#had a little mental breakdown but it’s cool I’m fine

[ruthytwoshakes]

@gofishgo uhhhhrhshjd the. fella

he jump.. nice Oooooo I’ve been thinkingnnsd about your little guys,, especially the soldier shark he so cool <33333333333 I will have to make some art of soldier shark when I feel better.

[joonipertree]

Tags: college au, awkward mikey, flustered mikey, mikey has a crush on you. skateboarder!mikey.

[I wrote this Feb 2022. THIS WAS BEFORE I WATCHED THE SHOW OR READ THE MANGA. I JUST SAW A PIC AND THOUGHT HE WAS CUTE???]

You weren’t sure what you were watching but you were pretty sure it was akin to a circus.

“Mikey, you have to.” A pretty girl said with a bored expression on her face.

“No.”

Mikey, your classmate, was simply circling around her with an equally bored expression. He was the definition of carefree, skateboard under his feet and hands in his pocket with his long blonde hair in a ponytail.

“You were fine five minutes ago.”

“That was before I had two mental breakdowns about it.”

“In the span of five minutes?”

“You don’t know my life.”

“I’m your sister.”

“No.”

“Mikey, just fucking go up to them and kiss already, it’s exhausting watching you pine.” Ryuguji, another classmate of yours, spoke from the bench he was sitting on.

“Shut your fucking mouth before I punch you, Kenchin.” Mikey deadpanned, skating a little wobbly for a second before righting himself.

“That’s not the point of this, you need a partner for the assignment.” The blonde girl spoke sternly.

“I’d rather fail than ask them.”

“I’ll tell big brother on you.”

“Oh no, I’m so scared. What horrible things will he do?” Mikey had a very sarcastic tone in his voice as he shivered exaggeratedly.

“Ass.”

“Emma, I’m still not convinced. There’s nothing that can possibly happen that will make me go and talk to them.”

“Oh hey _____, didn’t see you there.” Ryuguji all but shouted out.

Mikey promptly fell off his skateboard and stumbled two feet forward before stabilizing himself.

“Hey, sorry for just standing there, I needed to use the vending machine.” you said with a giggle.

Mikey all but skipped to the side which made you giggle as you walked towards it.

It was silent for a while and when you turned around, you saw the three of them having some kind of conversation with their eyes. It mostly consisted of Mikey shaking his head vehemently.

Emma looked at you a second later and smiled a saccharine sweet smile at you before saying, “I love that shirt on you, it’s very cute.”

You thanked her and looked to your right to see Ryuguji keeping Mikey in a headlock as the other tried to escape his clutches.

“So, I heard about that project that’s coming up. Do you have a partner yet?”

“Sadly, no.” You sighed. Your friends had paired off already and you were the only one left.

“Mikey doesn’t have a partner either.” Emma said just as Mikey broke himself free.

“Oh, if you want to be my partner then you can.” You said as nonchalantly as possible. To be honest, Mikey was very cute and you always wanted to talk to him but never had the courage.

“i’m-well-no-I mean-I-” Mikey stuttered the worst you’ve ever heard anyone stutter.

“This means yes in Mikey.” Emma informed and for your own sanity, you believed her.

With a drink in your hand, you walked towards him and handed him your phone.

“Add your number in, I’ll text you.”

The boy just stood there in silence, eyes almost out of his sockets as he held the pastel blue covered phone in his hand. You noticed how big his hands were and it made you blush a bit. You wondered what it would feel like to hold them.

“Oh my god, you fucking coward.” Emma muttered but before she could take your phone from his hand, he cradled it against his chest while glaring at her. He then very carefully typed in his digits.

You tried opening your bottle of juice but were very clearly failing to, grunting softly at the effort you were putting in.

He took the bottle from you and gave your phone back before very easily unscrewing the cap.

Why the fuck was that attractive?

He handed it back and you squeaked out a thanks before saying a quick goodbye.

You were too far to hear or see him but the boy melted against his best friend and whined over how cute you were.

“Did you see how cool I was opening that bottle for them? I was so fuckling calm, what the fuck.”

[hellosweetart]

Speaking of those asks where Nacha finds out about his scars and Francis’s final meal, I think the only way Nacha would find out about them is if she truly loves Francis for who he is, warts and all. It’s in the ending where Francis finds unconditional love for the first time with his wife and daughter.

So let’s just say Nacha got an inkling what her husband might be doing behind the scenes due to the various murder weapons he had hidden and the people who harassed her had magically gone missing the next day. One day, some rando was hitting on her but even though she kept bringing up she was married, the rando keeps harassing her. Obviously Francis didn’t take it very well but Nacha caught him in the act. She was initially frightened but Francis calmed him down by saying “I did it to protect you! He was giving you so much trouble. I don’t want anyone getting in the way of our marriage, sweetie.”

But Nacha was certain that this wasn’t the first time her husband killed. Once they were alone together, she asked, “is this not your first time?” Francis wanted to deny it at first but now that he’s caught in the act, he confessed all of his murders to her. Obviously Nacha was terrified and distressed, thinking he will kill her next but Francis stopped her from leaving, “Nacha! Please don’t leave! I know I’m not a good person. I’m far from a saint by that doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you. I love you. I have so much love for you. I know that you’re frightened but please don’t leave me…”

Nacha hesitates but she stayed by his side, both out of fear and a part of her still does love him. As they went to sleep that night, Nacha looks at her husband’s sleeping body thinking, “what am I gonna do? What if he kills me and Ana? I know I shouldn’t stay but I still wanted to…” she knows that if she leaves, Francis would be heartbroken so in the end, Nacha still stuck by Francis the whole night. Francis still does love his family so as long as she doesn’t leave with Anastacha, everything could be fine. She gave him a kiss and whispered, “if only I could understand you, Francis.” And went back to sleep. Little did she know, Francis heard the whole thing and is disappointed in himself because he can’t tell her everything yet.

Much later on, Francis is having a mental breakdown in the bathroom due to a ptsd episode. Nacha went to check on him and Francis cried and told her to not open the door. Nacha respected his privacy but still stuck around. Once Francis cooled down, Nacha politely opened the door once Francis allowed her to come in. Much to her horror, Nacha found Francis naked on the floor. She saw every scar and burn mark on his body. Everything in the bathroom was wrecked. As Nacha reached out to her husband, Francis recoiled and wrapped a towel around his body screaming “Please! Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me! I’m so disgusting…”

Nacha let Francis have his space before sitting by him and hugging him for support. It was one of those days Francis couldn’t hold his emotions anymore so he exploded. After comforting him, Nacha took him to their bed to cool him down.

“Do you wanna tell me what happened Francis?” She asked. Francis hesitates at first saying “but if I tell you, you’d be more disgusted by me.” Nacha didn’t want to pry so she let him rest. After contemplating in his shame and grief, Francis slowly tells her everything about his past and how he got his scars. After telling Nacha everything, Francis asks her, “Tell me the truth Nacha. Do you think I’m a monster? I know I am one but I need to hear it from you. I won’t get mad at you, I promise.”

Nacha couldn’t respond at first. She was horrified but she felt really bad for what her husband went through. In short, she sympathised with him but that doesn’t mean she approves of what he’s done. She hugs Francis, “I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t like what you’ve done to those people but that doesn’t mean I hate you.”

Francis was surprised at her answer as he expects his wife to hate him, “What? You don’t hate me? But I’ve done so much wrong! How could you ever love me?”

“I can’t explain it. I don’t understand why either. But…I still love you Francis.”

“You…love me? Even if I’m a hideous monster?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

Out of vulnerability, Francis hugs Nacha very tightly and cries into her arms. He finally found someone who accepted him for who he is, flaws and all, “Thank you Nacha, for everything. I’m damaged, I’m broken, but you made me feel human. I couldn’t be any more grateful that you’re in my life, sweetie. I love you Nacha.”

So the couple embraces each other, with Francis’s body fully exposed, no longer fearing of hiding his scars from his wife. And then…they pork. But they weren’t alone. Anastacha had heard everything from the other side of their room. From her father’s murders to his past. Anastacha began to reevaluate what she knew about her father. She knows what he has done is wrong but in the end, she just couldn’t hate him either. In fact, she sees her father in a new light but that doesn’t mean she’ll follow in his footsteps.

The next day, Anastacha didn’t tell her mom that she heard everything but all she asked was, “is dad gonna be ok or whatever?”

Nacha smiled at her daughter, “don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He’s been through a lot but he’s getting by.”

This brings a smile to Anastacha’s face. The ending is when Francis’s birthday is around the corner. Nacha and Anastacha wanted to make something special for him so they cook his favourite dish (you guessed it) beef stew and strawberry cheesecake. When Francis got home, his wife and daughter surprised him and wishes him a Happy Birthday. Francis didn’t understand why anyone would celebrate his birthday. He hasn’t done that in a long time but he feels so touched that his own family remembers his birthday. Francis cries tears of joy, the family does one big group hug before celebrating Francis’s birthday together. The end.

~ SK Francis anon 🔪

And this is best ending! Its like the best ending you will get in a horror game if you chose the right choices. It's very much incredible!

Also, I can't help but to make sketches of this heartfelt moment.

After Francis told her his past and trauma, Nacha showered him with full support, and was very happy that he opened up to her. They felt the same feeling like the first time they have fallen in love.

The loving embrace that night is so... Out of this world. Its so unforgettable.

(Ana will probably have a baby sibling lol)

A month passed, and Francis' birthday is already here. Nacha and Ana greeted him and they are the happiest family ever

[ynbabe]

Lockwood & Co. Incorrect quotes, pt.6

Before Lucy 

Y/n: It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s free: pouring river water in your socks! Anthony: Why would I do that? Y/n: It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s free!

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

*The Squad is eating dinner* George: Can you pass the salt? Anthony: *throws Y/n across the table*

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

George, after Anthony did something stupid: You should have realised, Anthony, if Y/n didn't kill you, I would have.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: When will Ted himself...finally show up to the talk? Anthony: The final boss. George: You guys know TEDtalks stands for technology, entertainment, and design talks, right? Y/n: I will not let Ted hide behind these lies any longer!

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony, in love: How do you do that? Y/n, after having done something dumb: I'm fearless. George, having introduced the idiots and now regretting it: When we were kids, I saw you run from bees. You flailed around and tripped over a chair. It was both hysterical and sad. Y/n: I'm mostly fearless.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: My aesthetic is "would be sentenced to the chair by DEPRAC."

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: Who hurt you? Anthony, always on the edge of a mental breakdown: *snorting* What, do you want a list? Y/n, pulling out ALOT of iron/silver weapons: ...Yes, actually.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony: Why would you think any of this was a good idea?! Y/n: Probably because I’m a dangerous sociopath with a long line of violence. Anthony: Oh... George, from across the room: *from across the room* I don’t understand how you keep forgetting that.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: It’s not gonna work, I’m not a snitch. George: Fine, let's try something else. Tag a friend you recently committed a crime with. Y/n: Lmao, @Anthony.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony: I hate you. Y/n: Well, according to this picture I drew of us holding hands, that is untrue.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony, after a fight with Y/n: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was changing her name to Y/n.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n, grave-robbing: I’m going to hell. Anthony, there for a case: Probably. Y/n: I'll pick you up? Anthony: *nodding* Carpool.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony, pissed : Y/n! I thought you were dead! Y/n, back after running away for a year: No, just in deep cover. Anthony, about to lose his mind: ...But it was an open casket. Y/n, little scared now: It was very deep.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: Hold on, I can explain! Anthony: Really? Can you now? Y/n: I can if you give me a minute to think of a convincing lie.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Since Lucy

George, trying to joke: Hey, Joe said he's coming over this afternoon. Y/n, expecting a ‘delivery’: Cool. George: Do you know who Joe is? Y/n: JOE MAMA! Anthony, not even looking up from his phone: Damn, that backfired.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n, just back home: Do you cook? Lucy: I made a cake once. Anthony: Yeah, it was good. Lucy: Really? Anthony: Don’t make me lie twice, Luce.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n, back from sneaking around for state secrets: Anthony! For the love of god, please turn down that music. I have a hangover. Anthony, pissed at her: *blasting the mii theme at full volume* That sounds like a you problem, not a mii problem.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony: For most of human history, vehicles had automatic collision avoidance and could even take you home if you were asleep or drunk. But then we got rid of the horse. George: You complete moron. You stupid fucking idiot. "Cars would be better if they could bite and shit" – that was you just now, dumbass. George: "Wouldn't it be cool if cars could piss? Wouldn't it be cool if cars could fuck?" Fuck off. Y/n: It would be cool if cars could fuck. Lucy: We... We still have horses.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Anthony, to Y/n, since they’re sharing a room,: I'm leaving for the weekend, so I hid 100 dollars in your side of the room for food. Clean your side and you will find it.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Lucy: It’s funny how well you and George get along. Didn’t they hate you at first? Y/n: George hates everybody at first. It’s their way of reaching out to people.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: I just found out from Lucy today that when I ‘died’ and George threw my weapons in the grave, Anthony said, “You should aim one at the coffin to be sure.”

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Y/n: I give up. I am so tired. George: Get the emergency supply! Lucy: *carries Anthony and throws him in front of Y/n* Anthony: *smiles* Y/n: AND I AM BACK BABY, LET’S GOOO

[jstarr86]

I sat watching my son as he played. He was the spitting image of his father, the man he didn’t know and it wasn’t for lack of interest his dad didn’t know he existed. I’d gotten pregnant and ran off leaving my whole world behind and moving. My son was the product of a half drunk night of passion between me and one of my closest friends. I found out 8 weeks later I was pregnant and left in the middle of the night back to America. His dad I’d fallen for my best friend and it scared me cause I figured he wouldn’t look at me the same I was always one of the boys. The First Lady of Bullet Club they’d always tell me. I’d kept with him we’d been friends for years since I started at New Japan. They’d blown me up when I first left and I changed the number I freaked I didn’t wanna ruin his life he had the world ahead of him but I followed his success I was proud of him. Sometimes I wondered what it had been like if I hadn’t ran away, if I didn’t bail. How he would have reacted would he had been mad, happy I know he’d been shocked what would he had done if I told him how I felt. I had no doubts regardless he’d had stepped up and been a amazing father. Sometimes I’d think about telling him but I couldn’t especially not after leaving he’d think I was full of shit and I was scared of how much he’d hate me. But there was no denying him that was his twin. I looked up as I saw movement ending my daydreaming he’d taken off as I ran after him

“Stop!” I sighed “Alipate Tevita Leone!” I yelled I saw someone grab him and ran pushing them “get the hell-“ I stopped looking into the eyes of one of my friends and gasped

“Nat?!”

“You got a kid!”

“Where the fuck have you been!”

“I- I gotta go.” I grabbed my son and went to leave from the three brothers my eyes having never left Tamas. Who immediately stood in my way blocking me.

“Nah you ain’t leaving you been running you ran away 5 years ago and no one could find you and now you got a kid.”

“I-“

“He has my fucking name Natasha.”

“Oh shit.”

“Woah little man stop running off.” T picked him up as he reached for him and I saw him and their younger brother look between my son and their brother in shock. They looked just alike and now that they were near each other it was even more obvious.

“Is- he’s mine.”

“Can we not do this in a fucking public park.”

“Fine we can go to your house.”

“Fine.”

“Come here baby.”

“No.” I closed my eyes sighing as he leaned his head on T “me stay.”

“I’ll carry him, if it’s cool.”

“Fine, stubborn.”

“I’m not ubburn.”

“Stubborn.”

“Stubbon.” They chuckled as we walked me I was having a mental fucking breakdown. Tama was pissed I could see it all over his face but i understood he literally just ran into his child he never knew about a 4 year old spitting image of him. T strapped him in the car seat and shut the door.

“Here’s my address.” I handed them.

“Oh hell naw I’m riding with your ass before you pull some more shit.”

“Shit.” I rolled my eyes looking at him “shit, shit.”

“Tevita.” I sternly said looking at him

“Orry.” He mumbled

“You named him after us.”

“I yeah I- can we talk about this in 10 minutes please.”

“Yeah go bro we’ll meet you.” Getting in the car Tama got in slamming my door

“I understand your upset but don’t break my car.” He glared at me as I started the car I glanced at him seeing the anger in his body language.

“How old is he?”

“He turns 5 in a week his um his birthday is the same day as T.” 10 long minutes later I pulled in my drive. Ali was asleep and I lifted him in my arms as I carried him and his backpack and grabbed my keys which Tama jerked from my hand opening the door. I walked to his room and placed him on top of his blankets I turned jumping as Tama stood silently arms crossed in the doorway as he looked around. I knew he liked it he liked xman and comics and I saw him eye the nightcrawler poster a copy of the same I’d bought him once for his birthday. There was also a image of their mask in a picture the face paint they always wore. I walked out going into the living room “Don’t guys want a drink?”

“Fuck the drink when the fuck we’re you gonna tell me I have a fucking kid! Were you even gonna fucking tell me!”

“Lower your fucking voice.”

“I think I’ve earned the right to raise my voice.”

“I’m not saying you haven’t I’m saying lower your voice because he’s asleep dammit.”

“Don’t start.”

“Both of you stop.” T said “you both need to sit down and talk calmly.”

“Talk Natasha.”

“I.” I sighed “you remember that night?”

“The night we fucked yeah I do.”

“Well I found out I was pregnant.”

“So you ran away is that why you up and dipped.”

“Yes.”

“How could you keep that from me what the fuck.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you I was scared ok, I didn’t want to ruin our friendship more and I didn’t want to fuck up your career.”

“What!”

“I didn’t want you to be obligated and stuck because of our friendship and I fell for you and I was scared Pate ok. I know it wasn’t right and I know sorry don’t fix it.”

“So instead of talking to me like any sane person you just decided for yourself this life changing decision. You robbed OUR child of a parent and me of being one.”

“I know and I’m sorry I know sorry doesn’t fix it but I didn’t want to ruin you.”

“It wouldn’t have ruined me dumbass.” He was so mad his tan face red. “You know I loved you.”

“As a friend as a sister-“

“No I fucking feel in love with you. I never got to tell you cause you disappeared”

“Bullshit you had 8 weeks before I left to tell me I was 8 weeks when I found out.”

“I was scared it was already a bit weird between us after we fucked I didn’t wanna ruin it more telling you I fell in love with your ass.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Cause you ran away you should have told me we could have did this together instead you robbed him and me, I’ve missed everything your pregnancy his birth his first words his first steps his first day of school you took that all from me and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that, that was a bitch move Natasha.”

“I know and his first word was dada.”

“I hate you.”

“I deserve that.”

“When was he born you named him after us.” T said much calmer than his brother.

“On your birthday.”

“What?” He said looking at me

“His birthday is May 7th he was born at 4:20 in the morning. He was 8 pounds 7 ounces and 23 inches long with a head full of hair and is his twin. He loves comics and wrestling he loves climbing trees. His favorite food is pizza and mangoes ”

“Well Pate can’t deny him shit he looks just like him.”

“I know. And I named him after you guys because it was a way for him to have a piece of you guys-“

“He should have had his father and his family in his fucking life is what he should have had.”

“I know that ok I fucked up.”

“Yeah you think.”

“You two need to stop fighting.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” We both said to Taula. We looked at each other as we spoke simultaneously.

“That hasn’t changed.” He said looking between us

“I looked everywhere for you I’ve been looking.”

“I-“

“If you say sorry one more time I’m having my sister beat your ass for me.”

“I deserve it.”

“Yeah you really do. Why would you do this to me, especially if you loved me? Does he even know about me?”

“He knows he has a dad I told him your a superhero your a good bad guy and beat up other bad guys with his uncles.”

“That’s what you told him?”

“It was the easiest explanation I could give him without breaking his heart every time he asked where you were.”

“You should have brought him to me.”

“How and say oh hey you got a kid, after how I left, be real would you have believed me or thought I was full of shit springing a kid on you.”

“I- he looks just like me not much I could deny.” He sighed angrily “you had no right to make that decision without me he’s half of me I had a right to know and instead you bitched out and ran like a kid instead of being a woman he’s almost 5 Natasha 5 and I missed all of that there isn’t a way to get it back for me or him not only did you keep him from me all this time you kept him from his father who he asked about. That’s selfish as fuck that ain’t you.”

“I’m sorry ok I thought at the time I was making the right choice and when I realized it wasn’t it was too late.”

“It was never too late I’d been pissed shit I’m pissed now and to know I’d never had found out hurts because if it wasn’t for him running and going past us you’d never had told me.” I couldn’t argue I don’t know if I ever would have seeked him out. I turned my head as he stormed out back and I started crying. T walked up hugging me.

“He’s just pissed Nat it’s a lot to take in.”

“He hates me T.”

“No he don’t he never has he’s just confused hurt and upset. He still loves you.”

“Bullshit even if he did he fucking hates me now. I fucked up.”

“You did it was really dumb and not fair to anyone he had a right to know and to have a say but everyone fucks up-“

“Not like this.”

“You were scared I get it and you felt in the moment you’d made the right choice, but he’s right he would have been there for you career or not and it wouldn’t have ruined anything.”

“He’s never gonna forgive me.”

“He will it’ll just take awhile. My brother still cares for you.”

“Do you guys want dinner?”

“Sure but let’s order something you two need to talk.”

“I need to let him cool off.” I grabbed a beer handing them each one before I grabbed a third. I walked outside seeing his head in his hands I sat the beer next to him as he looked at me and I saw tears in his eyes. All the years I’d known him he’d never cried. I walked off when he grabbed my hand.

“I’m mad at you.”

“I know you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you I’m just really fucking pissed we gotta kid that you hid. I you went through that shit alone Nat.”

“I should have told you if I could change it I would I’ve lived with that guilt for years and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Well we gotta figure this out cause I’m not leaving him Natasha that’s my kid I’ve already missed enough.”

“I wouldn’t make you.”

“But you’d keep him a secret for 5 years.”

“Pate.” I said blinking as tears feel down my face my guilt eating me

“Mommy.” I looked up hearing his soft voice as he looked between us. “You cry.”

“I’m fine baby.”

“Meanie you make mommy cry.”

“Baby it ain’t his fault mommy was mean to him, can come here sweetheart.” He walked up looking between us “hi are you mommy’s friend.”

“I- yeah little man.”

“What’s your name?”

“Pate.” I silently cried watching the two

“That’s my name Alipate. Mommy said I’m named after daddy and uncle they beats up bad guys.”

“Yeah they do. My names Alipate too.” Our son stopped looking at him and looking at me

“Mommy why are you crying.” He wiped my face

“I just am baby. I’ll be ok.”

“Do you- are you my daddy?” Tama slowly nodded at him as I heard our sons soft gasp and he turned to me “mommy it’s daddy! Daddy!” He jumped into his arms and I watched Tama hold him to his chest as he cried I was a horrible human I’d kept these two apart. Tama looked at me

“I’m so sorry I’m sorry.” I mouthed and he nodded closing his eyes. Our son soon pulled back a bit

“Why you cry daddy.”

“I missed you bud.”

“I missed you too. I knew you’d come back mommy always says you love me and missed me and I always said you’d come home are you done fighting bad guys.”

“I always fight bad guys buddy but I’m here ok, and I’m not leaving like that again I’ll still have beat up the bad guys but I’ll be home.”

5 YEARS LATER

It took awhile but we’d gotten on better terms and after a year we admitted we still loved each other. We admitted it after living together a bit we’d moved in together during Covid when the world shut down. He was home stuck and he’d decided with a lock down he wasn’t leaving our son and we ended up getting back together during it.

“Daddy Ali being mean.” Our 2 years old said looking at her dad as he picked her up. He went to say something to him he was 10 and was getting annoyed she always wanted him so he’d occasionally be mean to her. Amelika Samena Leone was born October 31st my water had broken while we were trick or treating I almost had to get a C-section with her Pate said she was his late birthday present. 8 months after her birth we got married, on the beach in Florida his parents watching the kids while he took me to Tonga for our honeymoon. I grabbed the box I’d hidden and took it to Pate we were having a cookout for Father’s Day.

“Hey you got one more gift.”

“Forreal what.” I handed him the box watching as he opened it the heart slightly moved and he removed it seeing what it said and the picture in the box as his eyes shot to mine and then my stomach. “You shittin me?” I shook my head as a huge smile broke on his face as he jumped up lifting me into his arms.

“What she get him.”

“Oh shit!” Taula said as he’d picked it up seeing what it was

“”We having a baby!” He yelled kissing me. “I love you girl.”

“I love you too handsome.”

[dawninlatin]

Crying in the IKEA parking lot

a feysand modern au one shot written for @officialfeysandweek2023

Feyre is having an emotional breakdown in the IKEA parking lot, but luckily a handsome stranger comes to her rescue

Words: 2,2k | Masterlist | AO3 Link

Feyre had experienced many low points in her twenty-two years, but crying in the parking lot of IKEA had to be one of the lowest.

To be fair, she was having a pretty shit day, a shit year, even, but that didn’t make her feel any better as she stared at the scratch on the shiny, expensive-looking car parked next to hers.

A scratch that was one hundred percent her fault.

She let out a pathetic sob as her mind replayed the moment when she’d been too busy cursing at the furniture she couldn’t fit in her trunk to notice that her cart was rolling away from her, straight into the other car.

There was no way she could afford to pay for the repair, especially not now, when she’d just spent the little money she had on a dining table and a single chair for her mostly empty apartment.

Feyre gave the package still sitting on the ground a kick in frustration. «Fucking useless piece of shit!»

«Are you okay? Do you perhaps need any help with that…?»

The voice startled her, and Feyre whirled around, suddenly facing the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He looked at her with a mix of concern and curiosity, his eyes so blue they almost seemed violet.

«I’m fine,» Feyre answered a little too quickly, plastering on a fake smile and pretending her face wasn’t all puffy and red. She’d gotten so used to telling this lie lately, it came on autopilot.

Unfortunately, the stranger wasn’t a complete idiot, and didn’t buy her lie. The few tears still running down her cheeks probably didn’t help either. «So crying in the middle of a parking lot is just something you do for fun?» The question was accompanied by a perfectly raised eyebrow. 

Smile dropping, Feyre replied, «No, it’s just-»

And that’s all it took for the floodgates to open once more. 

«I’ve had a really shitty time lately, and I just needed to get a table because I don’t wanna eat every meal sitting on the floor for the rest of my life, but then I came out here and I can’t get the fucking box in my car and then I accidentally scratched the car next to mine and I know I should be the better person here and leave a note but there is no way I can afford to pay for it to be repaired!» She was full-on sobbing again, choking out the words. 

When she’d managed to calm down a little, the crying reduced to sniffling, she looked up, surprised to find that the man still stood there. Feyre had expected her little mental breakdown to scare away the stranger, he’d only asked if she needed help, after all, but there he was, offering her a soft smile and a tissue. «So a really shitty day then?»

«Yeah,» Feyre replied weakly, wiping her tears.

«I wouldn’t worry too much about the car, though.»

«Why?» 

He smirked, and it made Feyre want to kiss his handsome face and punch it at the same time. She really should see a therapist or something. «Because if they can afford a car like that, the asshole can probably afford a repair as well.»

This time, when Feyre smiled, it was real. It felt good, after all this time.

«So, did you need any help?» the guy asked, gesturing towards the package still on the ground.

Feyre had barely nodded before he strode over, and in a single, seemingly effortless move lifted it into her car. It annoyed her to no end, but she was also grateful, because it meant she could get out of here and forget this completely mortifying experience ever happened.

«Thanks, uhm…» She didn’t even know his name, she realized.

«Rhysand, though my friends call me Rhys,» he offered, grinning.

His name was Rhys, and he had dimples. How was it possible to be this attractive?

«I’m Feyre,» she replied, completely cool, calm and collected…probably.

«Well, it was nice meeting you, Feyre, darling. I have to go and brave the hell that is IKEA to get something for my stupid cousin, but I hope the rest of your day is better!»

Feyre actually chuckled this time, giving him a wave and a «Good luck!» as he walked away. She watched him in a totally non-creepy way until he’d fully disappeared into the large store, relishing the way she felt kinda good right now. One encounter with a kind human didn’t fix all her problems, but it gave her back some of the faith she’d lost in humanity long ago.

Still smiling, Feyre got into the driver’s seat, but she didn’t start the car. Instead, her attention was pulled to the passenger seat, and the abandoned sketchbook that’d been lying there for months now.

She sucked in a sharp breath at the sudden urge to draw again. The familiar itching in her hands could have brought her to tears if she’d had any left. Maybe she actually could feel like herself again, someday in the future…

Glancing at the car next to hers, Feyre contemplated her choices. There was no way she could afford the repair bill, but no matter how she thought about it, the only right thing to do was choose kindness. What if the rich asshole was having an equally shit day?

That didn’t mean Feyre couldn’t make them feel as sorry for her as possible, though. Maybe if they knew what a mess she was, it would get her out of paying.

So she rummaged around in her car until she found a pencil, then she picked up her sketchbook and started drawing for the first time in months.

-

Feyre groaned for what had to be the hundredth time as she struggled to assemble the table. Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?!

She knew she should just go to bed and try again in the morning, but she wanted to do this, wanted to show the universe she could manage on her own.

Who knew leaving your abusive ex when you had no job, no education, no friends and no contact with your family would be so difficult?

Just when Feyre was about to give up, her phone suddenly chimed, alerting her of a new text.

Anxiously, she picked up the phone, her stomach flipping as she read the text from an unknown number.

Is this Feyre Archeron?

It had to be the owner of the car, Feyre thought. After all, she’d ended up leaving a rather creative note describing what had happened, signed with her full name and number.

The note had consisted of eight comic panels, first showing an overly animated Feyre looking miserable in her empty apartment, then her looking miserable in IKEA, her emptying her pockets at the register, then swearing as she tries to get the package into her car. Next featured a few panels very dramatically portraying how the cart had rolled into the car completely on it’s own, ending with Feyre drowning all of IKEA in her tears.

To be honest, she was kind of proud of it.

Chewing her lip, Feyre typed back a simple «Yes».

Mere seconds later, it started ringing, that same number appearing on the screen. She nearly dropped it in panic, and honestly wanted to just chuck it out the window. She did not want to buy a new phone though, especially not if she had to spend thousands on repairing an ugly-ass car that wasn’t even hers.

Hands shaking, she pressed reply, bringing the phone to her ear. «Hello?»

«That comic is the best thing I’ve ever seen. I’m seriously gonna frame it and hang it on my wall.»

Feyre’s heart promptly stopped as she heard the deep, silky voice. She would recognize it anywhere, if only from the things it did to her body.

«Rhys?!» she choked out.

«I told you to not worry about the car.» She could hear the smirk in his voice, and for some reason it filled her with rage.

«That was your car?! Why the hell didn’t you say so? I made a complete fool of myself in front of you-»

«No you didn’t,» Rhys interrupted her. «And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to stress you out even more. I’m sorry if that was wrong of me.»

Well, that was awfully…charming of him. Feyre didn’t know what to do with all these feelings swirling inside her. Especially not after living on autopilot for so long.

«Just tell me how much I owe you,» Feyre sighed. 

«How about you let me help you build that furniture, and we’ll call it even?»

«What? That’s ridiculous!» There had to be something seriously wrong with this guy, if he thought getting to help her with her furniture would make them even.

«Text me your address, and I’ll be there in thirty. With pizza.» 

And then he just hung up.

-

Exactly thirty minutes later, Feyre opened her front door to find Rhys on the other side, pizza in hand and a panty-dropping smile on his face. «Hello, Feyre, darling.»

«Ugh, just get in.» She was too hungry to bother with pleasantries. 

He followed her into the kitchen area, setting the pizza on the counter. Feyre busied herself with getting a glass of water, trying to not let her embarrassment show as he took in the space. She really hadn’t been kidding when she’d said it was all empty.

Well, apart from the still-not-assembled table.

When she looked up, though, he was looking at her, not the empty space. 

«Just so we’re clear, I have no ulterior motives in doing this,» Rhys spoke, all serious. His gaze so intense she couldn’t look away.

«I’m not gonna deny that I find you very attractive, and I would love to take you on a date some day, but right now, what I think we both need the most, is a friend.» 

Her chest ached at the pain she glimpsed in his violet eyes, a fellow lost soul. Maybe he was just as lonely, just as broken, despite the easy smiles? Feyre smiled faintly, thinking that she wouldn’t mind a friend right now.

Then Rhys opened his mouth again, and the moment was ruined. «And we both know you find me incredibly handsome because duh,» he gestured to his face, and Feyre scowled, flipping him off.

«Are you even qualified to build furniture?» Feyre asked, all serious. If he turned out to be excellent at this she would lose it.

«Are you kidding me? My great-great-grandfather was Swedish. I’ll show you my family tree to prove it.»

«You’re such a prick!» Feyre exclaimed, smacking his arm, but she was laughing as she did it.

This was gonna end in disaster.

-

«You’re even worse at this than I am!»

«I swear, there has to be something wrong with this table!»

The puzzled expression on Rhys’ face as he sat with the final leg of the table in his hand and seemingly no where to put it made Feyre laugh so hard her stomach hurt a little.

They hadn’t gotten much further from where Feyre had been before Rhys showed up to help her.

«I don’t understand…There are four legs, and four corners, so why won’t it fit?!» 

«Let me have a look,» Feyre chuckled, leaning into Rhys’ space to study the instructions once more.

As she reached forward to turn back a page, her hand brushed against his, and she let out a quiet gasp at the contact. He was so close she could feel the warmth emanating from him. 

Neither of them moved for a moment, the tension between them nearly tangible. 

Then Feyre turned her head, slowly, finding his eyes already locked on her, his gaze intense. It would be so easy to just lean in and kiss him, taste him.

Surprisingly, a part of her wanted to. Feyre knew she could be oblivious, but one had to be a complete idiot to not feel the chemistry between them, the spark that had been there from the very first moment.

Her life was too much of a mess at the moment, though. She needed to get her head above water first, needed more time to heal the wounds from her previous disaster of a relationship.

So Feyre pulled away, swiftly ending the moment. She could sense a shift in Rhys as well, but where she’d expected disappointment, maybe even annoyance, she only found a quiet, patient calm, the soft smile on his face telling her he understood, and he was willing to wait, but if she one day was ready, he would be there.

«I may have lied when I said I was a pro at this…»

«I knew it!»

Feyre gave Rhys a smile of her own, so grateful that he didn’t make things awkward after her subtle rejection. She hoped he could see the words she couldn’t voice quite yet.

I want to, I really do, but I’m not ready.

I haven’t had this much fun in ages.

You’ve made me feel alive again.

Having him as her friend would have to be enough.

For now.

A/N: don't ask about the header i was feeling creative today...

ANYWAY I have returned from the dead (I just started college) to give you this:):) I also actually had a beta reader this time, so kudos to my roommate! I'm sorry for making you read this and watch glee with me at the same time<3<3<3 Feel free to reblog, leave a comment or drop by my ask box, I love attention:)

Taglist: @ireallyshouldsleeprn @rowaelinismyotp

I keep a separate taglist for each ship, so let me know if you want to be added to any of them!

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Find the word

Thanks @dyrewrites for the tag!

Slowly but surely catching up on these.

My words: follow, lead, smile, trust, hollow

Your words: fling, grand, edge, truth

Tagging softly with no need to participate , @blind-the-winds @little-peril-stories @loopyhoopywrites @mjjune @i-can-even-burn-salad @ahordeofwasps @addicted2coke-theothercoke @finickyfelix @coven-archives @annetilney + anyone else

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

Keep reading for:

Gang finds the Gateway

Rose and Maddie have a bit of an argument

Greyson gives Lexi a candy cane

Jesus Christ when are Ewan and Jazlyn gonna confess their feelings

Niri and Ash talk about Hannah (Ash's sister)

Follow - from The Secret Portal Part One (Maddie POV)

“We should wait a few more minutes,” Noelle continued. “They’re just late. There’s no need to freak—” “Wait,” Rose said, holding up her hand, cutting Noelle off. Rose stepped forward, her eyes focused on something. She pointed down the sidewalk, at the corner of the building. “Did y’all see that?” The rest of us turned to follow Rose’s finger. “A wall,” Noelle deadpanned. “No, the weird shimmering effect.” I squinted harder. “I don’t see anything.” “Me neither,” said Gwen, arms still crossed. Kelsey shook her head. Rose sighed through her nose, then slowly walked to the corner. Once she reached it, she gestured to it like something was there. “Rose,” said Noelle, “there’s nothing there.” Rose huffed, then tilted her head, thinking. Slowly, she stuck her hand wrist-deep into the wall. Kelsey yelped an expletive in surprise before slapping her hand over her mouth. Gwen’s eyes widened, arms dropping to her side. “How— How did—” She sputtered, gesturing her hands slightly toward the wall. “What?!” “Damn,” Noelle said, uneasily crossing her arms over herself. “Cool,” I said. Because it was. Rose turned back to us. “Told you there was something there,” she said, seemingly unfazed. “I think I know where Lexi and Ash may be. It’s worth checking out.” She slipped off her backpack, set it on the ground, and stepped forward into the wall. She disappeared, leaving us all in silence.

Lead - from The Secret Portal Part One (Maddie POV)

“What’s happening?” Rose murmured. “You lead us through a death portal,” I muttered, joking slightly. Rose swiveled her head toward me. “Excuse me? You were the one who had a mental breakdown when Lexi didn’t answer her damn phone!” “Well, Lexi and Ash ended up here, so I had the right idea,” I said, not sure why she was mad. “Fine. You were right. Gold star.” Rose glared down at me. “And don’t blame me for what happened to Noelle.” “It’s partially my fault,” I said, lightly pushing her away from my face. “I suggested Lexi's disappearance, but you led us here, so a bit of yours, too.” Rose stepped toward me again. “This. Is not. My fault.” “I said it’s partially my fault,” I insisted, pushing her away again. She pushed me back this time, which irritated me. I only pushed her because she was in my face. “Why don’t you admit you’re partially responsible for Noelle’s injury?” I pushed in retaliation this time. “We’re gonna get her to a hospital, and then we’re gonna look for my sister, who you seem to have forgotten about because you’re too wrapped in yourself to care if Lexi’s okay.” I bit my tongue. That wasn't a good thing to say. I wasn't sure where it came from. Rose’s jaw clenched. She lifted her fist—I thought she would push me again, but she just jabbed me with her finger on every word— “Don’t. Ever. Say. I don’t care about Lexi. She means more to me than you could imagine.” “I’m her sister,” I pointed out. “How could you—” I poked her back— “imagine how much she means to me?” Rose took a step back. She looked down at her feet for a second. I did the same. Gwen pointed out I was arguing earlier when I didn’t mean to, which sometimes happened to me. Arguing wasn’t gonna get Lexi—or Ash—back, and it wasn't gonna get Noelle to a hospital either. I wondered if Rose would hate me forever after this. Kelsey let out an exhale that buzzed her lips. “So,” she said slowly, “let’s find help for Noelle, then we’ll look for Lexi and Ash.”

Smile - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

“Lexi?” Mrs. Korrin asked. “Don’t you have a partner?” I looked around the room. “No, everyone else is taken.” “Hm, I know we have an even number of kids—” The door slammed open, and a kid with messy dark hair was panting in the doorway. “Greyson,” Mrs. Korrin sighed, “is it going to be like this every day?” “Sorry, Mrs. Korrin,” said Greyson, moving to his seat. “Not so fast, we’re partnering up, and Lexi doesn’t have a partner. Get your worksheet, and come sit next to her.” Greyson obeyed and sat in the empty seat beside me. He turned to me, smiling. I didn’t return it. Greyson’s smile faded and he awkwardly tapped his pencil on the desk. My hand moved up to my hair and took off the hairtie. “You okay?” Greyson finally asked. “Yeah, I’m fine, let’s do the worksheet,” I muttered quickly as I undid the braid by running my fingers through it. Greyson pursed his lips, then reached into his bag. “Candy cane?” I crinkled my nose. “It’s August. How old is that?” “Candy canes last, like, years.” “That’s years old?” “No, it’s fresh.” “It’s August.” Greyson still held out the peppermint stick to me. I sighed and accepted his gift, with full intent to throw it away later. I looked over at Ash and Shelby. Ash laughed at something Shelby said. “Dude, that was a perfectly good candy cane!” I looked down at my hand. The candy had snapped in two. “Sorry, Greyson,” was all I managed. “Let’s just do this work.”

Trust - from The Secret Portal Part One (Gwen POV)

A tall girl with dark skin and hair in many braids was sparring in a matted section with a shorter, stocky guy wearing some sort of protective suit. A stream of fire shot out of the girl’s fist, and the guy disappeared in a flash of turquoise light. He appeared right behind her, which the girl predicted, leaping in the air and shooting fire out of a powerful kick. The guy in the suit teleported away again, though not before his suit was singed by the fire. Thrown off-balance, the guy’s teleport was unstable, and he fell to the ground, though regained his balance quickly enough to where I was impressed. The girl helped him up and she removed his helmet, revealing a mess of dark brown helmet hair. They said something to each other that I couldn’t hear. “Aww,” Wade crooned. “It’s been nearly five years,” said Parker. “One more, I win.” “I bet this December,” said Robbie. “Running out of time.” “At least yours can still happen,” said the guy who had been arm-wrestling with Sam—Liam. “I bet one year.” “You’re betting on when they’re gonna ask each other out?” I asked, not being able to decide if this was mean or funny. “And which one of them will do the asking,” said Liam. “It’s only for fun,” Robbie added, picking up on my uncertainty. “Most of us think Jazlyn, but Tyler thinks Ewan’s got it in him,” Akash said. “Trust me,” said Tyler, folding his arms over his chest. “Ewan’s a sap. He’ll make it a whole thing with candles.” “Tyler says if he gets the candles, it’s double,” said Liam. “How much are y’all betting?” “Everyone who participates,” Gabriel explained, “which is everyone, will have to pay whoever’s closest five bucks.” “So ten each?” “Yep,” said Tyler. “So if I’m right about Ewan and the candles, I get eighty bucks. Or 230-something wamps.”

Hollow - from The Secret Portal Part One (Ash POV)

“She never told me about you,” I said. I felt a jolt. “It’s not personal. She wasn't allowed to talk about the Alii with me, and if she brought you up, it would have led to questions as to how you met.” She could’ve made up an online friend, Niri muttered as he slumped back in the chair. The pain in my chest. A warmth. Anger? Was he angry with Hannah for not telling me about him? She didn’t pry into my personal life, so why should I pry into hers? Still, Niri was upset. “Y’know, I could see if I could hook y’all up?” Niri glanced at me, seeming to perk up as the pain dissipated. I allowed myself to smile a tad. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.” Niri gave a soft smile. Thank you. I would love that so much. I returned the smile, then glanced at the gloves on the table. “Why did you want me to enter your mind instead of putting on your gloves?” Some things get lost in translation, said Niri. And… I dunno. I guess I wanted to have a conversation without a language barrier for once. It’s not like I can use the gloves on Ceteri outside of home. I got a hollow feeling in my gut. In my chest. It seemed as if Niri tried to cover it up as he said, I also already had them off. Didn’t want them to get wet as I worked. “You don’t wanna work while I’m here, do you?” Niri didn’t have to answer in his head for me to know he didn’t. “It’s okay. I need to go spend time with my friends anyway. My other friends.”

[obsidiancreates]

One Undead To Another (Chapter 14)

(Trigger warning for... I guess mental breakdown? Death, grief, complicated feelings surrounding grief)

“Thanks.” Juliet smiles at the officer, and then turns and walks up to her partner.

“So?”

“Checks out.” Juliet doesn’t even try to hide the relief in her voice. “The mom tried to kidnap her daughter and Shawn caught them, the mom confessed to everything and the little girl is already home safe.”

“And no bite marks on the perp?”

“Not a scratch.” The relief she feels is enough to make her melt. “She described Shawn as quote, ‘rude and offputtingly cavalier with a strangely calm approach to everything’.”

Lassiter scoffs, not without slight fondness, and with much mocking. “Sounds like Spencer.”

“Yeah.” Juliet can hear the dreamy relief in her own voice. “Yeah, it does. Even through all that. … Maybe we’ve been a little too hard on him, Carlton.”

“Too hard on him? O’Hara, he’s a vampire.”

“But he’s still Shawn.”

“The last time we used the ‘It’s still Spencer’ excuse to relax about him, someone ended up dead.”

The tension returns to her in a crashing tidal wave with that sobering reminder. “Right.”

“Right. Yes, it’s Spencer’s personality, his behavior, even his soul. Doesn’t matter. We need to keep an eye on him and keep him in check. Even if that means being a little unfriendly.”

“Easier for you to do than for me.”

“I know. So I’ll be doubly cautious for both of us.”

“Thank you, Carlton. … What now?”

“We’ll have to go back and get Guster, then decide on how we handle the rest of tonight.”

“... Or… call Gus to check in, then go get coffee and late-night pancakes before switching off?”

“... I would kill for a good cup of joe right about now.”

Juliet smiles and pulls out her phone, finding the contact. “Gus?”

“Juliet?”

“Just checking in. How is everything so far?”

“Good, actually. We’re making a list of uh… changes to Shawn’s psychic abilities. Like Mary said, they’re all out of whack now.”

“And he hasn’t…” 

“I’m fine. I put the cross on a paperclip necklace, he can’t get near my arteries.”

“Smart. Okay, well, Lassiter and I are going to take care of a few things and we’ll be back to relieve you soon.”

“Cool.”

She hangs up. “Are we splitting the bill tonight?”

“I was thinking I’ll watch Spencer tonight.”

“... So?”

“So, you should pay.”

“Oh, my god.”

“What?! It’s fair, O’Hara.” 

“You’re seriously trying to use this to get me to pay for pancakes.”

“It’s a perfectly valid reasoning.”

“You just want to annoy me into not fighting you on watching Shawn.”

“Right. I want to make absolutely sure I’m the one stuck with him for hours.”

“You don’t want me in danger.”

“You owe me.”

“I do. Alright, I’ll buy. But that means we’re both getting the kind with the strawberries and bananas.”

“Fine. Doctor says I need to eat more fruit anyway.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright.” Gus has the list of psychic attributes laid out in front of him, and beside it a new list of vampire attributes. The psychic list is much longer, including lots of little moments they now both realize were actual psychic instances in past cases. “So we both agree that the Nigel St Nigel cigarette case thing was psychic.”

“The first stop was. After that I just actually noticed the danger.”

“Still counts.” Gus writes it down. “Okay, vampire thing next. Can you fly?”

“Pretty sure that’s a no.” Shawn isn’t even sure how he’d go about trying that except for jumping off a cliff– which he considered, before getting a vision of his body floating in the water and Lassie and Jules watching it be hauled up. He’s not sure if he was dead-dead in the vision, or just unconscious, but it doesn’t matter because Lassie and Jules looked pale and stricken and they’ve already had to see his corpse once. 

“Psychic sure or regular sure?”

Shawn considers it for a moment, taking the time to eat a cheese puff. “Regular sure,” he decides.

“Fine. Then… how do those cheese puffs taste? Like ash?”

“Like artificial cheese.” Shawn eats another. “I think food tastes the same.”

“Does it feel the same?”

Shawn shakes his head and has another puff. “I had a smoothie earlier and it didn’t quench anything. That might be the biggest loss in all this.”

“You mean besides your eternal soul?”

“Pretty sure I still have my soul. … That one was definitely psychic.”

Gus notes that and the food thing down on their respective pages. “I think we’re making good progress here.”

“Me too, man. I knew we’d be able to figure this all out together.” He hadn’t intended on that at all. He still catches himself looking at Gus’s neck, as does Gus. It’s why Gus made the makeshift rosary in the first place. It’s risky, and difficult, and it makes him hungry.

Hence the cheese puffs. Which aren’t taking the edge off at all, but maybe if he pretends they do he can trick himself into it actually working.

“How about shapeshifting?”

“Gus, I’ve been a vampire for like, a day. Even if I could do that, it probably won’t happen before speed.”

“You said you super-sped at that lady’s car.”

“Yeah, on accident.”

“Fine. What about hypnosis?”

Shawn crunches a puff.

Yes. Yes, he has hypnosis. Strong, potent hypnosis. Some kind of power over someone’s very soul, compelling them to do what he says without even knowing he’s done anything. He can feel the phantom sensation of doing it to Gus, twice now, the way it tied them together for a moment in an otherworldly snare where Shawn was the trap and Gus the prey. And he hadn’t even meant to do it at all.

“I haven’t tried yet.” Not a lie. He hasn’t. But it’s not an answer. But how can he answer? ‘Sorry buddy, I’ve already hypnotized you, Lassie, Jules, and some random other person. You, Lassie, and Jules more than once, by the way.’ He’s still on thin ice, and he’s still figuring this out, and he’s sca–

“You haven’t tried?” “To be honest, man, I’m not super hyped about the powers stuff. They kind of suck so far.” He motions to Gus’s chest. 

Gus rubs the bruise. Shawn tilts his head and tries to parse if there’s any tip-offs for ‘bruise’. He’s pretty sure there isn’t– but it’s also just a normal, logical conclusion. He files that away as a ‘Maybe Psychic’ moment and crunches another puff. “So uh… how’re you planning on tricking out the office?”

“Hmm? Oh, that. Well, I talked with Father Wesley earlier–”

Shawn grits his teeth. A resentment he knows isn’t his bubbles up inside of him. He bites the next puff harder than he has to. Gus doesn’t seem to notice, now opening his laptop and looking something up.

“– and got some advice. I found Bible passage wallpaper in an online specialty shop, I’ll put whatever I have leftover from my apartment in here.”

Crunch. Is he scowling?

“I also ordered some actual crosses to hang around my desk. Just, you know, in case.”

Crunch. Shawn hopes his nod doesn’t look too stiff.

“I’m probably going to keep a spray bottle of holy water around too.”

Crunch.

Gus jumps in chair. Shawn looks down at his hand. He’s crushed the entire bag of puffs. 

“Whoops.” It’s all he can muster up. It’s nothing. It’s chips. It’s so much more.

“... Maybe I shouldn’t tell you all the stuff I have planned.”

“Yeah. … I’ll probably figure it out anyway.”

“Probably.”

“It was kind of impossible to hide anything from me even before all this.”

“Not that impossible. You didn’t know about Ruby.”

“Oh yeah.” He probably would now. It feels a little like his brain is a poster, folded up so that whatever the focal point of the design is was on full display. He could pick apart the details, admire the intricacies, hang it up and be satisfied with just that. But now he’s unfolded it for the first time, and it’s so much bigger than he ever imagined it’d be, and it’s almost difficult to take in the whole complicated piece. He can hone in on little aspects, specific sections, he can separate it by the leftover impressions of the folding, but trying to see it all as one leaves him unable to see any of it. He could probably know everything, if he could just back up far enough to take it all in…

‘Don’t.’ His grandma’s voice drifts through his head softly. ‘You won’t be able to get back.’

“Shawn? Shawn!” He blinks and Gus is standing in front of him, pencil-cross tucked into his shirt so it’s not waving in Shawn’s face as Gus leans over and lightly slaps his cheek. The warmth of Gus’s hand enriches the smell-taste hovering around him. Shawn jerks away and tries to cover the seize of panic with an exaggerated flop and shout of surprise. He falls off the chair in his fervor. 

Gus just tsks and watches Shawn flop around for a second through half-lidded, done-with-you eyes. Shawn sits up, now covered in the dusty remains of the puff bag.

“What was that?” Gus puts his hands on his hips. “You completely blanked out.”

“Gus, please. I don’t blank out.”

“Your eyes glazed over, Shawn.”

“Now I want doughnuts.” He doesn’t. He wishes he does. He should.

“I’m serious, Shawn! That was–” Shawn zeros in on Gus’s hands, highlighted as they tremble slightly. His eyes go up to Gus’s lip, also trembling, and the way Gus keeps looking at his neck before quickly looking away.

“Oh, buddy.” Shawn stands, putting a hand on Gus’s shoulder. Warm, pulsing with Life, easy to take. He crumbles up the chip bag in his other hand, keeping the one on Gus’s shoulder loose and casual. “Look, man, if you need to…”

“No, it’s– I’m fine.”

“You were having flashbacks, weren’t you?”

“... Maybe.”

“I’m sorry, man. I-I can’t imagine… I mean if I found you like…”

“Shawn, seriously. I’m fine.”

The turmoil in Shawn’s guts is different right now. It’s not hunger, not searing pain, not uncertainty and confusion twisting his stomach into knots. It’s a deep pit of dread, a rolling cycle of regret and grief, a tight line of If Only that…

… Isn’t… his.

…

“Gus?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you need to go back home.”

“I’m supposed to keep an eye on you until Lassie gets back, remember?”

“Dude, looking at me is just hurting you right now.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is. No wonder you keep throwing up, man. This feels awful.”

“Feels aw- you can feel my feelings right now?”

“Kind of, I– it’s complicated.”

“... I don’t want to leave right now, Shawn.”

The grief sharpens. The almost gentle roll of the grief cycle becomes a tear. Shawn sucks in a breath at the same time Gus pulls in a shaky sob.

“Gus, I’m not going anywhere.”

“You already did.”

“But I’m back! I’m right here, man!”

“You know it’s not the same, Shawn.”

“But it can be! After we figure all this weird new stuff out! Nothing has to change, man. I won’t let it, we’ve got a good thing going and nothing is taking that away from us.”

“You died.”

“Only for a little while.”

“No, Shawn.” Gus brushes the hand off his shoulder, putting both of his hands on Shawn. “You died. You– we saw–”

“But it’s okay now! We can move on from it, buddy, just like we always do.”

“Not just like we always do! Don’t you–”

“... Don’t I what?”

“... Don’t you feel off?”

“Don’t I feel off?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because you died!” Gus shakes him. “Because we didn’t believe you! You died surrounded by freaky monsters, alone, in a basement! It’s not normal to just move on from that, Shawn!”

“What are you– are you mad that I’m not upset enough or something?!”

“YES!” Gus pushes Shawn away– or tries to. Shawn isn’t even wobbled by all the force Gus puts into it, and instead Gus is the one who ends up pushed back and stumbling away. “YOU’RE DEAD, SHAWN! YOU’RE DEAD AND YOU’RE STILL WALKING AROUND MAKING JOKES AND ACTING LIKE IT’S JUST SOME EVERY DAY THING!”

“What do you want me to do, Gus?! Sit on my bathroom floor and mope?! Hang around my apartment thinking about what it felt like to die?! I don’t work like that!”

“No, you just run away when it’s something you can’t brush off!”

“Run– that was years ago! I haven’t run away from something huge since I was eighteen, Gus! I’m here, I’m here to stay, I’m not going anywhere!”

“YOU DID!”

“And I’m back!”

“You’re NOT! Not the same Shawn who left, and we both know it, so stop trying to pretend otherwise!” Tears are streaming down Gus’s face. There’s a frantic look in his eye and Shawn can feel the confusing tangle of emotions taking up his best friend’s chest, the grief and the anger and the disbelief and the fear all twisting into each other to make something just ugly and painful.

“What do you want from me, Gus?!”

“I DON’T KNOW! JUST– JUST STOP PRETENDING IT’S NOT DIFFERENT!”

“I CAN’T!”

“WHY NOT?!”

“I JUST CAN’T!”

“YOU HAVE TO!”

“I WON’T!”

“WHY?!”

“BECAUSE I’M SCARED!”

Silence.

Gus stands, crying and huffing and panting. Shawn is frozen, not daring to breath, blink, even move to run. He misses his heart hammering in his chest in moments like these. He misses feeling it jump into his throat, hearing blood roaring in his ears, feeling his pulse speed up and not Gus’s, he misses–

Oh.

He’s crying.

He’s crying, and Gus is moving towards him with a tissue. He offers it to Shawn. Shawn still can’t move. This doesn’t feel real. None of it has felt real, except for when it has, and then it felt too real to be real. He feels like the admission popped his Shamu pool floatie and now he’s sinking, sinking into shark-infested waters with weights strapped around his ankles and no don’t think about Mary choking on blood in his arms right now on top of all of it–

Gus wipes Shawn’s cheek for him. He’s still crying too. “I’m scared,” Gus says, voice wobbling. 

“Yeah.” Shawn’s voice comes out a watery croak. He motions weakly at Gus’s fake rosary.

“Not like that.” Gus swallows. “I’m not scared of you, Shawn.”

“Yeah you are.”

“A little bit. But I’m scared for you.”

“... Why?”

“I didn’t just see my best friend die. My best friend died, and now he’s trying to ignore that.”

“Gus–”

“We need to talk about it, Shawn.”

“... I don’t want to.”

“I know.”

“... It might not even help.”

“We still have to.”

“It’s never helped anything before.”

“Have we ever tried?”

“... I don’t… want… to have died, Gus.” His voice catches. He’s trembling now. “That can’t have actually happened.”

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

“It doesn’t, right? I don’t– things work out for me.”

“They always have.”

“They always have. They always do. It can’t have just… not, this time.”

“But it did. Not, did not.”

“... What if I did die? … For real? And I’m not…”

“You?”

“... Yeah.” Shawn wipes his own eyes this time. He doesn’t recognize his own voice. He’s never heard it like this. Clogged up, shaky, weak. “Gus, I’m… I’m scared. I’m sc–”

The last word doesn’t make it out. He sobs.

Gus pulls him into a hug, also sobbing. Shawn feels Gus’s heartbeat in his entire body, in his bones and deeper, but for the moment the hunger and temptation don’t come with it. As Shawn hugs back, taking in the warmth and feelings and Life, he doesn’t feel any of the painful tension of before. He feels Gus’s whole self, body and soul and all, and feels comfort.

[the-present-is-a-gift-au]

Chapter 6: In Which Darkrai Gets a Hobby

Twig was going to have a mental, emotional, and physical breakdown of never-before-seen proportions if she didn’t get ten minutes away from Darkrai. 

How could this guy be so clingy? Yes, she was too nervous to tell him to back off and give her room to breathe when she went on errands with him hovering over her shoulder, or to demand that she get some time alone when they were at her house, but she couldn’t imagine being so brazen with inserting herself into someone’s daily life. It felt like he was effectively glued to her side at this point, give or take a yard or two. 

As a last ditch effort to get him to cool it with the whole “I refuse to be even a room away from you” thing, Twig dug out some old curtains that a local Vemomoth had given away after her kids chewed them to oblivion, along with a pocket sewing kit. Darkrai gave her a curious look when she shoved them into his arms while almost certainly looking every bit at the end of her rope as she felt. 

“Mind mending these for me?” She asked, voice dripping with frustrated exhaustion.

He blinked, glancing from her to the bundle of fabric in his arms. “No, not at all. Is there a way you’d like them mended? A certain stitch, or—”

“Nope, anything’s fine, I don’t care, I’m going to take a nap. Bye.” 

If Darkrai knew something was off by the way she slammed the guest room door, he didn’t comment on it, and Twig didn’t have the reserves to care whatsoever herself. She was tired and frazzled and angry. Forget keeping up appearances for the amnesiac minor deity in her front room, she needed a breather. She collapsed in the center of the floor and tried to sleep— and while sleep never did grace her, wired as she was, she had the chance to breathe without the reminder of her situation breathing down her neck. 

She didn’t know how long she spent curled up on the floor there. It was long enough that the light filtering through the shuttered window had dimmed significantly, and her stomach was gnawing at itself in hunger. She cracked several joints as she rose— shows her right for spending an hour straight curled up in a ball on the floor— and reentered the main room.

Darkrai had mended the curtains she’d given him, yes, but a host of other items were repaired as well. Blankets and pillows, tea towels and napkins— all of them folded neatly and mended with beautiful stitches that swirled and wove in on each other to make little works of art where there had once been just worn-through holes. He looked up from a throw pillow that had been practically worn in half that he was in the process of stitching back together as she passed the hallway threshold.

“Ah.” He looked over his handiwork. “In hindsight, I should have asked permission to mend so much more than you had asked. I hope I did not disrupt anything by—”

“Where did you learn to do this stuff?” Twig asked, gingerly taking one tea towel that had been embroidered in addition to being mended— though embroidery seemed almost too simple a word for what had been done to it. It was more like painting with thread. The towel was mended with patchwork squares of fibers that sported all sorts of different textures— the thread was all one color, just a uniform navy that she had bought because it was the cheapest one for sale at the time, but the way it had been sewn into the towel showed clear scenes of forests and fields with clouds overhead thanks to the textures they had been stitched with. 

He blinked, taken aback. “I… I don’t recall,” he said. “Though I certainly seem to have picked up the talent at some point in my history.”

She frowned. She understood that sort of thing all too well. Not knowing where you learned something, or why you were better at one skill than another. Puzzling over the bits and pieces of a past that you could only see in a sort of portrait shaped by negative space— you could see the silhouette of something there, something that was made distinct by the outline of quirks you still possessed, but not the centermost piece itself. 

She picked up a set of colored thread and an embroidery hoop the next time she stopped by the market. Darkrai received them with a baffled expression— the first real emotion she had seen on his face since she’d found him in Mount Travail. 

“You probably want something to do other than stare out the window all day, right?” She gestured to the supplies she’d handed to him. “Seems like you’re good with a needle, so I figured you’d probably like… Um. I should have asked first, shouldn’t I? Shoot. Uh— if you don’t want them, I can—”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “I appreciate the gesture and the gifts. I was only surprised by the suddenness of them. Thank you.” His eyes creased in a smile. “I’m touched, truly.”

Twig blinked. “Uh. Cool beans. I’m gonna get started on dinner.”

Her ulterior motive of getting him something to do so he would stop hovering over her shoulder at all times worked wonderfully, and she was able to steal away to the kitchen alone while he stitched happily in the main room. It was nice to get the time to herself, even if it was only in a side room without a door. She pulled out the journal she had written her pros and cons list in weeks ago and reviewed it. That one awful pro still outweighed all the cons of housing Darkrai. But if she could have little moments away from him like this, maybe she could manage to keep another apocalypse from occurring without having a breakdown of monumental proportions.

***

That one spot above Twig’s wrist was hurting again. It wasn’t uncommon for the area to flare up with pain, especially during changes in weather, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with the throbbing, dull ache that kept her up at night more than her newfound roommate’s nightmarish aura did. She massaged the complaining spot absentmindedly most days now, barely noticing her efforts to soothe the pain. 

Darkrai, of course, did not fail to take note. 

“Forgive me my prying,” he asked early one morning while Twig looked over her list again, “but the scar on your arm is clearly quite bothersome to you. Is there anything I could fetch to soothe it?”

She snapped the journal closed, startled by his voice after he had so silently approached her. He almost certainly couldn’t read English, but she didn’t want to risk the chance that he might be able to. “Um. No, not really. I’ve tried pretty much everything, but medicines and painkillers don’t do much for it.”

“Peculiar.” His brow furrowed just barely— the slightest change to his expression. “How did you earn the scar? I’ve not heard of an old injury refusing even numbing agents before.”

Twig opened her mouth to say she didn’t remember, but a flurry of colliding memories stopped her.

(Her aunt seized her arm just above her wrist and dragged her out from under her bed. She couldn’t remember what was screamed during the events that followed, but she wasn’t sure she even wanted to remember it when just the memory of the fevered pitch and furious tone made her stomach turn. Her arm burned at the thought of it. And then the memory turned hazy, almost warped and shifted, and suddenly she was in Dark Crater. 

(Darkrai launched forward to where Kip had collapsed, ready to deliver the final blow, and Twig had thrown herself between them and taken the hit. He seized her arm and threw her against the cavern wall. What ensued was a burning, icy pain that stabbed through her veins and gripped her innards, but she forced herself back onto her feet. Cresselia swept over to tend to Kip, and Twig let loose a vicious counterstrike on a terrified looking Darkrai. The next thing she knew, she was waking up weeks later, having apparently been laid so low by her injuries that she’d nearly died.)

Twig looked down at her arm, shoulders drawing up. She flexed her claws. Her hands were shaking.

“Dunno,” she finally answered. Her voice was tangled up, a knotted lump in her throat that she had to force out. “I’m not sure how I got it. Just that it hurts.”

“Are you certain? It seems an odd injury to not recall gaining—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she spat, and immediately regretted it. 

Silence.

She didn’t dare look up at him.

It was a long moment before Darkrai spoke. His voice was collected as ever— calm, cool, and calculated. “My apologies. I seem to have touched a nerve. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

He left the kitchen. She could hear him moving about in the main room.

Why did she feel so nauseous all of a sudden?

***

She curled up in her bed as he plucked away at his needlework across the room. Sleep came quickly with how exhausted she was. Nightmares came even quicker with Darkrai's presence. She was used to it, and she was prepared for the usual fare of being chased, or falling, or getting lost. She could almost count the days of the week by the rotating selection that was employed, and she had the fortitude to jerk awake, yawn, and roll back over when she woke from one. 

This wasn't one of those nightmares. 

(She was hiding in her aunt’s unit again. She was extra mad at her now because she hadn’t done well with her schoolwork, and that apparently meant that her aunt wasn’t a good enough person to be in charge of her. She was shouting about how she was making her look bad, so hiding seemed like the best thing to do at the time.

(She had a lot of bruises when her aunt found her. Her arm hurt the worst— she had squeezed it until it felt like it snapped between her fingers. She ran away at that part, convinced that she would kill her, and her aunt got in big trouble when people found her crying and clutching at her arm. She wasn’t supposed to go out when she was crying, but she did. And now her aunt was going away because she had done something wrong, and she still didn’t know what it was that was so bad she had to never see her again.

(She was scared. She didn’t want to have to go live with someone else. Her aunt said that everyone else was mean and they’d be really angry if she went to live with them.

(She was scared before, but she was terrified when the fire happened.

(Apparently when her aunt was being taken away, she had started a fire in ther unit. Sometimes she would do that when it was extra cold in the bunker and she didn’t want to have to ask for extra blankets from the neighbors. But it was a different kind of fire, because it spread really fast. The entire bunker filled up with smoke. People were screaming. She found a room that led away from the rest of the bunker corridors and hid in there, but when the fire started to get inside that room she pulled and pulled on a door at the back of it until it finally opened. The metal of the handles bent under her fingers and burned her hands as she pulled it open, but she ran up the stairs that it led to until she could breathe without smoke filling up her lungs and the scrape of locking machinery drowning out any other sound. 

(When she left the bunker, she looked up at the sky, and all she could think of was how the stars were a lot darker than she thought they’d be.

(She came back to the bunker the next day. She wanted to apologize to her aunt. She wanted to go to her teachers and say she was fine and that they didn’t need to tell the bunker officials that she needed help.)

(She found nothing but ash and charcoal, warped metal and bones, carnage and rot.)

(Twig’s surroundings seemed to stutter— jerking back and forth between slow and erratic before beginning to melt. She forced herself to look up from the bodies at her feet. She found ice-blue eyes staring back at her from across the visceral scene. And then everything was gone, sloughed off like a second skin, leaving nothing but dripping shadows behind.)

Suddenly, she was lying on her stomach, with her guts clenching in fear and a hand on her shoulder. She sucked in ragged gasps as panic gripped her, and when she finally came to enough to recognize Darkrai looming at her bedside, she waved him away perhaps a bit more violently than was needed— though it was hard to care when she desperately needed to focus on getting control of her breathing. 

When her lungs finally decided to listen to reason, she spat a quick flame and lit the lamp she kept next to her bed. Darkrai swiftly retreated into the shadows, settling in the opposite end of the room and out of reach of the lamp's illumination, though not that of the dimmest reaches of her tail’s flame. His eyes never left her. 

She didn't ask for an explanation. He still broke the silence with one. "You looked unwell. Pained."

Oh. She let out a short, dry laugh at that. Guess he freaked out the same way she had when Grovyle took a nap around her for the first time. She'd woken him in a panic because she thought he was dying, what with how he cringed and contorted himself in his sleep. 

"You wouldn't wake when addressed, nor when shaken," he continued. 

Another dry sound, though this one walked the line between a laugh and a sob. The irony was not lost on her— Darkrai, lord of nightmares, unsettled by someone being affected by his powers. It was kind of sweet, in a pitifully twisted way. 

Despite her reluctance to ask it, she still found a question falling from her mouth half-formed. “How much did you…?" 

Silence. 

When he finally spoke, it was with a noticeable discomfort in his unflappable tone, and for a heartbeat, he turned away. "Enough," he murmured. "I saw enough." 

Great. That meant he saw everything.

Quiet swallowed the room again, the flicker of lamplight the only motion in the awful stillness. The pokemon across from her was unmoving, unflinching. He didn't look away again, and the way his gaze dissected her every twitch was nauseating. 

This was, to put it in the most joyous of terms possible, agony. Real, true agony beyond anything she’d experienced. Agony because she hadn't told anyone about this memory since it returned. Agony because it was the only memory that had returned. Agony because it was Darkrai that found out. Agony because Darkrai had already found out, before his botched escape into the Passage of Time, and he hadn't said anything— and not out of some sense of compassion or pity. It was because she knew what the icy gaze that flashed in her nightmares back then meant, and because he knew she had witnessed him prying. It was because she had a dirty little secret she hadn't admitted to anyone—that she had barely even admitted it to herself— and he had made it into a carrot on a stick, into something to get her to pay attention and follow along with everything he said and did. If her focus slipped up for a second as he spoke to the terrified people of Treasure Town, he would hint, and people would worry, and she couldn't handle the people who deserved so much more than her fretting over someone who didn't even deserve to exist. 

(When Kip and Twig refused to fight Darkrai initially, he decided to give them a bit of motivation to confront him in his trap. Everyone in Treasure Town began having nightmares of their worst memories whenever they closed their eyes. She overheard the Guildmaster quietly discussing an old mentor he was forced to part from with Chatot. Marill came to the market alone one day, looking skittish and fearful, and said Azurill was torn up about the mess with Drowzee bugging him again. Kip cried on Twig's shoulder about seeing his parents in his nightmares, only for them to disappear without a trace as evening fell and the happy memory curdled— a newly christened orphan, the old wound made fresh once more.

(Twig had nothing. No bad dreams whatsoever. No nightly reminders of why she'd left humanity behind. No midnight rehearsals of the reason she kept her distance from everyone but the select few who could touch her under specific circumstances. Nothing.  

(Darkrai knew. And this felt somewhere between an olive branch and a debt he intended to collect.

(Twig said she'd been dreaming of the execution posts in the Dark Future. Kip nodded sympathetically through his tears.) 

She took a deep breath, staring back at the cold, pinprick glows coming from the dark of her home. 

He had known before. And he knew now. Might as well take back some of the control here and explain what he no doubt was registering wasn't just the figment of a stressed-out, weary brain.  

"I was human, once," she said. 

The light of his eyes dipped and raised, barely, as he nodded in the darkness. He’d discerned that already. 

“We all lived underground. There was some big disaster that we were scared of happening, and so we were supposed to hide until it blew over. But the thing is, sickness spreads real fast when you’re living in an enclosed space with limited clean air, so… Well. My parents didn’t make it when a nasty bug hit our area. I started living with my aunt, who— I mean… You saw how that was.” Twig laughed weakly.

Darkrai didn’t even chuckle.

She cleared her throat. “Um. Yeah. Looking back, I think she was mad at my mom for having a picture-perfect life when she didn’t, and she'd take it out on me once my folks died. I don't blame her. I was an obnoxious kid.” She rubbed her hands together, unable to meet Darkrai’s gaze anymore. “Didn’t expect her to try and smoke everyone out when people got all huffy about it, but… I guess I should have.”

The glow of his eyes in the dark didn’t waver.

She explained briefly about the Dark Future— how she’d come from it, how a number of her friends had as well, how she’d saved the Present with the help of her partner and a handful of other pokemon— Grovyle, Celebi, Lapras, and more. She gave the explanation, careful to leave out any hint of Darkrai’s involvement, to draw his attention away from her shameful origins and how she should have died in that fire as well— how she would have, if she wasn’t such a coward she ran away at the first whiff of smoke.

He didn’t even flinch at the story of her revival thanks to Dialga or all that came before it. He just sat there, silent, watching. 

“A-Anyways, none of that matters. I’m here now, and everything’s peachy. I don’t even have the same body that got all banged up back then! It’s fine. I’m fine.”

He didn't speak. 

This silence was going to strangle her. Would he just react, already? She said all of this to take ownership of the secret’s reveal, but it still felt like he was the one holding all the cards here, even if he had a distinct air of unease about him despite his menacing presence in the darkness. 

"You knew,” she said. “You knew about the life I came from.” She intended it to be comforting— a way to smooth over the tension in the air. A lie of omission where one could assume he had been her trusted confidant in an ugly situation, instead of teasing at the truth in front of everyone she knew. 

Silence.

"Nobody else did, not even Kip, or Grovyle, or— anybody. But you knew," she repeated herself, feeling her voice jitter with nerves. 

But he saw through the lie, because of course he did— because she couldn't keep any secret away from ice-blue vivisection. Not then, and not now. 

"You didn't want me to," he murmured, and it wasn't a question. He knew. He always did, and he always would. 

She put out the lamp and rolled over to face the wall, regretting having spoken at all. 

[cherryfairytwist]

RickFic Ch1. Falling In

(Tags: Alcohol / harassment / substance use / 18+ Minors DNI)

—- HELLO —-

—- INITIATING DOWNLOAD SEQUENCE MEMORY CLUSTER #1  —-

—-PULLING UP EARLIEST ASSISTED MEMORY RECORDS —-

—- NARRATION SIMULATING NOW —-

 Astrid walked down the sidewalk listening to “Every Day Is Exactly The Same” by Nine Inch Nails in their earbuds while nearing the entrance of the school. Waking up with a hangover was something no one at school could tell that Astrid was dealing with most mornings. They’d simply shape shift to look completely rejuvenated even if they felt dead inside. You’d never be able to physically tell, but for some reason Summer and Morty could always tell when something was off those days. They seemed to be nicer, as if they knew and were worried. She figured it was because they were familiar with what alcoholics were like in the Smith family. Their mother and grand dad being pretty hard core raging alcoholics themselves. She had heard all about it from the kids throughout the time she had known them. She had been there for them on the occasional times both the siblings were having some kind of mental breakdown during the school day due to alcoholic family issues. That morning Morty had picked up some books she had dropped during a lesson. He smiled kind of worried at her and whispered as he picked them up handing them away to a fellow classmate, 

“H-hey Astrid are you doing o-okay?” 

Astrid smiled back and tried to play it cool, 

“Yeah Morty I’m okay. Just a little tired this morning.” 

He didn’t seem convinced but tried to take a different approach,

“You-you know.. Su-Summer and I sometimes meet up before lunch a-at her locker if you’d like to come h-hang out..I-I mean like Rick will probably show up and pull us out of s-school around then so like no pressure.. haha.” he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. 

“Okay Morty. Tell Summer I’ll give her back that eyeshadow she let me borrow a few days ago when I see you two.” Astrid replied casually knowing Morty’s nerves were getting the better of him. 

“Ha! O-okay cool!” He happily but awkwardly laughed and went to sit back down. 

The rest of class went on like normal, typical boring high school history class. On the way to the next class she popped an earbud in again and “Restless” by Unkle played. Suddenly they got stopped in the hall by one of the Seniors that was known for being quite the delinquent around school. His name was Harris Hailer. He wore black ripped skinny jeans with chains hanging from the belt and a black hoodie with random spray painted words on it. Harris was known for causing problems around school but never actually showed any signs of being a real threat, well… at least that’s how Astrid felt about him. He often would come around to bother her after class. 

“Well hey hey Astrid.” He looked down his nose at her from under his long black messy bangs. 

He looked to her side and spotted Morty slightly following behind her. 

“God this little kid is always following you around school like usual hu?” He grabbed Morty by the collar and held him slightly suspended an inch or two from the ground. 

“O-oh h-hey wait!” Morty squirmed and tried to pull away from him. 

“Weird to be talking about yourself in the third person today Harris, but whatever.” Astrid replied annoyed while snatching Morty effortlessly from Harris’s grip and setting him down. 

Morty awkwardly laughed at Astrid’s comment and quickly walked on ahead a few feet towards his class as to keep away from Harris but close enough to keep an eye on Astrid. 

“Wow holy shit- you’re strong Astrid… do you work out or something?” Harris replied trying to still lay it on thick while attempting to reach his hand out and play with her hair. 

 “I don’t have time for this Harris, go to class.” She quickly replied and brushed him away while walking towards Morty. 

“Oh come onnnnnnn Astrid! Don’t be like that, you’re so FINE though..” he mockingly moaned and quickly flipped up her skirt as he passed. 

 “H-hey quit it! L-leave her alone!” Morty whined from the other end of the hall. 

“Haha whatever loser. I’ll see YOU later.” Harris smirked and continued on to whatever class he had next. 

 Astrid and Morty continued on walking towards their classes. 

“I-I don’t know why y-you put up with him every day.” Morty said angrily. 

“I won’t let him get to me, he’s just an idiot anyway.” Astrid said through gritted teeth with a fake laugh. 

She knew she could have demolished Harris with the flick of her pinky if she wanted to but she needed to keep her cover on Earth. So she let it slide knowing he was just a meaningless pest in the grand scheme of things. 

 They parted ways as Astrid came to the classroom she needed to be in for that next class, 

“See ya later Morty. Have a good class.” she said as she entered through the room. 

 Morty thanked her and waved as he turned to go to a classroom a couple of doors down. 

 This history class was Summer’s. Every morning Summer would come up to the front of the room and make short talk with Astrid before class began. Summer always seemed happy to be around Astrid. She’d always updated her on the high school drama of the senior girls, their crushes and things they were up to that week during and after school. Astrid always found the info completely useless yet entertaining. She was just happy to humor Summer as she got ready for class and waited on the teacher. 

 “Heyyyy! Did Morty ask you to come hang out with us at my locker later?” She leaned on the front desk and arched her eyebrow. 

“ I mean, like it’s not just going to be me and Morty obviously. Like some of my other friends will be there too… if Morty is getting on your nerves lately or anything.” Summer quickly insisted before Astrid responded. 

“Oh no he’s sweet.” Astrid replied “I’ll definitely come hang out with you two later. Oh and here is your eyeshadow I borrowed.” She pulled the makeup out of her coat pocket and handed it to Summer. 

“Oh thanks! How’d you like it? Did you use it for a hot date?” She produced a cheeky grin while awaiting a response. 

“It’s pretty! But… I think it’s too warm a tone on me.” Astrid replied avoiding the subject of dating entirely. 

The main teacher walked into the classroom and announced class had started. 

 “Okay we’ll talk later!” Summer winked and returned to her desk. 

Astrid would never say it but she never really needed the makeup Summer lended her in the past. Being a shape shifter made those things unnecessary. But Summer was always so excited to share things with her or invite her to places. Astrid was starting to feel guilty for blowing her off so many times previously. Recalling all the times she spent at home alone trying on some kind of lipstick or eyeshadow Summer had lent her just to kill time. But who knows maybe it wouldn’t hurt to hang out with the Smith’s for real this time. Moping around until she got a new mission was getting old. She could try her hand at having normal healthy friendships… right? 

Ever since the incident it had become painfully obvious how different her life was compared to others around her. It was an isolating feeling. She didn’t know why she kept pushing them away but never having relationships outside of her working as an agent started to weigh on her mind. There had to be more to life than what she had been trained to do. But every passing day she could feel the ache of the co-dependency she developed for her Handler and the adrenaline rushes she had gotten from her many dangerous missions. 

Maybe this is why she gravitated towards the Smith siblings. They seemed to be more relatable than most the other humans on the planet. They had seen things. They had been THROUGH it. Hearing them talk about their grandpa reminded her of previous handlers she had in the past. This always caught her curiosity. Wondering if Rick Sanchez was anything like the rumors or what her Handler had said about him. But hearing about him from the kids gave her a new insight to the said grandiose reputation that followed their grandfather around. 

  Most of the school morning came and went in a blur. After the two classes with the Smith siblings she mostly went on auto pilot listening to one earbud hidden under her hair as the other classes dragged on. Soon the school bell rang out indicating it was time for lunch period. Astrid contemplated what she should do. Technically she had already returned the makeup to Summer… she could use that as an excuse to justify not meeting up with them. Like do they actually want to hang out with a teacher’s assistant? She didn’t even know what her real age was but she definitely looked and acted older than both of them. Still they actually seemed to still want to hang. Does that mean Summer saw her as like an older sister or something? She didn’t know but paced around the empty classroom now that everyone had left for Lunch. “Faceshopping” by SOPHIE blared through her ear bud. She wondered,

“What if we all end up getting close and then the Agency gives me a mission and I have to leave?” 

She paced.

“What if I end up getting the order to go after and assassinate Rick Sanchez? Their Grandfather….” 

She paced more. 

“What if the friendships end up getting weird or toxic like the ones I made at Cognito Inc.” 

She paced even more.

“What if something like the incident happens again….?” She shook her head and pressed her back against the wall and breathed. 

“Would they hate me if they found out who I really was? Would Rick try to eliminate me once he knew the proximity his grandkids had to me?”

She looked up at the ceiling. 

“They seem like tough kids though…. They’ve definitely been trained in some ways by their Grandfather right…?” She sighed.

“I mean I’m not actually hunting them… So I’m not technically hiding anything… if they ask I’ll tell them stuff… just not everything maybe.” 

She got up.

“I can at least try to be fucking normal.” 

She left the classroom and walked briskly down the hall towards the direction of Summer’s locker. 

 She had waisted a few minutes pacing so she picked up the pace. Turning the corner Astrid could see the siblings chatting at the locker as some of Summer’s friends turned and left towards the lunch room. 

“Hey guys, sorry I got caught up after class.” 

She called to them as the two turned to look at her with big smiles on their face. 

“H-hey Astrid-“ Morty cheerfully got cut off by his sister “Omg heeeeeeyyyyyy Astrid you actually showed!” 

“Sorry you guys I’m going to be better about that.” Astrid awkwardly laughed.

“No! I mean I’m joking like you don’t have to hang with us girl, I’m just glad you want to.” Summer said nonchalantly. “Let’s go grab lunch together.” 

“Haha- yeah! I’m starving” Morty said with a smile. 

Right as “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC played in Astrid’s ear, both the siblings turned and Summer grabbed Astrid’s arm to pull her along with them. Astrid looked down and noticed her shoe had come untied. 

“Hold on guys let me tie my shoe” she said as she crouched down. 

As she laced up, she heard a noise that she was able to identify as a type of portal. 

A voice loudly announced, “SUMMER. M-MORTY. N-NO *burp* TIME!! COME WITH ME!”

Astrid heard another portal noise and suddenly fell backwards through the floor. She looked up and saw her and the siblings were falling through a pastel purple sky of an unfamiliar planet onto hard dry orange soil. Seeing a portal hole close up above their heads made Astrid realize Summer’s hand was still on her arm. Astrid brushed herself off and looked up to see Rick Sanchez now on the ground standing with them. 

“Grandpa Rick you need to start waiting until after lunch before you try to pull us on one of your adventures!” Summer yelled back at him. 

While also brushing herself off, she looked down to see Astrid next to her on the ground. 

“Oh shit-“ she started to say before Morty also yelled out “Y-YEAH! RICK! I’m tired of this!! I’m Starving right now m-man!” 

“S-stop you’re bitching you fucking pansies! T-this is important- yuuuhhrrrgg*burp* you guys need to trust Grandpa! Y-you-your Grandpa will give you something better than lunch! I have countless inventions that can make you feel like you had WHOLE MEAL!! S-shrunk down FULL COURSE MEALS M-Morty!!” He raged on at them as the siblings stood up. 

 Astrid had only ever caught glimpses of Rick when he picked up the kids from school. She mostly ever just heard him yelling something of urgency before suddenly the Smith siblings were gone out of thin air. Or the occasional moment where she would happen to see him running through the school frantically with or looking for the kids while something insane chased after him. 

 “Fuck I’m so sorry Astrid!” Summer quickly said while Astrid helped her up. 

“I didn’t mean to actually drag you into this! This is so wack right..?” Her nervous rambling went on, “Are you going to freak out now and like hate us….? I know we are like on an alien planet and everything… we can take you back to school I promise-“ 

“W-who the FUCK is that?” Rick demandingly asked. 

Astrid looked Rick in the face as Morty asked if she was okay. She suddenly realized this was the first time she was meeting THE Rick Sanchez. Probably one of the most wanted men in the universe. Considered a terrorist amongst countless planets. Yet he stood here arguing with his two grandchildren in the dirt. 

 “I’m terribly sorry sir.” Astrid spoke and extended her hand towards Rick. “Nice to meet you. My name is Astrid I’m-“ 

Morty cut her off with “she-she’s our teacher’s assistant at school!” 

“Oh yes the-*uhrp* little fucking assistant friend you two never shut up about that keeps g-ghosting you.” He scoffed and rolled his eyes, 

“God will y-you two take a hint? She obviously doesn’t want to waist her time on you.” He said annoyed as he shot his portal gun off to the side in Astrid’s direction. 

His eyebrow raised as he noted she didn’t flinch the slightest bit in surprise of her surroundings.

“S-shut up Rick!” Morty yelled, “Astrid came to h-hang out with us! Maybe we wanted to bring her with us!” 

 “Wait yeah!” Summer agreed now also noticing Astrid wasn’t freaking out about the situation and seemed fine with it. 

“She’s really cool Grandpa. Give her a chance! We could all have fun on a mission together or something!” She said practically exploding with excitement to have a friend to share adventures with.

“Fuck no.” he barked abruptly. “I’m not d-dragging around another dumb fu-fucking little friend of yours. Think about the last couple of classmates you two g-*aahhhh*-gained the privilege of losing once they realized they couldn’t fucking HANDLE IT!”  He quickly took a swig from his flask and stomped over to Astrid. 

“N-nice meeting you but I’ll t-take it from here.” He shoved her backwards through the portal and back into the school hall. 

“See you later!!” Summer quickly said to Astrid as Morty whined in protest behind her. 

“Yeah see you later.” Rick sarcastically echoed as the portal snapped shut leaving her alone in the hallway. 

—- PART ONE COMPLETED —- 

—- SHUTTING DOWN —-

—- GOODBYE —- 

[tovaicas]

@vexatious-knight​​ sure, I can get into it! I know I make it seem like I utterly hated HW in those last few points but I actually don’t, it’s one of my fav expacs. it’s mostly just that I like to bitch abt the weaker parts of things I like bc constructive criticism is love and the finest form of flattery to me.

details under the cut. this is gonna be real long lol I’m sorry

ARR: full warning, I did ARR in a complete state of ‘near mental breakdown from uni stress’ kinda fugue, combined with me being more focused on Learning The Game than paying close attention to the writing (as it goes with the early stages of a new video game), so my initial memories of ARR are a lil’ hazy. regardless I’m in the camp that it Wasn’t That Bad, and knowing the backstory behind its existence makes it easier for me to forgive a lot of it’s flaws. it’s slow and a little poorly paced and very long (and the scions have little character, and the less that’s said abt their voice acting the better, tho I miss some ARR voices like ARR-ysayle, misgardsormr, and merlwyb), but it’s otherwise a fine introduction to the game. I disagree with the fandom optic of ‘skip ARR you don’t need it!’ and how people act like it’s the worst content in the game, bc ARR sets up at least some of the basics for what happens down the line, and again I don’t think it’s that bad. it’s definitely not winning any narrative awards, but it’s serviceable (esp. for smth cooked up quickly after the near-demise of a previous game version).

HW: so far competing w/ ShB for my fav expac. something to note is that I’m a writer, not a game designer, so some of my criticisms are petty just because I theoretically have the time and ability to expand as much as I want on the things I feel could’ve been done better, because I do. I understand that sometimes game design and MMO writing is just Like That bc of time and scope restraints. okay.

I generally really enjoyed HW - though I think it had a couple of missteps, it generally kept a tight narrative and kept sight of its themes. Ishgard is still my favourite setting (bc who doesn’t like rubbernecking a dumpster fire) and I like how it flipped a lot of character genres on their heads (estinien is the broody dark character but he explicitly isn’t an asshole, he’s just traumatized; aymeric is the cool collected golden boy but displays an impulsivity (that gets someone he respects killed) that you’d more expect out of someone like estinien; ysayle is almost sisterly in how much she cares for other people, and instead of being the violent cult leader you initially knew her as she’s literally the matron for a group of outcasts abandoned and harmed by the system). I like how uncertain it initially feels, I enjoy the couple of moments where the wol starts feeling less like a player avatar and more like a realized person by having character reactions and traumas (they’re utterly devastated by haurchefant’s death, and are shown to be explicitly traumatized and worn down), it does a good job of not sugarcoating how much of a hellhole ishgard is, and for the most part it does a fairly good job of having people like aymeric recognize they’re complicit in why their country is this way and making real meaningful steps to change it. I liked the revelations abt what was really going on w/ the dragonsong war.

also i’m native, so seeing a catholic church analogue get thoroughly dunked on, acknowledge, and make actual steps towards reparations (while acknowledging that an apology requires actual action and not just words) for a crime they committed is a little bit more personal to me than it might be for some others.

as for things I think were weaker....I’ve mentioned a few of them before. like I said a few times I think estinien was an exceptionally flat character and that the reveal could’ve been so much better had he been allowed to have a modicum of growth and agency and actually been made to grapple with the reality of the situation and what it means for him and his sense of self. HW has a weird fixation on humbling ysayle (ravana, focusing on how ‘wrong’ she was during its most important scene despite the fact her not knowing makes little sense bc vidofnir) and the reveal + her completely unnecessary death makes it harder to enjoy for me. speaking of, I find the fact that after she dies the heretics are completely forgotten abt to be a particularly big fumble, bc the entire reason they even exist is a huge portion of HW’s message (they’re not all evil fanatic dragonfuckers, many (if not most) of the heretics are otherwise normal people who have been harmed by the system often through no fault of their own, ex. heustienne as shown if you did HW DRG quests, and will be killed if they go back to Ishgard), so it’s a little strange to me that their voices and plights are quietly dropped as soon as they can when they really should be some of the loudest, as should brume residents. another sore spot for me personally (that I’ve mentioned) is that neither aymeric nor the game wants to acknowledge the awkward truth that aymeric, as leader of the temple knights, is directly complicit in their many (not secret at all) crimes and how his failure to control them reflects back on him as lord commander. that he can’t seem to reconcile with this and blames everything on his father is a fun character flaw, but I’d like to see it more acknowledged (both canon and fandomwise) that aymeric fails in some pretty important ways and makes some weird decisions (like restoration-era ishgard still has the inquisitors. aymeric. you kept the fucking heresy police?). I’d like to see his characterization of ‘perfect golden boy’ to be challenged more often, but I’m not gonna hold my breath lol.

StB: oh boy. as you probably know, stb is obviously (so far) the weakest expac in terms of writing - it fails in a lot of ways, sometimes to the point things actually get offensive. what I liked abt it was mostly mechanical. a lot of it’s fights were really fun, and stb is abt the point (other than fights like nidhogg) where the game starts upping the ante on mechanic difficulty across the board and starts taking the training wheels off (just a little), and I think a lot of its maps were nicely designed and are nice to look at. omega was a fun raid storyline, and I also liked little details, like how this expac’s ‘beast tribes’ are treated as equals in contrast to the uld’ahn assertion that eorzean ones are violent savages that need to be monitored and put down when they get too uppity (this is why I have very mixed feelings on the scions as an organization, but that’s for a separate post).

narrative-wise tho.....stb is a mess. it’s the classic case of biting off more than it could chew, bc it tries to do two storylines at once and fails at this hard; the ala mhigan sections are too short and underwritten across the board, and they spend too much time faffing abt just getting to Doma that that section feels too short as well. shinryu is a massive sore spot; a bahamut+ level primal is born, disappears, and just.....is never mentioned again except at the very end, where you had no buildup or way to predict this happening. I spent literally the entire expac wondering when people were gonna worry abt shinryu on the loose potentially causing another dalamud situation at any moment. things that are super interesting and have a lot of implications, like zenos’ (fake! manufactured!) echo, which is hydaelyn’s power, giving him the ability to body hop (which is in all previous appearances something only granted by or exclusive to ascians) is inherently interesting and a good segue into the shb revelations but it’s literally never brought up again.

I also didn’t really enjoy it character-wise; papalymo and lyse have absolutely no depth or development in ARR or HW so his death is utterly wasted and the reveal that yda is a fake persona has literally no punch (haha) to it bc yda had no character beyond comic relief in ARR anyway. lyse unfortunately never gets out from under the shadow of her comic relief designation, and due to pacing issues her arc is anemic as fuck (she never really grows and keeps asking the same questions over and over) and never actually materializes into what the devs wanted it to be; lyse as resistance leader was a point that was never going to work as-written, and that’s before the colourism issue comes into play. I don’t think she’s necessarily an awful character, but she was definitely mishandled.

I’m not going to talk abt hien or gosetsu here. know that I absolutely despise them, hien especially, for a lot of reasons. but if I get into these reasons I’ll write a 5k word essay on just that so I’ll spare you the pain and save it for a different post. but hien makes me angry as a character so. yugiri is the best character here by process of elimination, fight me.

yotsuyu’s arc is unsurprisingly a mess, and the post-patches fail to actually engage with it bc her main deal is that she’s been horrifically mistreated, especially by men, her entire life, and the entirety of the post-patches are hien treating her like an object to traded around and gosetsu making funney ‘jokes’ abt women. it’s awful. note that I’m not excusing her actions - yotsuyu is an awful person who’s done awful shit, and the inherent moral dilemma of how to handle her crimes as tsuyu is an interesting beat - but everything abt her is mishandled and so...egregious that at times it almost feels exploitative. it makes me wonder that as written if she’d been better off literally just being an awful person because she’s an awful person, and not awful bc she’s a sexual assault survivor (which, I want to stress, this is not the first time this game has made the implication that women who are sexually assaulted are just morally broken afterwards (the first was eline roaille) which is quite the stance to take). all in all I think stb is just across the board unsatisfying and is just a complete mess of an expac. fun fights, tho!

ShB: this is as far as I’ve gone and I’ve not started post-patches yet, so I’ll only be talking abt base ShB. like I think I mentioned right after finishing - I liked it! I think it did a good job of keeping to a tight narrative, and one of it’s bigger strengths is that none of its zones overstay their welcome (like. cough cough. ruby sea. cough cough). other than a couple areas I think it did a genuinely good job of telling what it wanted to tell, and it’s competing w/ HW for my favourite of the bunch.

it’s maps are super pretty (lakeland has some of my favourite bgm so far), it’s fights are fun as hell, and the lightwarden narrative is genuinely gripping. I really enjoyed the bleaker, more dark fantasy tone starting out, I enjoyed how it didn’t pull its punches regarding how ever-present and how...inevitable the sin eaters feel as a threat (it reminds me of ishgard somewhat, in that way). after an entire expac of feeling like a weapon and almost background character just here to solve problems through violence, shb’s narrative of the scions actually (finally) coming to care about your wellbeing as a person as you’re literally dying for the world and working as a team and the MMO player tendency to just follow quest objectives being somewhat used against you as it’s your ‘but thou must’ violence that ends up nearly killing you is a nice subtle meta thing. the worldbuilding for the first feels fairly grounded (by final fantasy standards) and I don’t really have any issues with it. I wasn’t expecting to like the emet-selch arc at the end but I actually really did, I feel they delivered on that front.

eulmore is my biggest sore spot for this expac, bc I think that while their viewpoint re: the end of the world is interesting I don’t think they’re used well. I get that their existence is to highlight the forces keeping norvrandt divided, but just...hm. I didn’t find them super compelling or dangerous as a threat. you really get the sense that without ran’jiit these guys are just hilariously incompetent. and though I’m not going to talk abt it, it’s not my place, eulmore is fatphobic as fuck.

speaking of ran’jiit, he’s obviously the weakest part of the whole show. I find him to be an utter waste of a character, especially once you consider his hook is kinda interesting in its own right; he’s the only eulmoran we see to be in it and loyal to vauthry for reasons that don’t appear to be selfish, but we never actually learn what these reasons are. nothing abt him is explained (he has a dragon? how are there dragons on the first when dragons in this universe are space aliens deposited on the source? he can fuse with it? how? the only other time we see draconic transformations is in ishgardians bc of ratatoskr’s latent aether. is this a real dragon or just smth shaped like one? what is it? we never see any other creature that looks even similar (the closest is alte roite in omega raids). how is he so strong?), and what little character he does have is often ignored if it’s in the wol’s favour (this is a man who kicks y’shtola and his own man off the side of a bottomless pit, but for some inexplicable reason fails to do the same to the wol, his greatest enemy, when they’re distracted by it). his unwinnable fight schtick is not only old at this point but it’s infuriating - I can forgive zeno’s scripted fights bc it’s reiterated over and over again that he’s not exactly normal when it comes to his combat prowess, and the first go around is shocking in its own right bc it’s the first time you’ve lost a fight soundly, not through any trickery or magic or anything. He’s legitimately just stronger than you. ran’jiit just shows up. wrecks your shit. the exarch gives a weak ‘oh no, ran’jiit!’ as explanation. nothing else is ever explained. he’s just this inexplicably strong dude following you around as an unnecessary motivator to kill lightwardens faster, that’s it. it’s a disappointment in an otherwise strong expac. ryne is however my baby.

I’m not entirely sure on how to feel abt the exarch/g’raha rn, that will probably depend on how the post-patches handle him. know that I intensely disliked him for much of shb, bc I read his actions as deeply horrifically manipulative and genuinely thought he was going the be the main villain he was so fuckin shady. no I don’t really care he was doing it for a good cause, he still forced the wol into a war he knew could kill them without giving them full information abt the consequences and held their friends as ransom and only told them the barest of information after they were already in the shits (holminster). so we’ll see how it goes.

my other quibbles are pettier, and are more the result of time/mmo constraints. like I said once, I’d have liked the lightwarden corruption to be more obviously present (as the game pointedly goes out of its way right at the start to show you exactly what being mid-change looks like) and for maybe at least one more containment failure scare in the tempest to really hammer home how little time you have left (was genuinely surprised there wasn’t one) but that’s easy as fuck to fix in writing when you have unlimited scope.

tl;dr: it’s not that I hate what happened in HW, it’s that I think that while it’s an overall good scene a lot of it’s potential was wasted by a failure to give certain people (estinien) agency or depth (despite the fact he has massive stakes in them), and focuses on the wrong aspect bc it wants to laugh at a woman being wrong instead of the big picture. I think that all of the expacs have their fumble points, and I think these deserve to be talked abt critically. I otherwise really enjoy and even love HW/ShB.

StB is however an entire trip into a minecraft canyon of an expac. I don’t think it’s irredeemably awful, but you can definitely feel the writing issues. the less I say abt hien the better.

[agc4doie]

(Fanfic) Fine

Doyoung isn't a stranger to depressioin. Being an idol, after all, wasn't for the faint of heart. He's been on this rodeo for more than 7 years, and he's been up and down multiple times. He knows how easy it is to be on top of the world one day and fall to the bottom the next.

And he's always bounced back stronger and more determined to prove everyone wrong. He's always believed in his talent, always relied on his single-minded drive to succeed to get over whatever hump he encounters.

Until the stadium concert, when he stared out into the sea of green and the stress and exhaustion of the past months crashed into him, washed everything out of him, and left him empty.  Hollowed out.  

He shakes himself mentally. He can't dwell on that, or he'd sink again into the terrifying emptiness that Haechan has worked so hard to drag him out of. Instead he focuses on the ocean of pink flowers before him. He focuses on the scent of fresh air filling his nose, the crisp cool air on his face.

And he does feel better. Being around nature, seeing how BIG the world was, how flowers bloom and die, and the cycle of life goes on, makes him appreciate how fleeting everything is, how small his worries are in the bigger scheme of things.

Endings and beginnings, he tells himself.  Focus on working on the next concert.  Work on having a BIGGER concert.  Climb a higher mountain.  

“Think of the opportunities we’ll have next year!”  has been Haechan’s constant refrain during the trip, his gaze bright with determination.

Doyoung smiles and nods, and bless Haechan’s persistent heart, each time he does it feels a little better.  A little less forced, a little more real.  

He WILL get over this.  

A rustle behind him alerts him to his companion’s return.  “Everything alright back home?”  He asks.  Haechan had excused himself to call his mom.

“Should be,” a familiar voice, albeit NOT Haechan’s, replies.  Doyoung’s head whips around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash.

Boba eyes twinkle at him as Taeyong careully lowers himself on the empty space beside Doyoung.  “It was when I left,” he amends after a thought.  

“What - “  Doyoung gapes at him.  “What are you doing here?”  He tries again.  Then as another thought strikes him, “Why are you up?!”  His eyes go to Taeyong’s back.

“I’m fine.”  Taeyong assures him quickly.  

“You should be resting!  In bed!  Why are you here?!”  Doyoung doesn’t realize he’s shouting, until Taeyong shushes him.

“I’m okay,”  he says soothingly, although he can’t deny a spark of warmth at the concern on Doyoung’s face.  Even now, when Doyoung is in the middle of a personal crisis, he still cares about his best friend.  “I rested all day yesterday.  I was just tired.”

Doyoung stares at him, bewildered.  “You should be resting today too!”  

Taeyong shrugs, holds his gaze.  “I need to see you,”  he says quietly.  “Need to know you’re okay.”  Not just hear about it from Haechan.  He needs to see for himself.  Doyoung’s breakdown at the concert had scared him.  His best friend was sensitive and tended to get emotional, yes, but never like that.  If his back hadn’t acted up, he would have taken Doyoung away himself.

Doyoung’s breath catches at the look in Taeyong’s eyes.  The concern.  The warmth.  HIs heart starts beating faster.  His gaze slides away.  “I’m fine,” he mutters.

Taeyong keeps his eyes on him, noting with relief the color that had seeped back into the pale cheeks, noting with concern the persistent dark smudges under his eyes.  

Doyoung shifts restlessly under his gaze.  “I’m FINE.”  

“Not yet,”  Taeyong corrects him quietly.  “But you will be.”  The conviction in his voice rings in Doyoung’s ears.  

Doyoung rolls his eyes, but he can’t help the way his lips tug up into a wry smile.  Taeyong has always been able to do that.  Drive him bat-shit crazy with his insane mood swings.  Lift him up with a few words.  Melt his heart with those boba eyes.  

“So Haechan -?”

“Went home to see his mom.”

Of course.  “I don’t need a babysitter.”  Doyoung protests, the thought that Taeyong has specifically flown over to watch over him jars.

“You don’t,”  Taeyong agrees easily.  “I wanted some time off too.  Haechan said this is the perfect spot, and so I came. I was the one who told Haechan to go home.”  He pats Doyoung’s knee reassuringly.  “It was my idea.”

Doyoung digests that for a moment, then unable to find any loophole in the reasoning, lets it go.  

They sit in silence for a short while, just soaking in the short peace Haechan has bought them. Gradually, the sound of the wind and the birds work their magic and the unspoken tension eases.  They start talking quietly, exchanging bits of news, bantering lightly, sharing a smile and a little laughter.  

This is them.  This is how they are.  Comfort.  Support.  Care.  

And maybe, love.

“I really like it here,”  Doyoung sighs, nodding at the field of pink.  “Wish we had more chances to do this.”

We.  Taeyong’s heart skips a beat.  He knows intuitively that Doyoung wasn’t referring to the members, he was talking about them.  Just as he knows he was being offered a chance to confess his feelings, if he wants to.  

If he lets it pass, they stay teammates and best of friends.  That much was set in stone.  But this chance once lost, may never be given again.  

He takes a deep breath, reaches out to take Doyoung’s hand into his.  He feels Doyoung tense, but the other man doesn’t pull back, and Taeyong takes that as encouragement to go on.

"I like you.” The words spill out,  and he realizes that the words weren’t hard after all.  Away from the hustle and bustle of their schedules, away from the noise of the media and their fans, it feels like the most natural thing to say.  “I really, really like you.”  He emphasizes, “More-than-friends like like you.”

Doyoung instinctively glances around.  

“No cameras, no show.”  Taeyong assures him quickly.  “Just us.”

Doyoung stares at him intently.  Us.  The word sinks into his soul  He chews on his lower lip thoughtfully, not missing how Taeyong’s eyes follow the movement.  “Hmm,”  he breathes out slowly.  “More-than-friends like like?” he asks, his tone carefully deadpan.

But Taeyong has known Doyoung long enough to hear the thread of humor underneath.  And the acceptance.

“Wanna-be-boyfriends like like.”  Taeyong nods solemnly.  Only the shine in his eyes gives away the happiness bubbling inside him.

Doyoung looks down at their intertwined fingers.  He smiles.

“Okay.”

-o0o-

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know thinking about my emo kid self, there’s such a difference in me in 2022/nearly 2023 at 27, where i can finally sing along to songs like therapy and remembering sunday by all time low, when it rains by paramore, the day i left the womb by (old school) escape the fate literally basically every mayday parade song ever, but most particularly i swear this time i mean it and a little bit of truth by you me at six… etc etc et al et al…. in the shower without choking back tears while sliding down the side of the shower.

like the day that i just started randomly singing therapy by atl and the day i left the womb by etf, for example, in the shower in like 2017 after not listening to them for a few years, bc both songs were randomly just stuck in my head…..

i knew i was feeling much better than i was at 15/16 in 2011, when i was going through my teen mental breakdown phase. i WAS screaming and choking out the lyrics to therapy and sick little games (along with the other songs mentioned above) in the shower in tears on the floor….. because i just fucking hated my life so much (lol, but not lol) and i thought i’d never leave my hometown (ok this is true and it’s fine) and it was also fucking shit because i couldn’t decide if i was depressed or not or anxious or not or i was just a big fucking fake *cue i’m a fake by the used here* and i wasn’t emo anymore and i had to be indie to sit with *echosmith voice* ~the cool kids~ when i changed schools.

like yeah. don’t get me wrong. there are times when the songs mentioned in this post make me cry (usually on my period tbh. lmao sorry for the tired joke)- like when the song/s really decides to hit me/i’ve actively looked them up on YT or spotify so i can have a good cry lol. but now i can sing these songs at any time without having an absolute snotty cry fest during any shower/bath i decide to sing these in. or just generally. like getting older rocks, in some aspects, and this is one of them.

because the songs that got you through what you thought at the time were your hardest times yet- you’ve got a huge storm coming in your mid20s, teen me- these songs will be your light instead of the pain, the utter angst and self-loathing you felt towards yourself on a daily basis as a teenager. yeah where’s that corny ass tumblr quote i used to post every fucking day of my life at 19- we all know it. but it really is. and yeah, there’s the thing that these songs are still emotional as all fuck, i still love them to this day. but i’m just not crying to them as much anymore. y’know what i mean??

anyway idek where this post was going. but growth is good and every current emo kid should know that it does get better. for the love of god it does. hang in there kids. because one day you’ll be 27, and whatever mid2000s or late 2010s emo song you’ve got on blast right now, because tiktok has been having a moment with them over the last couple of years…. will be a source of joy and not a source of self loathing and reason to cry every night in the shower. anyway. my point is, you won’t be “outdated, overrated” and you can still be “a dreamer for sure”- to quote the mayday parade song i mentioned earlier. you’ll just be a newer, hopefully happier, you. even when you’re “at bottom of the blackest hole” and want to “sleep enough to not see the sun anymore”. and that’s all you need.

[projectcaramel]

Fridge Monster (2) - Obey Me! Beelzebub

"Uh, Candice...?" 

"Yes?" I didn't look up from my project, only adjusting my magitech glasses as I worked with a halfstone plate. Slowly, the enchantment was coming together. 

"Do you know where the ketchup is?" I finally turned my eyes away from my work and glanced at Beel who shifted nervously in the doorway of my makeshift workshop. For some reason, I was reminded of a large dog being afraid to move for fear of knocking something over. 

"No," I lied.

"What about the fridge?" 

"No," I lied again. 

"C-Come on, Candice," he pleaded. "I know there's food here somewhere. I can smell it." 

"Beelzebub, restrain yourself," I admonished, and I think I managed to sound quite harsh. 

"You're hiding it from me, aren't you?" he asked plaintively. "I'm hungry dammit!" I jumped as his fist swung into the wall. I decided the house would have to be fortified. "Why would you hide food from me?" 

"Because I want to preserve our living expenses," I replied, standing from my spot and removing my gloves. "Particularly right now. Since you can't resist temptation for longer than two or three hours, I have to force you into exercising restraint. Think of your brother.” For a moment, Beel almost froze himself solid, his mouth falling open in the moment of shock before the orange-haired male became subdued. The letter “B” came off his lips before he shook himself and smiled. 

“Fine. For Lucifer, I’ll try.” 

“Good. In the meantime, I’m working with someone else to develop an appetite suppressant for you. And before you get worried, no it’s not Solomon, and no the goal isn’t to make you feel sick to your stomach.” Beel stared at me for a long moment. 

“Is... that what you’re working on now?” He pointed at the plate, and I glanced down at it, as if I’d forgotten it was there. Which, I had, temporarily. 

“Well, it’s part of a larger project, but yes, it can be used in application with your problem. It’s just a simple magic conversion circuit.” At Beel’s blank look, I hastened to show him and explain. “See, this ars glyph branches into super and avari, which get channeled into these glyphs—ira, gula, luxur, invidi, acedi...” I kept pointing to each glyph and the accompanying strands, but Beel only seemed to get even more confused the more I tried to explain. “Okay, so, if I were to send a magic pulse through this circuit, depending on the attributes running through it, the circuit will send out an output pulse that could be electrical, chemical, kinetic, potential... I’m still working on more complicated translations like nuclear and radiant energy, but it’s a circuit similar to this one that helps your D.D.D. operate without a battery.” 

“Eh? Really?” Beel questioned, startled, and I nodded. 

“It all starts from little things,” I replied, and his eyes lingered on the circuit. 

“Little?” he mumbled. “But that thing is so complicated...” 

“Please; this is nothing compared to programming,” I replied. Now there was something I disliked doing, particularly here. Adding a magic variable into the already difficult mess that was coding was just asking for a mental breakdown. Nothing quite like having a problem and not knowing where it starts or how to fix it. 

“...Candice, has anyone ever told you that you’re incredible?” The comment gave me pause. 

“Well, no,” I replied after a moment. “At least not in that vocalization.” The most I usually got from people was “cool” or “good job”. Maybe I have an unrealistic idea of what people are capable of doing? “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Beel smiled happily, and for a moment, I think my heart fluttered again...

“It’s funny,” he said. “When I listen to you talk so happily about what you’re doing, I don’t feel so hungry anymore.” 

...I really must be ill. 

—

“God, I can finally see,” I cried as I opened my eyes for the first time since I’d gotten IOS. It had been a quick procedure, probably quicker than laser eye surgery, and the best part was that they reconstructed the eye as they worked, so I didn’t have to worry about the little side effects that would have resulted from much more involved, less successful surgery. That, and it was mostly painless. “Is this what people with normal vision feel like?”

“Welcome to the world of 20/20 vision,” the doctor said with a chuckle. “Check back with me in a week so that we can make certain there are no abnormalities being caused by flawed magic, but other than that, you’re free to explore the world without worries.” 

“Thank you,” I practically gasped, and I had to resist the sudden, nearly uncontrollable urge to hug her. It was an odd feeling, particularly considering I wasn’t the type of person to engage in that kind of affectionate physical contact. Or any physical contact, come to think of it. 

When I walked outside the office, I was surprised to find Beelzebub waiting for me, in his typical workout clothes. “What, does Lucifer not trust me to get home by myself?” I asked with a little mocking tone. 

“Er... no, I just... I went for a jog, and I thought it’d be lonely if you just went back by yourself.” Beel rubbed the back of his head, looking a little uncomfortable. “Should I not have?” 

“You shouldn’t have,” I confirmed, though I wasn’t trying to be unkind. “But I appreciate it anyway. Thank you.” Beelzebub smiled again before he started walking with me, back in the direction of the House of Lamentation. 

"You really do look different without your glasses," Beel said with a little smile, and I glanced up at him. 

"Do I?" He nodded. "Are you complaining?" He shook his head. 

"It's not bad or anything... Candice is always Candice. You'll always be pretty." 

"Are you trying to flatter me so I'll lift your food restrictions?" I asked with a snort as his stomach growled. 

“Ah... no...” he replied, even as I handed him a cereal bar I’d brought with me. He stared as it as if he didn’t know what it was. 

“I’m not going to eat it,” I explained. “So you can have it.” 

“Thank you,” Beel replied, and it almost sounded like he’d gotten choked up as he gratefully ripped open the wrapper and chomped down on the puffed grains. I think it was effectively a rice cake stuck together with sugar, so I didn’t particularly care for it. That, and I’d already had three cups of coffee. “So,” Beel said after a moment as he stuffed the wrapper in his pocket, “How much have we saved since you started forcing me to starve?” 

“You’ll have to ask Lucifer,” I replied, even as I looked around the town again. “I haven’t asked to see the bills, so he’s the only one who knows how much the House of Lamentation is spending right now. That said, working towards really reducing costs will require everyone’s contribution—the only one who doesn’t habitually spend a small fortune is myself.” I sighed. “To be honest, I tackled your expenses first because you seemed like the easiest one to handle.”

“Oh.” Beel thought for a moment. “So you’re planning on limiting the others too?” 

“Yes.” I inclined my head. “Satan will probably be next; broaching the subject aside, once I actually get him into the conversation, he should be reasonable as long as no one butts their head in. And then... probably Asmodeus, but the jump in difficulty makes me wonder if it's manageable." I sighed. "Well, I suppose I should at least thank you for being easier to deal with than I thought. For someone so obsessed with food, I'd never imagined my plans would go this well."

"Well, you're welcome," he replied unsurely. "But... Why are you doing this much? I don't think Lucifer would ask you to do it..." I glanced at Beel before I looked forward. 

"To be honest," I said after a moment, "I guess you could say it's just me trying to pay back the House of Lamentation in my own way. I realize my social skills are lacking, and I can be incredibly touchy. I'd rather be a useful annoyance than just a plain annoyance." 

"Is that really how you think we see you?" Beel asked, and I was surprised at the hurt in his voice. I found myself stopping next to the demon. 

"Well, I'm sure you've figured out by now that I'm not the sporty type," I replied with a wry smile. "You wouldn't believe the number of times I've almost snapped at you just because you were talking about the things you like." 

"So what?" Beel stepped in front of me so that we were face to face rather than side by side. I say face to face, but I still had to look up at him. "Candice, I don't think of you like that. I never have. And I don't think any of the others have either. I think you can be really mean sometimes, but I always thought that was a part of you just like how smart you are or how nice you can be." 

"Beel," I said, a bit too stunned to say anything else. Well, I suppose that just like me, Beel had a habit of saying exactly what he meant. He was easy to understand that way. "Thank you," I concluded eventually. 

And this time, I listened to the part of me that wanted to give Beel a hug. He returned it easily, and I almost yelped as he lifted me off the ground with ease, instinctively clutching at his muscular back. I think it was only at that point that I fully realized why all of the athletes at RAD respected him. That... and it was nice to be hugged so tightly.  

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[impulsivesuperrobin]

small-ish personal rant

sent 2 of my college friends a text before going on break bc i’ve been like a little paranoid they don’t view me as a friend anymore (i self isolated during a bad mental health spiral and they only checked up on me like 2 months into it just to see if they were good to complain at me about 1. something i can’t fix and 2. doing the dishes AND each of the few times we hung out/interacted briefly during it they were a little weird and distant) and they have not responded 🙃

it’s been half a day and i know for a fact they’ve been on their phones

atp i don’t even care! like i will be fine with either outcome because i’m capable of being mature about amicably ended relationships, but i would like to know so i don’t have to keep feeling weird in my own house! one of them lives with me and the other is literally over every single day! if they’re not my friends then i don’t have to keep worrying about it and feeling like somehow i’ve don’t something wrong! and if they do still want to be friends then great we can move on from this!

it just feels like they’re doing to me the thing they do right before they cut someone off and it’s pissing me off mostly. especially!!! bc they know i get paranoid sometimes!!!

actually, at first i isolated bc i was declining mental health wise, but then when i tried to get back to socializing they were kinda weird about it! and (imo) they’ve always kinda treated me like an auxiliary friend. i can count on one hand how many times one of them has invited me to do something with them and they’re so much worse at sticking to plans with me than they are with each other

to be fair, when they asked if i was okay (after two months of not) i lied and said i was bc they said they wanted to have an important conversation and i didn’t want to steer away from that but the conversation was literally the two of them being like “the room smells and we can’t tell where it’s coming from, you should do smth about that.” i had a bit of a breakdown in my own bedroom after that (idk if they heard any of it through the door/wall or wtv but they weren’t meant to). but then i tried to continue as normal and they’ve been ignoring me (so has another one of our mutual friends kinda and ik the three of them have been hanging out so idk)

i’m hoping to transfer next semester so it’s not like i’m going to see them much after this anyway but i really thought they were cool and i was hoping to keep some friends from this place (esp after we lost a lot of friends to various bullshit) so it’s kinda a bummer

[catgirlforkaeya]

hello, can i request kaeya comforting gn reader who is overwhelmed because a lot of things happened at once? but at first reader doesn't want to break down in front of kaeya because he's having his time at the tavern so they're afraid of being a disturbance and being a burden to him.

overwhelmed

kaeya x gn!reader

hurt/comfort + tiny bit of fluff at the end + college au

warnings: all lowercase + not proofread + mental health struggles (obvi)

a/n: omg anon i love this scenario sm 😭 i’ve actually been overwhelmed lately too so this is perfect LOL, i hope it’s good! i apologize for how rushed it is i’m very tired 💔

this past week had been absolutely miserable. you had way too much going on in your life and it was all weighing you down. between studying for all the huge tests that were coming up, completing homework, helping a new student, and working at the library in the city you barely had any time to catch a break. all of this was starting to affect your mental health badly— it was already bad due to the lack of light in winter but all of this stress was worsening it. you were trying your best to keep a smile on your face throughout everything but the façade was slowly coming undone.

you and kaeya were out at the local bar “angels share” as usual. a few years ago you two started coming here together to hang out with friends (or sometimes just with each other) and it quickly became a weekly thing. almost every friday you’d spend in the bar. you really don’t have any complaints about the bar— everyone there is friendly. you just were not in the mood for it tonight.

at first you thought you’d be able to pull through tonight and hoped it’d brighten your mood some, but you were completely wrong. you quickly got exhausted and felt like you were on the verge of a breakdown. as much as you wished you could just breakdown right then and there you didn’t want to be a burden to kaeya. you could tell he was enjoying the night and didn’t wish to ruin that.

after a few hours of being there you slowly felt yourself tipping more and more over the edge. that burning knot in the back of your throat had began to form out of the blue, so you slipped out to the bathroom to regain your composure. you were not able to regain your composure though, feeling the knot get even worse. you stood there at the sink contemplating stuff, coming to the conclusion that it was probably best if you headed home.

you walked out of the bathroom and towards where your group had been sitting tonight. you sat down on the edge of the booth next to kaeya, resting your head on his shoulder for a quick second.

“hey, i think i’m gonna head home for the night. i’ve got homework to catch up on,” you said, keeping your voice quiet so the others wouldn’t eavesdrop.

kaeya looked over at you, his icy blue eye meeting yours. “okay, i can head back too if you want— i don’t mind.”

“nono it’s fine, you don’t have to leave ‘cause of me. our apartment is close i’ll be okay,” you responded quickly. you hated denying him like that but you just needed some time alone.

“alright— i’ll be home in like two hours, okay?” kaeya wrapped an arm around your waist as a small half-hug. you nodded and gave him a small kiss on the lips, saying your ‘i love you’s and goodbyes.

you quickly left the bar once you said goodbye to everyone. stepping out into the cool air you took a deep breath. when you were inside you felt like you were suffocating, so finally getting some fresh air was nice. you could see your apartment complex a little bit down the road, so you picked up the pace of your legs. thankfully the sidewalks were bare so you weren’t running into anybody.

the next few minutes were honestly a blur for you. one second you were out on the streets jogging home and the next you were inside your apartment. you knew it was probably from the lack of sleep you’ve gotten lately. you’ve noticed that ever since your sleep started lessening you’d space out more— losing track of time randomly.

your legs were now feeling the aftermath of running. you groaned to yourself and stumbled towards the bedroom. all you wanted right now was to lay down and just cry. you’d been holding in everything for so long now and tonight was the breaking point for some reason. of all nights your brain just had to pick the one night you’re supposed to have fun.

collapsing onto the bed, you shifted so your head was on the pillow. you grabbed an extra pillow off the bed and placed it against your chest, wrapping your arms around it. it didn’t take very long for the tears to begin flowing. it was slow— which was shocking. earlier back at the bar you thought you were going to have a full meltdown— not a few tears here and there. it was better than bottling everything up for even longer though. if you were to keep everything pent up for another few days you’d probably lose your mind.

your mind was going a mile a minute. thousands of unwanted thoughts began to crowd your mind at once. as an attempt to ignore them you just hugged the pillow in your arms tighter, trying to force some more tears out of yourself. you were hoping to just wear yourself out from crying so that you’d be asleep by the time kaeya got home. you really didn’t want him to see you like this. it’s not that you don’t trust going to him for stuff— you trust him with your life at this point, you just felt like you were being a burden even though he’s assured you countless of times that you’re not.

thankfully you still had a few hours alone— or so you thought.

—

you weren’t quite sure what time it was. you hadn’t looked at the clock since you got home. you’d been stuck in the same position, too exhausted to even move. you had been trying your best to sleep but that was failing. your attempt at crying yourself to sleep had failed.

suddenly you felt an unexpected shift in the mattress next to you. you immediately sat up to see what was going on— you had an idea but you’d been so spaced out that it scared you shitless.

kaeya was sitting next to you on the bed where he always is, looking over at you. he gave multiple quick apologies for startling you.

“it’s okay,” you mumbled, looking away for a second to try and wipe off the tears on your cheeks. you hoped it just looked like you were rubbing them since you were tired.

kaeya’s smarter than that though.

you felt him place a hand on your thigh, causing you to look back over at him. “love are you okay?”

“yeah,” you responded quickly, trying to cover up the small voice crack with a cough. there was a moment of silence between you two— kaeya looking at you with furrowed eyebrows as you tried your best to avoid eye contact.

when he reached up to cup your cheek gently is what caused you to break.

all the walls you’d built up to encase your tears in fully shattered. everything began coming out all at once. the tears you were trying to force out of yourself earlier were finally coming. at this rate you knew there was no point in hiding your emotions, so you didn’t give any protests when he pulled you against his chest. you just hid your face in his chest, not caring about all the sobs that left your mouth.

kaeya just sat there with you, holding you close as you let it all out. he didn’t want to interrupt you in the middle of a breakdown to ask what was wrong because he knew it’d go nowhere. for the time being he just gently ran his fingers through your hair, whispering small ‘it’s okay’s and ‘i’m here’s.

once you were finally calmed down a bit he asked you what was wrong. with a shaky breath you started opening up about everything— how overwhelmed you were due to all the stuff you had going on, how you were barely sleeping anymore, how your mental health had plummeted. the conversation turned into a full blown therapy session; you venting about all of your problems while kaeya sat and gave advice when he felt it was necessary. that’s something you always admired about him, whenever you were venting he wouldn’t interrupt you every few sentences with advice. he’d wait until you were done with that topic, then proceed to give advice if it’s needed.

“i’m sorry i didn’t notice any of this sooner hun,” kaeya started, “if i had noticed i wouldn’t have let you get to this point.”

“no it’s okay— it’s not your responsibility to constantly look out for me,” you said, shaking your head slightly.

“i know, i just hate seeing you like this,” he sighed as he took a strand of your hair, gently wrapping it around his fingers. “you should probably get some rest though. i know it’s hard to get it right now but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

you nodded. suddenly kaeya got up and walked over to your shared dresser. he pulled out one of his shirts and a pair of sweatpants. you assumed it was for him to wear, but he ended up handing it to you. you sat there confused for a moment— kaeya was always okay with you wearing his clothes but he’d never straight up handed you a pair of his clothes to wear.

“i know how much wearing my clothes soothes you, so hopefully wearing them tonight might make you sleep better,” he gave you a soft smile when he said that. hearing that sentence made your heart melt. you’ve never explicitly said that so the fact that he payed attention to it was enough to make you fall in love all over again.

you gave him a ‘thank you’ as you began slipping out of your clothes. kaeya ended up helping you undress some— even though it wasn’t necessary. he’d place a kiss to your shoulders every now and then, sending small shivers down your spine.

once both of you changed into what you were going to sleep in you slipped under the covers next to each other. your body barely touched the mattress when kaeya had his arms locked around your torso, pulling your body flush against his. you didn’t mind though— you just nuzzled your head into his chest once again.

“i’ve said this a million times but please don’t hesitate to come to me for anything. you’re not a burden to me,” kaeya spoke softly, his chin resting atop your head.

“i know,” you bit the inside of your cheek to stop the few tears that started welling up from his words. “thank you kaeya.”

he hummed softly in response. “i love you more than words can describe.”

“i love you more,” you tilted your head upwards, placing a kiss to his jawline then on his lips the second time.

“i love you most,” he gave you another kiss, dragging it out a bit this time. “now go to sleep, you need it.”

within a few minutes you finally drifted off to sleep. that was the first time you actually got a full night of sleep in almost a month.

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