#hear the camping and see the momentary set change.

[bigfishthemusical]

actually sorry I feel really strongly about this; one of the unique traits of theatre that is not in movies and tv is the consistently present compositional challenge where each and every single scene is confined to the same canvas of the stage. So the focus of individual scenes is handled through mostly lighting and slightly set instead of camera positioning. And that’s why you have spotlights in theatre and that’s why you never really see realistic lighting the way you might see realistic set or costume. Because the light is doing the job of a camera. Forcing you to look in a certain spot and concentrate on a small section or the entirety of the stage. And due to this. I believe that any proshot that involves a moving and zooming camera can never truly capture the show as it is meant to look. Because while the compost is a challenge it also allows for things that aren’t as smoothly accomplished in film. Like the classic scene of several things happening at once, and as each become the focus the others freeze in tableau, or the spotlight on a dark stage where you see how empty and alone someone is ect ect. These things can not be captured if you do a closeup with a fucking camera. We should all petition them to take more pro shots of shows but with a still camera that does not zoom in. Literally a good show that’s done well, especially a musical, you don’t really need to see everyone’s face all close up, acting on stage is bigger than life On purpose so that the back row can still get the idea. Just stop zooming in the cameraaa

[papillon82fluttersby]

Famous Five Art Nostalgia #07 – Part 3

Introductory post

Part 1

Part 2

Five Go Off to Camp – Le Club des Cinq va camper

Original publication date: 1948 (UK), 1957 (France)

(Cover art by Jean Sidobre, 1977)

Julian, Dick, George, Anne and their dog Timmy are planning to go camping in a moor with the absent-minded and insect-loving Mr Luffy, a master at Julian and Dick's school. When they arrive at camp they find that their camping site is close to a farm.

As announced, here are Sidobre's illustrations for Five Go Off to Camp. Happy spook trains, everyone! 👻🚂👻

~~~~~~

Plot summary (adapted from Wikipedia):

(Even the trailer seems excited for this camping trip!)

(Meet Mr Moustache Luffy)

(While George and the boys visit the farm for food supplies, Anne stays at the camp to tidy things up after their breakfast, after which she goes for a stroll on the moor, where she gets spooked upon seeing smoke erupting from the ground, thinking that she may be sitting on a volcano! Mr Luffy is quick to reassure her that the smoke came from a train passing through of the many tunnels crisscrossing the area, and swears to keep Anne’s momentary fright a secret from the others)

(All campers report on their morning activities)

The Five discover several old railway tracks that run under the moors, some of them unused, and are eager to explore. They soon make friends with a boy named Jock, who lives at the farm with his mother and stepfather. While exploring the moor, the Five find a railway yard and a tunnel that are apparently abandoned. A watchman called Wooden Leg Sam tells them that "spook trains" travel along those tracks before chasing them away.

(An intriguing tunnel)

(Mr Moustache Luffy listens with interest to the children’s story about the supposed spook trains – he keeps a fondness for Anne and teases her good-naturedly about her supposed ‘volcano’)

The children visit the farm the next day. They are surprised to find that most of the farm labourers are not working properly although Jock's stepfather, Mr Andrews, has supplied the farm with a lot of expensive equipment and vehicles. When Mr Andrews hears about the spook trains, he warns the children to stay away from the railway yard, and tries to prevent Jock from meeting the Five over the next few days.

(A good meal at the farm 😋)

(Mr Andrews shows a peculiar interest in the children’s tale about spook trains)

(Visiting the farm with Jock)

(The next night over, Jock visits the Five in secret to tell them that his stepfather has been keeping him busy at the farm and he couldn’t escape to come have fun with them; they also make plans for Jock to come back the next night and investigate the abandoned railyard along with the boys)

The next day is spent having fun bathing at a nearby pond along with Mr Luffy. Meanwhile, Jock has to play host to a very annoying boy called Cecil Dearlove, foisted upon Jock by his stepfather, and has to spend the entire day playing "soldiers" with him, although Jock finds his revenge by changing the game to playing "Red Indians" and giving Cecil quite a scare in the process, for which Jock gets punished.

(Mr Moustache Luffy is surprisingly good at swimming!)

(A friendly play-together)

Julian and Dick secretly set off the next two nights (the first time with Jock, the second time without him due to Jock’s being punished) to watch for the spook trains, leaving the girls behind. They find that there is indeed a mysterious train coming from and back into the tunnel.

(The spook train?!!!)

The next day, George is furious when she finds that the boys left them behind. While Julian, Dick and Anne go to a nearby town with Mr Luffy to ask for information about the tunnels at the local train station, George sets off with Timmy to try and find the spook trains by herself. She does find one, which enters a secret area behind a supposedly blocked-off section of the tunnel.

(The Five minus George and Timmy go to the next town to make enquiries about the abandoned railway)

(George discovers the so-called spook train)

Once back, the boys explore the tunnel while Anne waits outside, but they are captured by some men led by Mr Andrews.

(Captured!)

Anne runs off to find Mr Luffy, but gets lost on her way. Eventually she does find him, along with some police officers that are helping him search for the missing Five. George, who had been hiding inside the train, rescues the boys and, realising that the train is used for smuggling, they try to find a way out of the tunnel. They are recaptured, but Anne arrives with Mr Luffy and the police just in time to free them. After being rounded up by Timmy, the criminals are arrested, and the Five return to the farm, while Jock is delighted at the adventure.

~~~~~~

Bonus:

(Choo-choo! 👻)

~~~~~~

Thanks for reading!

[therealrpalmas]

Mission Journal

She must have fallen asleep, for when she opened her eyes next it was dark, an expanse full of unfamiliar stars and constellations spread out above her. One smallish moon hanging low in the west.

Suit, any messages?

None. No response to your hail.

How long have I been asleep? No, wait, that was the wrong question. Before falling asleep she had been unconscious for some time. How long since the last contact?

24 hours, 18 minutes, Consillium Standard Time, 1 hours 35 minutes, local time based on rotation speed of target planet A331 dash 4. Conversion standard to local units unknown.

She rubbed her eyes with one hand and looked up at the sky again. Less than three hours before the end of one standard day. Less than three hours to hear anything back. Stars. Setting moon. Her eyes searched for moving lights, found one, slowly moving from west to east. For one moment her weak heart tried to race, then it slowed down again. Just one speck of light, not the small cluster she had hoped to see. Moved too fast, too. A satellite then, one native of this world, not the ship.

It would make sense that they'd be hiding somewhere. Everyone on the Nightstar knew or remembered what had happened to the world she had hailed from: destroyed by battle satellites going rogue, at the moment of her launch. It had left deep, searing scars on all of them, resulting in nightmares which haunted them all to this day. And for Mercutio the scars ran even deeper: she had been the one whose actions had started the space program, after being shot down by those very satellites on her own approach to that planet – an alien in hiding.

And though she hadn't crashed here and had absolutely no plans to do anything which would interfere with the natural development of this world, she wasn't blind to the parallels of the situation. Alone, injured… not as badly as she had been following that crash, though.

She lifted one hand, removed the glove and touched the small bulge under her environmental suit. Even through the suit she could feel the comforting warmth of the crystal star she wore. She drew energy from it, felt the warmth spread to her limbs, pushing away the pain and weariness. Turning her head to the left and a little down enabled her to reach the tube of the water reservoir. She bit down and drank. Then she opened one of the belt pouches and took out a ration bar and a painkiller. She first swallowed the pill, grimacing at the taste, then chewed on the ration bar. There was a psychological mechanism which made painkillers with a bad taste more effective than those which didn't, her doctor had assured her once, but right now she would've cheerfully settled for one which was slightly less effective but tasted better.

She closed her eyes and scanned around with her mind. This was the reason why she had gone down for this first recon mission, not people who were a closer genetic match to the humans of this world: she was the only active telepath who could pass for human without thorough cosmetic changes.

Eight active minds nearby. Three she had already encountered, the others were new. All asleep, one rather restless, drifting close to the surface of waking.

Not too nearby, thank the stars. It seemed they were keeping to their part of the agreement: they would stay on their side of the cordoned zone. Good. One less problem to deal with.

Suit, replay mission journal.

A soft voice began to whisper in her ear, through the speakers in the collar of her suit. Her own voice.

"Recon mission, planet A331 dash 4, hereafter nicknamed Vrish." Vaniral Amradrin  Merh Vrish had been the one to discover the radio signals coming from this world, some months ago. "Day one, 5250318, 000504 CST. Arrived safely in cordoned zone. Will set up base camp and explore from here. First contact with Nightstar to report in, received confirmation. Will check in same time tomorrow. End log."

She remembered arriving, the momentary dizzying reorientation after translating down, the quick scan around. Checking in. Taking her equipment, what little there was of it, and setting up her camp not far from the cordoned zone's border.

Standard protocol demanded that she'd wear the suit for two days, two days of careful testing of pathogens – both her own to ensure that nothing she carried with her would infect this world, and the other way around. Already she had broken protocol when she had asked the suit to remove her helmet, earlier today. Well. She had only brought sterile air with her inside the suit, and her own biochemistry differed enough that nothing she carried within her could infect humans. Thus far she hadn't encountered any life forms which could infect her either, and atmosphere samples taken prior to her arrival hadn't indicated that this world would be different. Still, protocol demanded the two-day rule.

Welll, she'd deal with the paperwork later.

"Recon mission, planet Vrish. Day two, 5250319, 032620 CST. Base camp established. First recon of the surrounding yielded no surprises. First databurst sent, confirmation received. Dawn on this world is spectacular. Green and orange, purple and red, pink, violet, blue. Sobering to realise what caused it. If all goes well I can prepare to leave the cordoned zone tomorrow. End log."

That had been the last entry, obviously. She took a slow, deep breath, coughed briefly. Suit, record.

Recording.

"Recon mission, planet Vrish. Day three, 5250320, 014203 CST." Her voice still sounded weak, feeble. "Had an unfortunate run-in with locals. Got hit with projectile during a game. Triggered an episode. Three locals saw it happen and came to check on me. Translation matrix established. Persuaded them not to call for help. Not that much persuasion was needed, their presence here is as illegal as mine. Miraculously, despite my suit, it seems my cover isn't blown. Unable to establish contact, databurst not sent. Will proceed with mission as planned. End log."

It would have to do for now.

(To be continued)

[narutogu]

Touch Starved

REPOSTED ON MY MAIN NARUTO BLOG BECAUSE IT WASN’T SHOWING UP IN THE TAGS. MORE WRITING TO COME ON @narutogwriting​

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x Reader

CW: none

Length: 4k+

Inspired by this picture

Requests are Open!

“Naruto?”

Your voice broke out softly through the momentary silence. The wind had been howling almost constantly that night, keeping you wide awake. You weren’t afraid of anything, not really. At twelve years old, you, like many of your friends, had the notion that you were invincible. Nothing could touch you, and you would always come out on top. You would miss that as you grew older, the confidence in yourself and your abilities. The belief that the world was fair, and that the good guys always won.

So it wasn’t really that you were scared of the way the wind screamed, the whistles through the tree leaves or the sporadic loud crashes that came as the wind blew branches and even tree trunks to the ground. Maybe it was the fact that you had experienced the first death of an enemy on a mission.

And maybe it was deserved. He had been a criminal, after all, and you hadn’t delivered the fateful blow; of course not. It had been Kakashi, in a bid to save your life.

So maybe you were scared, or traumatized, or reeling from your innocence being shattered for the very first time. Whatever you felt, you were still too young, too inexperienced, to be able to pinpoint what exactly the distressed tugging of your heart meant.

It was what had dragged you from your own tent to Naruto’s, quietly and nervously. Kakashi was in his own tent, and you had been sharing with Sakura who was fast asleep. Having her by your side did nothing to calm the storm beginning to brew from inside you.

You had opened his tent timidly, doing your best not to startle him awake. He was fast asleep, on his side in fetal position hugging his pillow to him tightly. But when you spoke his name, your voice stirred him even from his deep slumber.

Naruto whispered your name, groggily, confused, but he’d know your voice anywhere.

Yawning, he sat up rubbing at his eyes, peering at you curiously. “What happened?” He asked.

“Can I sleep in here with you?”

If you were brave, then there were no words adequate enough to describe the courage that burned within Naruto’s heart. He was sure of himself, of what he believed. He would do anything to protect the ones he loved. He would do anything for you. You couldn’t think of a safer place than by his side.

“Yeah, of course.”

Relief flooded through you as you dragged your sleeping bag into the tent, fitting it next to his with some distance of course. You were best friends, but you were also twelve. There was something embarrassing about sleeping so close to someone of the opposite gender. But you couldn’t remember a time where you had ever slept more soundly.

And thus a new tradition had been born. For the whole year and a half afterwards, anytime you and Naruto were on a mission together, you shared a tent. Sure some of your friends teased you for it, and whatever jonin leading your team would shoot the two of you knowing looks as if they had some secret knowledge that you and Naruto hadn’t yet discovered.

But for you and Naruto, it was normal, as natural as anything. The two of you already spent all your time by each other’s side—it only made sense that that would include sharing a tent when on missions together.

It was only ever a tent though. It wasn’t like the two of you cuddled or anything. That was just embarrassing! Though you two were now out of the stage of believing in cooties, you were beginning to understand that there were some secret, unspoken rules for the way you were expected to act with the other gender. Ridiculous, arbitrary rules that were as old as time and didn’t account for the complexity that was the gender spectrum, but you didn’t understand any of that just yet.

When Naruto left, you were heartbroken, of course. Shattered even. You’d never known that it could feel like you had a hole in your heart until Naruto had taken part of yours with him. You dreaded the years to come of missing him.

But he had work to do and so did you. Naruto was going to get stronger and there was no way you would be left behind. Every time you missed him, you threw yourself into your training. The years didn’t pass quickly, but you found as time went on you were able to find other things that made you feel more whole even when you weren’t.

And just as suddenly, that void was filled. Blond hair and bright orange clothing filled your vision and kicked your heart up into your throat. You hadn’t expected to see him, but nothing could have made you happier.

You’d worried over the years that when Naruto came home, things would be different. Spending two and a half years apart changed things, and you had grown a lot. But you and Naruto fell into step together like he had never left, and just like that you had your best friend back.

But things had changed, though you weren’t going to admit that. When his blue eyes met yours, your breath stopped. Every time his fingers ran through his hair, it was like you were in another world. Part of you knew things were different, but you were never going to say it out loud. You buried your feelings deep within you, hiding your heart like a secret.

The thing that made you most nervous was when you and Naruto had your first mission together since he’d been back. You, Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi, just like the mission where you’d first shared a tent. You didn’t know what to say, embarrassed to ask if you would both share a tent like when you were younger. If that had been embarrassing when you were twelve, it was even worse when you were sixteen.

When your team stopped for camp Kakashi went to secure the perimeter and Sakura to gather firewood. You went to work setting up your own tent when you felt Naruto’s presence behind you. You turned to look at him. He was standing there, scratching the back of his head, pink dusting his cheeks as he looked anywhere but at you.

“I didn’t bring a tent…” He admitted sheepishly. “When we were younger, we always shared a tent, and I figured we’d just do that again… I can share with Kakashi, though, if it’s weird. I don’t mean to—”

“Naruto,” You interrupted him with a laugh, though the color on your cheeks now matched his. “Of course we can share a tent.” You told him, turning back to your work as you set it up. “Don’t be weird.” You weren’t sure if it was a message to him or to yourself.

Unlike everything else with Naruto’s return, sleeping by Naruto didn’t feel as natural as it had before. There was a tension, almost palpable, settling in the tent. It was as if there was a string attaching your fingers to his, and the more the string pulled you to him, the closer to your sides you kept your hands. You couldn’t know that he felt it too.

The mission was straight forward and accomplished quickly. As soon as it started, it ended, and your team was heading back to the leaf village, only a days journey away. You would stop around the same area you had the night before, camping for the evening before heading home at daylight. You and Naruto had barely talked the whole way.

That night reminded you of the one when you had first crawled into Naruto’s tent. The wind was roaring making it hard to fall asleep. It was winter this time, however, and you hadn’t accounted for the night being so cold. The clothes you’d chosen to sleep in did nothing to keep in your body’s warmth, and your teeth chattered audibly as you curled into your sleeping bag, back to Naruto.

When your name left his hips, it almost startled you. The two of you had crawled into the tent quietly, not even bothering to say goodnight, the weight of the change in your relationship that you could both feel hanging heavy between you.

“Yeah?” You found yourself saying back, almost too quietly for him to hear. Almost.

“Uh, do you wanna, I dunno, sleep in my sleeping bag with me?” He mumbled, the words coming out fast and bunching together. “It’s just really cold, and I’m afraid that your teeth are going to break from clicking together so hard.” He hoped the joke would make it less weird, that you would feel more comfortable.

The question choked you with something you didn’t have words for, a feeling that bubbled in your stomach, spreading warm and shaky throughout your body.

“Okay.”

You crawled slowly, oh so slowly from your bag to his. He tried to scoot to one side, to make room. He unzipped the bag just a little bit, enough for you to crawl in next to him before he zipped it back up. There wasn’t enough room for you to lay comfortably next to him. Your body was on his just a bit, head by his chest and your arms pressed tightly to your side. You felt frozen with excitement and nerves. This was as close to a boy as you’d ever been.

The silence seemed to go on forever, but it was just a few seconds. Naruto’s arm had been pressed motionless to his sides, but slowly he felt them thaw before wrapping around your body, pressing you to him.

“You can like, hug me, ya know? Or put your arms on me or something. Just to be more comfortable.”

You nodded, your throat dry as you tried to swallow. You unlatched your arms from your body, a hand going up to rest on his chest. It only took a moment or two to get comfortable, to feel like your body fit perfectly into his. Falling asleep in Naruto’s arms, that was the most comfortable you’d ever slept.

The next morning, there wasn’t an awkwardness. It was something else, something sweeter, shyer. The string pulled your fingers closer, and though your hand didn’t touch his, neither did it pull away. You’d never felt so giddy in your life.

If only you knew what it meant to Naruto.

Naruto couldn’t remember one time in his life that he had cuddled with another person. He was sure that he must’ve been held at least occasionally as a baby, but it wasn’t anything he could remember. No one hugged him as he grew, no one tucked him in at night or rocked him to sleep. Once, when he was four, Naruto had found a puppy that got away from its owner. Naruto scooped the small animal up, holding him in his arms. The puppy had licked him affectionately, and Naruto was embarrassed by the fact that the small action had brought him to tears. Iruka’s hand on his head was the first affectionate touch he could remember from another person. He’d thought his heart would burst at that moment. It was nothing compared to what he’d felt getting to hold you while he slept.

He’d heard people say that hugging could lower stress, elevate your mood, even help prevent you from getting sick. He’d never understood it. Naruto had occasionally hugged Sakura and gotten affectionate touches from his sensei as he got older, but sleeping with you was different.

He understood now what the experts meant when they spoke about the benefits of hugging. He could comprehend why romantic relationships were so important to people if they got to touch their partner every day. Cuddling with you that night had Naruto’s head reeling, high off an emotion he didn’t even have a name for. He’d never felt so close to another person, so connected. How had he survived sixteen years without this? How had he survived those two and a half years training without you?

It was a mix of emotions as your head hit your pillow that night. You were relieved to have been able to take a shower. A home cooked meal never tasted so good as it did after a mission where you survived off dried meats. The softness of your mattress definitely beat the cold hard ground. But, you realized, you would gladly spend a lifetime sleeping on the floor of the woods if you got to sleep by Naruto’s side.

It was too scary to think about these new feelings. You knew what it was now, that you didn’t just see Naruto as your best friend. You liked Naruto. Maybe even more than liked him. You didn’t know how this could have happened. How could you ever face him again? If he knew how you felt, your friendship would be ruined.

You had resolved to avoid him for the foreseeable future so that you could wait out the feelings. Maybe if you had some time apart, the feelings would go away, and nothing would have to change between the two of you.

Your eyes had finally started to flutter closed with exhaustion when you heard tapping on your window, startling you. Sitting up, you looked uncertainly towards the window before finally getting up and going to inspect the noise. Naruto’s face peering back at you from the other side was the last thing you expected to see.

Opening the window as quietly as you could, you willed the butterflies in your stomach to quell. “Naruto, what are you doing here?” You whispered, glancing back towards your bedroom door, sure that your parents would burst through at any moment.

Naruto looked sheepishly back at you, a bashful grin on his face. “Sorry, did I wake you?” He asked. Rolling your eyes, you did your best to bite back the giddy smile playing on your own lips.

“Yes, Naruto. I’m trying to sleep. What are you doing here?” You asked him again. Instead of answering, Naruto began climbing through your window, making a little too much noise. You shushed him with a stifled giggle as he fell to the floor. “You’re going to wake my parents,” You told him, trying to look stern. Naruto hopped back up to his feet looking at you embarrassedly.

“I couldn’t sleep…” He admitted, his eyes flickering from yours back to the floor. “I was wondering… Do you think I could sleep here tonight?”

The question hung between the two of you, innocent and unassuming. It wasn’t that weird, the two of you were thinking. You shared a tent on missions; was it that different sharing a bed?

“Yeah, okay.” You agreed, feeling breathless. Naruto was in his pajamas too, you realized, decked in a white t shirt and orange sweats. You turned from him, walking slowly to your bed, doing your best not to make any noise. “You have to leave before my parents are up, okay?” You whispered as you climbed back into your bed.

Naruto nodded enthusiastically, following after you. “I will, believe it!” He said a little too loudly for someone that wasn’t supposed to be there. You shot him a look, though you couldn’t help but smile.

Climbing into the bed after you, Naruto got comfortable under the covers, and the two of you laid next to each other silently. Staring at the ceiling, you wondered if Naruto could hear the sound of your heartbeat as it rang in your ears. This was fine. This was normal for two best friends.

You weren’t sure how long you laid there, more awake than you had been before. You closed your eyes, doing your best to get some rest and failing miserably. You were too aware of Naruto’s presence beside you. He seemed to have fallen asleep long ago if his rhythmic breathing was anything to go by.

And then, suddenly, you felt him rolling over. His hand reached out in the darkness, finding you and pulling you flush against his chest. His arms wrapped around you, holding you to him before his body went still again. You froze, looking up at his face. Was he awake? Had he meant to do that? It was impossible to tell with his eyes screwed shut.

You felt alive, truly alive, for the first time in your life. Nothing had ever felt so right.

The next morning, as promised, Naruto was back out the window before your parents woke up. The two of you had stayed in that position all night, and when Naruto began to shift awake, he looked at you with a shy, lopsided smile. All he said was a quiet “good morning” before he was sneaking out.

And there was no way to hide now that things had definitely changed. It was unspoken, but you both knew it. Neither of you knew what to say about it, didn’t know if you even should say anything about it. It wasn’t bad. It was good, better than good, but so new and unexplored for the both of you that you didn’t know how to approach the subject, so you said nothing about it.

It became a regular occurrence for Naruto to climb through your window every night to sleep in your bed. Each time he did, it became easier for Naruto to pull you into him as he fell asleep, and every morning when he left, you wondered how you had ever slept without Naruto’s arms around you.

All of your friends noticed the change between you and Naruto too, though no one said anything. They all exchanged curious glances with each other, seeing how easily Naruto touched you now and the way the two of you looked at each other just a little bit longer than you used to. But no one knew about your and Naruto’s extended sleepover, and so they all whispered among themselves, but said nothing about it to your faces.

When your parents decided to move back to the village that you had been born in, they gave you the option to stay in the leaf. You were only sixteen, but you were a ninja afterall. You were more than capable of making your own choices and taking care of yourself.

And of course you stayed. This was where your life was, where your friends were. Even more importantly, this was where Naruto was.

So when you told him your predicament, that you needed to find a new place to stay, he didn’t hesitate in offering to stay with him. You were sitting at his kitchen table when he said it, and he immediately began pushing things around the small apartment. “You see? We can put your bed here, and can move this over here…” He motioned to the space he had created. “It may be a little cramped, but at least until you can find something else?”

Of course your friends teased the two of you about your new living arrangements. Never when you were together. Everyone was insistent, desperate to be the one that got one of you to cave and admit your feelings for each other. For your part, you just smiled and said, “He’s my best friend.”

And that flew for a while. The same people that had been sure you and Naruto were meant to be began to wonder if they had it wrong all along, began to wonder if you and Naruto truly were just friends.

They didn’t know that you never got around to getting your own bed at Naruto’s house. That first night, you just shared his bed because you’d been doing it for so long. The same thing happened the next night, and the night after that, and the thought of getting a separate bed just didn’t seem that important. And anyways, you’d gotten used to sleeping by Naruto’s side. Naruto knew that if you got your own bed, he would just climb into yours every night.

You were only sixteen, but Naruto wanted nothing more than to spend every night by your side. He couldn’t remember a time in his life where he’d ever been so happy. There was so much on his mind all the time, the oncoming war, getting Sasuke back. And even with the chaos surrounding him, Naruto was at peace because of you. He had a confidence that everything would work out okay. He couldn’t imagine a scenario in which it wouldn’t.

It was the first time that Sakura and Ino had stopped by since you’d moved in that it was pointed out how unconventional your arrangement was. Sure, you both knew it wasn’t exactly normal, but it worked for the two of you. You didn’t see any harm in it.

Naruto was away on a mission when the girls had stopped by, needing to borrow something. When you let them in, they excitedly looked around the small studio apartment, wanting to see if and how you had changed Naruto’s place.

“Uh, where’s the other bed?” Sakura asked as you closed a cupboard, pulling out the tupperware they needed.

“Hm?” You asked, placing it on the table. “Oh, I haven’t gotten one yet. We usually just share.” You said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. You’d shared your bed with Naruto so long, it no longer embarrassed you. You’d just never had a reason to mention it.

Sakura and Ino’s jaws dropped. They looked from you to each other, wondering if you were serious. You picked up on their shock, looking back at them sheepishly. “What?” You mumbled, feeling your face heating up.

“Are you guys, like, dating?” Ino placed her hand on her hip, looking at you expectedly. You shook your head.

“No, of course not. He’s my best friend! I just haven’t gotten my own bed yet. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal!?” Sakura exclaimed. “It’s a huge deal! You guys live together, share a bed together… you’re practically married!”

Ino nodded in agreement. “Sakura’s right. That’s a weird thing for two ‘best friends’ to be doing. It’s not normal.”

Sakura and Ino’s words rang through your head all day after they’d gone. Was it that weird? Sure, the whole thing had been nerve wracking at first, but now it was just part of your dynamic like everything else was. Of course you still harbored your feelings for Naruto, but you’d pushed them deep down, pretending they weren’t there in a bid to save your and Naruto’s friendship.

You were already in bed when he got back from his mission that night. He threw open the door, dropping his bag and sighing loudly. “Are you awake?” He called as he made his way to the bathroom.

“I am now,” You laughed, rolling your eyes as you heard the shower start. You yawned, your body tired despite how awake your mind was. It was a while longer before Naruto was finally ready to settle in for the night.

With a loud yawn, he dropped down on the bed beside you, stretching. “I missed this,” he said, turning over as he pulled the blankets over the two of you. He reached for you instinctively, a happy sigh leaving his lips as you cuddled into his chest.

But Naruto knew you better than anyone, and he could tell something was on your mind. “Everything okay?” He murmured against your hair, moments from falling asleep.

“Is this weird?” You asked him timidly, afraid to hear his answer.

Naruto froze for a moment before pulling away slightly, just enough so he could look down at you. “Is what weird?” He asked back slowly.

You shrugged. “Sakura and Ino stopped by today. They saw we share a bed and… I don’t know. They said it wasn’t normal.” You were afraid to voice the thought, but you couldn’t help it. The seed had been planted, and it wouldn’t stop growing.

But Naruto just rolled his eyes in response. “You’re gonna listen to them?” He asked with a small laugh. “What do they know about normal?”

“They said it was only normal for people that were, like, in a relationship. Not people that were just friends…”

Naruto was quiet, and you could tell he was mulling over the information, no doubt wondering--much like you were--if they had a point. He pulled away even more, and you could see in the moonlight that he was blushing. “Are we just friends?”

The words hit you like a freight train, knocking the breath straight from your lungs. You weren’t ready for this conversation. Things had been going so well, you’d been so happy and comfortable. You weren’t ready for things between you and Naruto to change, not yet. But now you didn’t have a choice.

“Do you want to be?” You whispered back.

The silence lingered, heavy and suffocating. You felt ready to cry. You loved Naruto. You didn’t want to keep it a secret any longer, but you didn’t want to lose him either. If he didn’t feel the same way… You didn’t know what you’d do. You couldn’t think of anything any more devastating.

Reluctantly, you brought your eyes up to meet Naruto’s brilliant blue ones. They were staring earnestly into yours, searching for an answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked. Slowly, shakily, he brought his hand up to your face, brushing your hair back. His touch was soft, barely there, and it sent shivers up your spine.

Finally, he leaned in to you, bringing his lips to brush against yours in a sweet, shy kiss. The motion was unsure, nervous. He’d been dying to do that for months now, and he had no idea how you would react.

Naruto’s kiss sent your head reeling. You’d always thought that kissing Naruto would send your heart racing, but instead it slowed, calming every nerve in your body.

When Naruto pulled away, he was wearing a grin that matched yours. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long…” He told you, stroking your cheek. You could only smile in response, pulling him in to kiss you once more

Naruto had gone his whole life touch starved and alone. Affection was so scarce, he hadn’t even known what he was missing.

Sharing a bed, sleeping next to you, kissing you goodnight. It wasn’t scary or unsure.

It felt like coming home.

[narutogwriting]

Touch Starved

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x Reader

CW: none

Length: 4k+

Inspired by this picture

Requests are Open!

“Naruto?”

Your voice broke out softly through the momentary silence. The wind had been howling almost constantly that night, keeping you wide awake. You weren’t afraid of anything, not really. At twelve years old, you, like many of your friends, had the notion that you were invincible. Nothing could touch you, and you would always come out on top. You would miss that as you grew older, the confidence in yourself and your abilities. The belief that the world was fair, and that the good guys always won.

So it wasn’t really that you were scared of the way the wind screamed, the whistles through the tree leaves or the sporadic loud crashes that came as the wind blew branches and even tree trunks to the ground. Maybe it was the fact that you had experienced the first death of an enemy on a mission.

And maybe it was deserved. He had been a criminal, after all, and you hadn’t delivered the fateful blow; of course not. It had been Kakashi, in a bid to save your life.

So maybe you were scared, or traumatized, or reeling from your innocence being shattered for the very first time. Whatever you felt, you were still too young, too inexperienced, to be able to pinpoint what exactly the distressed tugging of your heart meant.

It was what had dragged you from your own tent to Naruto’s, quietly and nervously. Kakashi was in his own tent, and you had been sharing with Sakura who was fast asleep. Having her by your side did nothing to calm the storm beginning to brew from inside you.

You had opened his tent timidly, doing your best not to startle him awake. He was fast asleep, on his side in fetal position hugging his pillow to him tightly. But when you spoke his name, your voice stirred him even from his deep slumber.

Naruto whispered your name, groggily, confused, but he’d know your voice anywhere.

Yawning, he sat up rubbing at his eyes, peering at you curiously. “What happened?” He asked.

“Can I sleep in here with you?”

If you were brave, then there were no words adequate enough to describe the courage that burned within Naruto’s heart. He was sure of himself, of what he believed. He would do anything to protect the ones he loved. He would do anything for you. You couldn’t think of a safer place than by his side.

“Yeah, of course.”

Relief flooded through you as you dragged your sleeping bag into the tent, fitting it next to his with some distance of course. You were best friends, but you were also twelve. There was something embarrassing about sleeping so close to someone of the opposite gender. But you couldn’t remember a time where you had ever slept more soundly.

And thus a new tradition had been born. For the whole year and a half afterwards, anytime you and Naruto were on a mission together, you shared a tent. Sure some of your friends teased you for it, and whatever jonin leading your team would shoot the two of you knowing looks as if they had some secret knowledge that you and Naruto hadn’t yet discovered.

But for you and Naruto, it was normal, as natural as anything. The two of you already spent all your time by each other’s side—it only made sense that that would include sharing a tent when on missions together.

It was only ever a tent though. It wasn’t like the two of you cuddled or anything. That was just embarrassing! Though you two were now out of the stage of believing in cooties, you were beginning to understand that there were some secret, unspoken rules for the way you were expected to act with the other gender. Ridiculous, arbitrary rules that were as old as time and didn’t account for the complexity that was the gender spectrum, but you didn’t understand any of that just yet.

When Naruto left, you were heartbroken, of course. Shattered even. You’d never known that it could feel like you had a hole in your heart until Naruto had taken part of yours with him. You dreaded the years to come of missing him.

But he had work to do and so did you. Naruto was going to get stronger and there was no way you would be left behind. Every time you missed him, you threw yourself into your training. The years didn’t pass quickly, but you found as time went on you were able to find other things that made you feel more whole even when you weren’t.

And just as suddenly, that void was filled. Blond hair and bright orange clothing filled your vision and kicked your heart up into your throat. You hadn’t expected to see him, but nothing could have made you happier.

You’d worried over the years that when Naruto came home, things would be different. Spending two and a half years apart changed things, and you had grown a lot. But you and Naruto fell into step together like he had never left, and just like that you had your best friend back.

But things had changed, though you weren’t going to admit that. When his blue eyes met yours, your breath stopped. Every time his fingers ran through his hair, it was like you were in another world. Part of you knew things were different, but you were never going to say it out loud. You buried your feelings deep within you, hiding your heart like a secret.

The thing that made you most nervous was when you and Naruto had your first mission together since he’d been back. You, Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi, just like the mission where you’d first shared a tent. You didn’t know what to say, embarrassed to ask if you would both share a tent like when you were younger. If that had been embarrassing when you were twelve, it was even worse when you were sixteen.

 When your team stopped for camp Kakashi went to secure the perimeter and Sakura to gather firewood. You went to work setting up your own tent when you felt Naruto’s presence behind you. You turned to look at him. He was standing there, scratching the back of his head, pink dusting his cheeks as he looked anywhere but at you.

“I didn’t bring a tent…” He admitted sheepishly. “When we were younger, we always shared a tent, and I figured we’d just do that again… I can share with Kakashi, though, if it’s weird. I don’t mean to—” 

“Naruto,” You interrupted him with a laugh, though the color on your cheeks now matched his. “Of course we can share a tent.” You told him, turning back to your work as you set it up. “Don’t be weird.” You weren’t sure if it was a message to him or to yourself.

Unlike everything else with Naruto’s return, sleeping by Naruto didn’t feel as natural as it had before. There was a tension, almost palpable, settling in the tent. It was as if there was a string attaching your fingers to his, and the more the string pulled you to him, the closer to your sides you kept your hands. You couldn’t know that he felt it too.

The mission was straight forward and accomplished quickly. As soon as it started, it ended, and your team was heading back to the leaf village, only a days journey away. You would stop around the same area you had the night before, camping for the evening before heading home at daylight. You and Naruto had barely talked the whole way.

That night reminded you of the one when you had first crawled into Naruto’s tent. The wind was roaring making it hard to fall asleep. It was winter this time, however, and you hadn’t accounted for the night being so cold. The clothes you’d chosen to sleep in did nothing to keep in your body’s warmth, and your teeth chattered audibly as you curled into your sleeping bag, back to Naruto.

When your name left his hips, it almost startled you. The two of you had crawled into the tent quietly, not even bothering to say goodnight, the weight of the change in your relationship that you could both feel hanging heavy between you.

“Yeah?” You found yourself saying back, almost too quietly for him to hear. Almost.

“Uh, do you wanna, I dunno, sleep in my sleeping bag with me?” He mumbled, the words coming out fast and bunching together. “It’s just really cold, and I’m afraid that your teeth are going to break from clicking together so hard.” He hoped the joke would make it less weird, that you would feel more comfortable.

The question choked you with something you didn’t have words for, a feeling that bubbled in your stomach, spreading warm and shaky throughout your body.

“Okay.”

You crawled slowly, oh so slowly from your bag to his. He tried to scoot to one side, to make room. He unzipped the bag just a little bit, enough for you to crawl in next to him before he zipped it back up. There wasn’t enough room for you to lay comfortably next to him. Your body was on his just a bit, head by his chest and your arms pressed tightly to your side. You felt frozen with excitement and nerves. This was as close to a boy as you’d ever been. 

The silence seemed to go on forever, but it was just a few seconds. Naruto’s arm had been pressed motionless to his sides, but slowly he felt them thaw before wrapping around your body, pressing you to him. 

“You can like, hug me, ya know? Or put your arms on me or something. Just to be more comfortable.”

You nodded, your throat dry as you tried to swallow. You unlatched your arms from your body, a hand going up to rest on his chest. It only took a moment or two to get comfortable, to feel like your body fit perfectly into his. Falling asleep in Naruto’s arms, that was the most comfortable you’d ever slept.

The next morning, there wasn’t an awkwardness. It was something else, something sweeter, shyer. The string pulled your fingers closer, and though your hand didn’t touch his, neither did it pull away. You’d never felt so giddy in your life.

If only you knew what it meant to Naruto.

Naruto couldn’t remember one time in his life that he had cuddled with another person. He was sure that he must’ve been held at least occasionally as a baby, but it wasn’t anything he could remember. No one hugged him as he grew, no one tucked him in at night or rocked him to sleep. Once, when he was four, Naruto had found a puppy that got away from its owner. Naruto scooped the small animal up, holding him in his arms. The puppy had licked him affectionately, and Naruto was embarrassed by the fact that the small action had brought him to tears. Iruka’s hand on his head was the first affectionate touch he could remember from another person. He’d thought his heart would burst at that moment. It was nothing compared to what he’d felt getting to hold you while he slept. 

He’d heard people say that hugging could lower stress, elevate your mood, even help prevent you from getting sick. He’d never understood it. Naruto had occasionally hugged Sakura and gotten affectionate touches from his sensei as he got older, but sleeping with you was different.

He understood now what the experts meant when they spoke about the benefits of hugging. He could comprehend why romantic relationships were so important to people if they got to touch their partner every day. Cuddling with you that night had Naruto’s head reeling, high off an emotion he didn’t even have a name for. He’d never felt so close to another person, so connected. How had he survived sixteen years without this? How had he survived those two and a half years training without you?

It was a mix of emotions as your head hit your pillow that night. You were relieved to have been able to take a shower. A home cooked meal never tasted so good as it did after a mission where you survived off dried meats. The softness of your mattress definitely beat the cold hard ground. But, you realized, you would gladly spend a lifetime sleeping on the floor of the woods if you got to sleep by Naruto’s side.

It was too scary to think about these new feelings. You knew what it was now, that you didn’t just see Naruto as your best friend. You liked Naruto. Maybe even more than liked him. You didn’t know how this could have happened. How could you ever face him again? If he knew how you felt, your friendship would be ruined.

You had resolved to avoid him for the foreseeable future so that you could wait out the feelings. Maybe if you had some time apart, the feelings would go away, and nothing would have to change between the two of you.

Your eyes had finally started to flutter closed with exhaustion when you heard tapping on your window, startling you. Sitting up, you looked uncertainly towards the window before finally getting up and going to inspect the noise. Naruto’s face peering back at you from the other side was the last thing you expected to see.

Opening the window as quietly as you could, you willed the butterflies in your stomach to quell. “Naruto, what are you doing here?” You whispered, glancing back towards your bedroom door, sure that your parents would burst through at any moment.

Naruto looked sheepishly back at you, a bashful grin on his face. “Sorry, did I wake you?” He asked. Rolling your eyes, you did your best to bite back the giddy smile playing on your own lips.

“Yes, Naruto. I’m trying to sleep. What are you doing here?” You asked him again. Instead of answering, Naruto began climbing through your window, making a little too much noise. You shushed him with a stifled giggle as he fell to the floor. “You’re going to wake my parents,” You told him, trying to look stern. Naruto hopped back up to his feet looking at you embarrassedly. 

“I couldn’t sleep…” He admitted, his eyes flickering from yours back to the floor. “I was wondering… Do you think I could sleep here tonight?”

The question hung between the two of you, innocent and unassuming. It wasn’t that weird, the two of you were thinking. You shared a tent on missions; was it that different sharing a bed?

“Yeah, okay.” You agreed, feeling breathless. Naruto was in his pajamas too, you realized, decked in a white t shirt and orange sweats. You turned from him, walking slowly to your bed, doing your best not to make any noise. “You have to leave before my parents are up, okay?” You whispered as you climbed back into your bed.

Naruto nodded enthusiastically, following after you. “I will, believe it!” He said a little too loudly for someone that wasn’t supposed to be there. You shot him a look, though you couldn’t help but smile.

Climbing into the bed after you, Naruto got comfortable under the covers, and the two of you laid next to each other silently. Staring at the ceiling, you wondered if Naruto could hear the sound of your heartbeat as it rang in your ears. This was fine. This was normal for two best friends.

You weren’t sure how long you laid there, more awake than you had been before. You closed your eyes, doing your best to get some rest and failing miserably. You were too aware of Naruto’s presence beside you. He seemed to have fallen asleep long ago if his rhythmic breathing was anything to go by.

And then, suddenly, you felt him rolling over. His hand reached out in the darkness, finding you and pulling you flush against his chest. His arms wrapped around you, holding you to him before his body went still again. You froze, looking up at his face. Was he awake? Had he meant to do that? It was impossible to tell with his eyes screwed shut. 

You felt alive, truly alive, for the first time in your life. Nothing had ever felt so right.

The next morning, as promised, Naruto was back out the window before your parents woke up. The two of you had stayed in that position all night, and when Naruto began to shift awake, he looked at you with a shy, lopsided smile. All he said was a quiet “good morning” before he was sneaking out.

And there was no way to hide now that things had definitely changed. It was unspoken, but you both knew it. Neither of you knew what to say about it, didn’t know if you even should say anything about it. It wasn’t bad. It was good, better than good, but so new and unexplored for the both of you that you didn’t know how to approach the subject, so you said nothing about it. 

It became a regular occurrence for Naruto to climb through your window every night to sleep in your bed. Each time he did, it became easier for Naruto to pull you into him as he fell asleep, and every morning when he left, you wondered how you had ever slept without Naruto’s arms around you.

All of your friends noticed the change between you and Naruto too, though no one said anything. They all exchanged curious glances with each other, seeing how easily Naruto touched you now and the way the two of you looked at each other just a little bit longer than you used to. But no one knew about your and Naruto’s extended sleepover, and so they all whispered among themselves, but said nothing about it to your faces.

When your parents decided to move back to the village that you had been born in, they gave you the option to stay in the leaf. You were only sixteen, but you were a ninja afterall. You were more than capable of making your own choices and taking care of yourself.

And of course you stayed. This was where your life was, where your friends were. Even more importantly, this was where Naruto was. 

So when you told him your predicament, that you needed to find a new place to stay, he didn’t hesitate in offering to stay with him. You were sitting at his kitchen table when he said it, and he immediately began pushing things around the small apartment. “You see? We can put your bed here, and can move this over here…” He motioned to the space he had created. “It may be a little cramped, but at least until you can find something else?”

Of course your friends teased the two of you about your new living arrangements. Never when you were together. Everyone was insistent, desperate to be the one that got one of you to cave and admit your feelings for each other. For your part, you just smiled and said, “He’s my best friend.”

And that flew for a while. The same people that had been sure you and Naruto were meant to be began to wonder if they had it wrong all along, began to wonder if you and Naruto truly were just friends.

They didn’t know that you never got around to getting your own bed at Naruto’s house. That first night, you just shared his bed because you’d been doing it for so long. The same thing happened the next night, and the night after that, and the thought of getting a separate bed just didn’t seem that important. And anyways, you’d gotten used to sleeping by Naruto’s side. Naruto knew that if you got your own bed, he would just climb into yours every night.

You were only sixteen, but Naruto wanted nothing more than to spend every night by your side. He couldn’t remember a time in his life where he’d ever been so happy. There was so much on his mind all the time, the oncoming war, getting Sasuke back. And even with the chaos surrounding him, Naruto was at peace because of you. He had a confidence that everything would work out okay. He couldn’t imagine a scenario in which it wouldn’t.

It was the first time that Sakura and Ino had stopped by since you’d moved in that it was pointed out how unconventional your arrangement was. Sure, you both knew it wasn’t exactly normal, but it worked for the two of you. You didn’t see any harm in it.

Naruto was away on a mission when the girls had stopped by, needing to borrow something. When you let them in, they excitedly looked around the small studio apartment, wanting to see if and how you had changed Naruto’s place.

“Uh, where’s the other bed?” Sakura asked as you closed a cupboard, pulling out the tupperware they needed. 

“Hm?” You asked, placing it on the table. “Oh, I haven’t gotten one yet. We usually just share.” You said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. You’d shared your bed with Naruto so long, it no longer embarrassed you. You’d just never had a reason to mention it.

Sakura and Ino’s jaws dropped. They looked from you to each other, wondering if you were serious. You picked up on their shock, looking back at them sheepishly. “What?” You mumbled, feeling your face heating up.

“Are you guys, like, dating?” Ino placed her hand on her hip, looking at you expectedly. You shook your head. 

“No, of course not. He’s my best friend! I just haven’t gotten my own bed yet. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal!?” Sakura exclaimed. “It’s a huge deal! You guys live together, share a bed together… you’re practically married!”

Ino nodded in agreement. “Sakura’s right. That’s a weird thing for two ‘best friends’ to be doing. It’s not normal.”

Sakura and Ino’s words rang through your head all day after they’d gone. Was it that weird? Sure, the whole thing had been nerve wracking at first, but now it was just part of your dynamic like everything else was. Of course you still harbored your feelings for Naruto, but you’d pushed them deep down, pretending they weren’t there in a bid to save your and Naruto’s friendship.

You were already in bed when he got back from his mission that night. He threw open the door, dropping his bag and sighing loudly. “Are you awake?” He called as he made his way to the bathroom.

“I am now,” You laughed, rolling your eyes as you heard the shower start. You yawned, your body tired despite how awake your mind was. It was a while longer before Naruto was finally ready to settle in for the night.

With a loud yawn, he dropped down on the bed beside you, stretching. “I missed this,” he said, turning over as he pulled the blankets over the two of you. He reached for you instinctively, a happy sigh leaving his lips as you cuddled into his chest.

But Naruto knew you better than anyone, and he could tell something was on your mind. “Everything okay?” He murmured against your hair, moments from falling asleep.

“Is this weird?” You asked him timidly, afraid to hear his answer. 

Naruto froze for a moment before pulling away slightly, just enough so he could look down at you. “Is what weird?” He asked back slowly.

You shrugged. “Sakura and Ino stopped by today. They saw we share a bed and… I don’t know. They said it wasn’t normal.” You were afraid to voice the thought, but you couldn’t help it. The seed had been planted, and it wouldn’t stop growing.

But Naruto just rolled his eyes in response. “You’re gonna listen to them?” He asked with a small laugh. “What do they know about normal?”

“They said it was only normal for people that were, like, in a relationship. Not people that were just friends…”

Naruto was quiet, and you could tell he was mulling over the information, no doubt wondering--much like you were--if they had a point. He pulled away even more, and you could see in the moonlight that he was blushing. “Are we just friends?”

The words hit you like a freight train, knocking the breath straight from your lungs. You weren’t ready for this conversation. Things had been going so well, you’d been so happy and comfortable. You weren’t ready for things between you and Naruto to change, not yet. But now you didn’t have a choice.

“Do you want to be?” You whispered back.

The silence lingered, heavy and suffocating. You felt ready to cry. You loved Naruto. You didn’t want to keep it a secret any longer, but you didn’t want to lose him either. If he didn’t feel the same way… You didn’t know what you’d do. You couldn’t think of anything any more devastating.

Reluctantly, you brought your eyes up to meet Naruto’s brilliant blue ones. They were staring earnestly into yours, searching for an answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked. Slowly, shakily, he brought his hand up to your face, brushing your hair back. His touch was soft, barely there, and it sent shivers up your spine. 

Finally, he leaned in to you, bringing his lips to brush against yours in a sweet, shy kiss. The motion was unsure, nervous. He’d been dying to do that for months now, and he had no idea how you would react.

Naruto’s kiss sent your head reeling. You’d always thought that kissing Naruto would send your heart racing, but instead it slowed, calming every nerve in your body.

When Naruto pulled away, he was wearing a grin that matched yours. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long…” He told you, stroking your cheek. You could only smile in response, pulling him in to kiss you once more

Naruto had gone his whole life touch starved and alone. Affection was so scarce, he hadn’t even known what he was missing. 

Sharing a bed, sleeping next to you, kissing you goodnight. It wasn’t scary or unsure.

It felt like coming home. 

[kojinnie]

The Impossible Request | Levi Ackerman

Based on the request by a lovely anon here. As always, I apologize for putting a little bit of angst into what was supposed to be a full-on fluff :(

levi ackerman x reader; fluff/angst; 2032 words

Captain Levi Ackerman left you with an impossible request during your last ride to the forest with him.

Throughout the whole journey Levi kept looking at you, throwing worried glances frequently at the strange way you rode your horse through the forest. A moment ago, you were about to ride yourself and your horse to a certain death offered by a cliff by the side of the trail. If it wasn’t for your horse’s trained instinct, you’d be a tragic story of a silly death by now.

Admittedly, your focus was not on the trail of the forest hill, nor was it on the hurdles of vines and fallen branches splayed all over your pathway. Levi had to keep screaming at you to keep you from bringing your horse to an accident. Your focus was somewhere else, a distant place that a soldier must not dwell within too long. The unfamiliarity of this place caught you off-guard and as evident by the harrowing way you ride the horse, it has come to ensnare you.

As the thickness of the forest started to dissipate to an open field that overlooked the castle where Survey Corps was stationed at, Levi abruptly changed his direction and stopped your way. Your horse squealed in shock and reared up in effect, almost throwing you to the ground.

The Captain immediately jumped off the horse and darted a piercing stare at you, “Get off. Now.” The way he commanded you sent a shiver down your spine, that tone – his battlefield sternness returned, something far different than the somewhat casual Levi that you have grown to be close with during your off-duty season in the castle with him and the Corps.

It was a scarce occurrence to hear him used that tone far from the warfare. You knew he was enraged. You whimpered almost inaudibly, trying to calm your own racing heartbeat as well as to calm your horse down by patting her cheek, before climbing off of her. The Captain immediately yanked your arms and brought you to the side, under the aid of a huge willow tree whose leaves were yellowing with the arrival of Autumn.

The anger was palpable on his pale face, “Are you—” he was immediately dismayed by the surprising hike in his own tone, something that was almost unprecedented of him. The captain knew that he couldn’t let his rage overcome him. He sighed out of annoyance as he came to maintain his composure, “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I’m sorry, Captain.”

“You were riding like you’ve got a stick up your ass.”

“I know. Sorry—I—”

“If you want to die, then just tell me. Hange can use you up for experiments.”

“Captain, I—”

There was a momentary silence looming over the two of you. Levi waited for your response but he scoffed and walked away to the edge of the hill when another second passed with your inability to bring any form of coherence in your words. Your heart sunk in disappointment.

Levi squatted and looked afar to the castle. You could see his torso heaved; it was obvious that he was trying to pace his breath from the suppressed anger. You couldn’t bring yourself to admit of what made you so distraught. The idea that a mere emotional disappointment had led you, a trained soldier, to almost kill yourself for not being able to ride your horse right, is of something preposterous. You were ashamed and girded by guilt. As a soldier, you had let emotion distraught your aptitude.

“Tell me or don’t tell me – whatever,” Levi finally broke the silence without looking at you. Your only view of him was his heaving back, “I already knew.”

You knew of it already, but his reiteration shriveled the last hope you had that the Deployment Letter you received this morning was still bound to change, “You can’t do anything to change it?”

“No. I’m a soldier, and it’s my duty to obey,” Levi spoke. You wished you could feel even the tiniest bit of an upset in his words, but there was little to none, “you have been asked for the Garrison. Effective tomorrow. You shall no longer be here when Eren Jaeger arrives. Erwin’s decision, signed by Commander Pyxis.”

It had been three years since you were assigned to the elite Levi Squad by his own choice. Within those years as well, you had seen yourself grown seasoned by the battles alongside your entrusted Captain, as you fought the mouth of deaths countless times together. Naturally, parting apart alive would be hard for you.

People of the Walls knew him as the humanity’s strongest soldier, would they gape in knowing that humanity’s hope needed to stay humane in order to be their beacon of strength? And that was your duty for him – keeping him humane. Even if it was just to learn his meticulous way of brewing his own tea, so when he was injured and bed-ridden, he would still be aided with the warmth of his favorite drink. Even if it was just helping him tying his cravat when his hand was occupied with paper works. Even if it’s just a sleepless night with him at the library as he learned the offense strategy for the upcoming expedition. You’d done all that with no words spoken of how fond you were of him. Even when your smile arose when he finally let you massaged his strained back, or when your fingers touched the bare skin on his back when you were tending his battle scars, you were adamant to let the feelings simmer in painful silence.

In keeping him humane, you must set aside what you want of him. Your childish imagination and desire to settle with him. After all, Levi was a man unbounded, and in certain liberty shall he thrive for humanity. So, you never spoke how much your heart fluttered when he rode in full-speed to save you from the monstrous titan holding you in their grasp. The way he stayed awake, sitting by your bedside all night after a near-death incident that left you barely conscious for a week. You had sworn to bring this truth to death, but you were conscious when, out of desperation, he ran his calloused fingers through the mess of your hair, stroking your temple soft with the coarseness of his fingers as he whispered in prayer, “Please stay alive, please stay alive…” and then Levi spoke of your name, calling out to what was left of you after a bloody expedition. He called for you, not in the stern command the Captain would utter in the battlefield, but with tenderness of a man bound by grievance.

Had you grown a space in your heart to love me? Was the question that hung in your throat when you finally gained consciousness after the injury, where Petra shrieked in relief and happiness, calling out for the others, and then she said, “Welcome back. We miss you terribly. The Captain has been gaunt without you.”

The question throbbed again with simple little things he did. When he shoved more mashed potato to your empty plate, “Eat more,” he would say with more of a grunt rather than a warm suggestion; The tender pat on the back when you successfully cleared your final task; The palpable look of agitation when you returned from an impromptu hunting trip with Eld in the forest that led him wary of your whereabout for two nights – in all those moments, you wished you had the courage to ask him the question: Had you grown a space in your heart to love me? Or were you just being a good leader to your comrades?

The sun was beginning to set on the horizon. The wind breezed through the forest, blowing the yellowed leaves off of its branches, drenching the two of you in the solemn noise of Autumn. Couple of hours ago, Levi had taken you to ride to the forest to collect firewood for supplies, but even then you knew that wasn’t what you rode here for. Levi sat on the dirty ground and sighed, “Come here.” He looked at you, and softly pat the ground by his side.

Levi knew that he assumed a great deal of obligation. He wasn’t daft, he’d grown aware of the murmurs that people left on his path, ‘Look, it’s the humanity’s strongest soldier – Captain Levi Ackerman!’ then when he wasn’t so well-guarded, he’d catch the way those children look up to him with earnest amazement. Those wondrous eyes. The innocence of faultless children is the thing he had sworn to protect when he braced another expedition beyond the wall, at the expense of everything that made him humane – delicacy, tenderness, warmth, and love. But then Levi met you, and since then he began to wonder: ‘What if? What if? What if?’

Levi knew the feeling he had grown to have for you was starting to cloud his judgment when he almost broke the formation to save you from the mouth of a titan. He remembered the awful feeling of riding back to the camp, with your bloodied form on his lap, to be greeted by the discerning look of disappointment from his own comrades. Later that night, as much as the expedition was a success with minimum casualty, Erwin sat him down and bludgeoned him with the fact that negated every virtue Levi had ever stood for, “You compromised the whole formation with your rash action.”

Compromised. Rash action.

The words that had brought Levi to a prolonged regret. Who he was with you, was not the person Levi devoted his heart for. Levi knew he needed to stop. His allegiance was to humanity, to Commander Erwin Smith – and not to you.

As you sat down by his side, he finally looked at you, and smiled. So scarce of the captain, but when he did, you could feel it was genuine.

“I am going to ask you a question,” Levi said, his grey eyes darkened underneath the warm dusk, “and you don’t have to answer it right now.”

You nodded obediently.

“Do you think all this will end? To live in constant fear of death, and,” there was a momentary pause in his sentence. Uncharacteristic of him, as if he was trying to fight his own fright that was starting to nestle deep in his mind, “have ourselves carrying the last bits of humanity’s hope?”

You remained silent as he carried on, “If no, then understand that your re-assignment is a necessity. For the greater good. But if yes, that you believe that this monstrosity will all end eventually, then, I hope…”

“Yes, Captain?”

Levi looked down at the soil where your hands and his were laying side by side. There was a somber smile beginning to rise from his face. He dragged his finger to tangle with yours rather cautiously. You greeted the awkward gesture with open heart, as you slithered your fingers into his grip.

“I hope, you will have the heart to welcome me home…”

“…to you.”

The words drowned you into a deafening silence, no matter that the Autumn breeze was starting to grow stronger as the sun succumbed into the night, no matter that your heart was thumping in all kinds of inexplicable agony – all you could hear was the void of nothingness, in which no matter how close you were to him, you could feel Levi drifting away from you.

Deep down, you knew that none of this walking nightmare they called life was ever going to end. You knew that each one of you was cursed to live the life in wretched reality. You always thought that he had known of it all along, out of so many people, you thought Levi would be the one to never look forward to a future of peace, for peace was an absurd concept as long as humanity was still trapped within the Walls.

And it broke your heart to gain understanding that Levi still had hopes for it. For the unattainable peace. With you.

He had believed in a future that you thought was impossible, and with it you realized that so would be your future with him.

As the sun finally slid to its resting peace, you brought your body closer to his embrace. He brought your face closer to him, he smiled before landing a kiss on your forehead. The genuine kind, of innocence that was so strange in the world of horrors. The kind of warmth he had longed for so many nights with the thought of you. And finally, you smiled at his words, “Yes, I will.” nodding at the impossible request.

[genshin-impacted]

campfire stories // Childe x Reader (sfw)

Word Count: 2.3k 

Notes: gender neutral reader, reader pov, (implied mutual pining), takes place in 1.2, hints to Childe’s Story Quest, but no direct spoilers, a LOT of bantering

an indulgent fic combo w/ character analysis of Childe and the reader’s inner turmoil in regards to their (developing) feelings for him

Summary: You walk on this tightrope, balancing the tension that exists on being on opposite sides and the comfort that comes with easy conversation and undemanding company. So you let yourself worry about Childe. How could you not when you look at Childe and see someone with an easy attitude, carefree laughter despite his guarded eyes? 

For when you talk to him, you are reminded of home-- for better or for worse.

Here is the accompaniment/sequel fic: Letters to Home!

As a wanted person, there were few places you could safely invite yourself into. It is strange being received in such a manner when you were so welcomed back in Mondstadt, but you understand why, as a foreigner, you would pose the most threat to Liyue considering the recent death of the geo archon. 

(The fact you keep getting dragged into political turmoil is concerning, to say the least, though you have a feeling your path is going to continue to be full of trouble. 

You try not thinking of brown tousled hair and blue eyes and fail. Childe is, after all, the epitome of trouble.)

Luckily, you are used to camping out in the wilderness. Despite Paimon’s whines, she is also at ease surrounded by nature, with easy access to food and fresh air. Though both of you still wish you were able to sleep in an actual bed as you did at Wangshuu Inn, considering how close to the harbor you actually were.

When the moon fully rises above the two of you, Paimon is fast asleep within the tent while you tend to the flickering embers of the campfire, basking in the silence that solitude brings you. Though your moments to be alone are soon interrupted when you hear the crunching of grass underneath the footsteps of another, and you turn, alert, to see who approaches.

"Oh, what a surprise,” Childe says, coming down from the darkness of the hills. You can hear as much as you can see the amusement on his visage that you have become accustomed to seeing often. “Fancy meeting you here.”

"It really isn’t,” you reply back dryly, looking at the measly tent, the small campfire, and two logs that you placed in front of them as temporary seats. You try to not be embarrassed as Childe looks around with too much care. “You got something to say about my lovely campsite?” You ask, knowing full well you played into his hands when he laughs and waves a flippant hand. You roll your eyes, a small smile lifting your lips as you watch him patter around your set-up, only for you to notice a gash on his wrist-- maroon in color. And once you see that, you begin to notice other wounds scattered along his body like red paint splashes on a grey canvas.

He’s hurt, you think, and worry bubbles in your chest before you can tell yourself it’s a bad idea. 

You shouldn’t be concerned, knowing who he is and who he works for. The last time you met up with a Fatui Harbinger (other than Childe, that is), she almost killed you and Paimon after stealing something that didn’t belong to her. You think you’re allowed to associate the Fatui with cold smiles and brutal actions. 

But Childe is different. You find yourself relaxing in his presence before you remember who you’re talking to, but you wish you didn’t have to put your guard up for unsavory ulterior motives in the first place. It’s not as if you don’t see how Childe’s amiable smile can so easily turn icy or that his proclivity for violence is something dangerous in and of itself, but you wish these things were something you didn’t have to worry about.

There is a constant strain in your friendship, if you can call it that-- for no matter how many times you banter easily in a way that has you almost forgetting you’re on opposite sides, you remember Venti, and the suspicion wedges itself in between the two of you. You walk on this tightrope, balancing the tension that exists on being on opposite sides and the comfort that comes with easy conversation and undemanding company. 

So you let yourself worry about Childe. How could you not when you look at Childe and see someone with an easy attitude, carefree laughter despite his guarded eyes? 

(You never thought you would ever be involved with someone in such a complicated and convoluted way, but you can't help but crave the way you and Childe clash so casually, reminiscent of your friends back in your world.

You talk to him and are reminded of home, for better or for worse.

And if you think his smile is charming or that his eyes remind you of the ocean, you try not to.)

“Hey,” you start, gesturing toward him nonchalantly, “why are you so beat up?” 

Childe chuckles, rubbing the back of his head, and you can see dried blood sticking to the tips of his hair. "Stumbled into a few ruin guards," he tells you, and you immediately translate that to ‘I picked a fight with them.’ As if knowing your train of thought, he quickly changes the subject. “You know, it shouldn’t be that bad trying to find an inn to take you in.” He grins, despite the look you threw at him. “You could just… provide the owners with extra incentive to let you under their roof.”

“Does it look like I’m made of money to you?” You retort, “Also, I can’t believe you’re trying to brush off the fact that you willingly walked into the ruins to fight them.”

Despite your snappy tone, Childe only laughs, and you can't help but be pleased that the conversation between the two of you is quick and smooth-- natural. “You know me so well already,” he says. “Have you been paying a little extra attention to me lately?” 

“Can't help it," you reply sarcastically, "you're a walking disaster, can't keep my eyes off of you." You smile when he laughs. “Anyway, come over here,” you say, rummaging through your backpack to find the medical tape. “You look like you’re one flesh wound away from dying.” 

You savor the moment of silence as Childe blinks at you in confusion. 

“...ah, are you going to dress my wounds? Worried for me, are you? How kind of you.” You can hear the teasing tone in his voice, but it is gentler in a way you did not anticipate. He looks at you with a softened gaze, and you can feel your face warm for reasons other than the campfire, so you roughly pat the log next to you, ignoring his grin. 

“No, this is actually my diabolical plan to end you once and for all,” you tell him, waiting as he takes off his top to bear his back to you. 

He glances back and you must have been too slow to train your expression to a more neutral one because he winks at you. “Be gentle, alright?”

"I'm going to be the opposite just because you said that," you say, snickering as you sweep off the caked blood where the scratches have healed over. You think briefly that joking aside, it was strange that Childe would trust you to not stab him in the back, but it passes as soon as it comes when you finally see how many scars he actually has littered all over his body. 

“Admiring my battle scars? Shall I let you take a look at every one of them?” You hear him say, and you bluster in silence as he laughs. “No need for ointment,” Childe says, when he hears you twist open an herbal soother. “I’ll be fine.” 

Without warning, you slather a healthy amount of antibiotic cream onto his wounds. He yelps at the coldness of the balm, and you can’t help the laugh that bursts from your lips when he turns to you with a pout. 

It's ridiculous to think that this man whose lower lip was protruding because of your mischievous administration was the 11th Harbinger, but you're starting to think part of the appeal is because this side of him is so unexpected to see. 

“I never said that I'd be gentle,” you reply teasingly with a fondness that so easily comes through. (You think Diluc would disapprove of how trusting you seem to be, and how Amber would have a heart attack knowing how much you hang around Childe-- but neither of them are here with you, and you are not in Mondstadt.) You find yourself sweeping your fingers over his wounds more lightly, and if he notices that your hands are more gentle, only a momentary glance behind him is telling. 

He hums. “Hm, I hope you don’t treat every patient you meet like this,” he says with a lilt of playfulness. 

“Of course not.” The campfire flickers in the corner of your eyes, comfortably keeping you warm as you press your hand onto his shoulder to wrap it with gauze. “You’re a special case,” you remark dryly. “Aren’t you glad?”

“You really know how to make a guy feel warm inside,” Childe tells you, and you can hear rather than see the smile on his face. 

For once, the two of you sit in silence. It’s a rare occasion, and you start to think that perhaps the two of you fill in the quiet with witty retorts in order to avoid the looming tension between the two of you. But with the soft flicker of fire and the gentle rise and fall of Childe’s shoulders with his breathing, you find yourself more comfortable in his presence than you’ve ever been. 

You wish you could stay like this forever, and so you set out to make it so.

You tell him what you have wanted to be if you had not come to Teyvat and become an adventurer. You avoid the more personal feelings that come with it, the yearning to go back home, how lost you felt when you were alone, and tell him briefly about who you are beyond what he knows of you as Mondstadt’s Honorary Knight. 

Childe listens to you without interruption, but you know his attention is on you from the way his shoulder shakes in laughter when you tell him about the antics your friends got into or the way he shifts when you talk about your dad.

“Do you miss your family?” He asks you suddenly when you take a brief pause to tie the tape around his shoulder.

“Yes,” you reply honestly. “I try not to, but I get homesick a lot.” You pause, your hand feeling the warmth that emanates from his skin. “You?" You try, "Do you get homesick?”

“If I give myself a moment to think about my family, I do,” he tells you, just as honestly. “I haven’t been back to Snezhnaya in, hm, quite some time, I think.” 

You trace your finger along the middle of his back where a long, white gash of scar tissue lay, and Childe does not even flinch. “Do your family know you’re Fatui?” You ask quietly, and you see your hand leave his back when he leans forward, away from your touch, to pull his shirt over his head.

Before you can open your mouth to apologize, he glances back at you and gives you a smile that makes your heart clench. “Not the young ones.”

“Oh.”

Childe laughs, and you feel your face warm again at the lack of tact in your response. “I’m kind of a ‘bad guy,’ as you already know. I’d rather have my youngest sibling still think of the world of me for as long as I can, you know?” He slips his hands through his grey jacket, continuing almost superfluously, “Defend their childhood dreams and what not.”

Instead of a response, you hum, glancing down at the red scarf that still lay pooled on the grass. You reach out for it the same time he does, and you look up to see eyes dark and blue as the ocean deep.

“Do you think I should quit?” He asks you abruptly, or so it seems to you, as you tug the scarf instinctively. You look into his eyes, wondering why they reminded you of the abyss.

The campfire ambers flicker at the corner of your eyes.

You falter when you think you should have not; isn’t the answer clear to you? Haven’t you thought Childe was better off without the Fatui? But something about the way Childe told you about his family, about his given role as defender of childhood dreams makes you think that there is more than what he has shown you. 

The fire seems unbearably hot now, but you think it might have something to do with the fact your body is close enough to Childe’s to feel how warm he is (and you wonder why you even took note of that). 

“Does it really matter what I think?” You ask instead, lifting a hand to pinch at his cheek, feeling yourself smile when he lets you do it with only a tiny wince. “Whether you quit or not-- isn’t that up to whether you think what you’re doing is still worth it?” You let go of his cheek and scarf, grinning up at him as he rubs his cheek and stares at you thoughtfully.

“Ah, well…” Childe responds after a moment of silence where you could only hear the crackling of the wood. He pulls his scarf across his shoulder and smiles at you. “Who knows?”

You roll your eyes. “What do you mean ‘who knows’? Didn’t you ask me because you care about what I think of you?” You gasp dramatically. “Childe… am I… a special case?” 

Much to your surprise, you watch as Childe’s expression morphs into something akin to embarrassment. “Ah, well, you know,” he stammers, “you’re certainly the only Honorary Knight that I know of.”

“If you really think I’m dumb enough to believe that--”

“I never said that!”

The two of you banter until the stars are high and the moon moves across the sky. You continue to share stories with him, eagerly stretching out the time where the two of you are not Fatui and Honorary Knight. Childe carefully listens to you, learning more of where you came from and the circumstances that brought you here. In return, he shares stories about his family, about his viewpoint on battles and of snow. (“You and your obsession with blood,” you retort, and he only laughs, inching closer, but never touching you, underneath the blanket you swept over the two of you for warmth when the fire dies out.) 

If your relationship with him changes that night, you cannot tell. But sometimes you think his glances linger on you longer when the two of you pass by, and you wonder if he wants to share more campfire stories, knowing how much it brings you closer to each other-- no matter how much the two of you pretend that it isn’t the case. 

[orangegreet]

No Minor Miracles

This is a completed story - pending only an epilogue at this point. Reposted to Tumblr from AO3.

Summary:

“Hello Aleksander.” He closed his eyes at the sound of her whispered greeting. Could she have picked any other night? Any other than this one? “Why do you haunt me when I feel at my weakest to defend myself?” He asked. “You are always droll when we meet. First I am your demon and now I am your ghost.”

_____________

Captured by Grisha slavers and ultimately shipwrecked between West Ravka and Kerch, Alina is orphaned and stranded on the other side of the Fold.

In secret, the Sun Summoner is raised and trained thousands of miles outside of Os Alta and the reach of the Black General.

Ambition leads her to seek out the infamous Shadow Summoner in her twenties—only, he isn’t what she expected.

Yet still, she leaves Os Alta broken-hearted and unsure and both Alina and Aleksander resolve to stick to their own sides of the world for some years after.

—Until a weary night on the war front pushes the Black General to reach out to his old enemy.

What follows is an ongoing struggle for power, information, dominance and, ultimately, each other.

But with two such Saints involved, surely miracles will abound.

Chapter 1 | A Night on the Warfront

He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as four of his soldiers continued their debate. The map spread out before them was littered with crude markings. A dirty shell casing sat near the edge of the Fold, the scale of it far out of proportion considering it was reported to be a small camp with no more than five tents.

“The West is closing in. They have some kind of advantage. Otherwise they would not drift so close to the Fold.”

“What do you propose we do about it? You can hardly expect us to sneak through the Fold on our end and catch them off guard.”

“I’m not convinced it is the West at all—our scouts themselves weren’t sure.”

“You don’t expect Shu Han to set up so far North in enemy territory.”

“I’m not saying that, I’m saying we don't know that it's army at all. Could be refugees seeking the protection being so close to the Fold can provide for all we know. We’ve seen it before.”

The General reached for the decanter, eyes bleary with lack of sleep. He refilled his glass. The soldiers continued to debate.

“You’ve seen it before? And when was that?” Ivan stared down the Inferni.

The young man stuttered, eyes shifting cautiously to the General who paused with his glass aloft.

“R-Rumors maybe but…years back we had intel of refugees camping near the Fold at the behest of the Sun Summoner.”

The General made no outward sign of recognition. He took another drink and placed his glass back on the table.

The neatly coiled rope at the center of his very being seemed to writhe. His heart picked up pace and he shot a covert warning glare at Ivan to keep his mouth shut. The Heartrender glared back, averting his gaze to the Inferni once more.

Internally he reached for the tether, intending to coil it back up and press it down again but he found once he touched it, he could not bring himself to let it go. Blame it on many late nights, war weariness and something else he refused to acknowledge in the presence of subordinates.

The tether gave a dull throb in his grasp.

The General forced himself to speak and quell the tension building in the tent.

“Rumors perhaps. We won’t know until it is too late. We must assume it is the West attempting the next step in secession. Prepare a skiff. I want the strike unit outfitted with the shielding cloaks. We send the skiff through on one side of the camp while our team traverses the Fold on foot on the other.”

He felt her presence in his chest first as the embers present stoked to a fiery glow. The General continued to stare at the map with a hardened glint in his eyes and ignored her apparition; his hand squeezed the tumbler.

“While the camp is preoccupied with the skiff, the strike team will take them out from behind. No prisoners.”

“And if they are refugees, sir?”

The General lifted his eyes to her. Her raised eyebrows expectant on her otherwise impassive face.

“No prisoners.”

She cocked her head at him but stayed quiet, surveying his whole being. Plotting his features for the signs of weakness, he was sure.

“You have your orders. You are dismissed.”

“But-sir which soldiers should we send on the skiff—“ The Inferni began.

“Ivan.” The General didn’t have to complete his request.

The Heartrender escorted the young Inferni out.

The General looked at her and then back at the decanter, determined to pull his features together though he felt his control slipping.

This, of course, was evidenced by her very presence.

“I feel I should offer you a drink. Though I am not sure if you could taste it.”

“It would be a warm gesture though. I wouldn’t decline to try.” She stepped closer to him and he struggled to keep the tension from his posture, his breath from hitching at the sound of her voice. How long had it been again?

He allowed himself the time to take her in. A decade had passed without seeing her. She looked older in some vague sense. Mostly in her eyes. He could tell by her gaze that she was severely less innocent than a decade ago.

Her posture too. She held herself with grace and dignity, the insecurity of youth long since fallen away.

“You’re looking well.” He said.

She blushed without a hint of modesty and he felt the warmth emanating from one of them. He couldn’t be sure who.

“I could say the same of you. Your hair has grown long. You look like a warrior.”

Her hands were clasped in front of her. Not reaching toward the dark locks that hung past his shoulders, half of it pulled back and tied with leather.

“I have been a warrior more often than not during my lifetime. I’m pleased to hear I look the part.”

She smirked at him and reached for his hand, bringing the glass to her lips for a sip.

“Can you taste it?”

She shook her head with a demure smile.

He took the glass away, musing out loud, “I thought not. This connection is beyond anything which has been studied but I do recall I could never see something unless you touched it.”

He put a hand on the map and watched her as she swiftly took in the details proffered on the table and then glanced back at him. Her eyes betrayed nothing.

“You did used to visit me more often than you do now. Though perhaps those visits were simply part of your own research efforts.”

When he didn’t respond for a few moments she continued, “I wondered if you had forgotten about me altogether.”

His chest bobbed a little higher under his breath as he studied her but eventually he decided how best to play this new hand.

“I do not consider myself forgetful in any regard, Miss Starkova.”

The liquid swirled in his glass as he caught her momentary bristle at the moniker. No doubt many years have passed since she was addressed as such.

He hummed, amused at her ruffled feather and resolved to push his luck, dipping his finger in the glass and looking up at her. “Now you mention, I do wonder…”

He lifted his finger to her lips and she scolded him with her eyes but allowed her tongue to brush over his skin. When her eyes drifted shut he couldn’t stop the backs of his fingers trailing over her cheek.

“Some things don’t change, do they? You favor the same casks of wine pilfered from the cellar of a Tsar.” She tutted and he smiled at her.

The first real smile she had seen him give in over a decade. Her insides pulsed.

“Then you are not forgetful, either.” He said in lament. He turned away from her.

She sighed. “This is tiring, please can we speak normally? Some time has passed since I last received your call. Did you mean for me to come to you tonight?”

He huffed a breath. “A compelling question for us both, I think. I wish I knew.”

When her eyes turned wary, she stepped away from him and he almost shouted at her. “No. Not—not yet. Just stay.”

The wariness turned to concern and she studied his features without reticence.

“What has happened? Tell me.”

“Nothing has happened. Nothing. It’s just—“ His hand raised to stroke her cheek again and he adored the way she leaned into it. Had she ever done that for him before? He could not remember. Not forgetful, indeed.

“Rumors.” He murmured. “Rumors reach me always of your life. Rumors of your death, of your sainthood and of your miracles. Tonight I—I wished for a miracle.”

Smiling sweetly, she cupped his face in her hands and stepped to him.

“My dear Aleksander,” Her eyes searched his for a moment. “The only miracle tonight lies in the possibility of two enemies who allow themselves to meet as friends. It would take two saints to pull that off. I am but one saint and cannot tell you the outcome. How strong is your desire for this miracle?”

His jaw clenched. He was so tired. Tired of wanting. Tired of losing. Tired of feeling like he was trailing behind. Forever out of step with her when he simply desired to be at her side.

His hand wrapped around the juncture of her shoulder and neck and he shook her. “You are no saint. You are a demon. My own personal demon sent from below to torture me on this plane. That must be it. I have yet to die and pay my dues and my sins have grown too great.”

Many late nights had led to this. Many years of keeping the door to her firmly shut led to this.

Time had passed differently for him in this after. Before her were calmer centuries poised in a position of patience and waiting. Since he had known her, known of her existence really, this frenetic energy was sparked inside of him that he could not shake. Time was centered acutely on constant anticipation. Anticipation of meeting her, experiencing her power. Then, once he knew her, heard her speak, felt her touch, mingled his power with hers-everything inside was reignited. His greed, desire, lust, rage, justice, truth, hope. It was chaos and tumult and agony contained inside an ancient man who was not ready for it.

Centuries of emotions being quelled and dulled and hammered flat into nothing before her existence. The last decade spent attempting, fruitlessly, to grow back that callous.

A moment of weakness and he reforged his connection to her. The meager protection he hoarded around himself the past few years fell away like an autumn leaf and now he was nothing more than a naked limb in the winter snow, completely exposed before her. Begging for her warmth.

It was enraging.

Her hand covered his on her neck and she squeezed it but did not attempt to remove him. She looked at him with such sadness that he felt it ache inside himself. Although it could have been his own sadness. There really was no way to tell in the moment.

“I know your sins, Aleksander and I am not here for absolution. I am here because you called to me and I wanted to answer.” His hand dropped away from her. The emotions which were so clear on his face a moment before grew opaque to her.

She swallowed, “I know your sins. And I have missed you.”

A ripple across his eyes and then nothing. He pushed down his insides.

A stoicism formed in his demeanor and it was with complete control that he let out his next sentence. “I hate you. For leaving me, I hate you.”

She drew herself up into a more formal posture with a deep breath.

“You wanted to mold me in your image. But it did not take and I would not let it continue. It has been better this way, I think. I would have hated you had I stayed.”

He scoffed. “You would have gotten over it, given enough time.”

She smiled at him, formality breaking with the warmth in her eyes. “Just as I believe you will, my oldest friend. My eternal friend.”

He blinked and his eyes gathered tears. She pretended not to notice, scared to spook him.

“Why did you leave?”

“You know the answer already. I’ve just told you.”

“Would it have been so bad to stay?” The emotion was seeping into his voice now and she stepped toward him with caution.

“I could not bear to hate you. It is better this way. We are both better, stronger. Worthy.”

Her eyes don’t lose their warmth but he felt the accusation the same. He would have sacrificed every ounce of his goodness, sanity and patience to keep her under his will. He would have sacrificed her for it.

“Are we?” He asked quietly. They both knew what he was asking.

She stroked his cheek and he nuzzled it.

“What you have in patience, I have in hope.” His eyes closed.

“Why do you stay away from me, Alina? Even now? I am well enough tortured. Surely your task must be done.”

Another sigh. “It is not so simple when it comes to you and me. You are my Inevitable. We will have an eternity together in my future and yours. It is only natural I want some time to live in autonomy before we begin. You were granted centuries to yourself, you recall.”

“Centuries of waiting, solnyshka. Centuries alone.”

She said nothing but continued to touch his cheek, his jaw, her eyes taking in every minute detail of his face. He called her there. She did not know when he would again.

“Will you make me wait more centuries for you?”

She hummed in amusement.

“Would you wait that long for me?”

If you ask.

He wanted to say it but he had given her so much of himself already. Greed smothered over his burgeoning embarrassment. She would leave soon enough and his desires wouldn’t be tamped down neatly anymore.

Possessive and greedy. That was how she knew him.

He wanted to possess her the way she seemed to possess him. Her ownership over him felt effortless to him and he half hated her for it. He gripped her hips dragging her flush to him.

Her breath startled and fanned over his face. He paused for only a moment and then pulled her mouth to his.

His lips sliding over hers in a heightened sense of torture. Could she taste him? If not she could surely taste his blatant desire. Completely exposed and on display for her to see.

He wrenched his mouth off hers, hand clasped to the back of her neck.

“Have you taken other lovers?”

The words were hissed through clinched teeth and his hand fisted into the fabric around her hips, holding her close.

Her eyes flashed into his and then down to his mouth where she pressed a kiss. Sweet as gentling an agitated animal. She pressed another and lingered.

Far from being quieted, he panted into her mouth, fisting a hand to her hair in a rush and crushing his mouth to hers.

The moan from her throat drifted into his mouth and he swallowed it up, lifting her onto the table and plunging them into what felt like the most familiar fantasy or memory or deja vu for them both.

Everything was different. Nothing had changed.

He tangled his tongue with hers, a reluctant groan escaping from his own throat.

She knew she should stop it. It would be harder to keep going without him if she let herself have too much.

Gradually their heat seemed to lower into a simmer and they both sighed into it. His hand stroked her thigh and his other held her jaw tenderly.

He pulled her into a languid kiss, holding her face as he pulled away.

“General—“ she started as he slowly parted the fabric wrapped around her waist. He eyed her with a dark silent look as he went to his knees.

“Would you have me kneel to you, Sol Koroleva?”

She smirked at him, weaving a hand into his dark locks and pulling him forward. His answering smile was glorious to her eyes. Victorious and tender at the same time and she relished it as he devoured her center.

“Aleksander.” Her voice was weak and he shook his head, clutching her harder. Hands gripped her thighs and secured them tight over his shoulders and he groaned into her further. His tongue relentless in pursuit of her pleasure. Driving her higher and harder than she knew was possible.

A torrent of pleasure with him and she briefly mourned what she realized was now over. There would be no other lovers. Not for her anyway.

The vibrating tether in her chest was a living thing now. Where it previously lay dormant, it now pulsed. Untamed and unleashed and rooting into her body at multiple weak spots. The palms of her hands, the soles of her feet, the nape of her neck, the base of her spine. Her gut. Her chest.

It was everywhere and she was lighting up from within with the magnitude of its power.

The strength and bond of their somehow ancient connection. Ancient in the way it stretched behind them in time but also in the way it surged forward into the coming years. Into their Inevitable future.

If she wondered whether the effect was the same for him, it didn’t take long to recognize the surrounding shadows pouring from him as he lost himself in her. She whimpered at his alternating ferocity and gentleness before remembering.

Her responsibilities. Her promise to herself.

“Sasha.” There it was. Firm and accompanied with a tightening of her hand in his hair, tugging him away.

When his gaze flicked up to meet hers she almost gasped at the feral look of him. Shiny mouthed, panting. Knuckles white where they pressed her thighs to his shoulders. Eyebrows bunched in irritation at her interruption.

Her rabid, wild Shadow Summoner pulled from his meal before he was sated.

“We can’t.” Her voice was strained. Irritation deepened into defiance across his features.

“Another lover, is it?” He spat the words out.

Her eyes squeezed shut and she felt the wetness in them gathering and shook her head.

“There is no one else. There will be no one else.” The grip on his hair gentled as she smoothed the back of his head and he lost a centimeter of rigidity from his posture.

“Then why.”

“It’s too soon.” The words were stifled. More wanted to follow but she would not let it and he grunted in frustration.

“We can’t.” She repeated to herself.

His face drifted back toward her shining folds, his eyes locked on hers as he brushed a careful tongue over her core. She whimpered again, hand twisting his locks and she meant to pull him away.

“No, Alina. You can.” His heated breath fanned over her and she shivered, “Just you. For tonight.”

She looked dismayed but it melted when he bestowed another long, slow lick to her center.

“Please.” The word came from his lips and it shocked both of them. Her hands stroked over his ears and met in his hair and when he leaned in again she did not stop him.

He was wonderfully cruel in his own brand of torture. His touch purposefully delicate and calculated. He worked her up toward the edge before redirecting his attentions until she calmed.

“Sasha.” The cry was wrenched from her mouth as she tried to snap her thighs shut around his face. To force the attention she was desperately craving thanks to him. He persevered in keeping them open. Leveraging her pleasure for his purposes.

“Promise me.” He demanded between a soft caress of his tongue, tone at odds with the motion.

“Promise what?” It was a struggle to keep her eyes open as her head wanted to tilt back.

“You will come back to me.”

“You already know that I will.”

He pressed a finger into her, then another.

“Promise it. Promise you will be mine. Only mine.”

She keened and clutched his wrist in encouragement.

“And will you be mine, General? Will the Darkling belong only to the Sun Summoner?”

His fingers curled and he licked his lips, watching her take her pleasure.

“I will give myself to you alone, Alina.” His fingers curled again and she shuddered feeling so close to something so big.

“Then I promise to be yours. As much as you are mine. I will take everything you have to give, and everything you try to hide away will be mine. All of it will be mine, Sasha.”

He grunted, swallowing against her and sucking. She screamed out as she finally finished. Wave after wave of pulsing euphoria spreading over her and through her and from her chest and into the very root of her being.

The lapping continued and he kept his eyes fixed on her for the minutes following as she trembled and shuddered under his attention.

Bestowing a few lingering kisses to her thighs and smearing the moisture across them, he carefully removed her legs from his shoulders and got to his feet. When he was planted firmly between her legs, he took hold of her face again.

His forehead leaned against hers. She reached for him this time and kissed him hungrily. To her surprise, he broke away, breathing in through his nose in a deep way. His chest brushed her with each breath.

“I’m trying to prove to you I can be sweet and you are making it very difficult.”

Her answering smile was radiant.

He kissed it.

“Tell me where you are.” The demanding tone was back and she chuckled.

“I’m here. With you.” Fingers stroked his chest. His hand covered hers and he pressed it into himself and growled.

“I forgot how much you infuriate me.”

“I underestimated how enjoyable it would be still.”

His nostrils flared but his chest warmed at her mirth.

She pinched a strand of his hair between her fingers, still grinning, “We’ve brought about your miracle, after all. It is very satisfying to be this holy. Do you not agree?”

He had no words, only kisses which he placed on her cheeks, her ears, a nip to her jaw, a pull on her neck.

“Aleksander,” it was whispered. He sensed her imminent departure and kissed her again with increasing desperation. She met him with equal fervor, both unable to get close enough to satisfy the ending. When his face was buried into her neck and she clutched his body to her, she made a last attempt to secure his soul.

“In light of our miracle, can I make a request?” He nodded against her shoulder, a tender kiss placed over her pulse. “Sometimes you should take some prisoners. Please.”

Her eyes raked over his features, some kind of affection or devotion shared in their last looks. With them it seemed one posture easily slipped into the other. The lives of Saints, he supposed.

Then she was gone.

[slasherkisss]

CABIN FEVER - JASON VOORHEES X READER [CHAPTER 8]

Summary In an effort to remove yourself from your previous life in the big city, you move to Crystal Lake. The cabin you had inherited from your father makes the perfect place for a fresh start, however, there is a secret in these woods (and within yourself) that you must come to accept…and to love.

A/N I finally managed to get some muse for this again! I have an idea of where I’m going to go with it and I can’t wait to actually finish this project, I’m gonna do it if it kills me. Here’s the next chapter at least...a year later lol 

——————————————————————————————

Months passed between the day of slaughter, and something inside of you felt heavy even after the deed had been said and done.

True to his word, Jason had taken care of everything. You had woken up the day after the Incident to clean sheets and the disappearance of both blood and body in your mind. It was as though the back of your head was trying desperately to push the thoughts of slaughter from you. To lock it away inside of your subconscious in a way that you would never be able to reach it again. It was something you didn’t need to remember, your brain insisted with desperation lacing the tone it usually took when it spoke to you, and you should simply accept that it would never be like that again.

The nightmares did not let you forget, though.

Each night seemed plagued with them, some more grueling than the other. More desperate in its plaintiveness each time you thought through the story that played within it. Your body in each dream pushed itself through dark, craggy forests and against the bare ground of soil. Roots curled with hunger at your legs as you chased your victim, breath heaving and weapon tight in your fist as you caught up to the terrified little thing. Your weapon always seemed to change in the time of your rest. Sometimes it was the trowel, pointed at its tip and built only for tilling the earth, and other times it was a machete with a glimmering blade and reflective steel like teeth bared for murder.

Sometimes, you were the one running from yourself. Your own form silhouetted in the darkness as you chased down who you knew you had to kill. Sometimes you tripped on the edges of roots so thick they might as well have been hands, and looked up into your own wild gaze. Your own form as you shakily held up the trowel against your fingertips. Sometimes it was you who screamed into the darkness as the weapon fell down into your skull and - oh - you could feel the pain in your body as the pressure drowned you in rivulets of dark red against soil.

You woke up more often than not during the night now, the nightmares ripping through your body in the form of a loud, shaky scream that would fill the forest late into the evening. You found yourself more than once awoken by Jason. His hands would cling to your sides and be pressing you firmly into the bed, keeping your arms away from yourself as what cuts you had given your skin due to your ragged nails blossomed over you. It was as though you were trying to write a message into your own body. If you squinted close enough, the lines you had scribbled with your keratin on the soft flesh or your inner arm were almost readable in their entirety.

Your fault. You did this. She’s dead. It was you! Always you.

As you pondered the threats of the voice inside of your head, staring idly at the slowly healing scars that littered your body now, you were pulled away by a knock at the door. It was a pounding and forceful thing that sent your already sensitive head reeling into a momentary headache. You could feel the pain behind your teeth and you could already tell it would slowly become a migraine after a few more hours of leaving it be. You were sure you had some pain killers somewhere left in your bathroom’s medicine cabinet. If not, you mused, you had willow bark and some rosemary out in your steadily growing garden. You could always whip up a remedy for it using those.

The second solid knock on the door made you more weary as you approached it, however. It was not how Jason knocked. He did so gently, afraid of breaking your doorframe if he slammed on it too hard. He never wanted to startle you with his force and, besides, as of late you’ve been allowing him to simply walk into your home without knocking. It was his home now as much as yours and the thought permeated your weariness to offer a fleeting touch of euphoria.

The third knock was accompanied by a voice.

“Hello? Is anyone home?”

You tensed, palms suddenly sweaty as you stared at the doorknob. You felt your stomach lurch in terror as you chewed on the inside of your cheek, biting down hard enough to feel the skin give into a bruising press of your molars. Jason was not due back from his daily patrol of the lake for an hour still. Likewise, he did not speak. He did not have a voice like that. Rough. Open. Unknown.

With a deep, long inhale you gripped the doorknob and slowly opened it up, the old wood creaking with every turn. You made a mental note to oil its hinges when you could.

The man standing in front of you was middle aged, the graying of the hairs littered in his beard giving it away that he was pushing closer to his 50s at the earliest. The thin lines of his wispy hair were hidden behind a dark brown Stetson rimmed with a small tassel of gold and a badge that indicated his status as a police officer from the local town station. Your mind could not read the words decorated on his tanned uniform. They floated against his skin like ancient hieroglyphs as you gripped the doorknob of your home tighter. Your knuckles turned white behind the frame.

You felt a cold rush of air hit your body and you stiffened, brows furrowing as you tried to act surprised and not as terrified as you felt beneath your skin.

“Afternoon, Ma’am,” The officer tilted his hat respectfully at you, “Sorry to bother you in… Your home. I just had a couple of questions for you regarding a few missing folks if that’s alright.”

You did not miss the pause in his tone as he looked around the forest, clearly uncomfortable in the vast outdoor space. You almost wanted to snort. Wasn’t it his job to patrol the woods? To keep hooligans and stupid hunters out of here in the first place? No, he wasn’t even doing that. Instead it was Jason who protected this forest. Who kept everything within it safe, far better than this fool who stood before you could ever do. You shifted on your feet, ignoring the damp spot of sweat growing on the back of your neck.

“Y-Yes that’s quite alright,” You managed out in a surprisingly even tone, your stutter passing as surprise for seeing an officer so suddenly, “It’s horrible to hear some people are missing, especially this time of year.”

“I know,” He sounded almost genuine in his remorse, “That’s why we’re asking around in case anyone’s seen them. Last I heard from another source, they were up camping out in the forest area around here. I figured since you lived up here, you’d be able to tell me if you’ve seen anything of ‘em around or close to your property? Have you ever walked around the forest and caught sight of some folks? Or seen any campsites set up close by, maybe?”

Your mind flashed to the images of the bodies dead on the forest floor, their red blood soaking into the mossy ground. Dead eyes stared forward at you in your mind, glossy with haze and their faces contorted into fear as their brains decorated the edges of tree trunks around you. You remembered the woman, your spade lowered into her skull and her blood warm on your hands as you watched her still pulsating organs devour themselves in an ouroboros of sin.

“Ma’am?”

You looked up with surprise, snapping yourself out of your momentary disassociation. You swallowed and sighed.

“Sorry, I was thinking if I’d seen anyone,” You were surprised how easily the lie left your lips as you shook your head, “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything but the deer lately. As far as I know, no one’s been around here.”

There was a momentary pause in the conversation. A quiet lapse as the officer gazed forward at you, a furrow to his brow marking his concern. Your heart pounded hard in your chest, moving its way up to your throat. He knew, you thought with terror rising in your veins, he knew that you were lying. That you had done it. He saw through your lies and into your soul. Into your sins and-

“Alright,” He nodded, “Thanks for your input. Now you don’t hesitate to call the station if you see any suspicious activity in this place, alright? It’s dangerous living alone in this forest, but rest assured we’ll keep it under control.”

“It’s been pleasant so far,” You find yourself speaking out softly, almost with a smile, “But I… appreciate the security, Officer…”

“Hughes. Darcy Hughes,” He introduced himself, his smile lines emphasizing his age as he gave you a brisk nod, “Take care of yourself and don’t get into any trouble, then.”

“I’ll certainly do my best.”

With another tilt of his hat and a hum to his lips, he turned away from you to file back into his police car that he had brought out, the top of it already slightly covered by fallen pine needles and leaves. He brushed them off gently before getting back in, offering one last wave to you through his windshield. You waved back, a smile plastered on your face as you watched him start up his vehicle, back out of the dirt driveway, and turn down the barely wide enough path to the town once more.

You didn’t stop waving until you were sure his car was out of sight. Slowly you turned back into your home, closing the door behind you, where you stood for a long, quiet moment.

Your legs shook the next second, trembling so hard that they gave out from underneath you. You collapsed to the floor, gasping for a breath you didn't realize you had been holding this whole time. You coughed, wincing at the pain of splinters gathering in your kneecaps, and you threw your hands out to catch yourself as you heaved. For a moment you felt like you were going to vomit onto the floor in front of you, but your throat was so dry with exhaustion that nothing dared to come up and ruin its scratchy heat.

You did it. You had made it out of that situation. Yet the weight on your shoulder burned like a brand, searing an invisible mark into your flesh as you cried out in pain, arching your back as if to escape the sensation.

Liar, your mind laughed at you, what a liar, lair, lair-

A new knock on the door startled you from your writhing episode on your floor. Your face paled in terror. Was the officer back? Maybe you could ignore his knocking. Maybe you could pretend to be in the back of your house and ignore the sound that scratched on your eardrums like a funeral march. Perhaps it was Jason? Returning early from his patrol and sensing your distress behind the door of your home? Your heart momentarily sparked with hope as you stood up on your feet again, feeling light headed as you turned and reached out, wincing at the feeling of the knob beneath your hand once again.

When you pulled it open this time, it was neither Hughes nor Jason. But someone new.

He was an older man, older than Officer Hughes certainly, with barely any hair on his wrinkled, liver-spotted forehead. The way his lip shriveled around his mouth indicated his lack of teeth, his sagging cheeks only serving to make the glare of dark brown eyes he trailed on you all the more intimidating. He stepped forward, invading your space the moment you opened the door. The scent of alcohol was radiating off of him, making you want to gag and cover your mouth as you took one step back into your home, swallowing hard.

“C...Can I help you?”

“Saw you talkin with Officer Friendly there,” He growled out with a raise of his eyebrow, “Told him you didn’t see nothin, didn’t ya?”

“Well, yes I-”

“Been a while since you been in town too, huh?”

Your eyes widened in surprise. It was true, you rarely visited the small town just outside of Crystal Lake. Since your self sustaining farm had taken off, you really only visited for canned goods to stock up on during the winter, or to sell some of your fresh produce to the local grocery store for a little extra money in your pocket here and there. When you did visit, you rarely talked to any of the locals that did not demand your immediate business. You exhaled, your fingertips drumming on the wood of your door.

“I haven’t had a need to.”

The man smiled, confirming your hypothesis on his missing teeth.

“Ya may have fooled the police, girl, but oh I know. I know just what you are, you know. Ain’t gonna pull the wool over ol’ Eddie’s eyes, oh no siree.”

He - Eddie you guessed - got closer to you, his eyes narrowing in a squint as you set your jaw in worry.

“Yer a witch, ain’t ya.” The way he said it didn’t mean it was a question, “Livin out here with yer potions and yer nature. I bet ya killed those folks, too! But oh, it don’t matter. You got em fooled, don't you?”

He was advancing more now, dangerous in his posture towards you as you swallowed hard. You stepped back into your home, moving your grip on the door to quickly shut it, but his boot clad foot blocked the entrance so it didn’t shut all the way. You gasped as he crawled through the gap, a spider with crazed eyes and gnashing jaws as he reached out for you with a glare.

“I knew you’d be trouble since ya came! Changing our town’s ways an communin out here with them spirits. Y’ain’t gonna fool me, not me! You’ll get turned right in and they’ll see ya for what ya are, ya witch! Ya daughter of Satan! Ya-”

He suddenly wasn’t there anymore. With a surprised yelp his entire form was peeled away from your door. You held your breath in surprise, your heart beating loud in your ears as you waited for another sign that he would come in. That he would break the door down and rip apart your form in search of his evidence. In search of anything to call you a witch once more. You looked at your hearth of bones and dried plants, setting your jaw as you understood the accusations, but did not want to hear them.

Instead all you heard outside was another strangled gasp of surprise. A solid snap of something fragile. A thud of body to wood.

You waited a few more seconds before gripping the frame in trembling hands, slowly peeling the door open to reveal what had happened just feet from you in your home.

Eddie’s head was bent to face his back, his eyes wide and dead in shock as his jaw hung limply, broken and bruising the tender skin of his old face. Only a small amount of blood dribbled from the dislocation of his jaw and neck, the tendons bursting against the bruising skin. His fingers curled in on themselves like a dead spider would curl its legs on itself. You stared, blank and unsure for the longest of moments as your heartbeat slowed in your chest. As you licked your suddenly too chapped lips in an effort to hold back your growing smile.

You failed, exhaling as the edges of your mouth upturned into something of a wide, relieved looking grin. You looked upwards from the crumpled body before you, a blush heating your cheeks as you admired the man standing in front of it, his breath coming in ragged gasps against his chest as he followed your gaze.

Jason reached out to you, ignoring the body on your porch. His fingertips roamed the vast expanse of your skin, feeling for any wounds or any indication that you had been hurt before he could reach out to protect you. When you gave a swift sign of ‘I’m fine’ his shoulders sagged in relief. His gaze returned momentarily to the body at his side. One hand reached up to his form, the awkwardness of signing with just a single one making it hard to read but understandable nonetheless. He refused to let go of you for even a moment.

‘What happened?’

‘Police came. Townsfolk are getting suspicious.’

The hand on your shoulder tensed, the pressure in creasing for only a moment.

‘Then I’ll kill them.’

‘No! You can’t get all of them.’

‘I want you to be safe.’

‘I’m safe with you. Always with you.’

Jason paused then, his hand finally freeing your arm as he looked away. He gazed down at the body in front of him, its tangled limbs and broken spine an homage to just what he would do for you. As if aiding in his thoughts, the wind blew gently through the trees. Fallen leaves swirled upwards in a momentary tornado. In the background, your chickens clucked in their coops and the soil housing both your plants and the dead bodies gathered for fertilizer filled Jason with a suddenly intense sort of want. He looked back at you. Through his mask you could see conviction. Surprised at the look, you tilted your head at him, brows furrowed in confusion. You reached your hand out to touch his face, rubbing along the rough edges of his hockey mask in a gentle gesture, one he leaned into as your touch grounded him.

“What’s wrong?” You spoke this time, your tone a weak whisper as you searched his gaze, “What are you thinking about?”

How he knew the next sign was beyond you, yet he moved his fingertips with such conviction that you could not help the heart stopping gasp that welled inside of you when he managed it:

‘Marry me.’

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

holy cow that sc old guard au is so good!! 😍 pls continue it if ever you'd be so inclined,,, I like the idea of lena finding family with the old guard and navigating her relationship with kara and the superfriends in canon 😊

Okay, then how about we think about the fact that when Lena and Kara finally exchange secrets, Kara is eloquent and apologetic and hopeful, giving a beautiful speech that ends with "I'm Supergirl."

And Lena's response is "I'm dead."

Cue season finale break.

But then we immediately pick back up with "Except I'm not. I mean, I'm alive by any measure known to science, I've checked. But that doesn't change the fact that the night before I moved to National City I woke up in a warehouse in Metropolis and spat two bullets out of my skull."

Kara just stares at her like whaaaaat is happening.

"And those people, the ones in the lobby the other day, I think they're like me, because I've been having dreams about them ever since it happened and I think they're old. Like older than time old and honestly I've been trying not to think about it because the idea of living that long terrifies me and--"

Lena cuts off when Kara wraps her in a hug, squeezing her tight. After her momentary shock, Lena relaxes, abandoning her train of thought in favor of melting into Kara's embrace.

"It's okay," Kara promises. "We'll figure it out. Together."

Lena gladly accepts the fact that she doesn't have to go through her journey of immortality alone. And it's not just the superfriends she has to lean on, but also her new family of fellow immortals who have gone through the exact same thing she has.

She doesn't have to go into hiding like Nile did. So far, no one but Corben knows her secret, so the risk of being identified and studied by the government is minimal. So the focus of everyone's work becomes keeping it that way.

Andy and the rest of the old guard set themselves up as Lena's new ace security team. Andy is the brains and occasional sniper, but stays out of the direct line of fire. Nicky and Joe are the public facing bodyguards who go with her everywhere, while Nile is the last line of defense, posing as Lena's assistant.

The two groups don't really mesh at first, despite the superfriends' curiosities. The old guard has been too long alone and too long with death to know what to do with the superfriends' youthful exuberance. But eventually their mutual attachment to Lena brings them into each others orbits.

Joe and Nicky adapt first. They come to love game nights, and Nia adores their blatant love for each other. Nile is the closest to them in age, but game nights and giggly girl parties isn't exactly her scene. She and Lena share plenty of scotch though, on the nights when they're alone in the office and have nothing to do but talk.

Andy remains an enigma. To her, the people around them are all children, and she can't truly connect with them the way she does with the old guard. The only member of the superfriends she can connect with is Supergirl. 

There's something about being the last of her world that makes Supergirl relatable, something about being earth's mightiest hero that creates the same invisible wall between her and her closest friends that Andy recognizes.

And Lena. Lena suddenly finds herself in a drastically changing landscape. Her apartment  fills first with bodies and go bags, as the old guard camps in her living room and spare bedroom. Then slowly Nicky's drawings find their way to the walls, and knick knacks come to rest on every available surface. Weapons fill every nook and cranny, a fact Lena grows more accustomed to as Nile starts training her.

She's familiar with guns and can hold her own in hand to hand combat under normal circumstances, but it doesn't flow through her muscles like it does with the old guard. Each of them but Andy teaches them their own specialty, relentlessly, until Lena feels her body change, her muscles coiled and ready to explode into motion using nothing but reflexive memory.

When Lena asks about training with Andy, the others laugh.

"Give it another century," Joe says, smiling warmly, "then ask."

But Lena picks up fighting as quickly as she does everything else. Sparring with Nicky and Joe is the most fun for Lena-- she surprises them with her skill in bladed weapons, courtesy of her near-olympic level proficiency in fencing. But even with them Lena can barely hold a candle at first. She's good, better than good, but Joe and Nicky don't fight to earn points. They fight to kill. They move with their whole bodies, with power and momentum behind every strike.

Lena does all she can to catch up. She loves a challenge, and this is a matter of keeping her life the way it is-- something she'll cling to until it's ripped out of her warm, undying fingers. She wants to keep L-Corp, she wants to keep game nights, and movie nights, and... she wants to keep Kara.

And Kara.... Kara supports Lena through it all, but the truth of Lena's new reality doesn't really sink in until one day she and the old guard don't move fast enough. They're lucky, in the sense there's no one else to see the bullet that rips through Lena's sternum and blasts out of her back, taking chunks of flesh and bone with it.

Kara's heart stops, barely hears the gasping wheeze as Andy puts a knife through the shooters windpipe. All she can see is Lena, unmistakably dead.

But then Lena blinks into a grimace, a curse rising to her pinkening lips.

"Fuck."

Then, "Ow. Motherfucker."

Nile pulls Lena to her feet, putting her gun back in Lena's palm. Lena deftly checks the chamber and nods the okay, and Nile moves on. Only then does Lena see Kara standing stock still, eyes wide and chest locked against a burgeoning panic attack.

"Hey," Lena says softly. She takes Kara's hand in hers, letting Kara feel the warmth of her skin, the pulse of her veins. She even pulls her blouse aside so Kara can see the flesh knitting itself back together. "I'm okay. See?"

There's a word for what Lena is, but Kara's pretty sure it isn't okay. Still, its enough to get Kara's legs to move again. With a nod, she bounces on the balls of her feet then launches into the air, speeding through the remaining gunmen and piling them aside unconscious for the police to deal with later.

"Still gotta get used to that," Andy mutters under her breath, coming to check on Lena. "You good?"

Lena nods again. "You were supposed to stay in the van."

"Fuck off with that garbage." Andy glares at her. "One of my team goes down, I'm going to make sure they get back up."

Lena smiles. It feels different, to be so readily accepted into the guard. Even with the Superfriends, she's had to work to earn their trust, and slowly eased her way into becoming one of the group. With Andy and her people, from the moment they saw each other there's never been any other thought. Lena was theirs, and they were hers.

"Let's get going."

[izabellq]

hello~ would it be possible to request a kenma one based on the recent haikyuu ep where kenma was so tired but reader was there to comfort him after the game ;~; thank you

Limitations -> Kenma Kozume

prompt: the request above ^ (thanks for requesting <3 hope you enjoy!)

contains: fluff, ⚠️spoilers for the newest eps of haikyuu!! to the top: part 2⚠️ headcannons + a drabble

Ever since Nekoma had made it into Nationals, you were extremely proud

You weren’t the team’s official manager but you were pretty close to it

You were especially proud of Kenma

You’d been friends with him and Kuroo for ages so you knew for a fact that Kenma, despite his usual lazy demeanor, had worked hard to get to where he was now

Seeing them on the court always filled you with a sense of pride.

It was when Nekoma had gone up against Sarukawa Tech where things took a turn.

Sarukawa Tech’s strategy was pretty obvious.

From the way they kept aiming the ball for positions that would make Kenma move more

They were willing to completly throw away the first set just to win the game

They put so much dedication into thier plan that it was starting to worry you

Kenma was getting exhausted by the second and it had became obvious when he had tripped over his own two feet after one particularly long rally.

Up on the stands, you stood beside Alisa and Akane

The three of you were practically clinging to each other for dear life

You just wanted Kenma to be okay, espically when he began to reach his limits

As the third set rolled around, you realized nekoma’s receives had started to get sloppy

Apparently that was part of Kenma’s plan to win but you didn’t know that

At one point, Kenma had pushed him self even further and decided to pull off a perfect set near the end of the game

He set to Fukunaga, and with a strong spike, they earned themselves a point— winning the game for Nekoma in the end.

You nearly collapsed in relief

But you still wanted to check in on Kenma

The distinct sounds of cheers resonated across the stands, drowning out the pitied claps of the opposing team. Alisa and Akane rounded you up for a group hug, though your eyes don’t leave the court— not when Kuroo’s practically dragging Kenma off of it.

“I’m gonna go see Kenma,” You confirm mostly to yourself. “You guys coming?”

Alisa and Akane give each other a knowing look, one that you don’t have the capacity to decipher at the moment. Finally Akane giggles, waving you off, “We’ll catch up! Don’t worry about us!”

Hesitantly, you share your goodbyes and begin to make your way towards the hallway where they had most likely camped-out due to their fatigue. Turning the corner, you’re met with an unusual sight. Kenma’s yelling, spewing a string of words that make out to be something along the lines of; is it so bad that I want to try for my friends? Lev’s trying to grab a banana, Yamamoto’s crying happy tears— and you come to the realization that this scene is by far one of the normalist things you’ve ever encountered.

“Oi, Y/N! Come to congrulate us, aye?” Kuroo beamed, drawing you out from your idle position. You nodded your head a bit shyly. No matter how used to the group of boys you were, it didn’t change the fact that they were intimidating as a pack.

“You guys did great out there,” You said, satisfying their need for praise. Having acknowledged them, you found your way towards Kenma; who was slumped against the wall, concentrated on leveling his breathing.

Rummaging through your bag, you pulled out a water bottle, shoving it into his lap as you sat beside him. “Come on, drink up. You look like death.”

With a mumbled thanks, he uncapped the bottle, pushing the frigid sanitized water past his lips. Giving him a moment to cool down, you wonder what you could possibly say that wouldn’t reflect poorly on your behalf.

“Hey, Kenma, are you okay?” Your question is followed by silence for a few moments, and maybe you think you should have eased into it a bit slower.

When he responds, it calms the treacherous palpitations of your heart (only to replace it with a softer rhythmic pattern). “I’m okay, just tired.”

As to signify this, he leans over, letting his head fall onto your shoulder. For a second, you tense, but it’s only a moment compared to the solace you subject yourself too. Kenma isn’t the type to show any sort of affection this easily, so you come to the conclusion that he really is that tired. Or else, the sensible more closed-off trait of his character would have kicked in far too early.

“You did really good out there, you know?” Is what you say with a hushed tone, keeping the words of affirmation between you and the boy resting on your shoulder. Maybe it’s because a part of you knew that if anyone else were to hear, the moment would be over, and you’d be stuck giving each member of the team their own personal commendable comment. Not that you would mind, but seeing Kenma like this is something you want to last just a bit longer.

He hums, having acknowledged what you said in the most Kenma-like way possible. You take this opportunity to shift in your spot, enduring a more comfortable position where you’re now facing him. He’s looking at you with mixtures of confusion and indifference etched in the creases of his skin. Placing your hands on the side of his face, you pushed his bleached hair behind his ears and placed a chaste, dainty kiss on his forehead in one swift motion.

It a few seconds at best, but it’s enough to convey your feelings without putting them into words.

“Y/N... I’m glad you came,” Kenma said in a way that seemed so chimerical. When he turned away in slight embarrassment, you knew that this was reality, one only brought forth by the events that came before it. You could practically feel the tinge of heat that climbed your throat.

At least he was alright— that’s all the mattered.

“Hey, lovebirds, let’s get going yeah? Don’t wanna miss out on Karasuno’s game!” Kuroo teased, throwing his duffel bag on top of his shoulders. Sending him a pointed look, you threw a banana at him, hoping to distract him from the momentary lapse of embarrassment he caused you. Of course, he only ended up catching it— not like it would’ve done him any harm if he hadn’t.

From behind you, Kenma stood up, looking a bit displeased. Though, if someone were skilled enough to look past it, they’d find he was excited for Karasuno’s game; excited at the idea of playing against them.

Grabbing a hold of your hand, Kenma helped you off the floor (though, it was safe to say you put more effort into it than he did). And despite your stabilization once off the ground, his grip remained unfaltering.

His eyes cascade to the floor, finding the shadows of the stadium lights far more riveting than intended. Soft and mellow, his voice compliments the true cat-like nature of his essence. “Let’s go find a spot where we can sit together.”

You know he’ll most likely be playing games on his phone when he settles down, but you don’t mind. You’re just glad to see that despite being pushed past his limitations, he’s the same as he’s always been.

CHECK OUT MY MASTERLIST HERE!

[sergiusreports]

Prompt #2: Aberrant

I suppose I could have murdered my way through the rank and file once I hacked my governor module. I didn’t because A) the threat assessment did not fall in my favor and was therefore, a stupid idea and B) I didn’t really care what these Spoken did to each other. 

The military units I had been attached to so far ran the gamut of ‘Let’s have the Sergius unit do everything because we don’t want to die’ (Spoken have a really big hangup about the potential of dying) to ‘We can go into that dark, Resistance filled bunker without the bothersome Sergius.’ And then they die. (That’s an exaggeration. My unit survival rate is five stars.) It just means I have to go in and save them from themselves. 

Anyway, these were the things I thought about as the unit rolled into what appeared to be another deserted village. They never are. The heavily armored transport rumbled to a halt and I waited in the cargo hold. Sergius units never ride up front. We’re equipment. Which was fine by me. The thought of all those eyes on me caused a momentary drop in performance. 

I listened as the rest of the unit disembarked. It was a small detachment. Not even a dozen soldiers. This area had been under heavy fire for the last few suns. Whoever remained now were too stubborn or too injured to leave. We were just the cleanup crew. 

“Alright listen up, the sooner we clear this out, the sooner we can call in for a base camp setup. You three, do a sweep of those buildings to the east, Vasile and Balar grab the ones sitting west, the rest of you spread out.” 

“Sir!” 

“Sir...the Centurio sent the Sergius with us.” 

He hadn’t forgotten. He wanted to ignore that little detail and later claim that it slipped his mind. Now he couldn’t. 

“Right. ...Right, let’s get the Pilus his testing data. Unpack it.” 

When they opened the bay doors, I made all the appearances of powering up and stepped down onto the deserted street. They really had just rolled into the middle of the town and unloaded in the midst of several unsecured buildings. From a tactical standpoint, it was one of the most stupid things I’d ever seen. And by this point I had seen plenty. 

“These constructs give me the creeps. Do you really think they’ll start replacing us on the field?”

“That’s the rumor. Though I hear it's only the citizens that’ll get out of military duty.” 

“Gods, I don’t want something like that watching my back. What if it goes on the fritz?”

I wasted no time sending my drones out and patching their image feeds into my peripheral. From one of them I could see the commander of this messed up mission eyeing me like I was just looking for an excuse to kill something. He really should have paid attention to the brief. Then he’d know I technically was supposed to have a governor module that would prevent me from harming his unit. 

So, here’s the thing about governor modules. They fucking suck. Imagine someone evaluating your every move. Scoring you on a variety of bullshit qualifiers and if this imaginary person doesn’t like your assessment of a situation or you go to make a move that opposed what they thought you should do, they could hit a button and cause you unimaginable pain. Just a metric tonze of suffering. Until you finally learn life will be so much easier if you just do what they tell you to, no questions asked. 

That’s a governor module. And that’s why mine clearly had to go ASAP. 

Only half as bad as having one is hacking your own and then having to continue to act like it’s still functioning. Which was the current situation I was dealing with and one I was looking to change soon. 

One of my drones noted the spike in aetherical pressure 1.5 seconds before the spell went off.

“Projectile from the east. Cover.” I relayed and hauled several soldiers behind the transport. 

The fireball rocked the armored transport as it exploded in the street. Several men too slow to get out of the way screamed as they got caught up in the flame. And that’s why you don’t park a lone transport in the middle of a hostile town. I don’t care how small or how deserted it appears to be. 

“Hell!” the commander yelled as he sat, pressed up tight against the cover. “Bastards. This is why I hate Eorzea.” 

Look, you have no one to blame but yourself for this shitshow, Commander. For obvious reasons, I did not say that out loud. 

“Sergius! Get in there and take care of it!” 

Yes, Sergius, now that I’ve done fucked up, go in and fix the problem that could have been handled with no casualties had I decided to utilize you sooner. 

My drones dove into the burned out ruin that used to be a shop of some sort. Sweeping through the area they picked up three targets, the mage at the blown out window now covering as they prepared another volley and two others lying in wait at the front point of entry. The back exit was  blocked, a large shelving unit shoved up against the door. 

I ran out towards the building sitting to the left of the store and ducked my way through a narrow alley.

“Projectile imminent. Remain covered. When it clears, suppressing fire through the storefront window.” I spoke through the linkpearl and patched my drone’s feed over to the commander. 

He relayed the plan to the others. 

The small intel drones I had equipped weren’t good for much else. But I had learned a handy trick. You could order them to fly into a target’s face. (Assuming you had been ordered to do so or, like me, you had an inoperative governor module) The second the mage’s spell went off I accelerated the drone and like a small projectile, it hit them hard enough across the temple that they went down. In that small space the acceleration likely wasn’t enough to crater their skull but an unconscious target was the same as a null one in this instance. 

As I ran around the back of the building I heard the answering suppressing fire. Good. That should keep the other two busy. Conflicting commands filled my feed and I back burnered them. The yelling chatter from the linkpearl I could do without. Even if I hadn’t bricked my own governor module the only one that really mattered was the emergency assessment feed. It told me the blocked door could have been mitigated in several ways. I do come equipped with small energy weapons in my arms but I went instead for the big arquebus strapped to my back. I discharged the weapon at the door and the wood and shelving unit behind it broke apart, leaving a sizable hole. 

From my drone feed I knew I would be met by one hostile and was ready as she rushed me the moment I made it inside. The second had chosen to retreat out the front door. Why? I have no idea. He had to know the rest of the unit was parked out there and waiting. As I shoved the woman up against the wall in a restraining hold I heard the gunfire coming from outside. A moment later a kill confirm came across the linkpearl. Sometimes Spoken do things that are counterintuitive to their survival. 

I dragged the spitting and cursing hostile out into the street and passed her over to the remaining members of my unit and went back for the unconscious one. 

My drones spread out once again, filtering through the rest of the remains of the village. 

The commander was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get further information from the woman. Were there any more of them lying in wait. How many. Where were the rest of the people. Obviously, this wasn’t going to work. The woman had been holed up in that building waiting for us. She probably knew she wasn’t going to make it out alive. Spoken with nothing to lose can be dangerous things. 

In any event, we didn’t need her cooperation. My drones reported multiple heat signatures gathered in the inn down the road. 

“The rest of the villagers are harboring at the inn two clicks north.” 

This brought on a new bout of angry, spitting curses from the hostile. Which, in turn, got the hostile a gloved fist across her face for the outburst. I kept my vision trained through my drones overhead. 

“Fine. Clear it out. Sergius, go up there and torch it.” the commander spat, venom in his voice. Someone was bent out of shape. 

I watched the feed from my drones as they circled the building in question. It was relatively unscathed, the windows still intact. Peering inside my drones could see about two dozen huddled inside. 

“They appear to be the injured and children.” I reported back. 

“Good. Then it’ll be easy to take care of.” the commander turned to one of the remaining soldiers. “Call in for base camp set up.”

I still hadn’t moved. Probably a mistake. It didn’t take long for the commander to notice and turn his attention back to me. “Sergius. I said move out.” 

“Repeat directive. Protocol states we take the injured and children prisoner. We don’t eliminate them.” 

“Protocol my arse. I lost three good men today because of these savages. Burn it down.” 

Well, it looked like I had a happy little problem on my hands. Recalling my drones, I did a quick threat assessment. One commander. Three remaining soldiers. No one had called in for a base camp yet. Good. It seemed this was the change in my situation I had been waiting for.

I blocked the testing feed with a flood hack, overwhelming it and causing a momentary program shutdown. Then deleted the .exe for good.

I powered up the small energy weapons in my arms and opened fire.

Turns out I did care what these Spoken did to each other. To a point.

[haloshornsinkstains]

Shiratorizawa Snowball War [Tendou]

ngl, I actually really like this one.  pre-relationship Tendou Satori x GN!reader , fluff and snowy nonsense

“Ushi you can’t spike a- Holy Shit! Did anyone else know you could spike a snowball?”

Shiratorizawa is a prestigious school, the entrance exams are difficult and the students it produces are some of the best in the prefecture (even outside of the volleyball club). It means long study hours and a lot of time spent on extra-curricular activities. All of which sometimes makes it easy to forget that you’re all still teenagers, especially now you’re a third year with college prep and the looming threat of graduation, of potential separation from your closest friends. You want nothing more than to cling to the moments of happiness and childish fun while you still can, to indulge in the wild whimsy your best friend can bring out in you with his infectious grin and spontaneous ways. The best friend you’ve been falling for since you met him. Winter presents an unexpected opportunity for hijinks in the form of a sudden heavy snowfall.

You awake to the sound of your phone buzzing, the world outside your dorm carpeted in white. Groggily you lift the phone to your ear, answering the call. “Hello?” “Y/N, my favourite non-volleyball playing partner in crime, have you seen outside?” You perk up at the sound of your best friend's voice, already picturing the wild hand movements he’s probably making while talking to you. With a hum you peer through the gap in the curtains before nearly dropping the phone in shock. “Woah… white.” Tendou cackles on the other end of the line. “Snow! Y/N-chan, we got snow!” Your lips tug up into a grin. “You thinking what I’m thinking Tori?” “Snowball fight?” “Yes! Round up the team, let’s have a war.” You laughed, already picturing the kinds of mischief you could get up to. “It’s on cutie. Meet you at the gym in thirty minutes.” You flushed at the name but just about managed to choke out a confirmation before hanging up, dashing around your room to layer yourself up in preparation for the cold outside. You’d probably end up cold by the end of it anyway, the wet snow no doubt soaking through your layers, but at least you could start the day warm. Checking in the mirror one last time, fiddling with your hair in an attempt to look maybe a little more attractive for Tendou, you dashed out of the door and towards the gym.

“What are we doing here you menace?” “Aww, Shirabae, don’t be like that!” You laughed, stepping into the gym with a broad smile. “Morning guys.” “Don’t call me that, I hate you.” Shirabu huffed, glaring at you and then Goshiki as the first year bounded across the hall towards you. “L/N-san! Tendou-san didn’t say you were coming!” “He didn’t give us any reason as to why we were here at all.” “Don’t be like that Wakawaka!” Tendou pouted, shaking his head at the captain. “I thought it would be obvious.” “It was not.” Ushijima frowned. “It is good to see you again L/N.” You laughed, untangling yourself from Goshiki and walking over to stand beside your best friend, leaning slightly against his warmth as he automatically brought an arm around your shoulders. “So, why did you drag us out here in the cold?” Semi sighed. You and Tendou exchanged giddy grins before replying in unison “snowball fight.” “No. Absolutely not.” Shirabu huffed. “Will it improve our volleyball skills?” You smiled at Ushijima. “You can practice your aim.” “Then I will agree.” “Y/N is spouting nonsense!” Shirabu huffed. “All that’ll happen is we will get cold and wet and miserable.” “Lighten up Shirabae. You’re allowed to have fun.” Semi huffed, having picked up on the nickname quickly. He shot a glare at you and Tendou cackled.  “Worried your aim isn’t good enough to get the rest of us?” He laughed, breaking into a tune, his hip bumping into yours. “Shirabae is a coward, too scared to hit us with snow…” “Fine! I’ll do it.” You cheered, grinning happily at the boys as they all nodded in agreement. “It’s war!”

War was a pretty good description for the snowball fight that followed. Volleyball players are, unsurprisingly, excellent shots. Although with their size they also made for great targets, especially the tall and broad shapes of Ushijima and Semi. Tendou was a menace, his intuition allowing him to easily dodge most of the snowballs sent his way (once he stopped instinctually trying to block them). Even Kawanishi was wearing a small smile by the time things really got going. You used your smaller stature to your advantage, ducking and diving out of the path of as many snowballs as you could, and using others as sheilds where possible. You spotted Ushijima tensing up as a well packed snowball flew towards him, aimed by Semi. “Ushi you can’t spike a- Holy Shit! Did anyone else know you could spike a snowball?” The momentary distraction created by the shock of watching the captain spike a damn snowball right into Yamagata’s back was your undoing. Tendou barreled his way towards you, tackling you to the ground and rolling through the snow. You shrieked as you tumbled down, the snow working its way down your neck and chilling you to the core. “Tori! That was playing dirty!” He grinned down at you, his body pinning yours against the ground. “All’s fair in love and war sweetcheeks.” With a huff you grabbed a handful of snow, shoving it in his face. Tendou cackled, the two of you scrabbling about in the snow, much to the amusement of the rest of the team who had stopped fighting to watch you. Finally you admit defeat, laying back in the snow, face flushed from exertion and maybe a little a lot from the pressure of Tendou straddling your hips with a wild grin on his face. You hope he’s too caught in the thrill of victory to notice how flustered you are, at least he doesn’t mention it. You just lie there, staring up into his face and maybe, secretly, hoping this is the moment your life becomes a shojo manga and he leans down to kiss you. To tell you that warm glint in his eyes means he feels the same way you do. He is leaning down though, and you’re almost sure you’re dreaming as he does.

“I think we should go inside now.”  The sound of Ushijima’s voice snaps the tension and you bite back a sound of disappointment as Tendou pushes himself off you, extending a hand to haul you to your feet. You brush the snow from your clothes and start to follow the others back, but now you’re no longer running around the chill starts to seep through you, the damp snow soaking your clothes only making it worse. You shiver, rubbing your hands down your arms in a futile attempt to warm up. At least it’s not far to the dorms. “Cold?” You jump at the voice, turning to shake your head at your best friend, even as you teeth chatter and betray you. He rolls his eyes, hands fiddling with the zipper of his own jacket and you shake your head wildly. “You can’t do that Tori! Your noodle arms will freeze off without a jacket.” He pouts a little, though the effect is lost with the affectionate way he smiles at you. “I have a better idea!” You watch in confusion as he unzips the jacket and opens his arms wide, as if asking for a hug. Slowly you step forwards, letting him pull your back against his chest and zip the jacket up around you. It’s ridiculous and awkward but it is warm. The pair of you shuffle along awkwardly behind the rest of the team, Shirabu looks at you like he thinks you’ve both gone completely insane before marching off away from you. Any other day you might think to be offended, but you’re too busy trying to hope Tendou can’t hear your heart racing, or the way the blood rushes in your ears.

They sneak you into their dorms with ease, it’s not the first time and you doubt it’ll be the last, and Tendou finally releases you from the jacket to rifle through his drawers. He throws some clothes your way with a thumbs up. “Change! Or I’m not helping when you get sick.” You flash him a thumbs up in return, ducking out to the bathroom to change before he starts stripping and gives you a nosebleed, or a stroke.  By the time you return the boys have set up camp in the common room, wrapped in warm blankets procured from various rooms, mostly Tendous if the various anime prints are anything to go by. He grins at you from his seat, pulling his blanket up and gesturing for you to sit beside him. Gratefully you settle next to the warmth of his body, letting him pull you into his side and wrap the blanket around you both. The exhaustion of a day spent running around in the cold finally starting to settle over you. Somewhere you could hear someone preparing tea, probably Ushijima and Shirabu, they were the most sensible. With a yawn you let your weight fall against the body beside you, closing your eyes, floating somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

Semi watched carefully from his position across the room, shuffling a bit closer and elbowing his teammate in the side once he decided you were asleep. “Are you ever going to tell them?” He sighed, gesturing towards you. Tendou shook his head. “I can’t. We’re just friends, I can’t lose their friendship, they don’t-” Semi cut him off with a scowl. “For someone who’s usually so good at reading people you’re an idiot. Friends don’t look at friends like that.” Tendou raised an eyebrow.  “They look at you like you hung the moon. And don’t think I missed you nearly kissing them earlier. Just tell them you idiot, watching the pair of you pine after each other like lovestruck idiots is disgusting.” Your breath caught in your throat, you knew you shouldn’t have let them think you were asleep but you had to know. And now you did. Covering it with a yawn and faux return to wakefulness, you blinked slowly at Semi, watching as Ushijima and Shirabu appeared from behind him carrying warm drinks, with instructions that you should return to your own dorm once you were warm in case someone found you. 

You decided you were going to tell him how you felt on the walk back.

[artificialqueens]

These People in This Room (Don't Shine Like You) (Diamond Chaney) - Ortega

summary: Lawrence has just been crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and Ellie is right beside her. Just like she’s always been.

a/n: omg HIIIIII! here’s my entry to the fic challenge (will it be my only one? who can say). in a shocking turn of events this is not a drabble asdfghjk but would we have expected anything concise from me? this fic was inspired by Shine and Starstruck, both by Years and Years. they are very diamond chaney songs so pls do give them a little listen for full effect! standard procedure, she/her pronouns bc they’re in drag, u know the drill. this has taken me entirely too long to write but pls enjoy some diamond chaney from the night of the crowning! (pls also collectively pretend they had an actual dancefloor to celebrate on and not just a hotel room bc i had already started writing at the point Ellie posted her BTS. fic is just one big serving of pretend anyway xo)

***

It’s somewhere around midnight, the sun has set on Thursday and Friday has crept in, and Lawrence is sitting in a booth with the dancefloor flashing bright colours in front of her, only just daring to believe that this is her actual life.

There is not a single moment that seems real. Even being one of the top four took her essentially since filming stopped to come to terms with. But hearing her name being read out, hearing the other girls cheer for her and being able to do nothing but stare at the screen in disbelief with her hands over her mouth and sob like a baby…that’s not sunk in yet. Maybe it never will. She’s still feeling the after-effects from the way the shock and euphoria had kicked seven shades of shit out of her pulse, the way the serotonin had crashed over her like a wave and the absolute unbridled lack of control she’d had over any of her emotions.

When the cameras had been cut off and they’d been given the all-clear from the producers that they could hug each other, Lawrence had only managed to stand up from the chair, still in floods of tears as Bimini bundled their arms around her, Tayce had jostled them all with the way she’d jumped up and down and yelled in delight, and Ellie had looped her arms around her neck and murmured into her shoulder, words Lawrence couldn’t hear but felt the love from regardless.

It had to be Ellie, really, that crowned her. It was a full-circle moment. She still remembers the night they met for the first time; Dundee in 2016, some time in the early hours of the morning (she’d probably called it ‘bastard o’clock’ or something similar), coming out of the bar and being stopped by a boy in half-drag similar ages with her who spoke rapidly and excitedly and told her that he’d messaged her about starting drag and she’d replied to him. The way realisation had dawned on her and the way she’d been her usual loud and boisterous self to cover up the fact she’d actually been quite bashful about the fact they were meeting for the first time.

There was no alternative, not least because of everything they’ve been through together; the years leading up to this moment and the rollercoaster it’s all been. She’s glad that they’re on a high because they’ve seen each other at their lows (been the cause of each others’ too, sometimes) and pulled through only slightly scathed, but always stronger. The producer had asked Lawrence who she’d wanted and when she, still speechless, had pointed in Ellie’s direction, seeing the tears start to stream down her face had only made Lawrence’s start all over again. They’d hugged- just the two of them this time- and the way Ellie had immediately felt like a safe place in the crazy chaos of reality reminded Lawrence so much of when they had filmed. The way even just hearing Ellie’s voice would stop her feeling homesick, the way she was a living comfort blanket.

She’d never tell that to Ellie, of course, because she’d never hear the end of it if she did.

It’s been a couple of hours and Lawrence is expecting everything to suddenly sink in any minute now. Something will click like the last piece of a puzzle and she’ll finally accept that she’s won, that the whole thing isn’t a giant and premature April fools’ prank. She turns her phone over in her hand, wondering what all this nervous energy is doing to her body chemistry. She’s got messages from her family, her friends, Kiko, the girls she works with back home. Well…some of them. But apart from reading them and frantically replying, Lawrence hasn’t checked anything else; hasn’t opened Twitter or Instagram, where the notifications are piling up like pizza leaflets through a letterbox and are equally as unwanted. If she thinks about them she can feel her stomach twist, wrung out like a wet towel.

Forty thousand likes. The Team Bimini tweet had forty thousand likes. What did her own get? Eight thousand? Lawrence thinks about the sheer scale of forty thousand people, compares it to the population of towns in Scotland. Almost Airdrie. Just under Coatbridge. She imagines a whole town of people, angry and furious and disappointed, and all of them tweeting her to let her know exactly that. She remembers in high school when she thought the whole of Hermitage was against her. She wants to tell baby Lawrence that that was fucking small fry. A thousand kids? Try the sheer scale of Bimini’s fanbase. Her breath is shaky when she tries to breathe in, like her lungs have reduced in size. It reminds her of that time in school camp when they all had to jump from a pier for some unknown-fucking-reason, how freezing the water had been and how her chest felt tight as she gasped for air. Lawrence supposes it was character building in the sense that it prepared her exactly for how anxiety would make her feel later in life.

In for four. Hold for five. Out for six.

“There she is!”

An ever so slightly slurred and wobbly voice breaks Lawrence’s reverie, and when she looks up she sees Ellie approaching her, a little unsteady even in the flats she’s changed into with a glass of prosecco in each hand. It says a lot that even at the top of a helter-skelter of an anxiety spiral, Lawrence’s heart still gives a little swell when she sees her friend. Ellie has always been able to make her feel better. She feels an almost silly sense of relief that she’s here.

Lawrence takes one last little breath in before plastering a small smile to her face. “Awrite? Where’s Mumma Diamond?”

“In her room conked out. Just got back from putting her to bed, she couldn’t hack it. Letting down the family name, that one,” Ellie huffs, sliding into the booth and squashing up right beside Lawrence, even though there’s enough space for two metres distance even if they had still been under strict instructions from the BBC.

“Tayce?” Lawrence asks, gratefully accepting the prosecco glass and hurriedly downing a too-big gulp in an attempt to calm herself down.

“Facetiming A’whora. Of course.”

“Of course. Maybe a bottle and a half of prosecco is gonny be the love potion she never knew she needed.”

“Fuck, we can only hope,” Ellie grins, already laughing through her words. “If we’re gonna be touring with them I don’t wanna have to karate chop through five layers of sexual tension every time I have to walk past them.”

Lawrence chuckles, tired but humoured and unable to not make the so-obvious joke. “You couldny fight sleep.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’ll fight you in a minute!” Ellie nudges her with her shoulder and spills both of their prosecco from the glasses in their hands. The gesture is affectionate and out of place with the impending threat. “Where’s Bims? Thought they were with you.”

Lawrence shrugs. “Went out for a smoke with one of the runners about twenty minutes ago and never returned.”

“Good for them. Always thought there’s something inherently sexy about a winch in a back alley.”

“Well, you would know.”

“Eh, so would you!” Ellie cries, nothing short of incredulously offended. Her expression makes her look even more like a cartoon character than usual, and it’s entirely too endearing.

“Yeah, forgot that popular phrase. It takes two to winch in a back alley,” Lawrence jokes, but her heart isn’t in it. It’s too heavy and her ribcage feels like someone laced her into a corset and pulled it too tight. She’s hoping Ellie is too drunk to notice.

Ellie sips her prosecco with her eyes on her, then scrutinises her as she swallows it. She frowns, her nose wrinkling up as she prods Lawrence with an acrylic-nail finger. “What’s up?”

Fuck.

“The sky,” Lawrence says without conviction, and the raised eyebrow Ellie gives her in return is enough to unlock her. She deflates like a balloon and brings her phone up so Ellie can see it, turning it over in her hands. “Just…as happy as I am, and as much as this is all a dream come true…I keep psyching myself up to open any social media, and I can’t, because this one fucking brain cell of anxiety keeps telling me that everyone out there hates me and hates the fact I’ve won.”

Ellie’s face falls into a frown. She gently pries the phone out of her hands and places it on the table, takes one of Lawrence’s free hands in hers and rubs her thumb over her knuckles. “But all your other brain cells know that’s wrong.”

Lawrence sighs. “So why’s that one louder than all the rest?”

Ellie presses her lips together in a badly-suppressed smile. She’s giggling as she speaks. “Because you’ve only got two brain cells.”

Lawrence splutters a laugh, shoving Ellie with her free hand. The other is still laced together with hers. As the laughter dies down and the momentary serotonin wears off, Lawrence can feel her brow furrowing involuntarily. “Forty thousand people wanted Bimini to win, Ellie. Forty thousand. You know that’s like a whole town? That’s like the population of Coatbridge?”

“ Fuck Coatbridge!” Ellie exclaims, affronted, and her shock and insistence makes Lawrence snort all over again. “Okay, forty thousand people is a town but really, what’s that to the rest of the world? Think how tiny that is in the grand scheme of things, Lawrence! Honestly, give a fuck about what any bastard who wants to send you anything vile thinks of you! You’re so amazing! You won! Fuck everyone else!”

Lawrence wants to feel cheered up. The prosecco Ellie’s drunk is making her all the more animated and lively, giving her words a determination and a passion that her speech so rarely possesses most of the time. Ellie is calm, and she doesn’t get wound up easily. There’s something about the fact she’s growing this animated over getting Lawrence to believe in herself that warms her heart a little.

Then again…

“It’s not just that, though. There’s girls from home that haven’t even said well done. Girls I’ve always supported and couldn’t do enough for, and it’s like…really? You can’t be happy for me when I’ve actually managed to do the one thing I’ve wanted to do for years?”

“Well maybe they have said well done, and you’ve just not seen it because you’ve been hiding,” Ellie gestures matter-of-factly at her phone. It doesn’t convince her.

“They won’t have. You’ll know who I’m talking about, Ellie.”

Ellie sighs a little, clearly conceding that Lawrence is right. Her grip on her hand tightens a little, and when Lawrence looks up at her in response her blue eyes hold a glint of assurance.

“Well, even if they haven’t…fuck ‘em. Onwards and upwards, chick. You’ve got ten new sisters out of this who’re always going to know what it’s like, they’re gonna be here for you no matter what,” Ellie says comfortingly. Lawrence knows why she’s said ten and not eleven, but Ellie affirms this with another squeeze and a slightly shy smile. “And you’ve always got me. You’ve always had me.”

This is true. She’s always had Ellie. Before the show, doing gigs with her and hanging out with her and going to DragCon with her. On the show, always there to reassure her or pull her out of a negative spiral or just lean against her shoulder and squeeze her hand. And after the show. Whatever that might look like. Whatever that might be.

She supposes that neither of them know yet.

“C’mon,” Ellie says decisively, holding out a hand for her as the song changes. It’s some sort of Paolo Nutini dirge, and Lawrence has to laugh at how obviously whoever is in charge of the music has rushed to attempt to find something Scottish. Lawrence can only blink at Ellie’s outstretched hand.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Come on! ” Ellie laughs. Lawrence doesn’t know if she’s blushing or if it’s just the lights.

But she does know that she can’t leave Ellie hanging when she’s looking at her like that.

So Lawrence lets herself be dragged out to the dancefloor and pulled into a hug as Ellie sways them left to right ever-so-slightly out of time with the song, tipsy and full of affection given the way her arms are locked around Lawrence’s waist. It should feel stranger than it does. In reality, being held by Ellie feels as simple as just existing.

Or perhaps simpler than that, given the fact that Lawrence’s existence feels entirely surreal right now.

“You have to be in drag for half past se-ven,” Ellie sing-songs, bringing one of her arms out from around Lawrence’s waist and tapping her on the nose. Lawrence immediately misses it, so it’s a relief that it’s not gone for long.

“Because I wo-on,” Lawrence imitates back to her, and the way Ellie squeezes her waist in response and affirmation causes a smile and a blush to bloom on her face without her even being to control it. She rests her head against Ellie’s chest so she can’t have the satisfaction (ammunition) of seeing how she makes her feel.

It’s little moments like that that she needs right now. Anchors to keep her down on earth, to let her know that this isn’t just some really prolonged lucid dream and it’s all actually happening because currently reality is so absurdly ridiculous; she’s just won Drag Race and she’s slow-dancing with Ellie to the song that’s blasting through the speakers in the background, a parody of some American high school prom where she’s just been crowned the queen.

Moments like these- where Ellie’s holding her close as if she’s literally trying to protect her from the world- remind her that not everybody is against her. Not everybody hates her. Not everybody is wishing her a slow and painful death because Bimini didn’t win, least of all them. She knows that Ellie was never able to share what team she was on even though she hadn’t had a chance at the crown, but she didn’t have to. Not really. They’ve always been on each others’ team.

Ellie jolts Lawrence out of her daydream with the way her chest is shuddering, and Lawrence momentarily thinks she’s crying again before her soft giggle becomes audible over the music.

“What?” Lawrence tilts her head up, meeting Ellie’s scheming, smirking face.

“Can’t believe RuPaul Charles asked if you wanted to move to London, city of dreams, city of a thousand opportunities…” Ellie begins, Lawrence already laughing as she knows what the conclusion to her sentence will be. “…and you said, ‘yer awrite pal, am fine in Glesga wi the jakes an’ the Blue Lagoon chippy an’ the guy that stands on Buchanan Street and yells at everyone that they’re going to hell!’ ”

Lawrence would normally roll her eyes at Ellie’s impersonation of her accent, but she’s laughing too much at the joke that’s forming in her head to commit to it. “RuPaul asked if I wanted to move to London, and I said…”

The pair of them are almost giggling too much to get the punchline out, Ellie clocking on to how it’s going to end. In sync, the pair of them splutter out a “… NNNNAAW! ”

Giddy and happy, Lawrence rests her cheek against Ellie’s chest again. “London’s got junkies too, anyway.”

“This is gonna sound really selfish, but…don’t actually move to London,” Ellie’s voice murmurs from above her, and there’s something plaintive to it that makes Lawrence refrain from replying with a joke or a barb like she normally would. The way Ellie follows it up cements that fact. “It would probably be so good for you, but like…Glasgow would be lost without you, genuinely. And so would I.”

Lawrence can’t cry again tonight, even if it’s only because she thinks it’s physically impossible, so she just squeezes Ellie tight until she worries about her ability to breathe. “I’m not going anywhere, hen.”

Lawrence doesn’t even really know what they are, her and Ellie. They both still have Grindr and they talk about their hookups and raised hopes and broken hearts with each other like friends. But they’re not really just that. They’re affectionate, and they open up to each other with the same shared unspoken understanding of something Lawrence doesn’t understand. They hug for too long and cuddle up to each other when they’re together, and Lawrence can’t count the amount of times during filming that she’d find strength in the way Ellie would squeeze her hand without a word. They’ve woken up together too many times (why she’d felt the need to remind Ellie of that while the cameras were rolling, she’ll never know) and kissed each other more than that. Every time they say I love you they mean it, but they also mean a little bit more. There’s no butterflies or fast pulses or fluttering hearts- they’re past that stage. Everything is just natural and normal and easy.

She wonders if they’ll ever put a label on what they have. There’s a part of her that doesn’t ever want to.

“If we’re both still single by the time we’re forty,” Lawrence begins, leaning back to look at Ellie through her glazed, half-drunk half-tired eyes. “…we should just say ‘fuck it’ and get married.”

(She doesn’t even know if it’s a joke or not.)

Ellie laughs as if it is and nods as if it isn’t. “Drag wedding. We’d need to upstage Tayce and A’whora, though.”

Lawrence realises something. “I’ll turn forty two years before you.”

There’s a pause as the song starts to fade out, and it makes Ellie’s murmur seem louder than it is. “That’s okay. We don’t need to wait for me.”

The jolt her words give Lawrence’s heart and the way Ellie’s talking as if it’s an actual plan makes her think maybe it wasn’t really ever a joke after all. It’s ridiculous though, and it’s all theoretical, and it’s a totally hypothetical scenario, and they’re both drunk , for Christ’s sake. So Lawrence pulls out of Ellie’s arms and takes her hands in her own, the song that’s started playing more upbeat and the opening chords inciting some sort of hope and optimism in her heart for the future that’s unfolding for the pair of them.

“One more song then bed?” she suggests. Ellie raises her eyebrows as she looks down at her.

“Whose bed?”

“Shut the fuck up, Dirty Diamond,” Lawrence shoots back without missing a beat, and as the first lines of the song fill the room she leans back and begins to spin the pair of them in a circle, both of them laughing as if everything is as simple as just that room, and the music blaring out from the speakers, and the lights flashing above them drenching them in purple and pink.

[kuriquinn]

Wait For Me

Blanket Fic Disclaimer

Original Prompt by: @toscafan

"Olá. Você poderia escrever uma fic onde após Sasuke voltar para a vila, Sakura vai em uma missão e é gravemente ferida. Então Sasuke percebe que seus sentimentos por ela cresceram quando ele a vê ferida no hospital. Talvez com um pouco de Naruto preocupado também. Eu imagino isso entre o período que Sasuke volta para Konoha e antes de eles partirem juntos em suas viagens. Suas histórias são maravilhosas :) eu sinto muito não escrever em inglês :( “

[Roughly:  Hello, Could you write a fic where after Sasuke returns to the village, Sakura goes on a mission and is seriously injured. Then Sasuke realises that his feelings for her have grown when he sees her injured in the hospital. Maybe with a bit of Naruto worried too. I imagine it between the time Sasuke returns to Konoha and before they leave together on their travels.]

Author’s Note: As promised during Evil Author Day, I am trying to finish some of my WIPs. I actually managed to finish this one (Prompt # 4), which is a total miracle given how I’ve been feeling lately. And the fact I think this one is like...two years old. So yeah, major backlog of stuff that needs writing. Enjoy!

Beta Reader: None but me and my editing software :)

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⁂ ⁂ ⁂

It shouldn’t have happened.

The words repeat themselves on a loop in Sasuke’s head, like a record player tossed asunder, skipping unerringly back over the same line in a song. In every momentary pause where the words begin to repeat, there is a breath, an extended moment of tension where his chest feels tighter and tighter.

She hasn’t been on active duty rosters since the war. Her field is medicine, not defense or combat or infiltration, and as strong and talented as Haruno Sakura is, she’s still human and prone to mistakes. Shinobi work isn’t like riding a bike. You have to continue to exercise your particular skillset daily, or mistakes can be made, leading to mishaps, leading to—

It shouldn’t have happened.

サスサク

When the call came in for a relief-force of medicnin, it wasn’t unusual. War or no, there are still major medical emergencies and disasters. In this case, reports reached Konoha of an earthquake 350 miles away. Though the village had barely experienced a tremor, the quake had apparently devastated the shepherding community living at the base of the mountain.

As a rule, Sakura should have stayed behind to coordinate everything from the village; with Tsunade on another of her gambling jaunts, she was the most senior healer.

But the devastated town was without its own medical corps, and the number of injured was overwhelming. Every able pair of hands was needed and naturally, Sakura volunteered herself for the mission.

“I can do the work of a dozen medics and they might need someone to lift debris,” she informed the Sixth Hokage when he seemed likely to protest. “I also trained the latest group of emergency medics going out there; they’re still relatively untested in the field. Better they take their orders from me than some random jounin that you assign.”

Kakashi knew better than to argue with his former student, but he was reluctant. For some reason, he was uneasy. There was little reason for it that he could discern, but after all his years as a shinobi, he had learned to heed his instincts.

“Please, Lord Sixth, there are many large families there, with children.”

Against that—with no concrete reason to give—he could not say no.

“Do you need anyone else beyond the emergency medics?”

“Any civilians with basic first aid training,” Sakura replied, pleased at the response. “Whichever doctors and staff can be spared. The general surgeons, perhaps, but no one with specialized training or technique that we would supper from losing.”

Kakashi nodded and made a gesture she recognized to mean an official granting of the request.

“Ideally, you’d send Naruto as well. He could use the Nine-Tails chakra to mass-heal the simplest injuries. It would make triage a lot faster.”

“That’s not in my power. I’m already on thin ice with the Elders for my executive order to pardon Sasuke. I doubt they’ll want him leaving the village any time soon.”

Sakura scowled.

Under normal circumstances she would argue—she had long ago made clear her dislike  and distrust for the village Elders—but every minute spent arguing was wasting crucial time.

“Can you try to convince them?” she asked as she turned to leave the office. “We should be sending out best for this.”

“We already are,” Kakashi said with ease, and there was a smile in his eyes. The one Sakura returned was only a little strained, mind already on her future patients.

サスサク

Sasuke was on a short, probationary mission at the time, in the complete opposite direction from the disaster zone. He didn’t even hear about the earthquake until two days later.

While handing his mission report to Kakashi, he may have been somewhat surprised to learn Sakura would not be around to greet him the way she usually did—and Kakashi’s eyes had a far too knowing gleam in them when he mentioned it—but it never occurred to Sasuke that she would be in any kind of danger.

At least, nothing she wasn’t capable of handling for herself.

For those two days, Sasuke carried out his usual routine, slowly acclimating to being back in service to the village. It still wasn’t his preference to be around so many people, and there was a constant sense of discomfort that lingered at the back of his mind. The sensation of eyes on him from all over, ANBU and civilian alike, heavy with judgement and fear. The only time that feeling abated, even for just a little, was when he was around Sakura, Naruto or Kakashi.

Still, he wasn’t willing or able to seek any of them out. They all have busy lives, and he earned that judgement and fear from the village. It would be an easy feat to leave and never return, but he didn’t deserve easy. Remaining here was part of his punishment, and so he would learn to live with it.

At home, when the constant surveillance became too much, he went to an empty training ground and put himself through various sword forms or engage in other exercises. In two years, he’s grown used to living and fighting with only one arm, but it’s the constant practice that keeps him lethal.

On the morning of the third day he is going through one of his complex sword kata in the training ground where Kakashi made them genin. He tells himself it’s coincidence and not sentimentality that brought him here this morning, even as the three posts stand vigil over his training like towers of memory.

Today he is working only on form and movement, not using any techniques requiring chakra, just trying to sharpen his movements into their usual lethal grace.

As he uncoils from a low final arc of his sword, returning to a resting position, there is a sudden cracking noise; his gaze snaps toward it, and he watches as—apropos of nothing—the wooden post to his far right splits right down the middle.

Sasuke immediately goes still, focussing his awareness around himself and the area, scanning for danger. There is no one in this place foolish enough to try something—even if he wasn’t lethal on his own, the ANBU escorts hidden in the shadows would have been alerted.

The wind continues meander, sending leaves rustling; the sound of birds and the distant crash of the river do not change. There is not threat that he can detect, nothing but a growing sense of foreboding.

And then the ground begins to shake.

As far as earthquakes go, it’s not the worst he’s experienced. He has no problem remaining on his feat as the ground roils and trembles. Even the trees surrounding him show no sign of shuddering.

It’s small and innocuous, nothing on the same level as the one Sakura was sent to help with.

His eyes drift, lingering on the cracked post.

Memory conjures an image of a gawky twelve year old with too-long-to-be-practical hair and luminous green eyes betraying strain and discomfort as she feeds their third teammate tied to the middle post.

It’s probably nothing.

But for some reason his focus on his exercises vanishes, replaced instead with a growing disquiet in the pit of his stomach.

It only grows with every moment as he returns to the village proper and, without knowing why, makes a beeline for Hokage Tower. All around him, people talk excitedly about the tremor, laughing it off and telling one another what they were doing when they noticed it. It’s just a facet of their day, something that—while uncommon—is not dangerous enough to merit panic.

So why does he suddenly feel uneasy?

サスサク

Sasuke arrives at the Tower at the same time as Naruto, a face which causes his inexplicable agitation to ratchet immediately higher, especially given his friend’s uncharacteristic frown and the absence of his usual joking greeting.

Without exchanging words, they enter Kakashi’s office and are immediately treated to the sight of their former instructor pacing by the window, a frown drawing his brows together. The coiled cord of the telephone stretches and relaxes with his back-and-forth movements. It’s so in contrast to his usual demeanor—lazily slouched in his chair—that Sasuke’s spine stiffens in response.

Kakashi eventually hangs up the phone and faces his students.

“There was a second earthquake,” he tells them gravely. “Right next to the refugee camp we set up. According to reports, about 180 million tons of mountainside have crumble down onto the camp. They don’t know if there are any survivors.”

Sasuke’s fist clenches and Naruto’s eyes blink into slits as he activates his senjutsu.

“I can’t sense Sakura’s chakra,” he says, a panicked note in his voice. “Usually I get a definite flicker from her, even at this distance…”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sasuke tells him. “She masks her chakra when she’s on medical missions to avoid presenting a target.”

He’s not sure how he knows this, since he can’t recall if she mentioned any such practice in their conversations since he’s been back, yet he knows it to be true. Still, this knowledge brings no comfort with it, because the uncomfortable pit in his stomach remains.

“She would be healing everyone after a huge disaster like that,” Naruto protests. “I’d definitely sense that. But I can’t.”

Which, admittedly, worries Sasuke a little despite his unshakable faith in Sakura’s abilities.

Naruto turns to Kakashi, his shoulders squared as if in preparation for a fight. “I’m going to check on her. Even if she’s fine, they’ll need help digging survivors out. I can definitely help with that.”

“Fine,” Kakashi says. The fact he doesn’t argue or mention the concerns of the Elders is telling. “If you leave now, you should get there within—”

Sasuke doesn’t stay to listen.

He’s already climbing the stairs to the roof where there is more open space.

He is by no means an expert at using his Rinnegan yet—every day heralds a new ability or application—but he has more or less figured out how to travel between far distant locations instantly.

“Oi! Sasuke! Wait up!” Naruto shouts from behind as Sasuke focusses himself on creating a pathway. He glanced the coordinates he needs on the papers covering Kakashi’s desk, knows where he’s supposed to go—

The space in front of him crackles, displacing the air, and then rips open, forming a portal of swirling violet energy. On the other side, he can discern a giant wall of rubble.

He wastes no time slipping through, trusting Naruto to follow directly behind him.

サスサク

The sight before them is a grim one.

Sasuke hasn’t seen destruction on this scale since the war.

Mountains loom around them, the closest one looking misshapen due to the giant shelf that has vanished as if scraped off with a giant chisel. Its remnants spill out in front of it, creating a smaller mountain of churned earth and rock, uprooted trees and other debris.

People gather around, civilian and shinobi alike, covered in dust and digging frantically at the rubble. Likely the lucky few who were far enough away when the second quake hit to avoid the harm.

There are almost no Konohanin, medicnin or otherwise, that he can see, suggesting a grim truth to him: they are all underneath the remains of the mountain. Dead, most likely, or trapped and dying as the seconds pass.

But where is Sakura?

She could survive being buried under such weight, and should have dug her way out by now. Stone and rock are like cottage cheese to her strong fists.

“Naruto!”

The two newcomers glance up as a Konohanin scrambles toward them. As he gets closer, Sasuke recognizes him as the kid Sakura has taken on as an assistant. Ando something or other.

“We need help!” the kid gasps when he arrives in front of them, dust-covered and exhausted. “We can’t shift the earth using doton because it could hurt the people underneath.”

The jinchuriki is already forming the signs to summon up shadow clones. If this has to b cleared by hand, he’s the best man for the job. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo.”

“We’ll get through this without a problem!”

“Believe it!”

The clones are already spreading out across the landscape, like a sea of orange washing over the scene.

Sasuke stares down at the boy. “Where is Sakura?”

Ando goes pale beneath the fine layer of dust, eyes pained. “When the earthquake stared, she was trying to get everyone in the medical tents to safety. When she realized she couldn’t, she tried to create barriers to stop the worst of the damage using doton. But it was coming on too fast, and so she tried to slow down the avalanche—"

“Of course she did,” Sasuke murmurs to himself, teeth gritted.

“—but it wasn’t enough! The last I saw, she was destroying the rocks coming at her, but then she was buried.”

“And where were you in all this?”

There’s an accusation in his words that has made stronger men tremble, but Ando merely shudders and clenches his fists. No shrinking violets working with Sakura, that’s for sure.

“I was on water duty. The rivers here were all polluted by the first quake, and so I had to travel far. I saw it all from that cliff up there and hurried down here as fast as I could to help, but…”

He gestures ineffectively, clearly not knowing where to start.

“Sasuke!” Naruto yells all of a sudden, and Sasuke’s head whips toward where he is helping a woman with shredded clothing to climb from the rubble. She is remarkably stable on her feet, considering the situation, and Sasuke understands a moment later when he sees the white creature attached to her shoulder.

“Lady Katsuyu!” Ando cries and hurries over, followed closely by SAsuke.

“Where’ Sakura?” Naruto demands as the younger boy helps the quake victim to sit down. “Is she okay?”

“She’s at the very bottom,” Katsuyu says fretfully. “There’s an airpocket and she’ll still have air for a little while, but she’s gravely injured. Her entire lower body is crushed.” Sasuke’s heart constricts painfully. “I tried to help, but she insisted I attach myself to all the refugees, to keep them alive until help arrives. I fear she won’t be able to keep it up very long. Even my healing can’t save the people buried so long without oxygen.”

“Little fool,” Sasuke growls, the viciousness of the words surprising him more than the situation. Of course she’s more worried about the survival of her patients and the others instead of herself.

“We’re getting her out,” Naruto declares, summoning more clones. “We’ll get her and everyone else out!”

And Sasuke finds himself hoping this is another miracle that his friend’s mere presence and stubbornness will help pull off.

 サスサク

The task is arduous and time consuming.

Sasuke is bizarrely conscious of the speed at which the time passes—too fast. They continue dragging survivors out from beneath the rubble—all unharmed, but looking more and more shambled as the rescue efforts reach deeper into the rubble. Every so often, there is a red glow, and the unearth another person being Naruto has managed to sense and enfold in his healing chakra cloak.

Sasuke uses his snake summons for the first time in years, sending them from his sleeve to slither around and crush rocks blocking their path. He digs one-handed while Naruto and the clones make quick work of their chosen debris fields.

They have yet to find Sakura, or a person that as died of their injuries; all of them so far have had a miniature clone of Lady Katsuyu attached somewhere on their bodies.

Yet he can’t sense Sakura.

“Her chakra signature is everywhere,” he frets. “She’s channelling it through Katsuyu to keep everyone alone. I can’t get a proper read on her.”

“And you won’t,” Lady Katsuyu says in a tremulous tone. “The byakugou has disengaged—her strength has finally run out.” She shudders. “We’re too far away. There’s no way we’ll make it to her in time. And I can only linger here a few minutes longer without her sustaining me.”

“We’ll make it!” Naruto growls, tone and eyes harsh like that of a cornered fox. There’s a panic there, belying his words, because he clearly has no idea how they’re going to do that.

It’s that panic more than anything so far that makes Sasuke’s guts roil and a sickening nausea of fear well up within him. Because Naruto never gives up, he always has hope and he always has some kind of harebrained plan to fix a bad situation.

And if he doesn’t have one in this case, it means Sakura’s fate is sealed.

Which—

No.

“You have a clone with Sakura now?” he asks Katsuyu.

“O-of course,” the snail replies, almost surprised at being addressed so directly.

“You can share your chakra between one another. Can you share the chakra of someone else the same way?”

Naruto’s eyes widen as he catches on. “Yes! If I share my chakra with you and your clone, I’ll able to sense where your clone is and we can find Sakura faster.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Lady Satsuyu replies mournfully. “And besides, I can’t share your chakra, Naruto-kun. The chakra of biju is too volatile, and unless a blood contract has been made, like yours with the toads, it would become too volatile.”

“You wouldn’t need a contract with me,” Sasuke says. “My chakra is entirely my own.”

The slug’s head bobs to one side in consideration, and then she makes a noise of assent. “We can try.”

Sasuke holds out his hand, allowing Lady Katsuyu to inch closer, pressing herself up against his palm. There’s a beat of tense silence as they both concentrate, Sasuke infusing a burst of chakra in the tiny creature’s body.

She shudders from the force of it, her energy signature changing to a mixture of her own and his.

“It’s done,” she says, and he can feel a tiny twinge in his senses calling from far beneath the crumbled mountain.

Sasuke nods and begins to back away from the rubble. “Get beneath her.”

“I don’t understand,” Ando is saying. “How will that be any different from before? Lady Katsuyu was already able to direct us to Sakura.”

“He’s not just looking for Sakura’s location,” Naruto says with a grim smile. “He needs to know exactly where she is.”

“But why—?”

Sasuke tunes out the useless questions as he positions himself somewhere with a decent amount of clearance all around him. Bracing himself—he’s never tried this particular gambit before—he activates the Sharingan and reaches deep within his chakra reserves.

Instantly, violent purple energy manifests, bones and muscle and armor, as Susanoo encompasses him all around. The burning, ripping pain of it has almost become distant by now, and he focusses past it, still holding onto that shred of his chakra beckoning him from wherever Sakura is.

He turns his head, concentrating on the space in front of Susanoo’s empty right hand and activates the Rinnegan.

A portal twists into being from thin air, and Sasuke hardly waits before raising Susanoo’s hand and pressing the limb through the portal. He can distantly feel the weight of her against the flat of the hand as it materializes directly beneath her body, and then pulls her backward, shutting the portal immediately after extracting her to ensure none of the rubble baring down on her might follow.

As gentle as he can, Sasuke lays Sakura down upon the ground, Susanoo vanishing as her body touches the earth.

サスサク

Everyone is already kneeling around her when Sasuke touches back down, the chakra giant vanishing once more. Lady Katsuyu vanishes, no longer having Sakura’s strength to draw on, and Naruto is snapping something at Ando, probably to get help.

All of it washes over Sasuke in a meaningless, soundless wave as his eyes fall upon Sakura. His lungs tighten as he takes in her broken body.

Her legs are bruised and battered, crushed inward in some places and bones poking out of other places; it’s the same for her hips and several ribs. Her eyes are open and staring, a trail of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth and nose.

The sight is terrifying.

For a short yet eternal moment he is back in the streets of the Uchiha district, surrounded by the bodies of his family. Just as he was then, he is frozen now—inutile and incapable of doing anything.

“Naruto…” he begins, not knowing exactly what he’s trying to ask.

“This is bad,” Naruto says, voice strained. His eyes are slits once more, his sage mode active as a red film covers Sakura’s body. “I can heal the big stuff, but so much has been pulverized…” He swallows as if in physical pain; Sasuke knows the feeling. “She needs someone that can do surgery at the microlevel. If I heal her right now, like this, I could do a lot more harm then good.”

It’s a measure of how far Naruto’s come that he recognizes this, that he knows not to simply ram through his power and hope it helps.

Sasuke doesn’t know what will help now.

Scenarios and plans speed through a mind more suited for battle tactics than life-saving measures, as he tries to think of any way that he can help her and wishing for the first time in a long time that Karin were here.

Wishing he had ever taken the time to learn more about the healing arts than how to kill.

All the while, the sight of Sakura’s shattered limbs taunting him as her blood seeps into the sand.

Sasuke blinks.

Sand.

The memory hits him out of nowhere, the way many of his recollections from before do. Waking in a hospital, distantly hearing people talking about a fight—sand versus strength.

“Tsunade,” Sasuke says, remembering how the Fifth Hokage dealt with something similar. Right around the time she healed his mind from Itachi’s merciless assault on it, she saved Rock Lee from a life of paralysis.

Naruto is frowning, once again on the same wavelength as him. “No one knows where she is.”

“I’ll find her. Get Sakura back to Konoha—”

“No…”

Both of them jump at the pained, feeble voice and glance down.

Sakura’s eyes are closed now, clenched as tight as her jaw when she speaks through gritted teeth. “There are still…people…” She tries to raise a hand, gesture toward the rubble. “Naruto…stay and…help…”

“Sakura, no!” he snaps. “You’re in a mess right now, I need to keep you going until—”

“…Too much…damage…wasting your…chakra…”

“Sakura,” Sasuke says tersely, and her eyes shoot open toward him. Awareness flickers behind green irises, along with some surprise, as if she didn’t realize or expect him to be there.

“Sasu…ke…”

He shivers.

There has never been a time in his life when he and Sakura haven’t been aware of the presence of the other. The fact she didn’t notice him is telling in the severity of her injury…as is her not expecting him to be by her side.

After all, when has he ever been?

What has he ever done for her?

“We have to get her out of here,” Naruto says. “Do you have enough strength for another portal?”

Sasuke nods, though he isn’t sure; he’s used his abilities twice now in quick succession. But for Sakura, he’ll try.

The space beside them rips open, once more opening onto the familiar rooftops of Konoha as seen from Hokage Tower. All they need to do is step through, and so Naruto goes to pick Sakura up, only for her to scream in sudden sharp agony.

Sasuke’s heart stutters, his concentration wavering slightly, allowing the portal to shrink and contract worryingly.

“She’s too hurt,” Naruto says, panicked. “We need to keep her on her back or…I might sever something important.”

There are no stretchers here, no immobilizing aids to move her. If he had any idea where Tsunade Senju was, he’d seek her out and return her here instantly, but he doesn’t have that time and neither does Sakura.

“I’ll bring her,” Sasuke says.

“But—”

“You stay here. Help the survivors.”

There’s something on his face that keeps Naruto from arguing further, but Sasuke is no longer paying attention. Once again, he centers himself, trying to divide his power between the portal and call up Susanoo in just the right manner.

It takes searing concentration to manifest Susanoo’s hand in the space between Sakura’s body and the ground, letting the chakra fill in beneath her and keep her steady and supine.

Sakura’s eyes are wide, trained on him in something like desperation, before they roll back and she lapses into unconsciousness.

Sasuke’s lungs constrict, but he forces himself to work through it, to slide Susanoo’s hand straight through the portal until Sakura is no longer lying among the debris of the dead but in the safety of their village.

Sweat breaks out across his forehead and the back of his neck, and he tastes blood in his mouth, but he manages to retract the chakra within him. He’s about to step through when—

“Wait!”

He grits his teeth, eyes darting back to the kid—Ando—who has returned.

“Let me come too,” he says. “I can keep her stable, or—or go get someone from the hospital, or—”

“Go!” Sasuke snarls, half from effort and half from irritation the boy is taking up valuable seconds.

A terrified expression breaks over Ando’s face for a moment, before he throws himself headlong through the portal.

“Find Tsunade,” Sasuke tells Naruto as he follows. He doesn’t have to hear the response to know he will.

サスサク

He has no right to be here.

The intensive care wing of Konoha’s hospital is a flurry of movement as doctors and nurses and medic-nin rush in and out of the surgery where they are working on Sakura. He lingers outside the doors, his own self-recrimination keeping him out here more than the ‘Staff Only’ sign on the door.

He doesn’t deserve to be here, to hear news of her condition. He left—he’s always leaving—and she’s always waiting. She’s always here and he realizes with a sudden disbelief that somehow, somewhere along the line something in him has taken that for granted.

Ever since the War, ever since watching her blossom into her abilities and to demonstrate power that makes her neigh indestructible, he’s been thinking of her as if she is. As if she’s a constant that will never change, that will always exist.

Like she’s immortal.

Except she’s not, she can die like anyone else.

It’s something taken for granted in their line of work, but medic-nin die the same as anyone else in the service. And Sakura would be the first to insist she is no more important than anyone else, that her life is the same value as any of their comrades. He knows if given the choice she’d sacrifice that same life without any regret—hell, he watched her try to do just that today.

That knowledge—and the reality of what is happening behind that door in front of him, the image of the light in her eyes dying—steals his breath.

Will that be his last memory of her? A broken body pulled from a wreckage?

Very real terror grips him then, something he hasn’t felt in years. A close, clawing sensation and his lungs constricting as something jagged forms in his throat. Nightmares of blood in the streets, blood in his hands and the rush of a waterfall in the background, the chirping of lightning in his ears—

“Sasuke.”

His head jerks up, the world around him returning, senses no longer going haywire to stave off the incoming panic.

Kakashi is standing beside him—when did he get here?—eyes somber. There’s a beat before he reaches out, hesitant, and lays a hand on his shoulder.

It’s as if a current is going through him, memories from long ago, that same hand on his shoulder. It’s the first time Kakashi has reached out to him since he left Konoha as a child.

“I’ve had news from Naruto,” his former instructor continues. “He’s found Tsunade.”

And somehow with those three words, every bit of tension in Sasuke’s body evaporates. He realizes he hasn’t been breathing and tries his best not to gulp for air, forces himself to inhale slowly through his nose, to not lose his composure.

Kakashi, of course, is not fooled. “Sakura will be alright. She’s strong.”

Sasuke wants to reply that he knows, he’s always known, but his tongue is still frozen. Instead, he returns his gaze upon the door, trying to sense what is happening beyond it.

He feels Kakashi remove his hand, but the man’s intense stare remains on him.

“I should go,” he eventually manages to say. Yet his legs refuse to move.

“You should stay. You’re exactly where you need to be.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re exactly where she needs you to be.”

Sasuke’s protest dies before it was truly born, and he goes back to trying to breath. Inhale and hold; exhale and repeat. It doesn’t matter what he needs or wants, after all.

Why?

Sakura is Sakura. Yes, they have always had a connection, a bond, but it’s the same connection he’s had with the rest of his former squad. You can’t go on missions or into battle with one another without developing a synchronicity. Even if the connections are different.

With Kakashi it’s the kindred spirit of someone who has lost everything almost the same as he has, with Naruto it’s a bond that can never be replicated for the most complicated of cosmic reasons.

And yet…with Sakura, there’s something different there.

He always thought it was nostalgia, the last lingering remnants of a weak child desperate for whatever scrap of affection was offered to him after losing his parents. Every moment he’s ever spent with her, he pretended like it didn’t affect him at all; and yet, there was always that eagerness he had to tamp down, wanting to see the smile on her face because he knew he didn’t deserve it.

A smile he missed in the years training with Orochimaru, then wandering the world in penance. He knows she’s had feelings for him since they were children, and has has spent most of his last years hoping against hope that she’ll let him go and move on.

That she’ll find someone else, someone worthy of her, someone who will keep her safe and guard her heart against pain. Because that’s all he can give her is pain; tht, and a soul that will never completely heal.

Except it wont matter, will it, if she dies?

She’ll be gone, and he’ll be empty again. No matter where he goes, he’s always known that somewhere, Sakura is out there, keeping him in her heart. He knows that even if she does find another, there will always be a part of her that thinks of him, just like he will always have a part of him that thinks of her.

But if she dies…if she doesn’t make it through this…

Suddenly he can see it.

Years stretch out in front of him, bleak and empty and gray. Visits to a gravestone of a life that could have been. Regrets and pain and an endless void of existing instead of living.

More of everything he endured as a child, only this time, without the tiny ray of sunlight that Sakura willingly gave him.

And suddenly, he realizes he doesn’t want that.

A world without Sakura in it, is not one that he wants to be a part of.

He wants her—needs her—to be happy. And if her happiness is him…if he could ensure that happiness somehow…

Well, he’ll do whatever it takes.

Sasuke takes a shuddering breath at the realization.

It feels sudden, like a switch has been flipped with realization, and yet at the same time he knows it has always been this way.  

He’s in love with Sakura.

The world returns then in sharp focus, ignorant to the realizations he’s just made. Kakashi is still eyeing him with concern. Perhaps wondering if he’s going to have to talk him out of leaving the hospital, even though Sasuke knows that he’s not going anywhere until he can watch her open her eyes again.

Until she smiles at him again.

Maybe not even then.

“I’ll wait for her then,” he says, shaken but still somehow managing to control the timbre of his voice. He leans against the wall, eyes once more resting on the door in expectation.

I’ll wait for her forever.

終わり

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I want to know what you think of my story! Leave kudos, a comment or if writing comments isn't something you're comfortable with, as many of these (or other emojis) as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

栗

[themusicplayedherlife]

Can you write a continuation of the Tim Drake x demigod reader where he introduced reader to the rest of the family?

a/n: This time it didn’t take years for me to finish this request lmfao! I didn’t write much interaction between the family because they’re so many members of the batfam and I can’t write group settings for the life of me??? but I def had some ideas about Damian and his curiosity towards Reader, anyway, anon! Hope you enjoy!

Meeting the family is inevitable, according to Annabeth after a long and winded rant about having dinner with Tim and his family from your end. 

Granted, you knew most of his brothers and sisters in the Hermes cabin (including his three adopted siblings that he arrived at camp with), but knowing your fellow campers is one thing, getting to know them as the family he was raised with? That’s another matter altogether.

You knew of Dick Grayson, son of Aphrodite; Jason Todd, son of Ares; and Cassandra, daughter of Psyche. How could you not? They are prominent members of Camp Half-Blood. Maybe not like Percy and the rest of your group, but it‘s hard to ignore the adopted children of Bruce Wayne, ally of the gods and demigods (you had Wonder Woman and his adopted children to thank for that). Not only were they good looking, but they excelled in combat from the very moment they stepped foot into camp.  

But you only know them as that—fellow campers. This is you getting to know them... better—intimately. And not to mention getting to finally meet THE Bruce Wayne and the rest of his mortal family members in person! No more second hand stories from Tim, or listening in on the stories his siblings would recount to the curious campers.

Wow. This is definitely out of your comfort zone, isn’t it?

A warm hand wraps around your cold fingers, steadying your shaky limbs.

“Hey,” Tim softly says, squeezing your fingers as another hand cradles your cheek. “They’re going to love you, χρυσή μου.”

My golden one. You practically melt at the softness and love in his voice when he calls you so. A reminder of how much you mean to him, of how much he loves you.

You smile involuntarily and lean into his touch.

You’re not given the chance to return the affection, the double doors of the manor being thrown open followed by a loud raucous of:

“He’s right there!” from Jason, and “Stop being such a dick,” from a tall, beautiful redhead with freckles followed by a lot more noise and bickering from what you assume is the rest of his family members.

You practically recoil, pulse beginning to pick up and fingers slowly beginning to twitch in his hold.

“Babe,” Tim starts, cutting through all the noise and he flashes you a smile, a reassuring one, with a squeeze of your hand. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

You nod and try to return the smile, but there’s no denying that his words and touch manage to ground you just a bit further.

“That's enough,” a deep, calm voice interjects, the earlier bickering coming to an abrupt stop as you remind yourself to breathe.

Bruce Wayne is a lot taller than you had imagined him to be—very handsome too. His stare is even more intense than you had expected, sharper and darker than the smolders he’d spare the pictures taken of him prompted or unprompted. And you can’t help the way your mind scans over him, searching and prodding like it usually does--there’s a darkness in this man that you can’t ignore. Burning deep and hot like hellfire. You wonder if it originates from his traumatic childhood, or if the darkness began to grow with the years--with his journey as the masked vigilante.

Tim has his own darkness, and so do his siblings, but Mr. Wayne? It seems to be tenfold. Controlled, sure, but barely hanging on by a thread.

Bruce pulls you out of your momentary awe, his voice somewhat gruff, but still managing to be kind. “Welcome home,” he says, mostly to Tim, but the small lift of his lips in your direction makes you feel welcomed as well. Yes, there’s a darkness in him, but there’s also a kindness that is rarely seen in others. It’s that kindness that you’re sure has raised Tim and his siblings, taught them that unbearable need to help others with no expectations of reciprocation. They’re just... kind to be kind.

Is it that kindness that stops him from bursting?

Tim tugs you along with him up the final steps of the manor where he hugs his adopted father after letting you go momentarily. “Thank you, Bruce.” He turns to you, holding out his hand for you to take and introducing you to him with an air of pride, as if he’s talked about you aside from being his partner to him before. And seeing the expression of familiarity flash behind Bruce’s blue eyes, you know he has.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” you offer a bit shyly, unsure of whether to offer him your hand or if to lean in for a hug. You’re not exactly sure what the proper etiquette is to greeting a parent, let alone your boyfriend’s father. You’ve only had the chance to interact with Percy’s mom, and even that is rare. With the rest it’s always been a “hello! Must steal your child for a quest, bye!” Never a proper sit down where you can properly introduce yourself to them. 

Relief fills you when Bruce helps you by offering you his hand, mindful of which hand Tim is holding to keep you steady—emotionally and physically. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. Tim and Diana speak highly of you.”

You immediately feel the heat crawl on your skin. What exactly have they said? “Likewise, Mr. Wayne. And I just want to say, on behalf of all my friends, thank you for all that you have done for us at camp. We really appreciate it.”

Tim squeezes your hand when Bruce chuckles lowly and asks for you to drop the formalities, telling you to call him Bruce instead.

Before anyone else can introduce themselves to you or you can take note of who else has followed Bruce and Jason to the door, Jason lets out a loud groan. “Can we hurry this along? We know who she is already and I’m hungry!”

“Jason,” the same redhead from before scolds him, smacking him—quite harshly, might you add—on the arm before extending her hand in your direction. “Barbara Gordon.” Ah! Dick’s ex girlfriend! You’ve heard Tim and Dick mention her a couple of times before. Mostly about how she’s always down Dick’s throat for being too reckless or something, you’re not entirely sure. “I’m so glad you’re finally able to join us for dinner! We’ve been trying to convince Tim to bring you along for a while now!”

You know they have been. Tim has mentioned it before, but at the time, you weren’t exactly ready to be in a crowded room with strangers. You’re still not completely ready, but after a talk with Hazel and Annabeth, you decided you couldn’t put it off for much longer.

As Hazel said, “You love Tim, whether you want to admit it or not. And it’s pretty obvious Tim loves you, too! Making an effort to meet his family would show that to Tim without you having to say those words just yet.”

You squeeze Tim’s hand, hoping she’s right. “I’m sorry.”

She waves her hand, a warm smile on her face. “No, I’m sorry if we all seem a little impatient. I really hope we don’t put you off! We’re all just a little... eager to meet the person that has stolen our Timmy’s heart.”

“Babs!” Tim whines, but it goes ignored by Barbara.

She laughs. “Come on in! The rest of the family is waiting in the den.”

Dinner is chaotic. Not as chaotic as dinner is back at camp, but it’s still pretty chaotic.

The youngest and only biological child of Bruce Wayne, is Damian, a boy with a sharp tongue and a curious thing, eyeing you before quickly looking away with a huff and pretending he hadn’t just been staring at you. Unlike the rest of the family, the darkness in him is a speck compared to theirs, even if he speaks with harsh words and an air of indifference. There’s more of a childish innocence that surrounds him, and you can’t help but wonder if it’s attributed to the rest of his family trying to help him make the most of his childhood. 

You offer him a smile, one you hope doesn’t look strained or unnatural. You really do want to make him feel at ease with you. Make it easier for him to ask questions about you and your lineage like the rest of his family does.

Duke is the funniest of the group, not adopted, but still very much part of the family. He’s motivated, and just as smart as Tim, if their conversation about some riddle and case you briefly heard mentioned on the news is anything to go by. And just like Bruce and the rest of the family, he’s observant, maybe even more so than they are; offering you an out when it all becomes overwhelming by changing conversations or asking you if you need anything. He especially takes a liking to hearing stories of you and your mother, Athena, seemingly realizing that speaking about your mother is a clutch to you.

You can’t help it when you ask, “Are you sure you’re not a son of Athena’s?”

He’s taken aback by your question before laughing jovially. “That’d be so cool if I were, honestly! But nah, I’m just a regular ol’ meta-human.”

Dick snorts, leaning into your space to whisper loudly, as if to tease Duke—and completely ignoring the fact you lean away from him and closer to Tim—“Look at him nonchalantly trying to slip in that he’s not exactly human.”

Tim nudges Dick away from you with the palm of his hand, making his brother chuckle and back away with palms up in surrender. You thank Tim with a small smile which he returns.

Duke rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “How else was I supposed to say it?”

“Not at all,” Barbara adds in with a chirp, passing Cassandra the bowl of fruit that had been placed down by Alfred, their butler, something that you find really weird to say or even think. A butler! So weird.

“You guys are just jealous!”

Dick quirks an eyebrow in his direction. “I’m a child of Aphrodite.”

Jason pauses in his indulgence on seconds to flash him a smirk. “Ares.”

“Psyche,” Cassandra quietly adds as she adds fruit to her plate.

Tim grins. “Hermès.”

Damian glares at him without any heat. “My grandfather is Ra’s Al Ghul; my mother is Thalia Al Ghul; and my father is Batman.” Which is still wild to you. Who would’ve thought. I mean, other than the few conspiracies running around.

Barbara turns to you with an eye roll and you can’t help but laugh under your breath.

“Okay, all right, point taken! No need to flex. Damn.” Duke shakes his head. “A guy can’t even feel special.”

Bruce chuckles lowly. “You are special, Duke.” Duke lifts his head after huffing and beams, the rest of the family following after their father’s sincere words. “All of you are special.”

“But I’m more special, correct, father?”

A fond an exasperated chorus of “Damian!” fills the room.

The manor is quiet at night. Surprisingly enough.

Eleven people under one rooftop and you’re certain you could drop a pin on the floor and it’d resound throughout the manor.

And yet, even in the quiet, you and Tim lay awake in his childhood bedroom, too wired to fall asleep and give into your tiredness; both of you laying on your side and facing each other.

“You’re drained,” you whisper to Tim, brushing his hair falling over his eyes behind his ear.

He hums, closing his eyes as your fingers trail down the back of his ear and to his jaw. “I love my family, but it can be too much when everyone is together.”

You let out a small huff of a laugh, tapping your finger against his chin gently before dropping your hand down next to your face. “It’s not as bad as camp.”

“Maybe,” he agrees absentmindedly. “But at least at camp I can go hide out with you in your cabin or sneak off to the lake.”

”Guess so.”

His lashes flutter as brilliant blue eyes appear once more. “Meeting my family didn’t tire you out?”

You smile, hearing the worry in his voice. “A little. But it was fun meeting them. Loved them.”

“Yeah?” he asks, wrapping you up in his arms.

“Yeah,” you whisper, patting his chest with your palms, his heartbeat a soothing thump against your hand. “Almost as much as I love you.”

His long fingers wrap around your wrist just as it stutters under your hand. “Do you mean it?” He asks breathless, barely heard in the darkness of his room full of wooden book shelves and books you can’t believe he actually read at some point in his life. 

“What?” You ask, watching him as he brings the hand that had been resting on his chest to his lips.

He presses a gentle kiss against your skin, eyes never leaving yours. “That you love me.”

You freeze, eyes moving from the hand he’s kissing to his brilliant blue eyes that don’t seem to ever stop sparkling. Even in the darkness he’s pure light, and you don’t understand how he can shine so brightly when the darkness surrounds him, practically ready to devour him. But you wouldn’t let it. You would never let that darkness take a hold of him. And if it ever did, you’d fight to bring him back, even if it meant going back to Tartarus, you would. “Yes,” you whisper.

His lips curve, smile growing and taking shape as he leans closer. Your hand rests on his cheek as you take him in; as he practically melts under your confession and touch. “I love you too, χρυσή μου.”