacher says."

There's an angry air of resignation as Gun nods, and you slide your notes over for him to copy.

Not long after, you have your first minor evaluation on the literature material.

You notice during the test that while the vein in Gun’s temple is prominent and he’s clutching his (new) pen tighter, there’s barely any pause as he fills in the answers.

A few days later, the graded papers are handed back. There's a sigh of relief from Gun.

He gives you a smile, small and genuine, eyes crinkling at the corner.

"You owe me one," you tell him jokingly though he takes it to heart and gives you a stern nod.

Gun repays his debt, with a coffee.

He places the paper cup on the desk in front of you. Logo of the coffee house to the side but still visible. It's new, expensive, and there’s regular lines around the block.

Of course it would be from there.

The issue is, who repays a debt with an espresso. He didn’t even ask for your drink of choice!

"Thanks for this thimble of coffee," you remark as Gun sniffs in distaste at your comment, placing his own matching cup in front of him and saying something about how it's the best untainted way to drink it.

Of course he would also be a coffee snob.

You tell him you usually like it with a bit more cream and a lot more sugar and he mutters that you sound like Goo.

You think that's an insult.

"Well, at least Goo has good taste," you snipe back with a grin.

Gun closes his eyes and counts to ten.

You: Are you doodling or actually writing notes?

You: Cos on camera you look very studious but I’ve seen your notepad

Gun: None of your business

You: Still drawing your disgusting pornographic stick men then

Gun: They are not-

Gun: Whatever

You: Ok, maybe that espresso wasn’t terrible

Gun: I know

You: Who’s Goo anyway?

Gun: …

Gun: No-one

You: Suuuure

You: Tekken tonight?

Gun: Aren’t you tired of getting your ass kicked?

You: >:(

You: Do you wanna go over the new lit material in the library this week?

Gun: Ok

Gun: Thanks for your help

You: :)

Gun: You’re tired. You should game less.

You: Spoken like a coward!

Gun: Dumbass

You: Hey!!

Gun: I’ll bring you an espresso tomorrow. You need it.

You: Does it have to be an espresso?

Gun: Yes

You: …Thanks

To anyone else, the figure standing in the doorway is just smoking. To you, it suspiciously looks like they’re waiting.

It's not a crime. Gun Park can wait for whatever or whoever he wants.

What really throws you off is his smoking. You've seen him casually take one single drag before throwing the whole cigarette away. Even to you, it seems like a waste.

However, this time he smokes one all the way to the filter before stubbing it out. Then does the same to a second, and third.

Strange, very strange.

You approach him. Taking gentle steps, in case he might get spooked and bolt which is really a ridiculous notion for someone like him. Nevertheless, you keep your footsteps light, yourself clearly in view and you wander over to him.

"Hey," you say, with a somewhat forced smile. He doesn't acknowledge your greeting apart from a brief nod.

"... Everything ok?"

It's a perfectly normal question to ask but a vastly bizarre one for Gun. He doesn't look like the type of person where people casually enquire about his well being.

He must have thought so too if the look he gives you is anything to go by.

In response, he stubs out his cigarette (his fourth!) then asks, stilted and stiffly, if you want to come back to his for a game of Tekken.

At least that's what you interpret as he seems to be crazy cryptic.

"Are you interested in Tekken?"

"...Yes." You wonder what on earth this question is because did you hallucinate all those games you played together?

"Then meet me. After class."

"Where? Here?"

"No. At mine."

"Where's that?"

"..."

He gives you another look, as if you're the one trying to coax a secret out of him despite him offering.

Gun dips forward, murmurs quietly into your ear his address and some vague directions like it's highly confidential information.

You nod along, thinking what is with this guy.

So firstly, what the fuck.

Then secondly, what the fuck.

Don't think you hadn't noticed the designer brands Gun wears. If they're fakes, they're very convincing fakes. But you're almost certain they have got to be counterfeit when he brought you over to a junkyard claiming this is where he lives.

You've seen films like this. Granted, it's less in a junkyard and more in the middle of nowhere in America where college kids meet their gruesome ends in fantastical ways.

You never thought this would happen to you. You have sorely miscalculated.

Is this Gun Park (if that even is his real name) going to butcher you and leave your body on top of a pile of scrap metal in the corner?

Instead of a night of gaming where you’re the one KO-ing him, he’s actually the one that’s going to chase you around wearing a mask and wielding a knife or axe?

"You’re here. Come in," Gun says, opening his front door just as your inner monologue begins to truly spiral out of control and you're considering doing a runner.

"Eh?" You grunt like an idiot, not noticing when the shack appeared nor when you stepped onto his porch, or the side eyes Gun had been giving you.

He gives you another look, likely regretting inviting you at all, and leaves the door ajar for you to either enter or turn back and go home.

"This is... nice," you lie, through the skin of your teeth.

Gun sees cleanly through your white lie and exhales a huff of amusement.

It's sparse. Peeks of luxury here and there - the extensive PC gaming rig, the entertainment system and consoles, to name a few.

Apart from that, it's barely a home.

"Take a seat." He offers, and it sounds more like an order. Obediently you sit on his sofa, feeling very much a guest.

"You're not in danger," he says, bemused at how awkward you are in his domain, how tense you hold yourself.

'That's exactly what a killer would say,' you think and when you hear a low chuckle, you realise that you said it aloud.

"Don't worry," Gun reassures and it doesn’t really help before he strides off to somewhere in his house and leaves you sitting alone.

He returns back minutes later as you’re in the middle of admiring his entertainment set up and going through his vinyl collection (because obviously someone like Gun has vinyls) with a coffee for you that looks much more milky and to your taste than the usual ones he offers.

“Thanks.” you take your drink and return back to your seat.

Taking the first sip, you finally manage to relax. Sinking into a sofa that is much more comfortable than at first glance and you take in your surroundings a bit more.

Sort of. You actually take in Gun Park more.

He’s casual, in a way you have never seen or even considered. Dressed in a t-shirt and grey sweatpants, hair floppy and the only styling is done with his hands running through his hair now and then to keep it back.

Even during the online classes, he is usually dressed up in an open collared shirt.

If you thought he was hot before, it’s nothing compared to now. There’s an air of domesticity, the drink he made for you cradled in your hands, and the distinct feeling that not many people have had the luxury to see Gun in his natural habitat, so intimate and vulnerable.

You wonder if this is how he looks all those nights you’ve been gaming together.

You catch his eyes, having been caught checking him out and he raises his eyebrows at your blatant staring.

Blood rushes to your cheeks as he chuckles into his own espresso and takes a sip.

"Holy shit, I won!"

You're familiar with the KO screen. What you're not familiar with is being on the side of victory. You're usually a hair trigger away from rage quitting, from throwing a tantrum down the mic.

Finally. All your hard work has paid off. Time spent thinking of combos, attacks and defences (which would have been better spent studying) is coming to fruition.

You peer over to Gun, expect the controller he is clutching to maybe have been crushed into pieces with his freakish strength. Expected nothing except for a vein throbbing on his temple.

What you do find is-

Gun looking at you, fondness in his eyes. He's taking in your grin, letting your gloating slide.

Doesn't do more than roll his eyes when you perform a victory dance of sorts around him.

And when you get in his face to tell him that you're the winner, you're the best-

(More words are on the tip of your tongue but your gaze drops to his lip, drawn to the small smile he wears.

It sinks in.

The patience he has, the attention he gives, the way he has opened his home to you.

From the very first meeting, the even-handed way he has dealt with your insults, entertained you to the early hours of the morning on Tekken.)

Gun reaches out, tugs your hand and pulls you into his lap and agrees.

"Yes. The best."

You think it's a lie, an embellishment.

But the way he holds you - tender and precious, and the way he leans forward to rest his forehead against yours - soft, like you might break - can't be anything else but the whole truth.

#lookism #lookism x reader #gun park #gun park x reader #park jonggun x reader #park jonggun #wannaeatramyeon

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harmoonix · 19 hours

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🪄Dark Hour🖤

- Astrology Observations -

Having Venus in your 4th house can make you automatically to attract people with traditional values even if are not traditional yourself

Libra Risings can have it hard in relationship since their 7th house is ruled by Mars (Aries) which rules over war and conflicts

Cancer Placements can turn out to be manipulative if you do them wrong or if they simply just wake up and say 'lets be toxic today' and im not talking about all cancer placement natives

The dark side of a Venus in the 12th/Pisces Venus is that they tend to idolize their relationships/partners a lot, making a lot of scenarios in their head

Virgo or Cancer Venus may have a 'savior' complex in their love relationship, like trying to save themselves or trying to find someone who can save them

6th house Sun or Moon may have lots of encounters with animals, is like animals feel some kind of "calling' from you

Gemini/Leo/Taurus/ Venus may like to cosplay/playing the role of a character matches a lot with their personality

If you have unevolved Virgo Placements, you may hate when people disagree with you or when ppl come witn a counter-argument for you

Mars in the 8th house can get crazy if they don't get physical touch. Some might crave it and not have it 100% all the time

Moon in the 10th house feels like everyone is watching every single emotion of yours and may react to your sensitivity. You may get called 'over sensitive'

Moon in the 8th/12th house can struggle to talk about their feelings if they are surrounded by people with a toxic energy

Scorpio Moons can also struggle with 'feeling love' especially if they never experienced that properly. Don't press them to show their love for you early in a relationship let them feel safe first

Leo Chiron is a placement where they may nedd attention from others but not that type of "spotlight attention" rather just to be seen and understood by others

The dark side of Taurus Placements is that they tend to be very greedy and I talk here about their finances and money, of course if they are unevolved

Uranus in your 10H can make you change/switch your job more than once or twice, and can indicate having a confusing time with choosing the right job

Moon in your 2H can talk about 'working with love' and putting your heart into everything you do. You get rewards for your kindness

Unevolved 10th house placements can turn really materialistic if they have the chance, looking only for money and that's it

Capricorns are used to expect the worse in some situations since they have been thru multiple such situations in their lives

Uranus in Aquarius generation can be attached to technology 24/7. In love with technology, their phones are their world

Gemini and Virgo Moons are the first indicators of someone having anxiety/stress/panic attacks/overthinking

Pisces Placements but mostly Pisces Suns/Risings can use escapism a lot, trying to create their own reality in their head rather than living in the actual one

Scorpio Venus/Mars natives, some of their hidden fears can be betrayal/getting cheating on. This can possibly be one of the reasons why they can attach fast to people

Saturn/Pluto/Moon in the 8th/12th houses the planets become more dark in these houses, getting

Cardi B has a crazy chart because she has BOTH Jupiter and POF in the 7th house and is still still coming to the man who cheated on her??? (Never mind her Venus in the 8th house explaining everything)

A water sign in your 11th house can indicate you can understand people deeply and attach to them emotionally

Earth signs in the 1st house can indicate you tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves, being hard on themselves, criticizing themselves sometimes quite a lot

Mercury - Moon aspects natives can get therapeutic with other people, they like to talk about deep stuff with others and tend to share a lot from their live experiences

Jupiter in Sagittarius can be a good placement if you want to explore the whole world or just simply travel Jupiter can help you to manifest that

Jupiter - Mercury or Saturn in harsh aspects tend to be close-minded or afraid to open to new things/learning or knowing about them (I'm talking for the aspects generally not the people)

Moon or Venus at 5° or in the 5th house can make you have a baby fever more when you're young, like in your 20s. Wanting to be a young parent (this does not apply to all)

Mars or Neptune in the 11th house tend to attract people easily with their energy/personality. People get interested about you too

North Node aspecting Saturn in harsh aspects is not easy, actually is a very challenging position in your chart

North Node in the 8th or 12th house tends to live intense lives or have intense life situations, even near death situations

✨️🤍 Hope you all have a good Monday 🤍✨️

Harmoonix ✨️✨️✨️

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gods-perfect-idiots · 2 days

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Okay bear with me folks, I have some ~thoughts~ about the Vanessa/Wade relationship (or frankly lack thereof) in Deadpool & Wolverine. I should start by saying that I am analyzing this with the (likely erroneous) assumption that everything on screen is 100% intentional and mindfully written to deepen the characters and inform their arcs. For the record, I don't necessarily believe that's true - there is certainly room for mistakes, lazy writing, confusing plot elements, or in this case, sidelining a potentially strong and important character for nebulous reasons (I'm guessing scheduling conflicts + run time concerns + actor's strike complications but idk for sure). (Also thanks to @gossippool and @kendyroy for encouraging me to post my thoughts instead of just rambling in the tags in the first place, y'all are the realest)

Long rambly post below the cut fyi

Now, granted, it has been a while since I watched the original Deadpool so I am not as well-versed in their early relationship as I am in the handful of scenes Morena Baccarin has in dp3, but I do think it is pretty canon that Wade generally struggles to express his deeper worries and feelings (without filtering it heavily through crude humor, sex, and pop culture references of course), especially after the events of dp1 and the physical and mental damage he sustains, and Vanessa is frankly no exception despite how much he cares for her. The entire first movie hinges on the fact that he doesn't really believe she could love him in his post-Francis mangled state, which is pretty contrived imo given that the film has established already how bonded they are, and she doesn't strike me as being written to be so shallow as to reject him based on a physical deformity. I mean iirc she wanted to stick around through chemo despite him being literally riddled with inoperable cancer, so she clearly is in it for the long haul (at least in dp1), messiness and all.

Now, in dp2, obviously she is shot and killed early in the film, and Wade spends much of the rest of the film wallowing in his very profound grief, trauma, and guilt over losing her due directly to his violent lifestyle. He goes to prison, he basically gives up on life and seems very resigned to dying once he has the power suppressant collar on, even excited to do so so he can be reunited with her. She is mostly sidelined as a Fuzzy Dead Wife trope basically, but the important thing here is that he spends weeks if not months in the throes of despair over losing the love of his life just as they were trying to start a family, and trying to reach across the boundaries of death to be with her.

Now, my first couple times watching dp3 I was frustrated by the trite narrative presented in the interview scene towards the beginning - specifically Wade's whole "my girl is getting tired of my shtick and I need to show her I matter". It felt contrived and disingenuous, and I just brushed it off as iffy writing, a means to an end, but the more I reflect upon it the more I think it is based in an emotional reality that is just handled with a very light touch by the film in favor of fanservice and Poolverine content (NOT that I'm complaining in the slightest - I think this movie is a masterpiece in many ways, albeit a flawed one but that's beside the point here), which for the record I am not against because I think it lends it an air of realism. This is Wade's story after all, Vanessa is a part of it but it is ultimately about him and his journey.

Basically, I think the combination of what happened to him in dp1 (the brain damage, the trauma, the awareness of the fourth wall, etc) followed by the events of dp2 (Vanessa's death, his grief and the associated guilt and trauma of being the direct cause of her death) led to an unbridgeable emotional gap between the two of them that ultimately leads to their breakup.

It's important to note that I don't think Vanessa has any recollection of her own death, given that Wade goes back and saves her before she can take the bullet, and so of course she can never fully fathom what Wade went through grieving her and their life together and their potential family, for however long he spent between her death and bringing her back with Cable's device. She can try (and she clearly does in the one scene I'll talk about next) but I fear she accepts, maybe even in that scene, that she can never succeed. He is beyond her reach by this point, and vice versa, his experiences having fundamentally changed him.

The one scene we really see from their relationship between dp2 and dp3 is the one where Cassandra mind-gropes Wade in the Void and we see Vanessa struggling to reach Wade across this aforementioned gap - she wants him to open up, she wants him to share what he's going through, she wants him to be the person she initially fell in love with (not even selfishly - to her nothing has changed really, because to her no time has passed). But not only does he not understand what she's really asking for but he responds in such a way that makes me think he has unprocessed issues that are only tangentially related to what she's saying - ie the stuff about mattering, about asking her if she even wants to be with him, etc. And he's not the Wade Wilson she met back in dp1 anymore. He watched her die and grieved her and brought her back, believing it would make everything go back to normal and they could resume their life together as if nothing had changed, but he has been fundamentally changed in a way that she can't grasp, even if he WAS good at externally processing his trauma openly without the artifice of wry jokes. She didn't "come back wrong" - instead, she came back exactly the same as before, but HE'S different now. Not wrong, per se. But changed.

It's an interesting scene because it's obviously a memory, and a crucial one at that, but you can see how Wade is misunderstanding what she's saying, viewing it through the prism of his own lack of self-worth and his own hopelessness - he takes away that she thinks he doesn't matter (even though like he says she didn't actually say that, but I don't think Cassandra invented that wholecloth - I think she pulled it out of his psyche because that's what he believes deep down, hence why his fixation on mattering even though she never said those words exactly), he takes away that she doesn't want to be with him, that she thinks he's nothing. Which would be frustrating as an audience member to witness as a pretty simple misunderstanding which could potentially be solved with one conversation, but it feels believable to me that these two people who have shared a great love would be fundamentally separated by unimaginable, cosmic trauma, and the on conversation they would need to have to rectify the misunderstanding is one that is impossible for Wade to verbalize and equally impossible for Vanessa to conceive of. It was one thing when they had shared trauma like violence and SA in dp1, but what Wade has gone through in dp1 and dp2, humor aside, is unfathomably traumatic, brain-breakingly so even, and that's not even factoring in the possible mental illnesses he now struggles with (I've seen folks suggest schizophrenia, DID, depression, etc. but I won't get into armchair diagnosing a fictional character here - suffice it to say he is canonically unwell as a result of what has happened to him, and yes it manifests as quirky fourth wall breaks and cheeky one-liners, but within the universe of the movies he is undeniably profoundly mentally ill, and that includes this humorous alter ego he created to cope with his trauma).

I think off-screen Vanessa probably really tried to reach him, maybe for years (the six year gap implies to me that they didn't break up immediately, that they tried for a while to stay together), trying to get her Wade back, but that Wade is gone. He struggled to express that to her until eventually he started to feel rejected because he couldn't express his trauma or how much he has changed, because even he can't fully conceive of the gulf that has formed between them. The truth is, he WANTS to be that Wade again, for her and for himself, but that Wade died when she died. Or maybe he had already started dying when Francis got a hold of him in dp1.

Anyway, all this is to say, I think Morena Baccarin WAS criminally underutilized in dp2 and dp3, but I think there is a strong argument to be made for the believability of their breakup regardless. I think even relationships built on enormous love can crumble due to trauma, and what Wade suffers over these movies is mind-bogglingly enormous trauma. It's especially heartbreaking that he blames himself for their relationship ending, talks like she just got tired of him, thought he didn't matter, whatever. But it is a credit to him that he never seems to feel anger towards her about it. He doesn't seem to feel entitled to her, though he longs for her and what they had and what she represented (hope, love, a future, a family), but ultimately she becomes more of a symbol of what he lost when he gained his powers, because let's be super fr right now - even if they had succeeded in having a baby, not only would they have lived in fear of her or the kid getting killed, but ultimately Wade would likely outlive both of them even if they managed to die natural deaths. The moment he gained his powers he was already destined to lose her, which is heartbreaking because she was the only reason he opted for the treatment in the first place - so he could stay with her.

I think a big part of Deadpool & Wolverine is watching Wade continue to process his own motivations (vis-a-vis Vanessa but also his other friends) and how he does eventually let go of the idea of "mattering" in favor of just saving the people he cares about (*cough* and being saved right back *cough* by Wolvie, as the final line and shot implies). And in the process he finds someone new who cares about him, who thinks he matters, who tries to sacrifice himself for him and his friends after mere days of knowing him, who comes home with him at the end of the story, who breaks his own centuries-old patterns, who has also experienced unimaginable grief and trauma, who has struggled with wanting to die and being unable to, who not only matches his crazy but matches his FREAK and also not only won't die on him but CAN'T die on him - and more importantly cannot be randomly killed by a stray bullet.

Idk if any of this makes much sense but I do think if you read between the lines and consider the potency of trauma and grief, guilt and emotional damage at play here, Vanessa and Wade's off-screen breakup is actually pretty realistic, and really heart-breaking to boot.

You can tell she still cares about him in so many ways - she shows up for his birthday party, she shows up to his welcome home party at the end, she finds excuses for physical contact multiple times, her eyes get soft when she looks at him, but there is a distance there that Morena Baccarin does an incredible job of portraying. She cares about him deeply, she has mourned the loss of their potential life together, she has let him go and accepted that the Wade she fell in love with is gone, but she wants him in her life even though she's moving on because she realizes he's gone somewhere she can't follow (literally and figuratively). And she wants him to be happy which is why I fully believe she would immediately clock the Poolverine of it all and not-so-subtly encourage them to make it official.

Anyway. Poolverine forever. Nothing against Vanessa at all - I think she delivers a nuanced and beautiful performance, I think their relationship is sweet and heart-wrenching in large part due to her acting chops, especially given how little she is given to work with - but I think their relationship was sadly doomed from almost the very start, because Wade becomes this traumatized superhuman and Vanessa would always be at risk in his orbit, but also would always on the outside of his multiverse superhero experiences. I think it's weirdly beautiful, even if I am filling in a lot of gaps and giving the writers maybe undue credit.

Anyway... thoughts? Please DM me or write in the tags, I am feral about this movie and just want to talk about it with anyone haha. If you have further insight into these characters too I'd love to hear it - I am by no means an expert in these movies or characters!

#wade wilson #deadpool & wolverine #deadpool and wolverine #poolverine #deadclaws #wolverine #deadpool #deadpool 3 #deadpool x wolverine #vanessa x wade #rambly meta thoughts #anyway thanks for reading if you made it through #I def didnt edit this much just sorta wrote it out #I have more to say but it will have to wait I think #deadpool meta

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calware · 20 hours

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as time goes on my interesting in shipping (for homestuck) (that's really the only fandom i'm in) has just gone down lower and lower because i used to see "shipping" as just "characters who were compatible in some way". for example i would look at karkat and feferi and be like "they didn't interact much but a lot was going on with the two of them in terms of their themes and how those themes intersect. and since romantic relationships are "more complex" or "better" or "more potent" than other relationships the natural progression is to ship them together romantically" but the stuff that would make them potentially interesting as a pairing isn't inherently romantic at all. and i feel like that goes for a lot of if not most of the characters. homestuck to me is way more centered on the idea of friendship (and family sometimes but moreso friendship) than romance and when characters have something important going on between them the interesting part is usually not inherently romantic

even the characters that start dating where their romantic attraction IS very important is based on their initial friendship..!! vrisrezi wouldn't be nearly as meaningful if they weren't friends first, same with dirkjake, etc. arasol is such a popular ship and they only dated once when they were 8 years old…. their relationship from that point on is SO important to who they are but it isn't even inherently romantic after the fact, but people see romance as the "natural progression" from there so clearly they "should" date once they get the chance to do so again. my point is i wish people would pay more attention to some of the non-romantic aspects of relationships in hs because i really think that's what takes center stage within the story most of the time (not ALL of the time of course there are definitely parts where romance is important. but you get what i'm saying)

and then of course to take that a step further and be even more of a hater i'm so tired of people taking stuff and putting it into a romantic context when it's entirely unnecessary…. i made a video with dave and karkat bickering and people tagged it as davekat for no reason. literally that post about dirk and john meeting each other that people kept tagging as dirkjohn for no reason. i'll make posts about the alpha kids being friends and doing stuff together and someone went through my entire blog tagging all of these as "alphacule" for no reason. i'll draw dirk and hal literally just looking at each other and someone will tag it as dirkhal. girl they're just looking at each other. seeing someone liveblog collide and they go "did anyone else think dirk and dave should've kissed >_<??" no i actually don't think they would do that. it's so dark in here

#NOT EVEN SAYING SHIPPING IS BAD i'm just so tired. i'm so tired

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wordsinhaled · 2 days

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Have some Edwin & Charles making out because it's what they deserve. Thanks @shaylogic for prompting this :)

---

So, Edwin and Charles start courting, right? Because Charles is like, I've got to do this the right way! Edwin deserves to be courted! And of course, that involves, like, slowly progressing their relationship. They start going on dates, which are lovely. Charles brings Edwin flowers, and Edwin wears one on his lapel and hums to himself while shelving books in the office. They're not trying to rush, because there's no need. They have all the time in the world. And they're committed to the process! So they go out on their date of the week, and then they walk home arm in arm, and they have a bit of a kiss in the office doorway, all prim—never mind that after a few weeks, letting go of each other becomes an exercise in clinging and lingering, in a series of drawn-out, 'until next time' kisses, Don't go, not yet, wait, let me just... It grows harder and harder for them to cut things off at what Edwin would call a reasonable point and Charles might call halfway respectable: their hands start to wander; they get wrapped up in each other. On one memorable evening, matters progress from just inside the office door to up against the wall next to the office door until they tear away from one another jerkily like reluctant magnets, breathless and laughing, and slowly straighten themselves out, flushed and flustered, smoothing wrinkled clothes, flattening errant hair, touching idly for as long as they can justify... Charles doesn't think he's ever wanted anyone or anything this much. The way it feels to have Edwin like this, to be learning him like this, is swiftly becoming something he can't do without. He straightens Edwin's bow tie for him with trembling fingers, the last bit of evidence of what they'd just been doing slotting back into neatness, and Edwin finds himself holding his unnecessary breath all the while. Eventually another night finds Charles walking Edwin backwards until the backs of Edwin's thighs hit the desk and Charles pushes him to perch on it. He's sucking on Edwin's tongue, Edwin making these delicious, needy noises into his mouth and plucking at Charles' suspenders. Charles gets his hands under Edwin's suit jacket, pushing it down his arms, and Edwin shimmies to help, and the garment gets flung rather unceremoniously somewhere, neither of them much care where... And then Charles is staring at Edwin in his shirtsleeves and slipover, rosy-cheeked in the low warm light, his tie hopelessly askew, his hair in disarray from Charles' efforts, and—hold up a tick, he's got to— "Wait." Charles drops his forehead to Edwin's shoulder, panting into the space between them. "Wait—wait, I wanna—Edwin, I wanna do this right—" "Charles, you are doing this very right." Edwin sounds... god, he sounds bloody good. Like Charles has unraveled some of the tension in him, or something, with all the kissing and the reckless touching. He sounds happy, giddy even, and relaxed, and more than a little impatient, as if he wants Charles to get back to kissing him, the sooner the better. And Edwin hasn't let go of him, hasn't removed his hands from Charles' hips where they feel like twin brands, Edwin's long, pretty fingers unmoving just beneath the hem of Charles' polo shirt where they had started to journey before Charles halted them... "You know what I mean." Charles huffs. He uncurls himself so he can look at Edwin plaintively, through the fog of want that's still scattering him all over, and he thinks it's unfair that Edwin's so distractingly beautiful. "Wanna make you feel proper special, don't I? Not like some girl I chatted up 'cos I wanna get up your skirt—" "Oh, you don't?" Edwin asks dryly, and Charles can't help snorting a laugh. "Well," he says, "can't say I don't, at that..."

#dbda #dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #payneland

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itneverendshere · 11 hours

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the first relapse being the most scariest thing you’ve seen. sarah’s even calling you about him like “dads trying to get his doctor on the line just in case he od’s”

added this to what i'd already summarized in this ask!! hope everyone enjoys the angst 😔🫂 it’s a little long (around 7.1k)

death by a thousand cuts - r.c

pairing: rafe x pogue!reader (bartender!reader universe) warnings: substance abuse.

Ward’s sitting at the dining table, barely glancing up from his phone when Rafe walks in. His jaw clenches. That look—so cold, so dismissive—always sets something off in him.

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asks, already knowing this isn’t just a normal night.

Ward doesn’t answer right away, just sighs like Rafe being here is another weight on his shoulders. “Your mother called today.”

Rafe freezes.

He doesn’t have to ask which mother. Ward’s new wife has nothing to do with this. His real mom. The one who left.

He tries to stay calm, but he can feel his blood pumping, “What’d she want?”

“She says she wants to see you. You and your sisters.”

Rafe’s eyes narrow, his heart pounding harder now. The audacity of it. She always did this—popped back in when it was convenient for her, like they were just part of her life she could pick up and drop whenever she felt like it.

When was the last time? A couple of years? Before that? It doesn’t matter.

“No. I’m not doing this again.”

“Rafe—”

“No, I said no.” The anger wells up fast, a familiar burn in his chest. He stands there, fists clenched. “She’s full of shit, dad. She doesn't give a fuck about us. So, no. I’m not seeing her.”

Ward looks up, calm as ever, but there's that edge in his eyes—the one that always makes Rafe feel like a little kid who’s stepped out of line. “You’re overreacting. She’s still your mother.”

“My mother?” He lets out a bitter laugh, but there’s no humor in it. His fists tighten at his sides. “She left. She fucking left us. She’s not my mother. She’s just some lady who couldn’t handle shit.”

Ward stands up now. “Watch your mouth.”

“Watch my mouth?” Rafe barks back, stepping forward, his anger boiling over. “I watched her leave me every time she got bored or freaked out. And you—you didn’t do shit!.You just let it happen. Let her walk out over and over.”

“That’s enough, Rafe.”

But he's not done.

He’s too pissed to think straight. “What? You gonna defend her? You’re the one who let her fuck me up like this! You—”

“Stop blaming everyone else for your problems,” Ward snaps, his voice rising. "Grow up. She left. And you’re still standing here acting like a child over it.”

Something inside Rafe cracks. His chest tightens like someone’s squeezing the air out of him. "A child? You don't get it. You never got it. She fucked me up. She fucked all of us up, and you're still acting like it's nothing." His mind is spinning, flashing back to all those nights he was too high to breathe, too strung out to care if he woke up the next day. He feels like he’s suffocating, the anger burning too fast. “I’m not doing this again, dad. I’m not.”

Ward’s gaze turns cold. “She’s trying now. That has to count for something.”

“Trying? Trying?!” Rafe grits out, stepping forward. All those years, all those broken promises, all the times he was left wondering what the hell he did wrong to make her leave—and now Ward wants him to sit down like it’s a fucking family reunion.

“I don’t care what you think about it, Rafe. This isn’t up for discussion. You will see her, and that’s final.”

“No. No fucking way!” He shouts, his voice shaking as he steps closer to Ward, fists clenched. “You can’t make me do this. I’m not going to sit there and pretend like everything’s okay when she’s the reason I turned into the mess I was. And you—” His chest heaves as he fights to find the words, his throat tight. “You’re just as bad as she is.”

Ward’s eyes narrow dangerously, but he continues, “Every time she left, you didn’t do a goddamn thing. You let her walk all over us. You let her leave me, leave us, and you never said a word. You’re a shitty father, just as bad as her."

Ward’s face darkens, a storm brewing behind his eyes. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

“I’ll talk to you however the hell I want,” Rafe fires back, stepping even closer, eyes blazing. “You didn’t stop her. You never protected me. You sat there and watched her fuck me up and then turned around and blamed me for it. Like I was the problem.”

“You were the problem,” Ward snaps, “She didn’t know how to handle you, and neither did I. You were a fucking disaster, Rafe. And that’s on you.”

“No. You two were and are the fucking problem because you can’t let go of her.”

Ward takes a step forward, “This isn’t about you. It’s about your sisters. Sarah wants this. Weezie deserves a chance to know her mother. It’s not all about your issues, Rafe. Grow up.”

“Grow up?” He feels like he’s suffocating, “You think I’m the one who needs to grow up?

“Enough. You will meet her, or you can leave this house right now.”

All the work he's put in, all the shit he's tried to fix, feels like it’s slipping right through his fingers. He can’t be here. Not like this. He’s out the door before he even knows what he’s doing. That itch beneath his skin is back after years, that’s how much control his parents have over him.

Rafe’s hands are still shaking as he gets into his truck, slamming the door harder than he means to. It feels like he can’t get enough air in his lungs, and his thoughts are spinning, they’re all crashing into each other at once. The fight with his father keeps replaying in his head, louder and louder, until he can’t hear anything else.

He’s gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turn white. His dad’s voice, cold and cutting, telling him he’s the problem. That he’s always been the problem. His hands are shaking worse now, trembling like he’s about to snap, and there’s only one thought pounding through his mind: He can’t go to you like this.

The thought of walking through your door, this messed up, makes him feel sick. You’ve seen him at his worst before, but this… this feels different. He can’t let you see him like this—not the old Rafe. Not the one who almost lost everything.

You don’t need to see that. You don’t deserve it.

He knows where he can go instead. Somewhere he shouldn’t, somewhere he swore he’d never go again. But right now, it feels like the only place that makes sense. His head’s spinning, his body buzzing with leftover adrenaline and anger, and he just needs it to stop.

So, he turns the key in the ignition and drives. It doesn’t take long to get to Barry’s. He knows the back roads by heart, even though it’s been years. He pulls up to the small shack Barry calls home, the lights still on, music thumping faintly from inside. It’s like nothing’s changed. The same rundown place, the same shitty cars parked out front, the same smell of smoke and spilled liquor lingering in the air.

Rafe sits there for a minute, gripping the steering wheel, breathing heavy. He shouldn’t be here. He knows that.

He climbs out of the truck, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep them from shaking, and heads toward the door. The second he steps inside, the familiar smell of stale beer and weed hits him like a wave, bringing back memories he thought he’d buried.

Barry’s lounging on the couch, a joint hanging from his mouth, lazily flipping through channels on the TV.

“Country Club!”, Barry drawls when he notices him, smirking around the joint. “Now this is a surprise. Didn’t think I’d ever see you walk through that door again. Thought you were all clean now, with your pretty little girlfriend.”

He tenses at the mention of you. But he can’t walk out now. Not after what just happened with Ward. Not when everything inside him feels like it’s about to blow.

“I just need something,” Rafe mutters, avoiding Barry’s eyes, already regretting this but not enough to stop.

Barry raises an eyebrow, amused. “Something, huh? You know, you’ve got a real habit of showing up here when you’re all fucked up.” He laughs, low and mocking. “What’s the matter this time? Daddy issues again?”

His jaw tightens. “Just give me what I want.”

Barry leans back, flicking ash onto the floor. “You sure you wanna go down that road again, man? Thought you were past this shit.”

“I don’t care,” Rafe snaps, his voice low, shaking with frustration and something darker. “You know what I want. Go get it.”

There’s a pause, and for a second, Barry just looks at him, sizing him up. Then, with a shrug, he gets up, disappearing into the back room. Rafe waits, heart pounding in his ears, staring at the floor, trying not to think about what he’s doing. About what this means.

Barry comes back a minute later, a small bag of coke in his hand. He tosses it onto the table in front of Rafe, “Knock yourself out.”

He doesn’t hesitate. He grabs the bag, his fingers already moving on autopilot as he pulls out his wallet and shoves a roll of cash toward Barry. He knows this is stupid, reckless. He knows this is going to hurt you, more than anything else. But ll he wants is to forget. Just for a little while.

His hands stop shaking the second he takes that first line.

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You’re already drained when you step through the front door of the house, kicking off your shoes and throwing your bag onto the couch. The sticky summer air is clinging to your skin, and all you want is a cold shower and to crash in bed.

The day’s been dragging—work was a shitshow, and all you’ve been thinking about is Rafe. You haven’t heard from him since this morning, which isn’t weird, but there’s been this nagging feeling in your chest, like something’s off.

“Hey,” Monica calls from the kitchen as you grab a glass of water and lean against the counter. She’s scrolling through her phone, half-distracted. Milo’s at kindergarten.

“Hey,” you mumble back. “Everything alright?”

She shrugs, not looking up. “Yeah, mostly.” She pauses, frowning slightly, like she’s trying to piece something together. “I think I saw Rafe’s truck earlier. Over by Barry’s place.”

You blink, trying to process what she just said. “Barry’s?”

“Yeah, you know. The guy who used to sell—Whatever.” Monica shrugs again, more casual than you feel. “I was driving back from work, and I swear it was Rafe’s truck parked outside Barry’s house.”

Your stomach drops. Instantly.

“You’re sure?”

“Looked like his truck,” your sister says, “Thought it was weird. Figured maybe he was helping someone out or something.”

But you know better.

A cold sweat breaks out over your skin. You’ve heard Rafe talk about Barry. Back when things were bad—really bad—he was the one who kept him hooked, who kept pulling him deeper. He told you everything about those years when he was drowning in addication and Barry’s name came up more than once.

And if his truck’s outside Barry’s, you know something’s wrong.

It’s like a pit in your stomach, this gnawing feeling that’s been sitting with you all day.

“What? Why’s that such a big deal?”

You swallow, trying to keep your voice steady, but it’s impossible. “Rafe doesn’t… he doesn’t go there anymore. He hasn’t in years.”

Monica frowns, finally understanding. “Oh. Shit. You think something’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” you mutter, already pulling out your phone, fingers wobbly as you open your messages. You scroll through the last few texts from Rafe, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Except the silence. He’s usually better at checking in, especially when he knows you’ve had a long day. But today? Nothing.

You stare at your screen, debating if you should call him. But deep down, you already know something’s happened. He wouldn’t go to Barry’s unless things were really bad.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” your sister offers, but her voice is hesitant, like she’s not sure. “Maybe he was just stopping by. It doesn’t mean—”

But she doesn’t finish, and you don’t need her to. You know what it means. You feel it in your bones. He’s back in that dark place—And he didn’t come to you. He went to Barry instead.

Why didn’t he come to you?

“I need to go,” you say, your voice coming out more panicked than you’d like, but you can’t help it. Your heart’s racing, your mind is spinning, and the only thing you can focus on is Rafe. You’re grabbing your keys off the counter before your sister can even answer.

“Wait, what? Where are you going?” Monica asks, a bit alarmed now, but you don’t have time to explain.

“I need to find Rafe.”

Your sister steps forward, “Is it really that serious? I mean, maybe he’s just—”

“He’s not just anything,” you cut her off, shaking your head. “If he’s at Barry’s, it’s bad.”

Rafe had told you everything about his past—every ugly detail about the years he spent losing himself, the drugs, the fights, the constant mess of it all. He had opened up to you after your first time together. And for the past two years you’d seen him, the real Rafe, the one who tried so damn hard to be better.

And now? He’s slipping. And you weren’t there.

Your mind is racing as you drive. You think about how good things have been with him—how far he’s come. He’s not the guy he used to be. He doesn’t party like he used to, doesn’t need to numb everything with lines of coke or bottles of whiskey.

He told you about his time in rehab, how scared he was of becoming that version of himself again. But something must’ve happened.

Something big.

Why didn’t he tell you?

The thought is suffocating. You know him—he’s reckless and impulsive sometimes, but he’s been so careful with you, always making sure you never had to see the side of him that scared him the most. He’s opened up about his struggles with anxiety, about how he sometimes still smokes weed to take the edge off, but this… this is different.

This is worse.

It had to be Ward. He’s has always had this chokehold on him, making him feel like he’s never good enough. And whenever his mom gets brought up—whenever she’s even mentioned—it messes with him in ways you can barely understand. She’s the one person who could make him spiral, and Ward is the one person who could push him over that edge.

You slam your fist against the steering wheel, frustrated.

He’s dealing with this alone, and now he’s gone back to Barry. To coke. To everything that almost killed him before. You pull up to his place, your stomach churning. You can see Rafe’s truck parked haphazardly outside, and your heart skips a beat. He’s here.

He’s here, and he didn’t come to you.

You sit there for a moment, gripping the wheel, trying to calm yourself down, trying to figure out what the hell you’re even going to say when you see him.

You get out of the car and practically run toward Barry’s door. You know this place, know the people who come here and what they’re looking for. You’re pretty sure your dad spent half his life here, when Barry’s dad still ran the business.

You don’t even knock. You push the door open. Barry’s on the couch, looking up lazily when you walk in, and you see Rafe—sitting in the corner, eyes bloodshot, jaw clenched.

He looks like a ghost.

Barry snickers from the couch, taking a drag from his joint. “Well, well, look who it is. Didn’t think I’d see the two of you here together.”

“Shut the fuck up, Barry,” you snap, glaring at him before turning your full attention to Rafe. “What are you doing here?”

“W-What?”

“Baby, look at you.”

He tries to stand, his movements slow, like his body isn’t responding the way he wants it to. His eyes are bloodshot, unfocused, his pupils blown wide, and he’s swaying slightly, barely able to keep his balance.

“I just... I needed to clear my head,” he mumbles, the words slurring together. His hand goes to his hair, but it’s shaking, and he can’t even look at you. “It’s not—”

“It’s not what?” You feel your heart breaking with every word, the cracks widening as you take in the mess of him, his clothes disheveled, his face pale, his hands twitching.

He stumbles again, trying to step toward you, but he’s so high he can barely stand. “I didn’t want... I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he rasps out, finally meeting your eyes for just a second before looking away. “Didn’t want you to... think I was still... still that guy.”

“You’re not that guy anymore,” you say softly, even though right now, he looks too much like that guy. “But you’re acting like him.”

His head drops, and he looks down at the floor, his shoulders sagging, defeated. “Didn’t know...what else to do.”

“And you didn’t think to come to me?” Your voice breaks on the last word, “You went to Barry instead of me?”

“Hey now—"

“I told you to shut the fuck up,” You almost scream in Barry's face, your chest rising with each breath you take. Rafe can't stand to look you in the eyes right now. He can't see the disappointment.

“You always know what to do. You call me. You come to me. Why would you run here? Why would you go back to this?” You glance at Barry, who’s watching the whole scene with a smirk on his face like he’s enjoying every second of your heartbreak. “You’re better than this. Get in the car. We can talk about this.”

But he shakes his head, his breath shaky. “Can’t… can’t be with you right now.”

“Why?”

“Just… too much. Hurts too much.” He looks down, guilt washing over him. “Didn’t want you to see... this.”

“Then get in the car. We can figure this out together.” Your voice cracks, the hurt pouring out.

He hesitates, shaking his head again. “I… can’t.”

It pushes something inside you.

Maybe you’ll regret it later but now it’s all you can think about. If he doesn’t want your help, he doesn’t want you. And if he doesn’t want you right now he doesn’t deserve to want you when he’s better.

“You can either get in this car and fight with me, or you can stay here. But if you stay—”

“Y-You’ll leave?” He’s looking at you despite the fog in his brain, not sure if he’s hearing you correctly, “Leave me?”

“I didn’t say that—”

“E-everyon leaves right?"

He’s never said anything like that to you before.

“I’m not leaving you, but if you stay here, with him,” you jerk your head in Barry’s direction, “I can’t help you. I can’t pull you out of this if you don’t want to get out.”

You know you can’t fix this for him. He has to make the choice. His eyes dart toward Barry for a second, and Barry just shrugs, clearly not giving a damn about anything but his next hit.

“I love you, but I can’t watch you destroy yourself.”

For a second, you think maybe you’ve gotten through to him, because his eyes soften behind all that darkness. But then he shakes his head again, looking at the floor like he’s already made his decision.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he mutters, barely audible. “But I don’t know how to stop.”

Your heart breaks a little more at that. “Yes you do, baby. You do. You just need to believe it.”

If he doesn’t come with you, you’re not sure where this ends for him. He’s stuck, frozen in place, trapped by whatever’s going on in his head, and you realize that no matter how much you love him, no matter how much you want to save him, you can’t force him to choose you. You can’t make him get in the car.

“You have to decide,” you say quietly, voice breaking. “Me or this. You can’t have both.”

Rafe looks up at you, eyes glossy, and for a second, you think he might actually say something — something that will make this all okay, something that will bring him back to you. But he doesn’t. He just stands there, torn apart by his demons, his lips pressed into a line. You feel the pit in your stomach grow deeper.

“Okay,” you nod, barely holding back tears. “I guess that’s my answer.”

You turn and walk out the door, your heart shattering with every inch of distance you put between you and him. You don't look back, because if you do, you know you’ll drag him out yourself, and you can’t do that. Not now. But as you get into your car and grip the steering wheel with your entire strength, the sobs come anyway.

You don’t want to leave him. God, you don’t want to. But he didn’t choose you. Not this time.

Rafe doesn’t even register the sound of the door slamming behind you. It’s like he’s watching everything happen from somewhere far away, his body numb, his mind completely blank. You said something, you were upset—he knows that much—but the words never really hit him. They just floated around. He sinks back down into the chair, staring at the floor, heart racing but completely detached. The room is spinning a little, his chest tight, but he can’t feel anything. Can’t let himself feel anything. It’s better this way. Safer.

You left.

He knows that happened, but it doesn’t mean anything right now. He can’t process it. Not in this state. Not when the drugs are still in his system, making everything feel like it’s underwater. He blinks a few times, trying to get his brain to catch up, but it’s not working. It’s just static.

Barry’s voice is somewhere in the background, laughing about something, but he doesn’t hear him either. It’s like the world’s on mute. His body’s still buzzing from the high, fingers twitching, muscles tense, but inside? Inside he’s empty.

Hours pass, maybe. Time doesn’t exist here, not when he’s this far gone. The light changes through the window, but it could be minutes or days for all he knows. He drifts in and out, his head heavy, eyes closing, but sleep never comes. Just darkness. Maybe he did too many lines.

At some point, he wakes up—if you can call it that. His body feels like it weights two hundred pounds, his head is spinning, his mouth dry and sour. He blinks against the light, his vision blurry, trying to figure out where the hell he is.

It takes a second for everything to catch up. To realize he’s at Barry’s.

And then, it hits him all at once. You.

You were here. You were mad. And then you were gone.

His chest tightens, a sick, sinking feeling crawling up his throat. He sits up too fast, his head swimming. Fuck.He rubs his hands over his face, trying to calm his breathing. His thoughts are still sluggish. You left. You walked out, and he… he didn’t stop you. Didn’t even try.

Why didn’t he stop you?

Before he can think too much about it, Barry saunters in, a smug grin on his face, holding a beer in one hand, a joint in the other. He takes one look at Rafe, slouched and disoriented, and lets out a low, mocking laugh.

“Well, well, well,” Barry drawls, leaning against the doorframe, clearly enjoying every second of this. “Look who’s finally awake. You done fucked it up, Country Club.”

Rafe doesn’t say anything. Can’t.

Barry raises an eyebrow, taking a drag from the joint, shaking his head. “Damn, man. Thought you were smarter than that.”

Rafe just stares at the floor, his stomach twisting. He can’t remember exactly what he said to you. But the look on your face… he can’t forget that. The disappointment. The hurt.

Barry chuckles, settling down on the couch across from him. “What was it? You running your mouth again, or did she just get tired of you being a fuckup?”

The shame is settling in now, creeping up his spine. He doesn’t want to hear this. Doesn’t want to hear anything. But Barry just keeps going, like he’s enjoying watching him fall apart.

“Should’ve seen it coming, man,” Barry continues, “Girl like that? She was bound to leave eventually.”

If he felt strong enough he would’ve punched that joint out of his mouth, his teeth following next. Who the fuck did he think he was to talk about you like he knew you.

He knows Barry’s just trying to get under his skin, but it’s working. He feels sick. He presses his hands against his eyes, trying to push it all away, but it’s no use.

“You done fucked it up, Country Club,” Barry repeats, leaning back with a satisfied smirk. “And now you’re right back here. Same old Rafe.”

Same old Rafe. He told himself he’d never end up here again. He swore he was done with this. Done with Barry, done with the drugs, done with the guy he used to be.

But now? Now he’s right back where he started. And the worst part? He let you see it. He doesn’t know how to fix this. Doesn’t know if he even can fix this. But the one thing he does know? He should’ve crawled after you.

Rafe doesn’t say a word.

He doesn’t need to. His hands are already moving, reaching for the small bag of coke on the table. His fingers tremble as they close around it, the weight of the plastic barely registering in his hand.

Barry watches him, that same smug grin never leaving his face, taking another drag of his joint, exhaling a cloud of smoke with a low chuckle. He’s not surprised. Not at all.

"Of course," Barry mutters, shaking his head in amusement. “Of course, you're takin’ that shit with you.”

Rafe’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t fight him. He can feel Barry’s eyes on him, feel the judgment radiating off him, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not anymore.

Not after everything he’s already fucked up. He stuffs the bag in his jacket pocket, standing up on shaky legs, the room still spinning a little as he stumbles toward the door. His mind is on autopilot, moving without him, as if the drugs are the only thing holding him together.

"Attaboy, Country Club," Barry calls after him, voice dripping with condescension, laughter bubbling up from deep in his chest. “Just keep runnin’. That’s what you’re good at, right?”

Rafe’s hand tightens on the doorknob, his teeth grinding together, but he doesn’t turn back. He can’t look at Barry—he can’t look at any of this—so he does what he always does.

He walks away. He doesn’t think. He just keeps moving, out of the door, out into the night, the bag burning a hole in his pocket.

It’s been two weeks since you last saw Rafe.

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Two weeks of silence, of unanswered calls and texts that sit there on your screen and make you cry every time you look at them. You told him you’d leave, but you didn’t mean it. You never meant it.

You just needed him to fight. For himself. But he didn’t.

And now, you can’t stop thinking about him. It physically hurts.

Every morning you wake up with this heavy impossible ache in your chest, and it only gets worse as the day goes on. You keep wondering where he is, if he’s okay, if he’s even thinking about you or if he’s too far gone to care.

You miss him. God, you miss him.

Now you don’t even know where he is. If he’s still spiraling or if he’s hit rock bottom.

You’ve barely been able to keep it together at work. Every time you try to focus, that image of Rafe in his absolute worst slips in, and you never get anything done. You’ve called in sick twice, just to stay in bed and cry, because you can barely breathe.

You’ve reached out to Sarah a few times, trying to understand what’s going on, but she doesn’t know much either. "He’s off the grid," she’d told you last time, "Doesn’t want to talk to anyone."

That was a week ago.

And now you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, staring at your phone, debating if you should try one more time. One more call. One more text.

Because this can’t possibly end this way.

He’s the love of your life.

Sarah’s name flashes on the screen, and you nearly drop the damn thing. “Sarah?”

“Hey,” You can hear it immediately—something’s wrong. “Are you home right now?”

Your stomach drops, “Yeah. Why? What’s going on?”

You can hear her take a shaky breath. “It’s Rafe. He’s, shit, it’s bad. Like, really bad.”

“What do you mean, bad? Sarah, what happened?”

“Dad’s trying to get his doctor on the line,” she says, her voice cracking. “Just in case he ODs.”

Your blood turns ice cold.

“He’s not picking up,” she continues, her words spilling out in a rush, like she’s trying to keep herself from breaking down. “Dad’s freaking out, and Rafe—he’s not making sense. He’s been on a bender for days, and now he’s just... he’s not there. I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe you could—”

“I’m coming,” you say, cutting her off, already standing, your body moving on autopilot.

You hang up before she can say anything else, grabbing your keys and rushing out the door. The drive to Tannyhill feels like it takes forever as your mind comes up with worst-case scenarios. You’ve seen Rafe struggle before—you’ve seen the dark places he’s been—but if Sarah’s calling you, if Ward’s getting a doctor involved….

You barely notice you’ve already parked the car, barely notice the front door swinging open as you run inside. The house is quiet, too quiet.

Sarah’s standing by the staircase, her eyes red and puffy. She doesn’t say anything, just nods toward the living room.

And that’s when you see him.

He’s slumped on the couch, his body limp, his eyes half-open but glazed over, like he’s not even seeing what’s in front of him. His skin is pale, clammy, his hands twitching every few seconds, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He looks like half a version of himself, his breathing shallow and uneven.

Ward’s pacing the room, his phone pressed to his ear. “I don’t care if he’s busy, get him here now. He’s going to fucking die.”

“Rafe?” you call, stepping toward him. But he doesn’t react. Doesn’t even flinch. He just stares ahead, eyes unfocused, like he’s not even aware you’re there.

Sarah’s standing behind you now, her voice low, “He won’t talk to us. He’s too far gone.”

You sink down beside him, your heart breaking at the sight of him like this. You reach out, hesitating for a second before gently placing your hand on his arm.

“Rafe,” your voice wavers. “Baby, it’s me. Please… please talk to me.”

But there’s nothing. Just silence.

His head lolls to the side, and his eyes meet yours—but it’s like looking at a ghost. The person you know, the person you love, isn’t there. Not right now. Not in this moment. And it kills you.

You keep whispering his name, pleading for him to wake up, to do something, but nothing works.

Ward's still on the phone, pacing like a caged animal, his voice a angry hum in the background. His eyes flick over to you every few minutes, but he doesn’t say anything. Sarah’s standing off to the side, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes red and puffy from crying. You can see how scared she is, and you’re glad they got Weezie out of the house before she could see this.

After what feels like an eternity, the front door bursts open, and a doctor rushes in, followed by a paramedic with a bag of medical equipment. The doctor, some guy Ward must have on speed dial for situations like this, doesn’t waste any time. He kneels down beside Rafe, checking his pulse, his pupils, his breathing.

“This is bad,” the doctor mutters, shaking his head. “He’s lucky he’s still breathing.”

Lucky.

The paramedic moves in, setting up an oxygen mask, checking Rafe’s vitals, and it feels like the room is spinning. You try to stay calm, try to keep your hand on Rafe.

Ward finally hangs up the phone and stands there, watching as the doctor works. “Is he gonna be okay?” he asks, his voice strained because god forbid he shows more emotion.

The doctor glances up, his expression grim. “We need to take him in. I’m stabilizing him, but if this had gone on any longer, we’d be having a different conversation right now.”

You feel like you're going to be sick.

The paramedic starts prepping him for transport, and you stand there, helpless, watching as they move him onto a stretcher. His body looks so limp, so fragile. They’re talking about taking him to the hospital for observation, but all you can hear is the blood pounding in your ears.

Ward steps forward, he watches his son being carried away. For the first time, you see it—real fear in his eyes.

“I should’ve seen this coming,” Ward says, his voice shaking. “I should’ve stopped it. This is my fault.”

You feel something snap inside of you. “I’m sure it fucking is.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there like a fucking idiot. Sarah is beside you now, her hand on your arm, gently pulling you back. “Let’s go,” she mutters,“We should go with him.”

You nod, swallowing as you follow her out of the house, leaving Ward standing there alone.

You climb into your car, Sarah beside you, and you both sit there for a moment in silence, watching as the ambulance pulls away, taking Rafe with it.

“I’m scared,” Sarah admits.

You close your eyes, and nod. “So am I.”

You have to remind yourself to breathe. She sits beside you, staring straight ahead and neither of you says another word.

The hospital is quiet when you arrive, eerily so. You both rush in, Sarah at your side, searching for the emergency room and after a bunch of paperwork and hurried conversations, you’re finally led to the waiting room. The doctor said they’d keep you updated, and you sit down on those stiff, uncomfortable chairs, the waiting begins.

Minutes drag by like hours. You try to text or scroll through your phone, anything to distract yourself, but you can’t focus. Every time you close your eyes, all you can see is Rafe. It’s like your brain is stuck on replay, and you can’t shut it off. Sarah’s over there biting her lip until it’s bleeding. Every now and then, she looks at you, like she’s about to say something, but then she doesn’t. And you don’t either. You can’t. What the hell would you even say? It feels like you’re both waiting for the worst possible news and just pretending you’re not.

After what feels like forever, the doctor finally comes through the doors, and Sarah and you jump up at the same time.

The doctor sighs, and he looks tired, like this isn’t the first time he’s delivered news like this today.

“We stabilized him,” he says, “He was really close to an overdose, but we got to him in time. He’s still unconscious, but his vitals are stable for now. We’ll keep him under observation for at least 24 hours.”

You finally take a deep breath, but it’s shaky, and it doesn’t feel real.

Sarah doesn’t even hesitate. The second the doctor says Rafe’s stable, she’s heading towards his room, like she needs to see him, to make sure for herself that he’s really still here. You don’t follow her, though. Your legs feel like they’re made of concrete, if you move, you’ll just collapse right there in the hallway.

As much as you want to be with him, to hold his hand or just… see him breathing, you know you can’t handle it. Not right now. You’ve spent the last two weeks trying to hold it together, and this is the first time you feel like you can finally breathe. Like you’re not suffocating with worry.

What you need more than anything is to get out of here. To just breathe, to close your eyes for more than a minute without the image of him passed out, strung out, burned into your brain. You need sleep. You need to feel something other than panic. He’s gonna be okay. Maybe not perfect, maybe not healed, but for now, he’s alive.

The next day, you finally gather the courage to see him. You feel like you might throw up at any second. You stop outside his room, staring at the door for what feels like forever, trying to convince yourself to go inside.

He’s lying in bed, looking like he barely walked out of this one alive, but he’s awake. His eyes meet yours the second you step inside, and you feel like you’re going to start crying at any given second.

“Hey,” You manage to say, You don’t trust your voice to be strong enough to say something more.

Rafe blinks, like he’s surprised to see you. His voice is rough when he speaks, cracked from everything his body’s been through. “You came.”

“Of course I did,” He’s genuinely shocked. As if he thought you’d just walk away from all of this. From him. You swallow hard, taking a step closer to the bed. “Of course I came, Rafe.” Your voice is soft, barely holding together. “Where else would I be?”

He doesn’t answer. His eyes flicker away from yours, settling on the IV in his arm, like he can’t stand to look at you.

“Sarah called me. She was scared. She didn’t know what to do.”

Rafe’s jaw tightens, but he still won’t meet your eyes. “She shouldn’t have,” he mutters, his voice hoarse, barely there.

“She shouldn’t have had to, Rafe. You scared the shit out of her—out of everyone. And I’ve been sitting here for two weeks, waiting for you to say something, anything, and you just—” You stop yourself, your throat closing up, and you bite your lip to keep from crying. “You almost died.”

You can see his chest rising and falling slowly, and for a split second, you think he’s not going to answer at all. That he’s just going to keep shutting you out.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he says quietly. “I didn’t want you to see how fucked up I am.”

Your heart breaks all over again because you’ve already seen it. You’ve seen every part of him—the good, the bad, the absolute worst. And you’re still here. You’re still standing in this stupid hospital room because you love him. He shakes his head, his hands gripping the edge of the blanket like he’s trying to hold himself together.

“I don’t deserve you.”

You step closer to the bed, sitting down carefully on the edge, and for the first time in weeks, you feel like you can breathe. Just a little bit.

“Don’t say that,” you reach for his hand. He flinches at first but doesn’t pull away when you lace your fingers with his. “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll get through this. But you can’t keep pushing me away. I need you to let me help you.”

He closes his eyes, his face twisting in pain, “Ward wanted us to meet mom and I just—”

You’ve never fully understood what his mom meant to him, or maybe what losing her did to him, now you do. That deep-rooted pain that always seems to haunt him when he talks about her is stronger than you’ve ever seen before.

“I didn’t want you to see this mess. I don’t want anyone to. I’m a fucking disaster. Every time I try to fix something, I just make it worse. I just—” He breaks off, his jaw clenching like he’s trying to swallow down the rest of his words, the ones he can’t say out loud.

“You spent years sober, that’s not easy,” You scoot closer, wrapping your arms around him carefully, not caring if he feels like a mess or if you’re being too much. You just want him to feel like he’s not alone. “Baby, I know you’re hurting,” you murmur into his shoulder, “But I’m not going anywhere.”

“You should,” He confesses, “I hurt you.”

“You have,” you admit, “But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving. I’m not gonna give up on you.”

He looks away, like he doesn’t believe you, like he’s waiting for you to just walk out of that hospital room and never look back. But you don’t.

You tighten your grip on his hand, "You don’t get to decide that for me. I’m still here because I love you. Even when you push me away.”

“You shouldn’t love me,” he whispers, like it’s some kind of fact, like it’s already been decided.

You shake your head, leaning in closer, your hand resting on his cheek. “But I do, Rafe. I always will. Even when you don’t think you deserve it, we’ll figure it out, together, okay? One step at a time.”

He nods, barely, but it's something. It’s a start.

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