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chronic-ghost · 1 year

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Chapter 9 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 11845

chapter summary: if you thought you knew the full story of natalie lorraine, you were myth-taken

chapter warnings/tags: non-consensual touching, implied sexual assault, emotionally abusive parents, drug/alcohol use, underaged drug/alcohol use, women existing in the male gaze, putting too much of myself into characters as per yooshg

a/n: Header comes from the “Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses” by John William Waterhouse. Song for this chapter is Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac – watch me make a fic playlist after the fact lmao. Bear with me while I wax embarrassingly poetic about my favorite oc blorbo. Remember this does end well!!!

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There are many different types of myth but, essentially, they can be grouped into three: etiological myths, historical myths, psychological myths. Etiological myths can offer explanations for why the world is the way it is. Historical myths retell an event from the past but elevate it with greater meaning than the actual event (if it even happened). [Lastly] psychological myths present one with a journey from the known to the unknown which, according to both Jung and Campbell, represents a psychological need to balance the external world with one's internal consciousness of it. – Mythology, Joshua Mark

“in front of my mother and my sisters,

i pretend love is cheap and vulgar.

i act like it’s a sin–

i pretend that love is for women on a dark path.

but at night i dream of a love so heavy

it makes my spine throb–

i dream up a lover who makes love like he is

separating salt from water.”

— Salma Deera, “salt”

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

And like in all the great myths, birth is a painful, violent emergence.

Slowly, labored across years and many heartbeats, what remains is the inevitable conclusion of being fucked over, of being lazy and careless, of innocence taken too soon. Careless children grow up to be careless mothers, careless fathers.

The titans of the world leave to make their mark on history and, in doing so, mark their children in a way more powerful, more regretful than any legend could possibly make them out to be.

Medea is brutalized in legends and in verse for the most heinous a mother can commit.

Odysseys forgets what being a father means.

Oedipus Rex curses his children with an unforgivable sin by way of their mother, their grandmother, and that staggering failure is felt through to Antigone, a generation removed. Antigone dies. Haemon and Eurydice die too. Pain and grief are family heirlooms passed through pale fingers at the stroke of midnight.

But despite all that. Before all that.

Myths begin when the heroes are forced to make a choice, choose a direction in the way their lives end up. It might not always be obvious, and the gods might have things in store for them. But there is a choice and the fallen hero always chooses.

But they were all children once. You have to remember that. You have to believe that.

(Aetiologic)

I hate these socks, you think to yourself, they’re itchy and they hurt my toes. Every time you swing your legs over the edge of that leather couch, your legs too short to touch the ground, the toe of your shoe pinches you. You really, really want to take off your shoes, but Mom said you had to keep them on all day, especially in the office. In his office. You think your dress looks like one of your baby dolls and you don’t like it.

So you stop kicking, even though the sound of your heel against the leather made a funny noise. You can move too, and make the leather squeak, and that is pretty fun too. Grinning, you bounce like you aren’t supposed to on your bed back home, the cushions chirping – it sounds like they’re farting – you giggle, rocking back on your hands from left to right, squealing along with the leather as you made it –

“Enough!”

You freeze, tears immediately welling in your eyes, fear almost painful in your chest.

But he’s not talking to you. Your father is still in his office, with the door barely shut, and he’s talking to someone on the phone. Yelling, actually. He’s been in there since the little hand was on the fifteen and now it’s on the thirty. He told you to wait there while he called your mom. You tried to sit still, but it was boring and all the toys were back in the other room.

He never yelled at you, your dad, but he did yell at your mom.

When you talked to the other kids in your preschool class, their mommies and daddies lived in the same house together, slept in the same bed, talked nicely to each other. Yours didn’t.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with her, LeAnne? I told you I have a meeting at four today and she could be here for three hours. I told you! I can’t have her here! You need to come pick up your daughter!”

Your foot kicks up and down. You didn’t like it when they talked about you like you weren’t there.

“Hey there.” A woman with blonde hair and big eyes sits down next to you. She was always around your dad, and always handled his papers and briefcase and sometimes his coffee. She is younger than your mom but way older than you are. You think she’s really, really pretty. None of her dresses look like baby doll dresses. “I’m sorry your dad is taking so long. Do you want something to eat, or drink?”

You shake your head. Your mom said not to talk to strangers, so you didn’t open your mouth.

“Are you bored? Do you wanna watch some TV?”

TVs were everywhere in your dad’s office building. Down near the elevators, and then more when you got out. It always seemed like people were watching a tv and the actors on the tv. Actors were people whose job it was to be on the tv or in the movies, your dad told you. He told you he knew a lot of famous actors, but when you told the kids in your class about it, they said they didn’t know any of those people.

“You’re just making things up!”

“You’re a liar!”

You really wanted your dad to introduce you to an actor, just to prove them wrong. You thought it was pretty cool how everyone was always watching them. Like they couldn’t look away.

You nod at the pretty lady. She smiles and picks up the skinny black tv remote on the table in front of the couch.

The tv in the corner of the room pops on. The size of it doesn’t take up the wall like some of the tvs in the office do, but it’s still bigger than the one you have at home.

The nice lady taps the button a few times, the channels changing, until she comes to the kids channel. It’s a little old for you – all of the shows at preschool are cartoons and this one has real people in it – but you want this woman to like you.

“Do you like this one? Friends in the Family? It’s so funny!”

She turns and leans back against the couch with you. You hear people laughing on the screen, even though you don’t see anyone. There’s a young girl, older than you but younger than this nice lady, and she has a boy with her on her parents’ couch. The boy leans in and kisses her cheek and the invisible people go ‘oooooh’.

“Ooooh!” You mimic and the nice woman laughs, grinning at you. Something warm and tight goes up your chest, and you pinch your lip with your teeth, toes curling in your stupid shoes. You liked making her laugh.

On the screen, a little girl – maybe the other girl’s sister – pushes through the kitchen door. You gasp in surprise. She looks like she could be in your preschool class. She’s all mad and she crosses her arms, pouting.

“Someone’s gonna get it!”

The invisible people laugh and the nice lady giggles so hard she leans forward and you’re giggling too, even though you don’t quite get it. That warm feeling reminds you of when you drink soda too fast, but it’s good.

You frown too, put your hands on your hips, parroting the little girl on tv, “someone’s gonna get it!”

Her pretty mouth opens in surprise, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh my God, that was so good! You sound just like her!” You giggle, your face hot. “Have you ever asked your dad about acting?”

You shake your head. You, an actor? On tv? No way!

“Well, you should! You could be really good!”

You don’t know what to say, you want to keep making the same faces that little girl is, when your dad’s door opens. The young woman next to you lurches forward and shuts off the tv. He comes out and you can’t tell if he’s angry or upset or if that’s just how he looks. You’re not around him enough to know. But he stands in front of you, thinking something.

“Judy, would you get us two juice boxes from the fridge downstairs?”

“Of course, Mr. Milken.”

The young woman leaves and you’re a little afraid. You don’t want him to yell at you for watching that show for older kids. You twist your little fingers.

“That was your mom on the phone. She’s going to be a little late.”

You nod. “Okay.”

“Did you have fun today at my office? Did you like meeting all my friends?”

You nod, this time quicker. “Yes! I would like to meet an actor one day!”

At that, he smiles and you relax. People who are angry don’t smile.

“While we wait for your mom, do you wanna play paper football?”

“What’s that?”

“C’mon. I’ll show you.”

So the myth begins. All it takes is a single idea. A single want. A single desire. An innately human desire. We build myths and we tell stories and we fill them with the things we want to hear.

You’re turning fourteen next month. It’s circled on your calendar in your bedroom. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal, but at least now you could start the emancipation process. If you wanted to. You laid awake at night, thinking about what you’d call yourself if you ever changed your name. Something vaguely French-sounding. European for sure. But they were just fantasies to get you through the day.

It’s early in the morning. You haven’t heard anything from Mom’s room in a while so you figure it’s just the two of you in the house again. You totter out of your room, blinking sleep from your eyes – it was a very late night on set last night and probably would be again, given how the production of this made-for-tv movie was going and especially with the extra homework you’ve been doing to make up for the time off you’ve taken – as you wander across the small, sun-streaked living room, and around the corner to the kitchen. You hear something from the fridge and just as you are about to ask your mom if she’s cooking (which is never a good idea), a man stands up. He’s older than you but younger than your mom and he has the last piece of your sourdough bread in his mouth. He smirks and you unconsciously tug down the hem of your sleep shorts.

This has been happening more and more lately. The way men, older men, look at you, it’s different now. Has been for a while, but now there’s more of them, their gazes sit on your bare skin longer, the light in their eyes changing, the lines around their mouths tightening. You don’t really know what it is they want, but it’s baffling to you that they think looking at you like that will convince you to give anything to them.

It's the way your mom’s new boyfriend is looking at you. Your cheeks heat up without your consent and you hate it.

He’s hungry and he’s scrounging around in the fridge and now he’s looking at you. Still hungry.

“Hey, you must be LeAnne’s daughter,” he says, taking the bread slice out of his mouth and propping his hairy arm on the top of the refrigerator door, his gaze sweeping you from head to toe as if deciding whether or not to make a sandwich out of you. Who likes this kind of shit? Oh, that’s right. Your mom.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Yeah. That’s me. Is she here?”

His eyes follow the backs of your thighs as you walk over to the coffee pot and take out week-old coffee grounds. They’ve turned blue, started to mold, but you dump them out into the trash with three good smacks.

“Uh, she’s still in bed. She said you could get to school on your own.”

Behind you, the fridge door slams shut and you curl your toes, begging yourself not to flinch. There’s something inside of you demanding you to not show weakness. Steadying your own hand, you dig into the jar holding the coffee grounds. It’s halfway empty, you make a note to pick up some later, the thought pressed up against the swell of panic that’s growing at the edge of your awareness.

“I’m Alan.” He leans up against the counter out of the corner of your eye. “I know we just met, but I could take you, to school . . . if you want.”

His thick middle has nothing to do with age, only poor health. Evident further by his off-yellow teeth and bad breath.

“I’m o-okay. Thank you.”

There’s three minutes left on the coffee timer. His gaze is like open palms on your skin. You hate it. He sidles up closer and your nails dig half-moon crescents into your skin. The lovely smell of coffee brewing is overwhelmed by his cheap cologne. He’s big. Bigger than you. Bigger than any of the boys in your class, or any of the men on set. You’ve never really noticed the men on set, they’ve never been this close before, but you’re sure he’s bigger than all of them.

You’ve never felt quite so small.

“You were in that movie, right? ‘Those ain’t your average space-invaders’, that was you right?” You nod, the back of your throat drying out. He chuckles. “You were good. Really good. You were so pretty.”

“I was ten.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Ten outta ten.”

Your stomach clenches and it’s like he can tell. Alan reaches the two inches across the linoleum and gently strokes your forearm. A light, smelly panic sweat breaks out over your forehead, under your armpits.

You want him away from you, want him gone, to run back to your room, but where would that get you?

Roll over, play dead, show your under belly. You don’t know what else to do to make him go away.

“Well, if you see my mom,” you ease around him, your forearm sliding from his grasp just as his fingers tighten, making sure you don’t seem offended, “tell her I’ve got a ride to–,”

“Hey, wait, where ya going?”

You all but run back to your room, the coffee pot beeping behind you. You throw open your bedroom door and leap inside, locking it behind you. You don’t realize you’re panting until you feel light-headed, dizzy – you feel sticky all of a sudden and rush into your bathroom. Steam pours from the scalding hot water, the red handle all the way to the right, as you stand over it, watching it rush down the drain. With your lips pinched between your teeth, you run your hands under it and muffle a scream. It hurts. It burns but it’s like his touch is evaporating off your skin and there’s relief in that. It’s the first time you realize that the pain you give yourself is different from the pain that they give you.

Not all of them are like that.

Some of them are actually kind of okay.

You’re fifteen and dressed as a pumpkin for the Halloween party hosted by the studio, the suit baggy and oversized, and for once, your mom’s friends don’t stare at you. No one really has all night and it’s nice. You feel like you can ease into the wall and no one would notice. There’s a long black couch on the other side of a plant with glowing lights in the shape of ghosts wrapped around its trunk. You stepside around a few directors, one of your other actors, and head straight for the couch.

You don’t realize Jim, your mom’s current boyfriend is already there until you sit down and groan. He laughs from the opposite end and you jump.

He’s more her age, thankfully, and doesn’t really seem to notice if you’re at home or not. In fact, you can’t really remember another conversation with him that lasted longer than a few minutes.

“You liking the party?” He asks.

You shrug – never show your actual feelings. “It’s kinda late. I’ve got classes on Monday, so I’m hoping to make it an early night.”

He nods, slowly, distracted. There’s something about his eyes that isn’t right. Not in the way that he looks at you, but at everything, like he’s trying to look through a dense fog.

Your mother is nowhere to be found, which isn’t entirely out of the ordinary for this sort of thing. She’d either show up and be the life of the party or show up so trashed she had to be escorted out of the building.

But it is odd for her to just leave one of her toys lying around.

“Do you know where my mom is?” You ask Jim and he shakes his head, as though it takes a considerable amount of effort just to hold himself upright. There’s definitely something wrong with him.

And then you see the smoke coming from his fingers and you finally realize that skunky smell is coming from him.

He sees your gaze fall. “You want a hit?” He asks, either not remembering your question or not wanting to answer.

You’d never tried it before, not really having time between shooting schedules and school and your mom wanting to take you out to meet new casting directors and writers. You sit there, staring and realize Jim is probably one of the only consistent people you see in your life, everyone else a revolving door of names and faces and elbows to rub. A tiredness breaks over you like the push of a wave and you sway, wanting nothing more than to be at home under the covers. You wish you’d brought your walkman, so you could have hid out on the soundstage until the party was over.

You’d grown skinny over the past year. Rewarded and praised for it by producers and studio execs, you saw that people listened to you more, looked you in the eye when you were beautiful, made more beautiful by the thinness of your cheeks, your narrow thighs. Your mother was convinced you were taking pills, but couldn’t find anything in the house. And yet, the real reason behind it all was sometimes you were just too tired to eat. Too tired to move. Happy to curl up wherever you found yourself and sleep until the next person needed something from you.

But this is what you wanted, after all. You asked for a life of movies and revolving doors and fake people and men staring at your ass. You are reminded of this all the time.

You nod at Jim, curiosity getting the better of you and wondering if other girls did this sort of thing in basements or with their friends or boyfriends. You portray a teenage girl on television, but sometimes you don’t feel like one at all.

He reaches out to you and you take it. You’d smoke a cigarette once, with a few of the kids from that one time you guest-starred on that sitcom, so you think this’ll be the same.

“What’s it going to feel like?” You ask, the white paper inches from your lips. Jim looked at you and his eyes sort of crinkled.

“It’s good. Real good. Like there’s a cloud between you and the rest of the world.”

That did sound nice.

You put your lips and inhale – it burns in a way you weren’t expecting – and you cough. Jim laughs in a way that makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong, that you’re silly.

“You’ll get it,” he says, “you’ll get it.”

You try again and remember that he held his breath before exhaling. You do the same, but the scratch makes your eyes water, your chest tighten, but you hold on, until you feel smoke cauterizing the back of your throat close and you cough again, less this time.

Jim laughs again and takes back the skunky cigarette. “Hey, look at that, your first joint and you handled it like a champ.”

He smokes more, losing interest in you, so he turns and watches the party. Your heart beats roughly in your chest, but that might be more of the nerves than anything else. You fidget on the couch, waiting for something to happen, but it never does.

“I think I need another h-hit. I don’t feel anything.”

Jim frowns at you, shaking his head. “Hell no. You took two giant puffs on your first go. I’m not babysitting you when you’re puking in the toilet with the spins.”

“The spins?”

“When you drink while you’re high. Can be a real bad mix.”

You blush, wondering if he saw you take sips from the flask in your purse or he just assumes you’re always drinking because you’re LeAnne’s daughter.

“Just sit back, relax, you’ll feel it. In a bit.”

So you try his approach, nonchalantly watching people dressed in devil costumes, in white vampire fangs and cloaks, little skimpy bunny outfits, as the party rages on. You watch, and slowly, the whole thing feels distant. Like you’re in the far back of a theater and everything in front of you is some sort of stage.

You find you like it in the back row, in the quiet and the darkness. It’s warm, sort of like you’re dizzy but you sway with the movement and you don’t get sick. You find that you are rolling your head back and forth and you giggle.

Jim smirks at you, that joint almost gone. “Yeah, there it is.”

You’d never been high like this before. Buzzed a little bit from the beer in your flask, but this was new. This was . . .

“It’s nice,” you smile widely to the ceiling. “Does it always feel this way?”

“Like I said, you can mix with alcohol and get really fucked up.” Jim shrugs. “And different strains do different things. This is gonna relax your brain, but there’s others that’ll give you a body high.”

Body, this thing you’re in that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.

“But a mental high from weed and a mental high from glue are like two totally different things.”

Your bones feel like they weigh a thousand pounds and you could just melt into the leather. But you turn your head, dropping it against the back of the couch.

“You can get high from glue?”

“You can get high from just about anything.”

“Oh.”

The needle-like feeling that pricks your heart every time you come to one of these parties is gone. The sloshy oozy feeling in your stomach when you go into public with your mother is gone. There is nothing left inside of you except weight and heat and air that comes in through your nose and out through your mouth.

You giggle again. What if this is how a pumpkin feels all the time?

“Will it always feel like this?”

He doesn’t understand your question, doesn’t care enough to think about it, so he answers the only way he can. “Nah, should only last for a few hours. Then you’re good. No hangover, which is a plus.”

“But I always want it to feel this way.”

He grins again and pulls out a small plastic baggy with some fuzzy brussel-sprout-looking vegetable inside.

“Got twenty bucks on you?”

You’re sixteen and you’ve just started in your first major motion picture. Offers are rolling in, you no longer have to seek them out. The brand new telephone for your brand new house is constantly ringing. You have to unplug it to sleep at night. But that usually makes your mother yell at you.

She wants to answer every call that comes through. As if this house was hers.

You sit cross-legged on your bed, grinding up the weed you bought off a sound-stage guy earlier today in your silver grinder, your headphones in to drown out the noises coming from the other side of the house as well as the ones in your head.

This boyfriend was not so nice and in a drunken stupor grabbed your ass in front of LeAnne. She raged and yelled and blamed you.

Get out, she told you. Leave. Get out. We don’t want you here. Leave.

This is my house, you old bitch.

Licking the paper gently, you finish rolling the joint and press pause on your walkman. Stevie Nicks pauses in her crooning, and is it over now, do you know how? pick up the pieces and go home, and you remind yourself to find a purply drape at the next flee market. Reaching to the end of the bed, you plug in your headphones to the hot pink tv and flip to the right station.

Henry had sent in a new tv for your birthday, and you had that promptly thrown out. You bought this with your first check from residuals.

It’s almost eleven. It’s about to start.

You light the joint, inhaling smoothly, as the credits for Twenty-Three and Fun start up.

The joint quivers at the end of your knee, your toes curling. It wasn’t produced by your father’s company, but it was all anyone talked about at school, in the gossip mags. You thought about buying Tiger Beat just for the pictures . . . of one specific cast member.

You bite your nail as the theme song plays and the credits roll through all the gorgeous, young actors smiling as they go about their perfectly average lives in the big city.

And then his name shows up and you inhale smoke quickly to stifle the thing expanding in your chest.

Dieter Bravo.

His smooth soft hair, dark sweet eyes. God, he is so cute.

Your hand clenches the sheets. You’ve never had a boyfriend, only been kissed once while at dance in between shooting schedules that you’d begged your mom to let you attend. It was bad, it tasted bad, his lips were rubbery and wet, and you didn’t feel anything.

Not like when you imagine what it would be like to be kissed by him.

Twenty-Three and Fun is out of your demographic, but maybe you could convince someone to let you try out for the part of someone’s little sister who comes in for the weekend. You’d just love the chance to meet him. He makes you feel like nothing you’ve ever felt before, nothing you know what to do with, but you tingle all over with it.

You’re at the tail end of sixteen when the spiral starts.

When you don’t know where to put this loneliness that’s been dragging you down.

Men stare at you but not in the way you want. Girls your own age won’t look at you, and women glare at you while their husbands stare. And boys, God, boys your own age –

You wipe the tears from your eyes, the wind snarling through your hair, the heat of the summer night sinking into your skin like wet clay. You know you’re driving too fast, but you don’t care.

Every day you go to work and put on someone else’s skin. Their clothes. Their face. For a while, it’s been freeing, to pretend to have normal problems, a normal family, a normal life. Because you knew even if you had never chosen to go into your father’s industry – which was now just as much yours – you knew your life wasn’t ever going to be normal. Not in the way it mattered anyway.

But there is something there when you step in front of a camera. A feeling that doesn’t come from a dark place, from feelings of abandonment and loneliness – it comes from a place inside of you that still feels like you own, still is yours to hold and keep safe, despite everyone taking things from you without asking. Instead of taking, it gives. It builds. It grows, despite the salted earth of your soul.

You like becoming someone else for a while, thinking as they do. Dancing, laughing, eating, playing as someone other than yourself. You like to create. You crave it. You create life for someone else that doesn’t exist and you love it. It feels right, imagining something if not for you, for someone else. Someone who looks like you but isn’t you. It feels good to dream.

But lately.

Lately, this job is no longer an act of creation. It’s fake smiles and ad campaigns and commercials and it feels rotten. Hollow. Like you’re under the eyes of a thousand leering men instead of just one. It feels cheap. You feel cheap, for wanting it to be something more. This desire for life itself dies in your hands, choked out, aborted before it had the chance to breathe.

Your body, yourself, is being twisted, molded into something you don’t want it to become and the only time, the only time you feel as though you have even some slight control is when you have none at all. When you detach from your corporeal form, so high or drunk you can’t feel your fingers.

It began with the beer your mom’s boyfriends left in the fridge, then the pills in her medicine cabinet. Then the mini bottles of Crown Royal and Jim Beam in the mini-fridges at your dad’s office. No one ever seemed to care when you swiped the whole row into your backpack. Maybe others had done the exact same thing.

You didn’t know how or why these things made you feel better but they did. You didn’t care about the tears on your face, the hot flood of anger beating in your chest, and you didn’t care about the speed limit, not even when you saw the flashing red and blue lights.

But you started to care when they put you in lock up and then you definitely did when your father’s lawyer bailed you out.

You went home and threw up for six hours. No one came to check on you, no one came to find you when you yanked the phone cord out of the wall. You clutched the porcelain basin of the toilet for what felt like days. Years. You aged decades that night.

When you woke up, you showered, ate, and called back your father’s lawyer.

You had decided on a name, a new name to put on the emancipation papers.

You told the lawyer very clearly and seriously over the phone: “I want my name to be Natalie Lorraine.”

It was the emancipation that finally did it. The final chop from the parental vine. The day she kicked you out, you came home from school, in between shoots for a new film with Gerard Butler and in talks for something with Helen Miram, and you find your mother curled up on the kitchen table. At first, you legitimately thought she was dead; the top half of her body was crumpled against the wood, her feet tangled with the rungs of the chair. She faced away from you, her right hand curled around an empty crystal tumbler and a three-fourths empty bottle of Belvedere inches from her fingertips.

You stare, dumb-founded, your heart so slow you could hear it pound like a drum in your ears. And then she twitches.

And then she wails.

“How could you? How could you do this to me? I’m your mother. You owe me. You owe me you owe me you owe me.”

She heaves boneless to the floor, the glass and bottle slipping out of her hand and shattering like droplets of rain. You can’t move, transfixed, as your mother, hands split open, knees carving bloody trails across the tile, drags herself towards your feet, like a freshly dug-up corpse.

She’s muttering, spitting, snarling – she’s a starved, beaten beast, ready to make its last stand.

You were a mistake

You ruined me

You ruined your father for me

Her sentences are blurred, notched together, overlapping, and intertwining. The only thing you remember is the vitriol and hatred more palpable than her own breath.

Someone older, someone more separated from their pink, flushed girlhood would have the callouses to ease the burn, dull the cut. But at sixteen, you didn’t. At sixteen, with a burgeoning substance abuse problem and at the mercy of the first of many instances where adulthood begins to rob you of the small pleasures of life, you watch your mother crumble and it scares you.

In that moment you want nothing more than to be taken care of, in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s asking too much but it clearly is. You want to be safe in a way that is primal, the animal fear of the dark and unknown. You’ve seen your mother drunk before but not this drunk, never heard the sounds she’s making — the wailing, the disappointment, the sorrow and rage. It scares you so badly you want to cry.

The gap between girlhood and womanhood is closed when you understand your mother is only human. Nothing less. And nothing more.

She’s still muttering hateful, horrible things as you take her to her feet and ease her onto the couch.

She’s silent when you throw a blanket over her.

She’s pale, shaking, green.

Go away. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you around me. Leave me alone.

Leave me.

Go away.

You leave her, not knowing if it's serious enough to call 911, if you can actually die from drinking too much, but that fear, that vice-grip around your chest, it’s squeezing your lungs so tightly, tears leak out of the corner of your eyes. But then it sinks. Sinks into your bones, your blood, your muscles. Watching your mother folded up like a broken doll, you experience fear like you’ve never felt before.

Blink and you’re in your room.

Blink and you’re under your bed, curled up, knees to your chin, and you’re crying. You can’t stop crying. It’s the only thing that seems to appease the fear, the sense that nothing is real and everything is going to turn out badly and it makes your stomach twist. You gag on your own spit and you shake and you tremble and you experience your first panic attack without anyone to tell you what’s going on. How to survive something like that. You grow up thinking this is how everyone lives and you’re just too pathetic to take it. You let that shame and embarrassment fester and grow because it has no way of stopping.

Your father is also served with the papers.

Two weeks later, the production for your upcoming movie was suddenly put on hold. The role with Helen Miriam went to someone else.

He never helped you get ahead in the industry, but he absolutely blocked you from it. He never called you again.

Someone, someone else, might have been hurt by the fact that your father cut you off without so much as a goodbye. But it’s not like you could miss what you never had.

You take the hint and enroll in UC Santa Barbara under your new name.

The myth of your maidenhood ended in much of the same way it began: at the behest of someone else and exiled as an afterthought.

You tried the whole sleep-around-to-fill-a-need thing for the freshmen year of college. It didn’t take. You liked sex but you liked the chase more. You liked the hunt, the thrill, the unconscious desire to touch, when the desire to do something first emerges in their heads. You like to watch the basic urge emerge in their darkened eyes before the other shoe drops. Drops and splatters coherent and rational thought like a bug on a windshield.

You liked sex, even if more often you had to get yourself off while your partner had fallen asleep, their needs met. But you liked being wanted more. The drugs helped bridge the gap and given that you had no idea how to make friends because you'd never had one your own age before, the puddles of bodies that dripped onto couches and floors at parties seemed to be as good a social circle as any. They all started to recognize you at parties, in lecture halls, at bars. They nodded, you nodded back, and you sat down.

No longer alone.

But not entirely wanted either.

It was enough though.

By your third year, you were known more for your party provisions (with your old contacts from the industry) than your ex-boyfriends.

You meet Heidi Morgan through one of your production management professors.

You’d gone in to speak with your professor, a man notorious for sleeping with his students, and believed you to be next in line (men were so much better at doing what you asked when they thought you’d sleep with them), so you were hoping that you could convince him that it was actually your lab partner who stole the paper from you, not the other way around, when you see him with someone else.

Blonde, small, feisty.

Heidi Morgan takes one look at the grotesque ogling in his eyes and promptly introduces herself.

In her own fire and take-no-shit attitude, you find kindred spirits.

She later asks you out for drinks, you think it’s been too long since you went down on a girl, and you completely misread the situation.

She clears things up and then asks you to read for a part. The whiplash makes your head spin, but given that she’s not calling you a giant slut, it’s probably good news.

She knows who you are. Suspected because you looked familiar and because she has friends in some truly weird places, she confirms her suspicions by the end of the day. So she gives you a call, you show up, flirt too much, and maybe end up with a job.

She gives you the script. It’s good.

Really good.

Why me? You ask her. You graduate in two weeks. You’re turning twenty-two in a few days. There’s nothing you’ve done in recent years to make her have this kind of faith in you. All digital memories of you reflect a knobby-kneed, round-cheeked little girl then that same little girl with tits and a smirk well beyond her years.

She didn’t think she might find her lead in a dingy auditorium, she says, but crazier things have happened. It’s not a guarantee, or a promise, just an offer. Try out, see what happens.

Crazier things have happened.

The rest is less myth and more old history.

(Historic)

The day you meet him is not unlike any other. Except in the little things. Your bra strap breaks when you go to put it on. Your belt loop gets caught in a door handle and nearly shucks your pants to the floor. You somehow get lost on the way to the studio even though you have your phone mapping the route. It takes you around and around and around until you get out and ask a very confused gas station attendant where the fuck the sound stage is.

It’s not momentous. Annoying, perhaps, so annoying that all these little things pester your brain like flies gorging on rotten fruit. You’re distracted, one eye always glancing over your shoulder. Trouble, trouble, trouble, your problems seem to whisper, you’re in trouble.

A PA comes to find you, saying Heidi specifically asked for your presence but she’s gone missing. He thinks he knows where to find her, if you’d come with him. You eye him up from the black leather couch you’re draped across, irritated at the day and at him for his shameless staring. You nod, and immediately he starts running his mouth about his own Hollywood dreams. He’s a writer, you know, maybe you’ve heard of some of his smaller indie work, it’s not very much, but folks who know say it's good so maybe he’ll be able to sell it if –

The door to the back of the lot opens and it’s like god snapped his fingers in your ear. It’s not momentous, or earth-shattering, but holy shit does it fuck you up.

He’s broad. Tall. Forearms, thick and veiny, stocky thumbs and tense fingers. His hair is just on the edge of being long, but combed back in some attempt to tame it, to fold it into submission. His right earlobe is puckered, pierced, but no earring. His beard and mustache are trimmed, clean shaven elsewhere. Despite how he’s built out adult male muscle from his days on Twenty-Three and Fun, he still has those boyish eyes, a dimple that would drive anyone up a wall, and eyelashes you’d pay a thousand dollars for. You knew this was coming but it still feels like a kick in the chest.

That kick burns when you realize something.

He’s fucking pissed. He’s beautiful, carved from your very dreams of what the most gorgeous man on earth would look like, but he’s fucking pissed.

Surprisingly, at you.

Well, that’s disappointing.

He comes at you with his claws drawn and you’ve never, ever been one to back down. You swipe back and hope you draw blood.

You discover other things about Dieter Bravo, the boy who you used to have a heart-stopping crush on when you didn’t know anything better. Fantasy will always be better than reality, and this isn’t exactly how you’d thought your first meeting would go.

And yet, you discover something else, something very, very curious. Something soft and impressionable, bruised purple and green. Something you want to lean on with your entire weight until he chokes. It’s ugly, but it’s amusing. Maybe this is how you hoped your first meeting would go, albeit with some tricky obstacles and a ticking clock.

You want to press and see what spills out.

Dieter Bravo cannot and does not look away from you.

The day you meet Dieter Bravo is also the day you meet The Sixers, the day you meet Marie. She’s small, mousy, but apparently a fucking rock star on the drums. You like the irony; quiet and unassuming until she bangs through your head with percussion. Where the rest of her bandmates are wide-eyed and eager and come with more drugs than a pharmacy, there’s something about Marie that you find so tenderly earnest you kind of wish you didn’t come dressed like you were going out to eat the fleshly hearts of men everywhere. You want to approach her on her level. You don’t want to scare her away. There’s something redemptive about a kind, sweet girl like Marie striking up a friendship with you.

If you could ever figure out how to start one.

“Excited for the filming to start?” You ask her after nearly everyone’s picked up their things and left after the reading. She glances at you, then over her shoulder, as if you were talking to someone else. You instantly feel insanely protective of her.

She blinks a few times before distractedly shaking her head. “No. I’m actually terrified.”

“About being in a movie?”

She cringes, as if it’s the most shameful thing in the world.

“Yeah. I love playing in front of crowds, but something about being on camera scares me.”

You make a note to find out the next time they’re playing live.

“It’s honestly not that bad. It feels a little weird, like some unblinking eye staring at you, but then it just kind of fades away.”

She bites her lip, tucking that short brown hair over her ear. “Have you done this before?”

You’re not exactly hiding your childhood movie star past, but you don’t really want it broadcasted.

“Here and there.”

The rest of her bandmates are chatting amongst themselves, perhaps not yet aware you’re trying to befriend one of them. You’re not quite sure how it’s going.

“If you ever want, we could talk and I could give you some pointers.”

Fuck, why did that sound like a line? It shouldn’t. You didn’t want it to. Where was the line between asking someone to be your friend and asking someone for a fuck?

If she notices your embarrassment, she doesn't show it. She grins brightly, unashamed. “Yes! Oh my god, yes, please. I’d love that!”

Normally, when giving someone your number, you’d grab their hand and write it in Sharpie, giving them a good wink. Now you tear off a corner of the call sheet and write down your number in shaking hands. It’s a small piece of paper, easily lost. That’s okay, if she does lose it. No need to freak out.

She’s grinning, smile expanding across that round face of hers as she takes your number when someone calls her name.

Roxie, the one with bright-red flaming hair and gorgeously thick eyebrows, takes a glance at the piece of paper in Marie’s fingers. One eyebrow arches, and she says nothing.

Roxie looks at you like she wants to devour you whole. You think you’ll let her.

You decide to ignore him.

Whatever his problem with you is, it doesn’t have to be dealt with immediately. Maybe he’ll come around and if not, no skin off your nose. It’s none of your business what happens off camera, what he thinks about you as a person. All that matters is giving a good performance and you know you can do that.

You just sort of wish you had known more about the role before Heidi offered it. You really sort of wish you had known Dieter was going to be your co-star. That night, after approaching him in the parking lot, you had two glasses of wine to settle your trembling nerves, and you flipped through the script.

He was so calm and collected at the table read today. Cool, relaxed, at ease with himself and the world. Everyone knew him, everyone talked about him, either directly to you or in snatches of conversation.

Dieter Bravo – you could not ask for a better scene partner!

Dieter Bravo – he’s so, so nice. He always stops for fans!

Dieter Bravo – this shoot is going to be so much fun with him!

You’d never been particularly star-struck, but for the first time in your life, the idea of working with your co-star was daunting. When you were up against Gerard Butler, you’d been in the game for a while, knew the industry, showed up in the trades. Now, you felt like any other Santa Barbara graduate stumbling out in front of the camera for the first time. Where was that all-knowing smirk you had perfected at fifteen? God, had you always been so transparent?

You felt like you had to prove yourself at that table read. You know you were going a bit overboard, but they watched you, transfixed, and it empowered you. Mark Bronson, Marie, the rest of The Sixers, they watched you like Taylor had possessed your body and you instantly became a rockstar.

Only, he didn’t. He watched you and didn’t look away, but he looked so uninterested in your performance, the tears that filled your eyes were partially real.

And then he touched you and in that moment, you knew he was mocking you. Laughing at you, you fucking child. He was the legendary star here, not you, and to think you ever had a chance was laughable. The heat of disgust in his eyes hurt, more than you wanted to admit.

It was day one and he hated you.

Things escalate.

He caught you high on set and it felt like you were being scolded by your older brother. He didn’t get it. He never did. All that shit about how he knows what it’s like – bullshit. All fucking bullshit. He was somehow always in the corner of your eye, watching you, begging you to fuck up so he could expose you like the fraud you are.

And a pathetic fraud you are at that. He touches you and it’s like algae, hot and dense, spreading across your skin. You fight the feeling that strokes your cunt and you grit your teeth. Stop touching me, go away, stay back – please.

You’re twenty-two and still harboring that fucking crush you had when you were sixteen. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic. It’s so, so, so wrong.

You try to ignore him. Try to exorcize him from your every waking thought. It doesn’t take. You get drunk at the pool party and you want his eyes, anyone’s eyes, on you.

Marie is shy, you try to sober up around her, but you’re too far gone and you don’t want her to see you like this.

So you find Roxie. And Samuel. They give you something that makes your pupils dilate to the size of quarters and you feel like you’re made of cosmic dust. When they touch you, beauty and awe and the atoms of the universe bloom across your skin. You like kissing them, you decide. The water dripping off you from the pool feels like bad lovers and broken kingdoms up for sale.

You end up at his door. You don’t mean to. You genuinely forgot what room you were in.

Consciously, you know he’s married. Consciously, you know he hates you. But that doesn’t stop you from asking anyway.

“You could join us, you know.”

You want so badly to be his theatrical equal that it hurts, it burns hotter for a moment than your desire for him, and he just stares at you. Consciousness somewhere in a nearby galaxy, you can’t read the look on his face. And then it blurs, he closes the door, and the entire hallway grows thick, heavy leaves.

Disappointment is a physical object and it burrows into your chest. You think you can feel your ribs moving to make room.

Sam and Roxie fuck on your bed while you’re curled up on the futon. You don’t even change out of your suit. You kick them out as soon as they are done, not wanting their hungry gazes to turn to you.

This is always the worst part. When the emotions and memories that you’ve managed to pry off you as you coat yourself in a protective layer of LSD, finally come back. They wrap around you like a vice and you can feel the beginnings of a panic attack start in the tremble of your fingers. You stay there in the armchair, damp and cold and shivering and trying not to choke on your own throat, until the early hours of the morning. You think you could die like this but you don’t. You never actually do.

He doesn’t bring it up and neither do you. You sort of wish he would, just for a chance to . . . no, that’s fucked up and, if not legally, morally wrong. You can’t wish for anything when it comes to him.

It’s easier to hate him. To pretend like he was some over-involved, self-obsessed diva who stepped on your lines on purpose and flat-out refused to run scenes with you. It was easier as a whole for a while.

Marie started talking to you on her own now and that made you forget Dieter for a bit. The rest of the group was hesitant in their welcome, despite what had almost happened between you, Sam, and Roxie. But they all came around when you gave them the cleanest Molly they’d had in years.

It was like college all over again, but the faces were consistent this time. Five of them. You smoked in their van, fuzzy orange carpet fibers tickling your ear as you looked up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the roof.

“Why are you called The Sixers if there are five of you?” You ask suddenly.

There’s a pause and then a collective chuckle. You watch it like lightning spark between them.

Nick finally speaks up: “Because it sounds like the sex-ers.”

“Sixty-nine n’ feeling fine.”

You laugh with them this time and you feel your breath mix with theirs.

While meeting him wasn’t a particularly momentous occasion, the drive up to his AirBnB was. Maybe it was the lack of air this high up, but around every turn, your chest got a little tighter. The Sixers had shown you The Labyrinth with David Bowie last weekend (“how have you never seen that movie? Did you grow up under a rock?”) and you can’t help but think of the Goblin King coming to whisk you away. At the very least, the amount of rings they wore were the same.

You try desperately to not look at his white-knuckles around the steering wheel and fail tremendously.

The thing is, you don’t really want to fight with him. You don’t want to have to interact with him through this hazy, distant, drugged out wall, but that seems like the only way he’ll talk to you. He’s always scowling at you, like you’d done something wrong, and you hadn’t. Sure, you thought about it and fucked yourself on the biggest dildo you had about it, but you hadn’t actually done anything. You hadn’t even made a move on him, not even bat an eyelash. But it seems like you just breathe in his direction and that sets him off.

You still don’t understand why his past drug problem is now your problem too. In your absence from Hollywood, you’d somehow missed his ups-and-downs as he transitioned out of a teenage heartthrob into a fully adult hot mess. You’d certainly missed his marriage announcement until you googled it in the bathroom after lunch one day to see if what you’d heard the two techs talk about was true.

She’s so fucking hot.

Yeah, she was a model, right? Dude fucking scored big.

Fuck, she was a model. Even if she wasn’t, she certainly looked it, from all the red-carpet photos of the two of them. He looked at her with complete and total adoration.

Hollywood party boy settles down with recent marriage to cubist painter’s daughter

The headline was wordy but got the point across. He was off-limits.

You didn’t know how to make someone like you if you couldn’t offer them sex or drugs. What the fuck were you supposed to do with the sober and married Dieter Bravo?

And yet, there were times. Moments. Fragments. Bursts of light in a mirror, where you thought he looked too long. How his eyes flickered black when you talked about your bra, or your tits, or your ass. But that’s all they were – fleeting instances of your own insanity bleeding into reality. He would never look at you like that. He hated you.

It scared you, the way he expected you to act when you couldn’t hide behind being high, when you couldn’t flirt your way out of a particularly tense situation. He wanted you raw, exposed, your face revealed to the light you had spent years hiding from.

And then he did the darndest thing.

He was nice about it. In the kitchen, and then on the patio, he asked you questions about your start in the industry, what you’d like to do with your life, how you saw your career going. He cooked for you and made you laugh. He invoked the holy saint Sister Heidi as a bargaining chip and it was all the excuse you needed to drop the boxing gloves. You didn’t want to fight with him. You wanted to be his friend. You wanted him to like you.

Scratch that.

You wanted him to fuck you within an inch of your life and, sure, it was stupid to finger-fuck yourself to him, on the same couch as him, but maybe you wanted to get a little caught. Okay, a lot caught because then he’d tell you to fuck off and he’d draw the line in the goddamn sand and, sure, it’d be embarrassing and, sure, it’d hurt like hell but you’d get over it. You’d nurse your heart but you’d get back on that fucking bike because you really, really wanted this movie to work – but –

He fucking doesn’t.

He doesn’t kiss you but he wants to. He looks at you like he wants to suck the marrow from your bones, drink the blood from your heart through your cunt.

Dieter Bravo wants to kiss you desperately, but because he is a good man, he doesn’t. And because you’re a shit person, you make it hard on him. You make it hurt because it hurts you and just for once, for a second, you want someone to understand how you feel. How you hurt. How you ache.

That house in New Mexico changed everything. For you. For him.

Friends didn’t make time with each other because they were trying to plug up the moans in their head. Friends didn’t keep busy to keep their hands off each other. You weren’t friends with him, but you did get along. You learned a lot about him. You’d never had a real friend before but you sure this isn’t how it’s supposed to feel.

Instead of a myth, your relationship is built in handprints. Red blotches on cave walls, their original meaning lost to time, a dead language no one speaks any more. Sometimes the prints overlap, sometimes they don’t. There are no words spoken, but the feeling is there all the same.

You think, if you could just take your aching heart out of your body, you could actually be Dieter Bravo’s friend. He fills in holes you didn’t realize were empty. Chasms for art, for acting, for food that didn’t come in a can or delivered on your front door. He knows about wine, and whiskey, and needs help dressing himself. He never made you feel like your asks were too much, your need to connect too great. He took your hand and told you what you wanted was normal. He’s funny, patient, and loves Shirley MaClaine movies. He did her entire monologue from The Apartment one night after hours of begging and it brought you to tears. You had a scene partner in Dieter Bravo, you had someone to challenge you, to rethink scenes and pull back deeper and deeper character layers. He’d taken a course online about psychology to have a new perspective on analyzing characters and you thought it was fucking genius.

Marie filled certain relationship needs – a girl to talk about drama with, a fellow fan of live music, someone to make you look up to – but Dieter fulfilled more, if not all of them. Despite working in an artistic industry for years, you’d never once talked trade with someone and certainly not someone who knew it so well. You were awestruck by him.

Call it infatuation, call it being horny, but there is a connection, a red through line that connects you both. And for a while, that’s enough.

Until it isn’t.

The mark of his blotchy handprints on your heart stop when you fuck some guy you barely know because Dieter hurt you.

When he won’t look at you while he’s pretending to fuck you, you feel self-conscious again, like he’s going to think you’re some inexperienced little nepo baby. But he does his duty and you do yours and you’ve never felt so empty.

Your handprint stays, while his blurs away.

(Psychologic)

After production ends, you exist in the margins. No more mythologizing. No more cave drawings.

And then Marie shows up.

She takes you to get your nails done like it's the most normal thing in the world. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know what you are?

You get smoothies and see some live music and she keeps you from spiraling. There is no possible way she knew about the lines of coke upstairs in your bedroom, but she takes you out into the light all the same.

You go out to shows with The Sixers. They love having a groupie who’s a Hollywood star. Marie seems embarrassed when they show-case you, but you find you don’t mind waving a bit on stage and introducing the band. You think you see a pair of deep brown eyes in the crowd occasionally but you know it’s not. You have to accept your fate. He might not like you and he doesn’t hate you, but he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with you.

Not friends, not lovers, but something else. Something almost.

You and the Sixers swim in the ocean off the Santa Barbara coast. You go to parties and you play the bongo drums in a treehouse in South Los Angeles. You bring the good drugs and everyone loves you.

You don’t want to go to the wrap party, but Marie insists. You think she likes being famous just for all the opportunities to get dressed up and do your make up. She told you once that you are the prettiest girl she’d ever seen without any motive behind it. She wasn’t trying to fuck you or fuck with your head. It was just the truth in her eyes and it made you nauseous.

You go to the wrap party because it’s something better to do than get high on shrooms for the fourth time this week and as a reward, Cooper shares his blunt with you in the car. You laugh easily and often and loudly and Cooper keeps you steady with a hand on your waist. You’re nervous, you want to drink more, but you already feel like you’re carrying too many cups and plates and the noise it’s going to make when you drop them all is going to be deafening.

He’s here. He’s here with his fucking gorgeous wife and you stand behind Cooper so you have something blocking your line of sight.

Just as you are about to order your first vodka soda of the night, Dieter rushes back into the house. The weed and coke in you switch the plugs in your brain and suddenly you are very, very angry.

But the Dieter you find is fragile, beaten down, vulnerable. He talks to you like he did in New Mexico and it dulls the edges around the hole in your chest. He looks at you like you’re his saving grace, his last hope.

Myths lie. They blur the truth to make a better story. They build up a man larger than life, they make goddesses out of women, and they sanctify, canonize love. They make you ache with the wanting of the fantasy of it, and that’s on purpose. Myths are the human experience on fire.

Kissing him, you feel on fucking fire.

Meeting him didn’t feel momentous. But fucking him certainly was.

The settlement of your mythology burns to the ground, flames licking the sky. He has crystalized in your veins and, in an instant, you’re hopelessly addicted.

With Dieter Bravo, you come to like sex. You come to love it actually. It’s an itch, a fluttering, warm feeling that makes you twitch and tense when his hands aren’t on you. There’s some part of you that knows the inherent danger of giving one man, much less this man, that much power over you, but fuck, you can’t help it.

You’re too young, too inexperienced in the world to know the difference between when a man wants you for sex and when a man loves you. In your mind, the two are the same and cannot be separated. You know what it feels like to be wanted to be fucked, but in your nativity you assume that’s how a man looks at you when he wants to love you — and this time you’d welcome it.

There isn’t much to say about New Orleans, except for three things:

One, you’ve successfully confused yourself into thinking this is what being in a relationship with him would be like.

Two, you’ve never felt safer and more wanted and more complete than you ever have when you take drugs with Dieter. (that primal animal fear is gone for the first time in what feels like years)

And three, you’re so fucking in love with him you’re sick with it.

In the sickness, you grow weak. You burn with fever. Your bones ache and your mind races. His touch is simultaneously a balm and a contagion.

You love him. You love him. You love him.

You love him unlike anything or anyone.

Marie is actually the only one who ventures a guess. Who catches you, wings pinned to the corkboard, and asks you point-blank, “are you fucking Dieter Bravo?”

Maybe she’s braver because it’s over text, permanent traces of your infidelity, but you stare at her message for hours. You think about it in the hotel shower after the plane lands in Los Angeles. You haven’t seen her in weeks and you’ve stopped returning her phone calls.

Your high falters at the idea that you might have (and probably did) lose a friend over him. But what did that matter, in the grand scheme of things, your sickness asks you, now that you have him?

Now that he’s the only thing that matters. Now that he is everything.

He goes back to his wife.

After everything. After what you did for him. After what you gave up. How you prostrated yourself for his love, for a moment of his time. He can’t see it, it’s eating you up. You think cancer has kinder teeth than his.

The foundations of the core of your being are rocked. It doesn’t feel real because he’s still in this hotel with you, the same hotel where you fucked in the bathroom, where you flirted with him for the cameras to sell the movie, where he begged you to stay with him, you’re gonna stay, right? you’re gonna be with me, after this? And maybe it isn’t real because he only lasts being apart from you for twelve, maybe fourteen hours. Maybe he’s sick too. Maybe he’s fucked just as much as you are.

In your dark, deep wretched heart, you hope he is. You hope he’d die without you. But you don’t know. You don’t know because he never says it.

This time, it’s real, he promises. This time, he’s never going back. This time he’s going to say he loves you, his kisses pledge to you.

This time he’s not going to leave you.

In the mornings after Chloe leaves and you kiss him E-tablets with your tongue and he fucks you in every way he knows how, he curls up next to you and you tell him. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t seem to hear you.

You tell him you love him, have always loved him. Dieter Bravo turned from an imaginary companion, to a friend you didn’t want, and now to a lover who makes you think you’re special. Something valuable, precious. Something that is worth keeping.

Until you’re not.

Myths serve to answer questions about our place in the natural order of things. To ease tension. To provide guidance.

Why does it rain?

Where do the seasons come from?

What is the sun, and why does it leave and return?

What is heartbreak?

What is grief? What is sorrow? How do we carry them with us?

How do we go on when the world is determined to break us?

When you’ve always had nothing, and now you still have nothing and no one – he doesn’t love you and he’s going back to his pregnant wife – you ask, what’s the fucking point?

Not even the myths can answer that one.

Later, when you wake up under the bright lights of a hospital room, your memory is cracked, broken into terracotta pieces on the ground. There are things missing from you.

You don’t remember calling Oliver, only that he was there and he was high out of his mind and he gave you whatever he had in his pockets. You don’t remember what you took, or if Oliver was kind to you when he watched you swallow pill after pill.

You don’t remember the shower, the ambulance ride, or being admitted.

You aren’t sure exactly what you’ve lost. But you feel the missing edges.

Dieter is missing from you.

If you close your eyes, still the movement of your body, block out the noises of the machines and the hospital around you, you think you remember hearing him say it.

You think he might have said it when he kissed your forehead, but it feels older than that. Like his words and his actions stem from two different memories but you’re so fucked up they blur together. You want to hold onto that new memory, as fabricated as it might be, for as long as you can.

But then sleep over takes you again and it flushes everything out. The next time you wake up, you don’t remember that he ever said, I love you.

When you wake up, you know he’s gone. You don’t know how you know, or why, but it feels like a piece of you has been torn away in a bloody chunk. Like someone had taken pliers to your fingernails and tore them off until blood splattered onto the floor.

Like someone put a knee to your shoulder and wrenched white teeth out of your mouth.

Until you are gummy and dripping.

You open your eyes not to Dieter, not Heidi, but Marie. Mousy, intelligent, thoughtful Marie curled up asleep in the chair next to you.

The sound of your crying wakes her up. Wordless, judgement-less, she crawls into bed with you, takes you into her arms, and lets you sob like the heart-broken mess you’ve become.

God, can you die from pain like this?

She strokes your forehead and tells you, no, you can’t. You might want to, but you can’t.

For the first time in your life, you’re not a myth.

You’re not a story of a little girl whose parents didn’t love her enough.

You are not the story of an actress whose star burned too bright and hot and the cosmos punished her for her hubris.

You’re not the story of a woman who fell in love too hard and too fast with drugs and a man much older than her and got shattered on the rocks.

The book has closed, the final chapter has come. There are no more stories to tell, nothing left to make fantastic.

You are a broken human body.

Natalie Lorraine is a myth.

You were a child once. You have to remember that.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x reader #the bubble fanfic #the bubble fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble 2016 #dieter bravo/f!reader #dieter bravo/you #dieter bravo/reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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cosmicangst · 1 year

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bugs in amber

prompt/summary: He had built an algorithm out of his rage. Rage could execute his body with purpose and focus his vision on one solid vector of machine logic.

But it was these moments he made monuments of, encompassing and embracing around his calcified grief. They could stiffen his knees into worship, nail his feet to the bedrock of the earth with warmth and affection and love and render it impossible for him to move ever again.

Ko is determined to make good on his revenge. That doesn’t mean they’ll make it easy.

(A non-linear character study in fragments heavily inspired by Slaughterhouse-Five and written for the @pp10thtribute zine.)

note: Also please check out this fantastic paired piece by @lucidink!

“To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.”

Anne Carson, Red Doc>

“Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.”

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

The thing is: he doubts Sasayama had much time to consider his life flashing before his eyes when he was dismembered.

It must have hurt beyond hell, he thinks. Sasayama’s brain must have receded into the baser impulses of stopping the pain and insisting upon the next breath.

So his mourners, alive and decidedly not dying in the immediate next moment, consider his life for him with the humanity and time he wasn’t afforded.

They don’t hold formal ceremonies for dead Enforcers. Kunizuka hosts a drinking session in her room with others who had known the man well. He can practically hear her subdued yet insulting toast about the bastard followed by raucous laughter from the others.

In his room, Kogami labors.

The truth is: Ko can no longer remember what Sasayama looks like based on memory alone. He only appears intact in photographs. He keeps one of the man—grinning, alive, and joyous. The others are very much not.

Sasayama’s plasticized statue secretes patterns, motivations, and agendas in the twists of its limbs and the macabre hollows of its eyes. Kogami observes even as he relives.

He doesn’t recall exactly what happened that night. But ironically, he swears his own life had flashed before him.

Not his memories, but, rather, what would come after. Almost like steps, instructions of where he would go, what he would do after this. His entire life laid out in a linear strip, cutting off just after the part where he would enact justice for the way they made Sasayama resort to the indignities of a dying animal.

Like his future had arrived into the present and that it had come—it will only ever come—to this.

And so it does.

A part of Ko had always acted as an audience to his actions. Or worse, Enobarbus himself caught between narrator and character on the eve of his death, simultaneously living and telling a story that was already set in the past at the same time it was happening.

The second he pulls the trigger, audience and narrator intertwine knee-deep in déjà vu. Like he had already done this before, over and over, and would continue to do so the day after.

In some ways, the profundity of something like fate arriving at his heels is so overwhelming that he wants to dry heave. Finally, he thinks, but after—

The blood coagulates, the wind whistles, leaving silence long after the echoes of the shot have gone and his ears have stopped ringing.

So in other ways, it feels like any other Thursday.

It is so mundane and banal it feels a little anticlimactic. The world should have stopped here, he thinks like a confused, petulant child.

He’d read enough tragedies to expect the catharsis. The moment of resolution in laying down the weight of his labor, making good on his vow as his final offering to lay Sasayama’s wandering spirit to rest.

But it is a Thursday, he has just killed Makishima, and somehow, he is still in this body with its old aches, his stomach hollow from a missed lunch, his head throbbing with an incoming migraine.

Somehow, he’s still him.

A long embattled victor in front of his fated adversary’s loss, and all he can think of is Masaoka, similarly leaking his life onto the floor. He looks beyond where Gino had clutched his dead father and wonders if the foregone rules of the narrative had warranted a loss for a win. All he can think is that he is here instead of there and the utter ambivalence of it—the fact that there is more to continue and to lose—is more staggering than what he has just done.

This is what dislodges his feet.

Life moves on.

So it goes.

And so it does.

He is running now, losing count of the seconds.

But he has a plan even if it had been made with some irony that surely he wouldn’t reach this point to worry about the logistics. Surely, he wouldn’t have made it this far. He’d arranged his supposed escape and felt it ridiculous and utterly serious.

Because absurdly he wants it. He wants it so bad his teeth ache. He wants to see what he can improvise, what could come after even if he can’t imagine it.

Akane probably could. Maybe even with her disillusion, she would still understand and imagine a better continuation for him.

The thought keeps his legs steady. His lungs ache but it barely warrants acknowledgment as his calves burn and keep him onward and on, feet pounding onto the dirt and through the grass—

“Got you, you little freak.”

That he hadn’t registered the approaching footsteps from behind douses him with a sickly feeling before it’s replaced by a force more resounding in its sudden appearance than any actual impact.

Oh, he spoke too soon, didn’t he—

The side of his left cheek burns when the force throws a punch and starts pummeling the soft, fleshy parts of his face. But even his harder edges—parts like his forehead, his cheekbone—feel susceptible to the molding hands of his opponent’s artistry. He lifts his stick-thin arms feebly in defense and the base level of his brain triggers his tear ducts. He hasn’t cried in two decades. And the humiliation, the fear, the pain, the weariness, the utter failure—

Oh, fuck you, he is so tired of being on the floor.

And it is a bit like slipping into the roles of audience and narrator, his own individual god, witnessing his body retaliating. His opponent is stronger but the rage of futility hasn’t stopped those stick arms from reaching and arching knuckles into claws.

Children rarely have compunctions for boundaries they’ve yet to be taught. But he thinks even if he wasn’t a child that nothing could have stopped him from doing this.

He plunges his fingers into his bully’s eyes and the boy screams like panicked quarry. The only reason why he stops from progressing further is from the saving grace of their teacher who has arrived just in time.

“Kogami Shinya!”

An even larger body pulls him away, caging squirming limbs in its arms. And he thrashes because that’s what he does when he’s six and in the throes of an anger fugue.

He doesn’t think he even recognizes where he is until Mama arrives. They keep him out of the office as they talk, which is stupid because what information would they need to shield him from when he was literally there doing the thing they’re talking about in the first place.

Grown-ups are so stupid.

“Shinya, let’s go home.”

Mama’s carefully held body is standing by the doorway. Her face is a pacific mask.

Well, shit.

Shinya clings even as he squirms to escape. Anger and adrenaline seep out until he is dead on his feet. He’s still young enough to indulge Mama carrying him to their car without shame. But he glares at his classmates clamoring to rubberneck the scrap that had toppled the Goliath of their year. And the defeated himself encircled by his entourage, face adorned with bandages—but his eyes, unblinking and set on him.

He’s not blind, Ko thinks with disappointment. But in the other’s gaze was something better: a tightening in recognition of a better predator. And injured but victorious cub in his mother’s arms rumbles with satisfaction as she tucks him behind a seatbelt and drives away.

The week after his suspension, there are no more looks. Quite the opposite, it seems as if everyone is doing everything but look.

His spine stiffens as he walks to class, aware that there is a berth of at least five feet between him and another person. No one stares but he can feel how carefully they don’t do it.

Later at lunch, he confronts his lone friend, another loser just as scrawny as he is.

“Why are you avoiding me?” he demands.

The boy looks frightened before defensiveness compels him to raise his head. “Everyone saw what you did, Shinya.”

“So? Wasn’t that the point? Wasn‘t that what we wanted?”

“I didn’t ask you to do any of that.”

His stomach clenches. And here at such a young age, he starts seeing the line between himself and others. The way they separate from him and alienate without having to say more.

Someone had to do it. What choice did he have after weeks of torment? After watching them push the weak ones onto the dirt? Did they expect him to lie down and take it?

“Can you please just leave me alone?”

Ko watches in silence as the other boy uncouples from his gravity and joins the rest of the flock.

Mama never ends up lecturing him about it. Instead, she starts taking him to judo lessons. On weekends, she teaches him kendo.

The only thing she will say about it is an adage: “Never start a fight that you cannot finish.”

Ko is initially offended. Did Mama think he was so incapable and weak?

It is only as he grows that he realizes that it was never about starting. She had been worried that he would never finish, never stop once he started.

When he saves another boy, in another time and another place, he begins to think her worries are founded. Unlike the first time, Gino does not take advantage of Ko’s honed skills and protectiveness as Ko tackles the other boy’s bully onto the floor.

They become friends. He can’t regret it since Gino looks at him like he’s not a live wire.

Like he’s a person. Like he’s good.

So when Gino declares his intentions to follow in his old man’s footsteps, Ko follows, too.

“Are you certain?”

His voice is wry. “I’m hurt. You don’t think I’d be good at police work?”

“On the contrary,” Gino bristles, perpetually prickly when teased. “You’re good at a lot of things. You could be anything you want. I don’t see why you have to take such a hard route.”

Gino sounds so sure that Ko is a little embarrassed. He’ll never admit but a romantic 17-year-old version of him obsessed with Beat authors does entertain notions of being a novelist.

But contrary to Gino’s perceptions of his talent, he’s never had the kind of head for creation. Nor the hands. They’d only ever been good to crush, break, and deconstruct.

He feels like a walking, talking cliché.

Perhaps if he analyzed further, he’d indulge the possibility of his interest in literature as compensation for a perceived lack. Even then, what would he do with the realization? Best to leave originality with those who have more poetry in their souls, like Tsubasa or Kunizuka.

This is why it is all the more baffling when Akane remarks upon seeing his physical book collection, “You have so many. Have you ever considered writing one?”

He’s flabbergasted but doesn’t show it. “Don’t have the spirit for that kind of work.”

“Are you serious? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as willful as you.”

“Is that another word for stubborn?”

She laughs. “I feel like the whole world could bend and you’d be the only one still standing straight. What does an artist require more than conviction in their individuality?”

Imagination, he wants to say but he keeps silent. The indulgent part of him wants to laugh as well but not for the same reasons.

The less generous part is tempted to disappoint her on purpose, redirect her admiration to someone else. Not necessarily because he’s particularly self-hating but because he knows the truth of what he deserves.

Sometimes, Akane could very well be a mirror image of his younger self in all her earnestness, naïveté, and drive. But even at this age, she is more than he could ever strive to be. Akane can see possibilities in anything and anyone. She can will alternative realities into existence, her imagination surpassing beyond his own.

He doesn’t know how to tell her or Gino that he’s never known how to diverge and make his own path. He’s looked ahead enough to know that there has only ever been one possibility for him. His own will no longer has anything to do with it.

Once he starts, he cannot stop. Once he begins, he will never finish.

Sometimes his anger forgets.

Any extreme emotion is hard to sustain at its peak constantly. It comes in waves, and what remains when it recedes far enough is the periphery of everything else happening.

Kagari invites him to eat something other than the pre-made lifeless offerings in the cafeteria.

In a rare moment of stillness, he silently watches the old man paint an entire landscape.

Kunizuka asks a question about office gossip he’d referenced offhandedly in the paddy wagon on the way back to headquarters.

Aoyanagi and Karanomori squabble with him about the stupidity of a newly released sitcom during a lunch break.

Sometimes after a particularly hard day, he’ll catch Gino’s eye long enough to see something there that isn’t just careful detachment or barely concealed resentment. Like they forget they aren’t supposed to recognize each other, both too mutually exhausted from the same bullshit of everyday inanities to keep the pretense of Inspector Ginoza and Enforcer Kogami.

And just as quickly as it appears, it is all swallowed up when the wave returns.

“Has your memory always been fractured since the incident?”

Ko’s gaze is steady. “I’ve never been good at remembering anyway.”

The doctor smiles benignly as if gleaning some hidden truth from the off-handed way Ko has adopted to speak to officials and people with any kind of authority.

“You know, it’s nothing to be ashamed of if you encounter some blank spots or confusion. PTSD is a very complex diagnosis, and recovery for Inspectors who’ve managed to turn their hue around has been an equally complex journey.”

“I can imagine.”

Another smile. Ko tags it as genuine. He’d feel bad for the guy if he didn’t hate the entire farce of this in the first place. His title as an Inspector is a sham of a formality at this point. It’s only a matter of time before he slips and careens forward.

“Anything you want to share with me before we start?”

“Nothing in particular.”

He takes a beat as if to give Ko all the opportunity to change his mind. “All right. How’ve you been sleeping the past week?”

“Well enough.”

“What about your dreams?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t dream.”

“That’s bullshit, dude.”

“What’s bullshit?”

“Ko says he doesn’t dream.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Everyone dreams,” Kagari insists, voice garbled with chewed popcorn.

“How do you know?” Kunizuka says from her perch on Kagari’s beanbag, strumming absently in tune with the movie score. Ko distantly watches the action on the screen. They’ve screened this film for the fourth time that month at Kagari’s insistence.

He knows the mindless explosions and cheesy dialogue by heart. So does Kagari but he reacts like this is the first time he’s watched this movie.

“Holy shit! Did you see that!” He stuffs another fist of popcorn into his mouth. “Anyway, everyone dreams. If you think you don’t, you probably just don’t remember it when you wake up.”

He and Kunizuka continue to bicker good-naturedly. Ko does not have the heart to tell them about his night terrors. The way he wakes with his heart in his throat, ready to crawl and leap out of his chest.

He can never recall visuals clearly but the sensations, the visceral physical reaction of his body in the middle of a mental break imprint the cartography of his skin and veins like muscle memory.

His recollection is shot, but he carries souvenirs anyway. Perhaps he does not even have to say anything. Kagari and Kunizuka must have souvenirs of their own.

Onscreen, the supporting man explodes in a fiery inferno after pushing the main hero’s love interest out of the way.

“Why are we watching this again,” Kunizuka grimaces. But it’s rhetorical; they don’t talk about the Division 3 Enforcer who’d hit the ground spine first from up the roof during a scuffle earlier that week. Ko does not bring up the subsequent way in which Kagari has been acting recklessly, almost with relish at his mortality in the following days. They don’t hold formal ceremonies for dead Enforcers so this was the next best thing for someone Kagari considered a friend.

“That’s the goal, isn’t it?” Kagari pipes up. He takes a swig of beer.

“To get caught in a gas explosion?” Kunizuka plays along dryly.

“To die in a way more meaningful than how you lived.”

“I think I’ll stick with dying of old age, thanks,” she says after a brief, painful pause.

“What about you, Ko? How’d you like to leave?”

He doesn’t even take a beat. “In my bed. With a really good book.”

Kagari’s half-shitfaced expression breaks into joyous laughter. “Yeah. Leave the heroics to the rest of us.”

Ko does not say that heroics don’t exist here. That if they do, it won’t take long before you’re punished for it. No good deeds and all.

They all have ways to cope by joking and pretending that things exist.

Later that night, after the alcohol has addled their minds into oblivion, Ko will push Kagari to sleep somewhere other than the floor, Kunizuka already adrift on the couch. Kagari leans heavily on the other man as they stumble forward.

“I lied. Don’t really give a shit how it happens…” he slurs.

“What?” Ko grunts as he pushes him to lie on the bed. Kagari flops on his belly like a starfish, his voice muffled.

“I don’t care how I die. But…” he pauses, adding, “Just bury me with friends, and I’ll rest easy.”

The moment is so genuine that it’s almost uncomfortable. But Ko feels like he owes it to him to allow space for it. He softens his voice, almost unused to the way words form in the shape of his mouth.

“Don’t know if you’d like being stuck with the rest of us for all time. We’d all get sick of each other eventually.”

The younger man snorts. “I’ve been by myself my whole life. Pretty tired of it. I figure I’d deal, even if it meant having to put up with your bitch ass ghost for the rest of eternity.”

He punctuates the moment with a laugh, drunk on humor. It is neither sarcastic nor irreverent. He sounds impossibly young like the child he never got to be.

Ko can’t help a chuckle at that, even if he also can’t help his envy.

“All right, sure. If it comes to that, I promise I’ll haunt you the second I die.”

What a thing that must be: to be defined by what you love at the end of it all.

The thing is: Kagari is right. Ko does dream. They’re not all bad. He just doesn’t remember, too busy having a panic attack just as he wakes to recall minute details.

When he sleeps, he conjures Sasayama exactly as he thinks he saw him last. They are in the living room of his quarters, some Enforcers congregating in celebration of someone’s birthday—he doesn’t remember. In the kitchen, he can hear the commotion of cooking. He even thinks he can hear Amari laugh, Akane responding in kind.

A memory? No. A dream for sure, rationale tells him. On his lap is the gun he will kill Makishima with. Has killed. Yet to be killed.

He doesn’t know where in time he’s situated but the anxiety is constant whenever he is.

“What if it’s all bullshit,” Ko asks, as Sasayama blows smoke into the air. He’s mid-story, Ko remembers. The man had regaled them for half an hour with an anecdote that ultimately went nowhere and received the jeering with glee.

Ko interrupts the script, the memory, the dream, whatever.

“What if I can’t do it?”

Or worse: what if I can, and nothing changes?

Sasayama stubs his cigarette on the ashtray. “Then you don’t. So what?”

“All of those years hunting. It can’t have been for nothing. I can’t have you killed like an animal for nothing.”

“Ah, well. We all die like animals in the end, don’t we.”

“You don’t understand. All I’ve done—none of it will have mattered if I can’t do this.”

Sasayama laughs but it does not sound like him at all. He thinks he hears Pop’s gravelly voice for a moment in his place. Or is that his mother’s low timbre?

“If none of it matters,” the voice continues, gentle and lethal, “then why am I still here anyway? Why are you still trying to keep me here, Ko?”

This is new, Ko thinks, shaking breath visible in the morning, as lingering sleep clears from his eyes to fix onto the intruder sitting at the foot of his cot. Underneath him, the metal floor of the ship he’s escaped to creaks.

The other man looks preserved and clean like he’s never had his brain matter spattered on the back of his head by Ko’s hand. His pristine hair glows white in the dark of the cabin.

“New? And here I thought you were clever,” he drawls, amber frozen with contempt and amusement. “Don’t you remember, Kogami? I’ve been here before.”

I’ll be here again is not said but the promise is heard all the same.

Underneath them both, the ocean rolls and moves even as it stays in one place.

The anger, the grief, the terror, the trauma are as constant as time.

(But he hears a warm laugh somewhere, somewhen. A man claps a friendly hand on his shoulder. He smells his mother’s curry. Next to him, Pops watches the sunrise from the rooftops, his face serene with eternal forgiveness.

Ko summons them all and keeps them here.)

Because for better or worse, so are they.

And so it goes.

#psycho pass #kougami shinya #kogami shinya #.#fic.#kept saying i needed to post this and then continually proceeded not to post it #very delayed! please read the other fanworks if you havent yet

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ameliora-j · 3 years

Text

twin flame iii // gw x reader

words: 2.2k

warnings: angst, breakup, mention of bruising, crying, angelina slander kinda (it’s just for the story i love her sm!), yn is sorta a pick me if you squint sry, cringey mediocre writing at very best

an: i used song lyrics for some of the argument and the ending :) i hope you like it besties!

part one | part two | part four

you george! i want you!

the words had been running through his mind since the night you left. he had been going over the days leading up to your explosion in his mind for weeks. your words were in his mind day and night. your pained expression, your anger, your hurt. you consumed him. more than you usually did.

george weasley knew he fucked up. he knew without anyone telling him. but they did anyway. every waking second they did. first it was fred, calling him a jerk. then ron, who called him a “bloody idiot.” then ginny, who told him it was his own fault. and then his mum. of course his mum, who said in exact words: “george fabian weasley, this is nobody’s fault but your own. quit moping around and do something to fix it! i didn’t raise you to treat women this way!”

his last straw, however, was his older brother percy. percy of all people. who looked at him with a disappointed shake of his head. receiving a disappointed head shake from percy was nothing out of the ordinary, especially for george. it was his words that stung. percy spoke ten simple words to him that truly set george off. percy spoke “you lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” at his sentence, george lost it.

“i know that percy! you don’t think i fucking know that i lost the best thing that ever happened to me! and fred i know i’m a jerk and ron i know i’m an idiot and ginny i know it’s my fault and mum i’m sorry okay! i know you didn’t raise me like this i don’t know what’s wrong with me but i don’t think she’s coming back!” he fell back onto the couch as he tugged frustratedly at his roots.

“george… do you love her?” molly asked him.

“yes mum,” a whimper escaped the fiery-haired boy’s throat. “i love her more than i’ve ever loved anyone before. she’s my world,” he revealed.

“then go, george. go get her,” his dad said. “for your sake and her’s,” he told him.

“and our’s!” fred called distantly from the kitchen.

“shove off fred!” george called back before apparating to your front door. he knocked three times and waited for someone to answer it. when you opened the door, he was shocked at your state.

makeup streaked down your cheeks with your shoulder bruised and your arm in a splint. your eyes were red and puffy, but they were furthermore accompanied by dark bags as if you hadn’t slept in weeks. the truth is; you hadn’t. “hi george,” you mumbled half heartedly.

“hi butterfl-“ you cut him off.

“yn. my name is yn,” you spoke sternly.

“i’ve called you butterfly since you were three…” he murmured.

“not anymore. hurts too bad to hear it. did you need something?” you quickly changed the subject.

“i want to talk to you,” he said. you nodded and walked in, telling him to follow you. george said hello to your brother and then followed you into the lounge where you two sat on the loveseat and you turned to face him.

you sat in a long silence as your eyes traced each other’s features. you memorized him. every line, every freckle, every bump, bruise, and blemish. the silence was deafening. untill he finally broke it. “what happened to your arm?” he murmured softly.

“it splinched when i apparated home. then i apparated again and made it worse,” you bit your lip softly.

“always so reckless,” he tutted softly, causing you to shrug.

“what’d you wanna talk about? know you didn’t come to talk about my arm…” you attempted to get to the point of his visit.

“right,” he murmured softly. “yn i…” he took a deep breath. “the day that i let you walk out of my life is the day that i made the worst mistake in the history of mistakes. i’ve done some stupid things in my life, but letting you walk away has by far been the stupidest. i’m so so sorry that i hurt you the way i did, i cannot express to you how sorry i am, i truly cannot. i love you, yn. with all of me i do, you have to believe me when i say that.”

“i do believe you george. i just don’t believe that you love me the way that i love you. and carrying around that pain is killing me. i mean absolutely destroying me. you live in my mind rent free. you’ve infested it,” you told him. “you with your stupid pretty smile and your god awful jokes and your ridiculous pranks that you somehow always rope me into and your perfect hair and your pretty eyes and just. you. george. stupid you. oblivious you. godric george,” you roughly shoved his chest. “i’ve loved you for years and you’ve always looked past me!” tears rimmed your bottom lash line and your voice cracked as you lashed out on him.

“for years george, i mean years! i’ve watched you fall in love with countless girls just to have your heart broken by them. i stuck by you through everything. even when you stopped being being my friend because it made angelina uncomfortable i waited for you george! and you just pushed me to the side. i did everything for you. i executed pranks for you. i planned pranks for you. i took the fall for you. i got detention for you! i did it all for you. i mean the countless amount of things i did just to be able to call you mine and i just… you didn’t care! you’ve never cared! you’ll never love me the way that i love you and that hurts. so. fucking. bad.” you wiped your eyes.

“it kills me george. it eats at me, every single day it does. i stood by your side and i took the blame with you even when i had nothing to do with the stupid shit you pulled at hogwarts because yeah i was going down, but hey, at least i was doing it with you, right? we made so much trouble and-and we used to laugh. and be happy. we were genuinely happy and i don’t know where we went wrong but we did, but i still say that i hate you with a smile on my face! i don’t get it george why don’t you love me!” a whimper tore itself from the depths of your chest as you let out a silent sob.

“now look what we’ve became…” he murmured, tears falling from your eyes.

“all the things i did just to call you mine… and… and all the things you said but… somehow, i still hope i was your favorite crime. cause merlin knows you were mine.” you sniffled as you wiped your eyes.

“you were mine. you’ll always be my favorite crime.” he leaned over and kissed your head as another silent sob racked your body. “now it’s bittersweet to think about the damage that we did,” he smiled over at you sadly. “i love you butterfly. just as much as you love me, if not more,” he whispered as he stood from his place.

you rolled your eyes water-logged eyes, but still managed to smile. “i wish you thought about that before,” you whispered.

“i do too… i guess i’ll have to just call you the one that got away then?” he asked.

“in another life georgie… i’d be your girl. and we’d keep every promise that we made,” you told him.

“and i wouldn’t have to say you were the one that got away,” you nodded as he kissed your head again. “i love you, butterfly. i always have.”

“i love you too, georgie. i always will,” you sniffled as you watched him walk out the door. you didn’t want this. you wanted to stop him. everything in your body screamed at you to stop him. but your brain wouldn’t work. your heart said no. you were scared of being hurt again.

you wanted to do something. yell at him. tell him to come back. to hug you. to never leave you. to never let you go. but your heart wouldn’t let you. you were frozen in time.

it’ll all get better in time.

you’d heard the saying time and time again. especially after your parents passed away. it was people’s favorite line to use when they saw you. the truth is… you didn’t stop hurting. the pain didn’t go away. you just got used to it. but the pain you were feeling now… you didn’t know if it would ever go away. at least it didn’t feel like it.

two months. it had been two months since george walked out of your house that night. it was nobody’s fault but your own, and somehow you couldn’t help wishing he would’ve stayed.

you saw him everywhere. in the stars in the night sky. in the sunrise and the sunset. in coffee shops and store windows. even in your dreams when you slept. so logically, you decided to stop. if you didn’t sleep you couldn’t dream. and if you didn’t dream, you couldn’t see him.

you dutifully ignored the pain in your chest like an annoying bug on a picnic. you pretended that you were fine, but the reality was; you weren’t. but you played it off. and you were able to keep up your facade. untill one day… that one fateful day tucked in the corner at ninety three diagon alley. your brother asked you to pick up ten second pimple vanisher because he had a date tonight and just received a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose, causing him to look like “the muggle myth rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” as he put it.

you walked into the shop and kept your head down as you searched the aisles. it wasn’t where it usually was. you knew this shop like the back of your hand, of course you had… you’d worked there for nearly three years. you furrowed your brows as you looked around. the shop had completely transformed. nothing was in the place it usually was. that’s when your eyes landed there. on her. right at the front, behind the till at the register you worked, in the uniform you wore was angelina johnson.

you sighed deeply as you extended your neck around the corner to where the office was. you smiled triumphantly as you saw fred sitting at his desk and began your trek. you gently knocked twice on the opened door and fred called, “come in,” distractedly.

you walked in and sat on the desk, right in front of him, forcing him to look up at you. “yn!” fred exclaimed.

“hi freddie!” you smiled as a giggle escaped your lips and you returned the death-grip hug he had enveloped you in.

“what brings you by? not that i don’t love seeing your pretty face, of course,” he shot you a playfully flirtatious wink.

“ybn needs ten second pimple vanisher because he has a date tonight and he woke up with a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose,” fred laughed loudly at your remark. “i tried to look for it, but the stores completely turned around,” you pouted slightly.

“oh yeah, we changed some things up because we needed room for our new products. they’re still in the making, but george disappeared,” he hummed.

“george what?” you asked.

“you didn’t know…?” he asked you.

“no. i… i had no idea,” you stuttered.

“yeah. after the night he went to talk to you, he left a note on our kitchen counter and all his things were packed and he just… left. we haven’t seen or heard from him since. ‘s just been angie and i running the shop now. couldn’t do it alone,” fred explained as he picked up the box. “here you are l-“ before he could finish, you were halfway out the door. “YN WAIT!” he called. “YOU FORGOT YOUR PRODUCT!”

“SORRY FRED! YBN WILL BE OKAY I HAVE TO GO!” you called as you ran out the door as fast as your feet would carry you. if you knew george weasley… and you did… there was only one place he could be. and you prayed to any and every god that would listen that he was there. you prayed like your life depended on it that he was okay. you needed to fix this. to fix him. to make it alright.

in this moment you knew that he needed you. he needed you like peanut butter needs jelly. the way left needs right. like the sun needs the moon. he needed you like you needed him. you ran and ran and ran for miles untill you got to a secluded area. then you took a breath. and you apparated.

it was exactly the way you left it. a dingy old wooden box house sitting at the highest branch of a sycamore tree. you groaned softly as you began to climb the many branches. “george i swear to godric you better be in here,” you grumbled to yourself as you climbed.

it felt like hours—truly it was ten grueling minutes at most—untill you got to the door of the house. you whispered the password and it creaked open. “georgie,” you breathed when you saw him.

there he was. laying on the floor of the treehouse wrapped in blankets and a sleeping bag with a small pillow under his head. the apple to your pie. the straw to your berry. the smoke to your high. the one you knew you’d marry.

the one that got away. your twin flame.

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* crossed out means i couldn’t tag you

#twin flame #george weasley #harry potter #harry potter x reader #charlie weasley x reader #charlie weasley #george weasley x reader #best friends to lovers #harry potter angst #harry potter smut #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fluff #george weasley smut #george weasly angst #george weasley fluff #twin flame series #twin flame part three

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occassionalfanficwriter · 3 years

Note

Heyhey! May I request childe x reader where the reader has been badly abused in the past? As a result she doesn’t mind when childe kidnaps her because childe has never hurt her, and treats her nicely? So since childe has work lmao he leaves a fatui agent to watch his s/o. But since his s/o has such a small appetite she doesn’t eat much. And since the fatui agent has a bad temper, what if he slaps her across the jaw so hard it breaks? So since then she can’t handle leaving childe’s side?Thank you

anon who hurt you? (•ω•`)this childe has yandere undertones but anyways you're welcome and enjoy.

Content warning for everyone else: allusions to domestic violence ,and non-graphic depiction of violence against women.

No Misfortune Without Blessings

Summary: Among the many myths about Tartaglia, few were dedicated to his love life. Even fewer dared to speak of the gentle love between him and his lady but in the soft and hushed whispers of the crowd, all would admit that they painted a pretty picture.

There was a boy.

You weren’t quite sure what to make of him. Shy and stuttering but with bright blue eyes that reminds you of the starry sky in the village. You liked him, in the same way you liked the morbid stories and descriptions of the adventurers in the tavern. You liked him too, in the same way you liked the rare flowers that grew in Snezhnayan winter.

And maybe the boy with the starry sky in his eyes and bright red hair liked you too. But it wasn’t something you paid attention to, there were stories and adventures to be had, knowledge to be shared and you decided it was more important.

More important than understanding what everyone your age liked or what accounted for normal. You never did quite understand everyone else in the same way you immediately understood Ajax. It was precisely because of this that you simply didn’t quite fit in, you were just as much of an outcast as Ajax was with his shyness and occasional stutter. You didn’t care for it, you found comfort in the knowledge you’d never be involved in messy affairs of the romantic and platonic kind.

Your world was peaceful.

There was Ajax, the stories from adventurers, and your hidden desire for something more beyond what the small seaside town you call home had to offer.

There used to be a boy with bright blue eyes that takes your breath away sometimes. Who had a burning red hair and warm smile that reminded you of the warm sunshine.

You loved to follow him around, notebook in hand filled with scribbles and experiments of different shorts. And Ajax loved you, perhaps, with the way he took you along for adventures on the edges of the woods, in the frozen lake, and taking small commissions from the neighbors.

The two of you had grown taller, childhood fat turning into muscles as your bodies hit puberty. Both of you had changed in so many ways, gone were the days when no one minded the two of you staying out together for a long period of time, without any companion. Whispers followed when the two of you held each other just a bit too long for what was appropriate.

Your world could not simply consist of Ajax and the growing longing you had for what the world had to offer. You didn’t like the change, neither of you two did. But you were much better at pretending than Ajax, so you studied and observed the rest, told this to Ajax and somehow the restrictions on you two became a big game of pretend. You pretended to understand the beauty that others found, pretended to fit in the scale of accepted normalcy.

And then, without you noticing the boy you loved dearly was gone. You stared blankly as you watched his parents cry and search parties used for a boy lost in the woods.

There used to be a boy and you weren’t quite sure what to make of him when he came back to you three months later.

You weren’t quite sure when it started, when your world expanded and collapsed until the only things left are the ashes of things you don’t quite recognize. You weren’t quite sure when you stopped yearning for a life of adventure. When you began to settle for whatever it was that was given to you.

Maybe it was when the boy you loved came back with dull blue eyes and a sharp look that told stories only the hardened and veteran adventurers understood. Maybe it was when you could no longer keep up with him, when trouble seeks him out and your parents dragged you away from him.

Maybe it was when one night he sneaks into your room bids you goodbye and makes you realize that the stars in his eyes never left, they were just clouded by something brighter and bigger than whatever it was that Morepesok had to offer.

Maybe it was when you woke up the next day and the boy you loved was taken away into a brighter and bigger place than the small sea-side village.

But that didn’t matter now, not when your whole body hurt and you laid limp on the cold wooden floors of the place that should be home but isn’t. You weren’t quite sure when you accepted this as normal, when the man your parents swore would take care of you became the one who hurt you. You weren’t quite sure when you started to forget all of that you loved dearly.

“...it hurts” you say out loud as tears prick on the edges of your eyes and you simply lay on the floor, ignoring the pain on your ribs, the blood on your mouth and countless other bruises that littered your skin.

You don’t recognize yourself anymore.

And you hate yourself for it.

You think of the boy you loved who had stars in his eyes and the sun in his soul and you yearn for him and what could have been.

There was a man with a charming smile and blue eyes, and the mask of the Harbingers. You weren’t quite sure what to think of him when he held your hand gently, and spoke to you about topics you used to love.

You weren’t quite sure what it meant when his eyes grew cold at the bruises on your skin and the whispers that followed you. Maybe you loved him, in the same way you loved Ajax, and the man you lived with. Maybe you loved him in the same way you loved the preserved heart in a jar that used to be yours.

There were a lot of maybes but you were sure that Tartaglia would never hurt you. The day he takes you away felt like a fairy tale, as if the boy you loved came back for you but you knew that Ajax was gone. And Tartaglia was the one who came for you so you stupidly went along with him.

You gave him your everything.

You gave him the tattered pieces of what could have been you, and allowed him to reshape you, until you were stronger than before. You relearned how to be human, how to be yourself, and you loved him for it. You learned how to speak his own love language, stayed by his side and accepted all of him until you weren’t sure where you ended and where he began.

Somehow, you stupidly believed that all of this would remain as it was. Until he had to leave for a long while and you can’t help but feel as if your world would collapse.

“Don’t go” you whispered as you held onto his clothes like a child.

“Don’t leave me” you begged as you shrink your frame and tried to fight the fear of being hated for something like this.

“I’m sorry” Tartaglia tells you, voice soft and gentle as he hugs you tenderly.

You want to cry but you don’t because you had always understood that he was meant for bigger and brighter things. Instead you sank in his chest, you wanted to imprint yourself in him, so that no matter how bright and beautiful the world outside of this home you built was, he’d never forget about you.

“Come back quickly.”

“I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

You don’t tell him that you’ve already begun missing him.

You never bothered to get along with Tartaglia’s subordinates. Not when you decided to ignore anything Fatui related since it meant that Tartaglia would never have to worry about you being used against him. You refused to be a burden.

This ignorance meant that despite treating them civilly you had no deep impression on them. It meant that when none of Tartaglia’s trusted aides were available to watch you and take care of whatever your needs were, some new recruit was given to you.

You didn’t care about it much. The new recruits tend to be distant and careful upon knowing who you were to Tartaglia. You didn’t care about what they called you behind your back. What mattered was Tartaglia and his thoughts.

Your heart was too small to include irrelevant matters.

Maybe if you learned how to be human properly, you would have realized the danger you were in. An upstart recruit from a noble lineage coupled with a bad temper would never be suited to your cold and distant attitude. The snark and biting remarks you ignored only added fuel to a fire you weren’t aware of.

You were too busy counting the days until Tartaglia’s return to pay attention to someone you found insignificant.

“You didn’t finish your food again” The recruit complained.

“Feed it to the dogs or whatever” you answered dismissing him with a wave of hand as you drank your water.

No one would care if you ate less than usual. Tartaglia would only ask if anything was wrong and you’d be quick to assure him that it was nothing. You knew that he would overthink and his subordinates would pay for it.

It was best for all parties that his mood remained good. You didn’t want others interfering with your time with him and you were quite sure that after the glamour of sparring with him faded off, his men had no want of being beaten to the ground.

This thought that you believed to be true made you blind. It made you let your guard down when malice was directed at you and you found yourself suddenly on the ground.

The harsh sound of your jaw breaking echoing loudly as you stared blankly on the marble tiles of the dining room. Somehow it felt like you were back in that place, and you could hear shouting and swearing around you.

‘I’m stronger than this’ You thought as you tried to force your body to move.

‘I’m stronger than this!’ You stubbornly insisted as your body remained frozen in the ground.

‘I’M STRONGER THAN THIS!’ You screamed inside your head as you felt like you were drowning again. You couldn’t breathe and you could no longer see anything.

The next thing you saw was Tartaglia on your bedside, asleep and visibly worse for wear. You stood up, opening your mouth only to quickly stop at the dull pain you felt. You could only stare at him with longing. The room was dark and only lit by the moonlight that seeped in through the windows.

You reached out for him, three soft squeezes on his hand as you gingerly kissed his calloused hand. You could tell that he was already awake and you waited for him to open his bright blue eyes that took your breath away.

“I won’t leave you alone anymore” Tartaglia says with sadness in his voice as he cradles you in his lap. You closed your eyes and tapped his lips thrice.

‘I love you’.

There was a girl with bright curious eyes that seemed to see through him. Ajax couldn’t keep his stutter out as he shyly introduced himself.

He loved her at first sight.

He loved her more when she took his hand and showed him interesting stuff. Each moment spent with her was an adventure. He loved the spark in her eyes when she talked about the nations beyond Snezhnaya.

He loved her eccentricities and never wanted her to change. But Ajax knew that if he remained as he was, he would never be able to keep her by his side.

The girl he loved yearned for something bigger and brighter than Morepesok and Ajax wanted to give it to her with his own two hands.

There used to be a girl with bright eyes and rarely smiled but could take his breath away when she smiled at him. Who loved all sorts of things without any care, who loved him in the same way she loved the animals they came across.

She was bright and warm and Ajax knew that she was destined for bigger things. That she was meant to explore the world beyond the sea and Ajax wanted to take her away and give her the greatest adventure.

He wanted her world to be made up of him, their adventures, and everything she loved. But the Abyss had no place for gentle dreams and soft loves. So he fought and fought until he realized his dream and set out for something bigger and brighter than him.

‘I want to give her the world’ Ajax whispered in the silence of the night as he fought for his life and then for fun.

He thought of the girl he loved who walked among the stars and he yearned for her. The Abyss had no room for the weak so he hid away what he could and threw away what he couldn’t for the sake of growing strong and paving the way for the girl he loved.

He came back and found solace in the stupid girl that didn’t understand everything yet. He protected her innocence even as she stared at his blood stained hands. He protected her soft and loving heart even as he felt his being torn apart.

He wanted to keep her by his side but he had always been the better fighter. She was better at pretending but she could never bring herself to fight back mercilessly. So he decided to fight for the two of them.

The Fatui was like the Abyss but it could never reach the harshness and brutality of a place seeped in desperation. He hid his heart away, keeping it with the girl he loved who cried for him. He fought his way up the ranks and thought of the girl he loved.

He thought of her as he took missions upon missions, thinking of her soft lips and sweet tears that made him want to take her with him. But he wasn’t strong enough to protect her yet so he leaves her behind, promising to return to her once more.

There used to be a girl who seemed to like she could take the world by storm.

There used to be a boy who loved her secretly and openly.

Now there was a woman whose light was dying, bright eyes dulled and heart trampled upon.

Now there was a man named Tartaglia whose heart burned and raged for those that dared to hurt the woman he loved.

He takes her away, leaves no traces and keeps her far away from the burnt down house that used to be her childhood home. He keeps her by his side and gives her pieces of the world.

Tartaglia with his bloodstained hands gently and lovingly held her in his arms as he dealt with the recruit. It was brutal and inhumane but all of his humanity was meant for the girl he loved and his family.

He gives her the best doctor and waits for her to wake up.

Thrice he made the mistake of leaving her behind.

‘This time, no matter what, I’ll keep you by my side.’

Among the myths about Tartaglia few were dedicated to the lady he always took along with him, be it in the battlefield or anywhere else. It was rumored that she was as gentle as Liyue’s glaze lilies, and as deadly as the ruin guards that littered across Teyvat.

But one thing was constant, where Tartaglia goes the lady follows. A warrior and his lady dominating battle fields across Teyvat.

There would be no surprise if one day the entire world fell at their feet.

#childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #yandere childe x reader #genshin impact childe x reader #genshin impact x reader

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sukirichi · 3 years

Text

earned it [06]

Gojo Satoru is a firm believer that if you work hard for it then you shall earn it. But on the other side, he’s not unfamiliar with his own sins. He also believes that there is punishment due for his sins as he’s earned it.

cw. attempted murder and suicide, angst ig i feel nothing at this point because NAOYA 😭

notes. i’m rolling with the earned it jokes that reader is shippable with everyone so HAH enjoy this chapter because I didn’t enjoy the last LMAO (IM SO EXCITED FOR TOJI TO APPEAR!)

series masterlist

Your muscles throbbed, the pounding of your heart felt even through your skin. You’ve spent hours in the training room, taking punch by punch, landing blow by blow – yet no matter how hard you tried, you kept falling on your ass. At this point, your backside was beyond sore, skin drenched with sweat and clothes sticking uncomfortably to the surface. Meanwhile, your ‘savior’ barely felt the need to catch his breath, instead gazing down at you with disappointment written all over his face.

“Why do you expect so much from me?” you panted, fists clenched on the mat. “Didn’t you tell me you just needed me to get your money back and that’s it? I didn’t ask for you to do anything so stop telling me I’m indebted to you all the time.”

Naoya clicked his tongue, clearly disappointed by your lack of resolve. Above you, he swept up his cane and finally balanced himself. You previously thought he didn’t struggle because he looked so calm and composed, easily overpowering you even with his injury, but his lips were strained, jaw clenched tight that perhaps he was just good at concealing his pain. It made you shut up and watch his every move; his back faced you – probably to hide whatever fleeting moment of vulnerability he had.

“I won’t always be there to save your sorry life,” he said calmly, “You need to learn how to be strong on your own no matter how tough it gets. Now if you’ll keep complaining instead of finishing your training, I could happily lock you up and force you to do my dirty work for me.”

“Then why don’t you go ahead?!”

“I don’t want to,” Naoya responded without missing a beat. He easily closed the distance with a few staggered steps, his head tilted to the side as he surveyed you.

You wondered what went through his mind. Did he see a weak woman? A woman who must be so helpless, so useless that you stayed there, legs too tired and muscles aching too much you couldn’t move? There was no telling with Naoya, and his guarded gaze didn’t help either. Satoru had always been difficult to read at most, but with Naoya – it was practically impossible.

Even as he cupped your chin and twisted it sideways, his eyes narrowed over all your features like he saw something you didn’t, he was too guarded.

“I need you in taking down Gojo Satoru. In order to accomplish that, I have to use his weakness against him. You showing up won’t be enough. No, I want to hurt him…and what better way than to take what was once his, right? Dangle right in front of his eyes what he let go of, make him regret his actions?” his smile turned dark, and for the first time since you’ve met him, you got a glance of what his heart really looked like.

It wasn’t true that Naoya was heartless – no, he just had a dark, sinister heart that didn’t beat the same tune as others. He played his own music with the bones of his enemies, drinking their lifeline from a gold cup and drowning in them, his ominous laughter the perfect antithetical melody of what could’ve been angelic hums.

“Don’t you want that?”

His question made your heart skipped a beat. This whole time, you’ve been so hell bent on achieving something, but what you wanted to reach had never been clear. You were too driven by emotions, by the pain Satoru’s absence had caused, and now that the opportunity was presented before you, you faltered.

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Well, if you ask me what I want…” he tilts your chin up with his finger “It would be to see you strong enough that even you would be capable of taking me down. So be strong, keep fighting – I’ll be there with you every step of the way. You only have one job, and that is to live. I am not allowing you to give up at the slightest of minor inconveniences.”

“And if I get weak?” you questioned with an oscillating tremor, the bite of his cold skin against your heated ones spiking. “If I want to give up? Would I fail you then?”

“I don’t think you’re someone who cares about failing others, so don’t fret whether you’d please me or not,” Just like that, Naoya’s scornful tone had risen again. He let go of you until you dropped down to your palms, blinking back at the sudden change of atmosphere. “Like I said, just do what you need to do, keep going. Don’t look back or be afraid to take the next big step because I’ll always be there right beside you.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“I’m not asking you to, princess,” he snickered, already half way to the door that only he was allowed to go in. Even though you’ve been staying in his manor for quite some time, there were still some things Naoya didn’t trust you with, leaving you only more curious to find out the secrets within.

“Only time will tell. But once you’ve made your decision, know that my ring is always waiting beside your table,” his voice echoed through the large room, stopping in his tracks to look at you once more. This time, he had no haunting features, only the cold emptiness likened to staring back to an infinite void of nothingness.

“I expect an answer when I get home.”

You still remembered the day you decided to wear his ring. Naoya had come then, tired and aggravated from matters he didn’t bother explaining. You stood on his doorway, lips shut tight as you nervously fiddled with your ring, unsure if whether you should tell him or allow him to piece the puzzle himself.

Thankfully, Naoya was a lot more observant than you gave him credit for.

His eyes slid over your face before he followed the motion of your fingers, smirking as the jewel glinted under the bright lights of his home. Wise choice, he’d once told you, and you believed it.

Your life hadn’t been the same ever since. Your spontaneous marriage equated to hellish training of perfecting your image as his trophy wife, spending hours in his secret laboratory and discussing business plans through a glass of wine. Naoya wasn’t around much to teach you everything and it pained him to be your own trainer too so you had to ask help from his guards, refusing to give up and fall down even as your muscles screamed at you to take a break. For Naoya, with Naoya, giving up and running away felt like a myth; a buried solution in the past that should never be brought up again. But now that he was gone, you did exactly that.

You’d given up. Satoru had made you run away.

“Miss,” a deep voice cut you from your thoughts. You tore your gaze away from the glowing night city of Milan to turn to Satoru’s right hand man, the tall figure looming rather shyly instead of imposingly. “You haven’t eaten since we got here. Would you like anything? Mr. Gojo will cover your expenses.”

“I want to go home.”

He froze at your deadpan statement. Finally meeting your gaze under his lashes, Geto pursed his lips. “You know we can’t do that, Miss. It’s unsafe back in Japan.”

“And who’s to say Toji won’t follow us here?” you snapped, pushing your weight off the Cleopatra set and uncrossing your legs. “Why can’t your stupid boss just activate the account and give it back to us? I think we’ve made it clear we’re more than capable of handling our finances, and I’m pretty sure Satoru doesn’t need any more money when he can afford all this.”

“Mr. Gojo…has his reasons for everything he does.”

You laughed bitterly. Maybe it was the fact that Satoru had left this morning for whatever business he had that you didn’t have anyone else to let your anger out to that you’d swiped your gun under your thigh holster and dashed his way.

Geto’s back slammed against the wall, the cool barrel of your gun pressed to his jaw. He swallowed nervously, eyes darting to your weapon, and you laughed heartlessly. “Oh, please, do tell because nothing makes sense,” you crooned, flipping the safety off and letting your heated gaze meet his rather docile ones. You almost felt bad for him. Almost.

“I could easily put a bullet through your head and hijack his plane. I’ll be gone before you know it and who’s to stop me from doing that? Why should I stay here any longer with you?”

“Because your husband asked you to,” Geto responded softly. You stepped back with wide eyes, yesterday’s event crashing all over you once again. He must’ve sensed you no longer held any hostility because he used his pointer finger to move the barrel away from him, gently peeling your hands off his suit. “Because you know, if you go back to Japan, there will be nothing waiting for you there.”

You balled your fists. “I will kill Fushiguro Toji myself. Then I’ll kill Satoru.”

“Even if he used to be your lover?”

“Especially because he used to be my lover.”

Okay…maybe your plan of escaping and returning to Japan hadn’t worked out that well. Exhaustion finally crept up to your senses that you passed out not long after attacking Geto – who reassured you to no end he wasn’t mad you tried to kill him – and days have passed ever since. You hated to admit it, but being stuck in an overseas hotel wasn’t so bad. Geto’s presence was a lot more comforting than his master’s that you didn’t mind having him watch your every move. Plus, he was really nice to immediately follow your every whim. You wanted hot chocolate? Extra pillows? A really expensive wine that you refused to pay for because you were petty and dramatic? He provided it all without question.

Except he probably should have, because you’d stripped off to your underwear, head tipped back to take one final swig of the nearly empty bottle as you slid deeper into the tub.

Your fiery nature of rolling your eyes at Satoru every time he came around (which was rare, for some reason) couldn’t fool anyone – not even yourself. The moment Geto retired to the living room, you would bite the pillows to muffle your cries, thinking back to when Naoya was still alive. It was an endless torment of what if you had stayed, what if you had pushed the rubble off him, what if you just saved him?

Would he still be alive? Would he have survived? Would you be back with him in the Zen’in Estate instead of holding your breath under the tub in a desperate attempt to conceal your tears?

It hurt so bad. It hurt everywhere.

Your lungs begged you to rise up and breathe, but you stayed still under the water, eyes shut tight and hands clenched around the tub’s edges so hard your knuckles turned white. Soon, you grew dizzy and your grip slipped away. Finally, fucking finally, you were falling, falling way too deep that your legs bent inside the tub. Bubbles erupted from your lips in one last breath. At the back of your mind, you let out a sincere laugh for you’d meet your husband soon. He’d be disappointed, probably scold you all the way to the afterlife – until strong arms pulled you out of the tub and into someone’s chest instead.

“Shit, what are you doing?! You could’ve drowned!”

You coughed out water and fisted Satoru’s button-up shirt that had now clung to his skin from the water. Looking around you, you were still very much alive, the uncomfortable twisting of your heart a painful reminder of that. Above you, Satoru sat you in his lap while he remained cross-legged on the floor, muttering curses under his breath as he wrapped a towel around you.

Scoffing, you pushed his hands away, though you kept the towel anyway to lessen your shivering. Why the fuck was the AC so damn strong here?

“Dying seems like a better option, don’t you think?” you snarled at him, teeth chattering from the chill that had begin to seep in.

Momentarily, you worried on how much of a hot mess you probably looked like. Smudged eyeliner, wine-stained lips, unbrushed hair and remnants of the wine mixing with the once clear bath water – you shook your head at the thought and glared at Satoru.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“I was out contacting friends to ask for help. We’re going to need a hundred pairs of eyes watching anywhere that Toji could possibly come through.”

“Is this your pathetic idea of ‘keeping me safe’? Locking me up in this stupid hotel and having your man watch me all the time?” you pushed yourself off him, the sudden motion of standing up giving you wobbly legs. Satoru reached over to steady you but you slapped his hand away, your glare warning him to not take another step.

Seeing his face, seeing him worried as if he didn’t just cause your life to turn into absolute hell, you wanted to grab the wine bottle and smash it right at his pretty face. He had no right to look at you with pity.

You hated him, utterly and terribly despised this man with your entire being.

“What are you really planning, Satoru? Why can’t we just come back home and attack Toji with all we’ve got? Why don’t you just give back our fucking money so we can end all this for once and for all and I can leave?!”

“Because I don’t have the money!”

“What?”

“The money…” Satoru’s back slid off the wall, his palm coming up to thread through his hair. He sounded weak, defeated. “I don’t have it.”

“Gojo,” you snatched him by the collar, teeth bared as you demanded, “What do you mean you don’t have it?”

Satoru paled. “When I stole the money from the Zen’ins, the figures were all fake. They’re not real, there’s no actual money hidden behind their accounts and it was too late before I realized that,” his lips trembled as he continued, “Whatever Toji placed in there, it’s not his actual account where he hides everything and it would make sense too because I stole it too easily – almost as if they wanted me to take it. A few hacks here and there and it was immediately wired to me but after meeting you…” Satoru shook his head, chin dropped down low. “I checked again and the account never existed. It’s a fake one. The digits are just there for show.”

“So then why would Toji want it? Why did my husband have to die for nothing?!”

“I don’t know, okay, I don’t know anything!” he argued back until your faces grew closer, his nose brushing with yours.

Somehow, you couldn’t pull away. His knees had drawn up, forcing you to rest on his thighs as you both breathed heavily, your grip on his collar almost havered.

“Whatever the Zen’ins are hiding, that’s beyond me. I may be in the business for far longer than they have, but they have always been notorious with their possessions that I’m not surprised even I can’t find where it really leads back to. Whatever Toji is hiding there, your husband must’ve known something about it. Why else would they fight tooth and bone over it?”

“If there was, Naoya would’ve told me about it.”

“He would if he trusted you,” Satoru suddenly grabbed your wrist and shook it until you stared at your ring. “How are you even so sure he could trust you with that information? Have you forgotten you’re just a pawn to his game and you’re nothing but a bed warmer?”

“Don’t you ever speak about us that way. You don’t know how much he cared for me.”

“If he really did, then why didn’t he tell you why his cousin is after you? He’s using you as bait, Y/N. I’m not the bad guy here. That man you’re so deeply in love with? I can’t guarantee he’s better than me. We’re all men in the mafia, love is the last thing we would care about.”

You pushed yourself off him.

His words stung too much, not because it was a lie, but because you know there was some sort of truth ringing behind it. You trudged out of the bathroom and sat on the bed, unstirred by the fact you dripped all over the carpeted floor. From behind you, Satoru’s rushed footsteps echoed, but you didn’t care. You simply threw on a robe with your back turned to him.

“And you’d know that better than everyone right? Considering how easy it was for you to leave me?” When Satoru didn’t respond, you chuckled humorlessly and sat on the bed. “What Naoya and I had…it was a friendship that healed my soul. I don’t…I don’t know what to do without him.”

“Friendship?”

You smiled sadly. “I wasn’t actually in love with him, idiot. Men like Naoya don’t know what love is, but he sure does know how to protect family.”

The notion of talking about him, of accepting that maybe he really was gone…somewhat reliving.

Satoru was the last person you wanted to talk to your late husband about, but Geto – which is the much better company – wasn’t around, and you hugged your knees to yourself, refusing to let Satoru see through your vulnerability.

“You know, I trusted him more than I did myself. He was always there for me, no matter what. His soul was dark, angry, corrupted – he’s not the man I would fall for, but despite all that, he was the friend I needed,” you buried your face in your knees, voice muffled as you cried, your heart shattering again and again and again.

The ring on your finger had never felt so heavy ever since you wore it.

“I loved him as much as I hated you.”

Satoru was silent, so much so that you wondered if he was even in the same room at all. You sat there crying, too hopeless to even try to conceal it anymore. Shivering, you close your eyes and forced the image of Naoya’s last moments away from your memories, desperately praying to whoever had mercy that you could just forget all about it.

“Geto told me you tried to kill him,” Satoru murmured after a beat, “You could’ve easily escaped and went back to Japan if you wanted to, so why didn’t you? Was it because of me?”

You remembered what you tried to do today.

Just like that, Naoya was alive once more. You were brought back to the day of your wedding when he’d clasped your sweaty, clammy hands in his, rubbing some warmth in them before pressing a kiss at the top of your knuckles. He’d asked you to promise him something then – an entire contrast from his constants orders over your well-being – and it was a promise you’d momentarily forgotten; a promise you’d broken out of mourning.

“Naoya once told me,” you reminisced through dry, cracked lips and even more shattered heart, the picture of his disappointment as clear as day. “Death was the only place he can go where he would never allow me to follow.”

It took a lot, but it somehow got better. After allowing yourself a faint moment of weakness where Naoya resurfaced in your mind to remind you of our promise and your purpose, you felt stronger, somewhat steadier with each step you took. You were still wary around Satoru, although that was a given.

His friend, Geto, was really nice, on the other hand, and you couldn’t explain why you always lowered your guard around the formal dark-haired assistant.

You and Geto were playing chess when Satoru barged in out of nowhere, a plate and a syrup condenser on his hand. “So I got you breakfast,” was his greeting, nodding at Geto once as a silent order to give you two privacy. You pouted as the latter left, but soon your attention had been diverted to the heavenly aroma filling in your senses. Seeing your approval, Satoru hid a smile behind his dark sunglasses. “Still like pancakes?”

“Trying to get into my good graces now?”

“I’m just trying to cheer you up.”

You rolled your eyes but snatched the plate from him anyway. “So I talked to my lawyer,” you begun, pouring syrup all over the fluffy bread until it was almost spilling to the sides. Beside you, Satoru’s snickers were barely muffled, to which you ignored wholeheartedly. “They’ve already processed my inheritance over Naoya’s possessions and assets. Once we return to Japan, I’ll be the next leader of the Zen’in Clan, much to the disappointment of his elders, of course, but they can’t do anything about it,” you informed him with your fork hanging in mid-air, the words falling thickly. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

“That we’re back to being enemies?”

You offered him a sarcastic smile. “Naoya lied about strengthening his alliance with your family. He doesn’t actually give a fuck about you.”

“I figured that much,” he snickered to himself, shifting his weight until his elbows rested on his thighs. “Listen…a friend of mine is flying to Milan tonight to meet us. They have strong connections with banks all over the world and they brought in some information about that hidden Zen’in account. I think we’re finally getting off to somewhere and finding out what really is in there,” Satoru gauged for your reaction, but you kept eating – more like stuffing the pancakes inside your mouth for you were finally free of having to act perfect without your husband.

Satoru’s hand landed on top of yours. “I promise…I’ll give it back to right where it belongs. As soon as it’s wired back to you, I’m setting you free.”

You stared at the unwanted figure over you, and you snatched your hand back, waving a bread knife below his lashes. “You can’t set me free when I was never yours,” you sang breathily, the tip of the blade hovered right at his lips. Satoru raised a brow at you, but you quickly retrieved the knife back with widened eyes. “Now that you mention it…I think Naoya told me something about his family stashing secret weapons and even heirlooms through offshore accounts and buried under islands. He was a little sleepy during that time but I remember it,” pushing the plate away from you as you lost your appetite, you clutched your palms under your chin in thought. “He said he was looking for something he lost as a child, possibly an heirloom.”

“He’s doing all this for heirlooms?” Satoru immediately coughed his words back when you glared at him, raising his hands in surrender. “I mean, I was just saying. I didn’t think he was a sentimental type of guy.”

“The question here is what both Toji and Naoya could’ve both wanted from that account. It’s not just an heirloom, obviously there’s something there worth more than money,” You argued and slapped your knees, heading straight to your (unfortunately) shared room. “Whatever. I’ll get this over with as soon as I get the money back.”

Satoru, as always, was hot on your heels. It annoyed you how he trailed over you like some sort of puppy or shadow – Naoya had always been too classy to not give you space.

The difference between them just kept getting more and more uncannily obvious.

“Whoa there, stop. Did you really think I’d give back the money to you and that’s it? Are you forgetting the fact Toji is out there to kill you just so he can have his hands on it?”

“He can have the money for all I fucking care,” you shrugged and sat on your bed, scrolling through numerous piles of emails and records that Naoya entrusted you to keep. Surely you could find something. “I just need to find whatever Naoya’s spent his whole life killing for.”

“Why don’t you care about the money? Didn’t Naoya expect you to take over his business?”

Your thumb froze over a file. Suddenly, your throat grew dry, and you quickly flashed Satoru a stinky eye. “I-it’s not my main concern.”

“It’s not safe for you. If Toji finds out—”

Got it. You bookmarked an email Naoya had forwarded you around three years ago and resent it to an old friend, pocketing the phone back to your pyjamas before Satoru could see. “I’ll handle it. I’ve been doing well so far before you came into our lives again,” you finalized, stopping for a bit as you waited for that all-too familiar footfall matching with yours, only for the room to be coated in silence.

Satoru stood there on the other side of the room, eyes deep in thought before he sighed. “I’ll meet you at the hotel restaurant tonight. We have a lot to discuss on what our next move should be,” nodding once, Satoru left the room.

The hotel room was eerily silent.

Dinner came around faster than you expected. With Geto out to run some errands for Satoru, something about ‘establishing bases’ or whatever, you were locked in your room, using Naoya’s black card to get enough amount of clothing to last you for your stay here. Even though Satoru had promised he’d take care of everything, you didn��t want to be in his debt for any longer. You weren’t his, you were Naoya’s, and you shot down his curious looks when heaps of shopping bags had been delivered to your door.

An hour later, you left the room, struggling to zipper the back of your dress. Satoru was already in the living room buttoning up his suit jacket, just as handsome as ever (though you’d never tell him that.)

His hands froze in the last button once his eyes landed on you, and you huffed at him, too distressed to even act cute or bothered while pointing to your dress. Satoru strode to you in three long steps, his cold fingers brushing against the dip of your spine when he clutched on the zipper.

You had to bite your lip down to prevent the shivers from spilling through, his lips dangerously close to your ear as he whispered, “You look great.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

If Satoru was bothered by the lack of sincerity in your voice, he didn’t comment on it. He removed his hands from you and watched as you slipped black velvet gloves through your arms – just in case you had to end up killing someone; leaving fingerprints was a risk you couldn’t take.

“Did you really get dressed to kill?”

“I came here to negotiate,” you corrected, “I’ll do everything I can to find out whatever’s behind that offshore account. And you, sir,” Frowning at him, you pulled Satoru closer by the tie, perhaps a little too harshly since he nearly knocked his head with yours. He was quick to steady himself as you fixed his tie, flattening it down with your fingers. “You need to know where you should stick your nose in. This is more my business than yours so don’t get in my way acting all hero and shit. I assure you I can handle myself.”

“You’re really going to berate me for worrying about you?”

“You can no longer worry about me,” you disclosed, snatching your black purse from the counter before doing the come hither motion at his shock-still figure. “Now let’s go. We have a case to crack.”

“Case to crack? You sure sound like a detective.”

You snickered, but made no further comment. The elevators dinged and you arrived at the restaurant, which you really regretted not visiting soon enough because the place was grand. Red carpeted floors, golden chandeliers, soft jazz music playing in the background as the lights dimmed down low, the faint clinking of utensils against plates and light chatter of the guests so heartbreakingly nostalgic.

It seemed that even after his death, Naoya had every intention to never leave your side. The setting reminded you too much of your never-ending late night fancy dinners.

Naoya being Naoya, he didn’t blink twice in flaunting his money and renting out entire restaurants all for himself, claiming that he just ‘wanted to have an intimate moment with his wife.’ Sure, it mostly consisted of you discussing what move you should make next, but it was the most affectionate gesture you’ve received after spending years in the quiet and cold environment of the Zen’in Estate.

The outside world wasn’t any better when you and Naoya were marked as targets by the entire government, so it made sense, that only with him that you’d find comfort in.

You must be so out of it you never even noticed Satoru leading you to your seat, a warm meal that should’ve been comforting right under your nose. It was too much – too similar that you headed straight for the wine, ignoring Satoru’s questioning gaze. You noticed from the corner of his eye that he opened his mouth too many times in an attempt to make light conversation, but this dinner wasn’t for you to rekindle your old flame.

No, you were here to wait for his ‘friend’ and review important matters. You were determined to fulfill that purpose alone and only that alone that you never once made eye contact with him, even standing up to reach the salt shaker near him instead of asking him to pass it.

Just as you leaned back to your seat, the music grew louder. A foreign man walked to the stage where he was basked in the spotlight, all heads turning to him when he tapped the microphone, sending little echoes all over the hall. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s loosen up tonight with a drink and bring our lovers out here on the dance floor,” he sang while swaying side to side, snapping his fingers to the beat that had turned into calming to sensual. “It is a fine evening, isn’t it? Come on, don’t be shy, the night is still so young!”

You dropped your fork beside the plate. “Did you know about this?”

“I swear, I had no idea.”

“Those two attractive lovers in table 42, the dance floor is still much too spacious!”

“Pretty vulgar for a five star hotel,” you commented under your breath and dabbed the pasta sauce off your lips with a napkin, slapping it down the table as you stood up – much to Satoru’s surprise who’d tried to make himself invisible from the host’s eyes. Stupid him; did he really think he could blend in with his sunglasses and snow white hair?

If you were to be honest, you’d rather choke on shrimp than dance with him, but you had an image to upkeep. If you couldn’t gather with the crowd and pretend to be one with others, both your true natures would be fished out even with innocent eyes. You were left with no choice but to be comfortable in the dance floor, sighing deeply as you placed your hands down on Satoru’s wide shoulders. He furrowed his brows at you but said nothing else; strong, cautious hands sliding down from your back before they settled at the curve of your hips.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Mister. I won’t hesitate to stab a fork through your jugular right here.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I know you’re not my little angel anymore.”

Angel. It was what he used to call you back then – when you were still but an innocent, naïve being who never believed in monsters until you fell for one.

He was right; you were no longer his angel. The woman he loved had been left abandoned in the street, the purity of her soul tainted with anger and heartbreak that soon bathed in blood and the need for revenge. His angel was no more – the woman he danced with was nothing but a replica of the face and body he adored the most. Now, you danced with him, not as his angel and neither as his rival’s wife, but simply as a woman whose kindness had long vanished into thin air.

Satoru danced with the devil.

And he should be disgusted just as you should be repulsed with how sickeningly smooth and graceful he was in everything he did, but the wine – yes, it was the fucking wine – messed with you that you actually enjoyed it. Your bodies moved in rhythm and syncopated with the beat, the romantic high notes of the violin and the tender embrace of deep trebles like a classical painting coming to life and you were its subjects to be expressed.

Perhaps…you were just sad. You grieved and mourned too much you’d momentarily forgot what love was, in turn making you forget what it felt like to be constantly unsafe and peeking over your shoulder in case someone tried to kill you.

Satoru just felt so warm, so safe and alive that you found your head dipping lower, your muscles relaxing around his soothing and undeniably tender touch, the space between your bodies diminishing until you surrendered to the power of your desire. You were so close, your ear about to press on his chest to listen to the blissful sound of someone’s reassuring heartbeat along with the music, and then you saw him.

A tuft of blonde hair, a chiseled face, a nude cream suit and a deep blue shirt beneath – what the fuck was he doing here?

The spell was broken in an instant.

Satoru must’ve been under the same trance for his hand trailed lower to pull you closer, your chests grazing with one another before you placed your palm flat on his body, lips thinned into a grim look that resonated with the sick, twisting feeling in your guts.

“I,” you croaked out, clearing your throat when it went dry. “I need to go to the ladies.”

You left Satoru without another word, bunching your dress up to run to where he had disappeared. He was still walking coolly and inspecting the paintings hung in the empty lobby with faux interest – although knowing him, the bastard probably did enjoy classical pieces and studied about them in his free time; which he didn’t have much to begin with.

As if sensing your presence, he stopped right in front of a replica of The Sleeping Venus, his hands dug deep in his pockets. “The shape of being is the visual demonstration of a state of being in which idealized existence is suspended in immutable slow-breathing harmony. All the sensuality has been distilled off from this sensuous presence, and all incitement; Venus denotes not the act of love but the recollection of it. The perfect embodiment of Giorgione’s dream, she dreams his dream herself,” he narrates in his baritone voice, “A little cordial, is it not?”

You took your gun out from your thigh holster and lowered it right at the back of his skull. “Don’t move another inch.”

“No need to be so hostile in a public setting, Y/N. I’m only here to look out for you and making sure you’re not forgetting who you are. Killing me isn’t part of the plan.”

“Neither was murdering my husband,” you growled, pushing the barrel harder against him, though the man didn’t budge before you. “I know that it wasn’t Toji who set off the bomb, Kento, you did.”

“We simply saw an opportunity that couldn’t be wasted. Two notorious mafia leaders in an unsuspecting supposed safe environment?” The fact he didn’t even deny it left you speechless. Kento spun around until your gun rested between his eyes, and he languidly pushed his glasses up his high nose as he looked down on you. “We could’ve killed two birds with one stone had you not been in the way.”

“You guys are out to kill me too now?”

“Don’t act too surprised. The Organization isn’t patient enough to wait for both leaders to die.”

“So you killed my husband?!” you argued, “He was my friend, I told you not to touch him!”

“Only in the exchange that you hand him to us,” Kento echoed, jogging your memory until you were kept up to date. “But it’s been five years and what has happened so far? You’re fraternizing with the enemy and even manufacturing drugs for your so-called husband. Now that he’s dead, you’re here in Italy, looking as stunning as ever as you wine and dine with a former lover,” Kento tilted his head to the side to study your appearance – smiling at how you seemed too bright and fashionable for a woman in supposed mourning.

“I hardly believe you’re actually affected by this at all.”

“How dare you! I’ve proven to no end my loyalty of the higher-ups!”

Kento didn’t bat an eye at your outburst. If anything, he stepped closer to your weapon. “Kill me if you wish, Y/N, but know the moment you put a bullet in my head, the Organization will place you on the same pedestal as Naoya’s and Gojo’s. I wouldn’t recommend such methods considering we’re already at unease on whose side you’re really on. If you do this, you will be our enemy.”

“I did everything for the Organization. What else would you want from me?”

“The contract was easy. We want both leaders – whether dead or alive – in our custody. If you don’t hold your side of the deal, it’s not only your life that we’ll take from you,” Kento pulled out a red coin that made your heart sink deep into your stomach for it served as a threat over the consequences of your actions.

He lowered your gun with the coin and smirked at you, his lips right beside the shell of your ear as he purred, “I suggest you be careful with what step of action you take next.”

“Oi, Nanami, you’re here!” Satoru’s voice suddenly boomed in the hallway. Nanami was as unbothered as ever from taking a step away from you, nodding to your gun which you quickly concealed right before Satoru arrived. You were frozen – rendered immobile with the flashing red metal from his palm – that you couldn’t even protest against Satoru wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “I see you’ve met Mrs. Zen’in already.”

“Hmm, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Madam,” taking your hand in his, Kento’s eyes were nothing but eerie as he kissed your knuckles. “Shall we start our discussion?”

SUKI RANTS! Nanami quoted Sydney Joseph Friedberg (an art critic) in one of his dialogues. A little backstory on the painting was that the portrait was originally made by Giorgone, who had a student and also his lover (if I’m not mistaken) called Titian. Giorgone never finished the portrait because he died from the plague but Titiane finished it for him, symbolizing that Y/N still has a mission that connected her from Naoya even after his death and she has to finish something he started. The portrait is of a nude woman that symbolized oneness of nature and that the woman isn’t posed for the gaze of men, but rather they are dreaming, hence the quote: “Venus denotes not the act of love but the recollection of it. The perfect embodiment of Giorgione’s dream, she dreams his dream herself.” Nanami said the painting’s meaning resonated with Y/N’s situation too much since she wasn’t in love with Naoya, but she had a recollection of their moments that still represented their relationship, and that Naoya’s dream (goals) are also shared by Reader. I was gonna ask you guys what your theories are on that scene but I think this makes me sound cooler if I explain it so *lip bite emoji because I’m still broken over Naoya’s death*

taglist open (lmk if you want to be added/removed):

@sixeyesgojo @shingekiyofeels @q-the-rockaholic @whatthefuckisthatthing @rogueofbullshit @kat-su-ki @kellyyween @sebootyforlife @asshxcm @charlie-xo @aoi-turtle @ladywaifuuwrites @savantsoulfinder @my-reality-is-in-my-head @hannya-quinn @90s-belladonna @tinyfrogsinmybrain @kinekyuroo @evesmores @ambiguous-something @lilith412426 @kakashiharusohma @aizawap @yumeneji @dora-the-grownup @jotazinha @themrsgojo @d34r-s4t4n @marai-t @toji-bee @hai-cool @badsadbby @stesphy @peach-buns-unicorns @misslezah @gracefullyfallinglikeanime @iwaplant @mikiminaccch @riri-marley | bolded users cannot be tagged

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woniepop · 3 years

Text

feel special ༉‧₊˚✧

➜ the three times you didn’t want to be Karl’s best friend any more and the one time you weren’t

Pairing: Karl Jacob’s x Fem!Reader

Genre: fluff, best friends to lovers au, enemies to lovers au

Warnings: Mentions of bullying, cursing

Word Count: 2.0k words

a/n: hi everyone! this is my first time writing for a mcyt streamer, but unfortunately I will not be writing works for more streamers anytime soon. This is for my lovely friend basil Ly and losingvienna’s follower event, which you should definitely check out of you are in to mcyt streamers!!

I highly recommend checking @basilly and @losingvienna out if you haven’t already!!

Ever since you met Karl, you’ve hated everything about him. He was sweet, he was caring, he was everything you’ve ever wanted in anyone. From the moment he stepped foot in your kindergarten your life had become a living hell. He was great! You on the other hand, had never felt more miserable in your life. It had never occurred to you that being different was a bad thing, but apparently, to your whole kindergarten class of 26 kids, it was terrible. But, somehow, amidst the screaming kids and the poorly colored art projects, Karl only saw you.

Your fellow kindergarten classmates stared at you, perhaps a bit too judgingly, as you sat down in your seat. Feeling super excited to come to school today, your grandma has recently gotten you your very own pink sundress, equipped with a pink satin ribbon to tie a cute little bow in the back. You wanted your classmates to like you, so you had to be the prettiest you could ever be.

“Why are you wearing a dress to school? Do you think you’re a princess?” one of the children say, rather, shout across the room. And with that, the whole class starts laughing, except you.

“What? Are you trying to impress someone?”

“OOO Y/N HAS A CRUSH!”

“I bet it’s Karl”

“Of course it is. She just wants to daaaaaaate him, doesn’t she?”

With tears welling up in your eyes and boogers dripping down your nose, you quickly stand up just to take the hall pass and run to the nearest bathroom. It was humiliating, feeling like you had tried so hard to make friends just to get laughed at. It felt terrible.

You were NOT excited for your first day of high school. Why would you be? It was just another year of “light hearted” jokes about you and how you were “so different.” Settling with a seat in the back, you tilt your head down only for the teacher to walk in right after.

“Good morning, students! Welcome to your first day of Freshman Year! I’m sure you’re all very excited for these next four years, but before that why don’t we all introduce ourselves to each other!” The teacher says, in a high pitch, peppy voice. You had stopped listening to her after that. You already knew what was going to happen, you were going to be paired up with some immature male football player looking for a tall, hot, and blonde cheerleader girlfriend, then he was going to say something stupid like, “Girls like you aren’t really my type.” No shit you weren’t his type. It happened every year. Feeling a light tap on your shoulder, you force your head up, preparing yourself for the dreadful introduction.

“Hi! I believe we’re partners for the All About Me project. May I sit here?” he says, pointing to the chair beside you. He, as in Karl Jacobs. The Karl Jacobs. The man, the myth, the legend, the boy that filled your entire life with “She just wants to date Karl. She’s such an attention whore.” With that, your eyes widen. You weren’t expecting him, nor were you ever this mad about anything in your life. You didn’t want to know anything about him, let alone do a whole project learning about him.

“Yeah, you can sit there.” You answer through clenched teeth.

“Thanks! I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be able to finish this within the period considering there are like 30 questions, so did you want to work on this in the library after school?” he asks.

“Sure.” You say promptly, not even bothering to make eye contact with him.

“I believe we went to the same elementary school, but I haven’t really gotten the chance to talk to you, so I’m glad we got to be partners for this project. I’m excited to get to know you.” He says, a glint of hope in his eyes. You hated it. Was he actually being nice? To you?

The rest of the period would have been answering all the questions on the list, but instead you guys had been side tracked, going off topic and talking about anything and everything. Putting aside your hatred for the boy, Karl seemed like a genuinely nice person. You had learned he loved gaming, which he was surprised you had a knack for as well.

“Well, Y/n, I’m sorry we couldn’t get a lot done this period. But, I’ll see you at the library later, and maybe we can even try out that new game you talked about tonight.” He says, standing up out of his chair and leaving the classroom. Maybe today wouldn’t be too bad after all.

ONE “Move!” you say, playfully shoving Karl off of you. It was the summer before your senior year, and you would have never guessed that you, Y/n L/n, would be spending your whole high school career with the boy you loathed most, Karl Jacobs. If there was ever anything you'd ever looked forward to, it was spending every Friday night with Karl Jacobs. That fateful day at the library was the start of the best tradition ever known to man.

“But we’re watching a movie!” Karl exclaims.

“So? You don’t need to watch it while squishing me half to death.”

“What do you mean? Have you ever heard of CUDDLING?”

“Cuddling has never consisted of MURDER.”

It was always like this. Every Friday night Karl would come to your house, your mom would gush at how handsome he was while she set a plate down of whatever food he wanted, and him telling her that she was the best cook ever. This is what you’ve always wanted, right? You had a best friend, who accepted you as you were, and you him. Despite always having heartwarming and laughter filled moments with your best friend, your heart hurt. A lot. Maybe the moment was just too heartwarming, or maybe this was the universe telling you that you didn’t want to be his friend anymore.

TWO “Hey, Karl!” she says. Ah, yes. Her. Karl’s childhood crush since what? Fourth grade?

“Oh, um, Hi!” He replies. There it was. That dreadful pain in your chest that only grew bigger as she sat down right next to him, disregarding the fact that you were sitting right there. The way she twirled her long blonde hair, the way she leaned over to show all of her cleavage, the way she wore skirts so short you could almost see her underwear, and the way it made your blood boil and your heart hurt until you couldn’t handle it anymore. You wanted to walk away so bad, but as Karl’s best friend you should support him in his romantic interests, even if you didn’t like them.

“So… I’m sure you’ve heard already. I broke up with my boyfriend.” she says, tracing her finger up and down his arm, making him noticeably very nervous.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. If you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m always here.” You hear him say. Of course he was always here. He was there for everyone, and he would never try to exclude anyone from his kindness.

“I broke up with him because of you!”

“W-what”

“I want to be with you, silly!” she says. And with that, you felt your whole world go black and white. Did you hear her correctly? She wanted to be with him?

“I- I’m sorry, I can’t be with you.”

“WHAT?!? BUT I BROKE UP WITH MY BOYFRIEND JUST TO BE WITH YOU!”

“Well I’m sorry, but I love someone else. You should’ve consulted me before you threw away your relationship.”

Did you hear HIM correctly? He loves someone? You couldn’t take it anymore and excused yourself. Yet again, you ran to the bathroom feeling the same pain in your chest only 10 times worse. You didn’t want to be Karl’s friend anymore. Not like this.

THREE “I can’t believe you’re moving to California, Y/n” Karl says as he pushes his hair back, sighing in disbelief. “You’re really going to leave me?” He continues, tears welling up in his eyes as he turns to look at you with his signature puppy eyes.

“I have to! It’s always been my dream to go to college there!” You reply, feeling guilty for leaving behind everything for your dream.

“But I’ll miss you!” he says, fully knowing facetime exists, and you would always visit him during breaks.

“I’ll miss you too! But, I need to do this. Can you stay strong? For me?” you ask, cupping his face with your left hand. You had gone on one of your late night drives again, parking in an empty parking lot as you have deep late night conversations. Today’s topic happened to be college, and while it had been always known you were moving across the country after high school, the day was coming closer and it all felt too real.

As Karl leans his face into your hand, he lets out a yawn. “I guess it’s time to go back then.” you say.

“No, I don’t want to. I have to spend every second with you until you leave.” he whines. You wanted to as well, but then, there it was. The stinging in the back of your heart. You were tired of it. You hated feeling this way. You didn’t want to be Karl’s friend anymore.

THE END The warm summer air blew past you as you and Karl sit atop your roof, staring into the distance in the comfortable silence that was there from the moment Karl got to your house. Neither of you had spoken a word but neither of you cared. You just wanted to be with him. What would’ve made the night perfect was if you weren’t getting on the plane the very next morning, moving across the country.

Building up as much courage as you could, you said the three words you’ve been wanting to say ever since you had become friends. You were leaving, but before that you wanted more than anything else to let him know this. “I love you.” You say, causing his eyes to go wide. You… loved him? That was impossible.

“Yeah, I love you too.” He says casually.

“No. I love you more than in a friendly way.” You reply.

“Really? Why?” He asks in disbelief.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was because you were my first friend, but it’s definitely because you’re you. I’ve been bullied almost my whole life, and you know that. But, no matter how the world brings me down, and even when hurtful words stab me, I can smile again. Because you’re there.” You say, tears rolling down your face. You pause, before continuing on about how much he means to you. “I mean, my whole life, one moment I feel like I’m nothing at all. Like no one would notice if I were gone. But then you came! And I was so happy. Or maybe it’s cause you make me feel loved. But when I’m with you, I feel so special.”

And with that, Karl makes no hesitation in cupping your cheeks, silently wiping away your tears. In that moment, he decides that he doesn't want to be your friend anymore either. Leaning in, he whispers, “I love you too.” before he crashes his lips onto yours.

#karl jacobs #karl jacobs x reader #karl jacobs fic #mcyt fanfiction #mcyt fluff #mcyt angst #karl x reader #karl fluff #karl jacobs fluff #mcyt x reader #best friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #mcyt au #mcytumblr #mcyt fic

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pinkestlittlebutterfly · 3 years

Text

Lost and Found

(Though we now know that this is not how it happened, I find the idea of Kuro setting out to find his siblings and take them in when they first turned adorable and really wanted to write about it and after like two months I had whatever this is. It's inspired by this artwork from @klukvausual which is just amazing and incredible)

Old Child is found in the wake of a massacre.

The air is searingly hot and burns in Sleepy Ash’s lungs as he hastens past piles of dead bodies, their mangled limbs a stark white against the blackened ground. Pillars of smoke still rise from raging fires and block out what meek sunlight there might have once been, their stench almost enough to mask the scent of death in the air.

I should have known, Sleepy Ash thinks. I should have known, I should have known, he said he’d do it again, it’s all my fault…

But what victory could he ever seize against world-ending desire, against convictions so strong they raze cities to the ground and slaughter by the hundreds? All that’s left for him to do is to pick up the pieces left in another’s wake, to ease the pain forced upon him, too, all those years ago.

It is a child he finds among burning rubble and dead bodies, no older than five. A little boy with jet black hair who deserves better than this. Sleepy Ash bites back the bile rising in his throat, thinks of the village children instead and of how he used to play with them, and slows his steps the closer he gets, until he kneels right next to the boy and reaches out to ruffle through his hair.

The little one leans into his touch. He has big, blood red eyes that show no fear, and tiny fangs that barely peek out from behind his lips when he opens his mouth to ask, “what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Sleepy Ash tells him. He wonders whether he might ever know. The child nods in silence, and there’s a kind of understanding in his red gaze that Sleepy Ash has only ever seen in the old men and women that used to read him stories once upon a time.

“Who are you?”

I don’t know, he wants to say, again. But he doesn’t. The little one deserves a truth to hold onto in this world, and if there is none to give, he’ll make one for him.

“I’m Sleepy Ash,” He says. “Your big brother. Let’s get away from this place.”

Doubt Doubt is found beneath an old church’s broken windows.

Old Child is the one to first hear of his existence; rumors of a wild monster hiding in an abandoned church that filter back to him through the network he’s built for himself in no more than a few decades. He thrives in this new life that was forced upon him, mingles with royalty, has long made a name for himself among the myths and legends people talk about in hushed voices over a pint of beer or two. To be a vampire is to be noble, these days, to live in castles and dress in silks and drink from silver chalices.

Not much of that glamour remains as they stand before the crumbled ruins that night, and all pride Sleepy Ash ever felt over his younger brother’s triumphs has given way to a swirling pit of dread at the thought of another bearing their curse. Old Child squeezes his hand before he enters, and offers a wineskin he hid in his velvet robes.

“He’ll be hungry,” He says. Sleepy Ash decides not to ask questions about the meal he is handed.

The old door howls as he enters, broken glass snaps beneath his shoes and leaves and twigs break where he walks, blown in from through shattered windows and holes in the high ceiling. Thick beams of moonlight illuminate a dilapidated altar. The figure kneeling in front of it does not move. There is no wild monster in here, Sleepy Ash thinks, just a scared man.

“Who are you?” He mutters when Sleepy Ash comes to a halt. His voice is but a hoarse whisper, and if the night was not quite as silent, he would have barely been heard.

“I’m Sleepy Ash. Your big brother.”

“Brother…?”

The other turns his head, just barely so. His face is hidden underneath a curtain of black hair, but Sleepy Ash can see fear and distress and forces down the urge to wrap him in his arms as he once did with Old Child.

“That’s right,” He says instead, and kneels by his new brother’s side.

“I have died,” The man whispers. “Yet I am alive. I cannot die again, I have tried. What am I?”

“A vampire,” Sleepy Ash tells him, and as the other sucks in a sharp breath that sounds as though it is laced with tears, he reaches out despite himself, clutches a shaking shoulder.

“I’ve brought food. You better eat.”

Doubt Doubt throws up the first mouthful of blood he tastes, but he greedily goes for a second. When Sleepy Ash stands and leaves, he follows and their family becomes one of three.

The Mother is found on a battlefield drenched in rain.

Sleepy Ash spends his days following trails of blood wherever he comes across them, and as he walks among broken bodies and weapons that day and finds a lone woman alive among the dead, he believes her a mere survivor at first, a lucky one. But her eyes are red and crimson drips from sharp fangs in her mouth and his heart grows heavy in his chest.

He sheds his cloak as he draws closer. She does not move though she must hear his steps, and looks up only when he drapes the warm cloth over her. It’s hard to read her face, and Sleepy Ash finds himself sad that he can’t. There’s no more than three people in the world who may understand her pain, and yet he still fails.

“Where are my men?” She asks. Her voice is quiet still, barely heard over the rain still pattering against the ground and cold bodies, but if he strains his ears he hears a hint of what it might have once sounded like, firm and warm, a voice to give advice and commands gladly followed.

Splattered all around us, he wants to say.

“I don’t think they made it. I’m so sorry,” He says instead. He finds himself growing cynical these days. He always has to be careful not to hurt his siblings. They don’t deserve this - they don’t deserve any of this.

“I’m your older brother,” He tells her. “My name is Sleepy Ash. Let’s get somewhere dry and meet with the rest of the family, and we’ll tell you everything we know, okay?”

Her expression does not change. She gets up, wipes bloodied mud off her skin, and looks around. Her brows knit together. The corners of her mouth dig deep into her unmarred skin in an unmistakable frown.

“Are you angry?” He dares ask.

“No,” She answers, and he thinks that her voice might be shaking. “I grieve.”

Lawless is found in a forest’s gentle, green shade.

He is not easy to coax out of whatever hole he hid in before Sleepy Ash came along, and as he travels the forest’s narrow, winding paths, the hood he has taken a liking to hiding beneath cast aside to show off red eyes and fangs and how very not-human he is, there comes a point at which he thinks that maybe he can breath easily, that there is no one here after all.

But he turns around to a young man half hidden behind a tree, his eyes just as red, his fangs just as sharp, and he tries to smile but finds there is nothing to smile about.

“Are you like me?” His new brother whispers.

“I am,” Sleepy Ash tells him. “My name is Sleepy Ash.”

He extends a hand, but the other flinches back, fingers digging deep into the bark of the tree he is still hiding behind.

How troublesome, Sleepy Ash finds himself thinking. None of his siblings have ever been scared like this and the truth is, he doesn’t know what to do.

But if there is one person he’ll try for - it’s them.

“Did someone hurt you?” He asks, and watches the other freeze. There’s no way to know whether he is truthful when he shakes his head, of course. Their wounds heal quickly, at least the physical ones.

“Good,” He says. “Because if someone did, I’d make sure they’d regret it.”

“Why?” The other asks, though his grip on the tree loosens and he comes forward, centimetre by centimetre, maybe without even realizing.

“I’m your big brother,” Sleepy Ash tells him. “And I will protect you.”

World End is found in a cave far away from a single living soul.

It takes Sleepy Ash nearly a week to find, and he regrets not taking along one of his siblings. Their family has grown loud and troublesome now, but despite how quickly he finds himself tired around them in recent years, Sleepy Ash cherishes their presence.

(He wonders, sometimes, whether it’s wrong to feel like this when every single one of them is a walking, talking tragedy. But the thought is grating to dwell on, so he doesn’t.)

He is relieved to find he doesn’t have to search the cave for long. Cold, damp air greets him as he steps inside, heavy with the unmistakable scent of a recently extinguished fire. As he ventures on he treads heavily, announcing his presence so he doesn’t scare whoever he finds.

His efforts are in vain. The man he finds at the far end of the cave looks at him with despair, with fear that Kuro does not feel is for him.

“Why did you come?” He whispers.

Not a second later he has tackled Sleepy Ash to the ground. He groans; the stone floor is harsh and jagged against his back; but his hand shoots out just in time to catch the other by his throat, to tear his fangs away from his neck.

“What a pain,” He mumbles.

Still, he’s careful as he pushes his little brother away, and he barely tumbles as he gets up again, his teeth bared but still so scared.

“Please,” He says, “I’m so hungry. I don’t want to hurt anyone. You have to leave, please.”

“I know,” Sleepy Ash tells him. He stands his ground. I’m not going anywhere.

“My name is Sleepy Ash. I’m your oldest brother and I’ll teach you how to control it.”

All of Love is found deep within the darkest alleys of a nameless city.

It is Doubt Doubt who alerts Sleepy Ash to another member of their broken little family and sends him off into the maze of nightly streets their youngest brother hides in with quiet worry in his eyes. He is not hard to find. All Sleepy Ash has to do is follow the stench of blood in the air.

His little brother is leaned against a dirty wall when Sleepy Ash spots him, a hand clenched against where his stomach might be, as though he’s about to be sick. Flecks of red are splattered along the hems of his pants like rubies woven into the worn fabric; pool at his feet and glitter in the blaze of Sleepy Ash’s lantern.

He jumps when he first hears his name called. He might have attacked had Sleepy Ash not raised his light to illuminate his own face, his red eyes and sharp fangs. As his younger brother’s gaze meets his own, all fight drains from him as though he knows he could never win.

“Are you here to hurt me?” He breathes, and Sleepy Ash shakes his head.

“I’m your oldest brother,” He says. “My name is Sleepy Ash.”

The other doesn’t question this, instead he averts his gaze, lets it sink upon the pale bodies lying dead on blood-soaked cobblestone, like he is a child about to be scolded for a mess he made.

“I didn’t want this,” He whispers. “I don’t know what happened. I told them not to touch me. But they didn’t listen. They never listen.”

Tears drench his words, threatening to spill from his eyes, and Sleepy Ash sighs. He thought that maybe, by now, he got used to it. But he might never.

“It’s okay,” He says. “It’s not your fault. Come here.”

He offers his hand.

The other hesitates for all but a second, but then he reaches for him like it is the first time someone extended a hand towards him, allows his lantern’s light to wash over him as he steps forwards. Even with blood dripping from his lips, he is beautiful, and Sleepy Ash shudders to think what beauty might mean to him.

“We should leave this place,” He mutters, turning away from blood and gore to where the air is fresh and the darkness safe, and his youngest brother follows as he is gently tugged along. “Let’s introduce you to the family.”

#servamp #servamp siblings #servamp kuro #servamp hugh #servamp jeje #servamp freya #servamp hyde #servamp ildio #servamp lily #i really hope i didn't mess up and use their contract names anywhere...#writings

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bbnibini · 3 years

Text

Fall Again (Kaedehara Kazuha)

"On this mountain path, where the red leaves lifeless lie...my heart calls for a companion, echoing the deer's cry..." (based on this)

(ao3 version) gift for @lexsssu and kei. may this humble offering make you future Kazuha havers!

The summer we shared

Fades into a blush of leaves

Bringing with it fall

Your first memories with Kazuha started when you were little. You were but one of the many children brought by the Kaedahara retainers staying within the residence; frolicking about, living the best of your young life while learning of your future duties for the clan. The end of summer brought cooler winds, and the trees in the courtyard were like blushing maidens as their leaves were dyed in sunset colour. A maple leaf had fallen on your hair, and the steady sleight of his hand startled you when he brought it to your eye level with a smile.

"I'm sorry for startling you. It was stuck on your hair."

You weren't even sure if you were allowed to talk so casually to the young master of the house. Though perhaps your younger self back then knew that a boy your age like the young master didn't care for such formalities. He only ever watches from afar as you played with the other children. Sometimes, his gaze lingers at all of you while he was taking his lessons. But when his attendants will ask him worriedly if he wanted to drive you and the other children away(you must have been so noisy to distract him from his lessons), he would plaster on a smile and decline.

"Do you want to play with us?"

You practised saying it in your head many, many times...but they were never said. Not until this moment--this blurry middleground of summer and fall that seemed to dye everything in sunset orange.

"Do you want to play with me?"

It was his turn to look startled. The way his face flushed as he clumsily tried to hide the bashful look he had with the maple leaf had been futile.

"Can I?"

You nodded and took his hand.

"Don't worry, master Kazuha. I'll share the blame with you if they ever find out."

Thinking back, that must be the start of it all. Like maple leaves falling on the ground, letting him in your heart had been your downfall.

In the many days of sunset orange, when the adults were too busy to even bother, laughter from a certain pair would fill the courtyard. It was warm enough to quell the cold that accumulated as the orange faded into powder white; it had also brought an end to those precious memories you didn't know you were already making with him.

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

Cold and pristine white

Yet seeing you amongst them

Warms my freezing heart

He didn't do anything special. You understood that it was just him being him. His kindhearted parents raised him well to become the future heir, and you were merely basking in the fruits of their gentle guidance--an ordinary bystander. Even so, with every call of your name, with every smile given your way, with every look and every word, the feelings that scattered one autumn day only deepened, much like how the snow was doing right now to your feet.

You knew that they knew. You awaited the punishments to come your way, but they never did. The pang in your heart twisted and twisted; it wondered if your delusions were getting to you. What if you continued holding on? What if you got even closer with each other? Wouldn't it be more painful if this unlikely friendship would continue?

Or so you thought. You didn't have the heart to push him away--this lonely looking boy who never shared your luxuries of carefree childhood. Yet you knew you could never share these worries with him. What were you to him but some child his age? What could you know? No one seemed opposed to it, so why couldn't he enjoy his childhood, even for a little bit?

Your drifting thoughts matched the steady pacing of your feet. And it wasn't until the cold snow had reached your knees did you start to feel it through your clothes.

Where...were you? The firewood on your shoulders felt heavier every step, and the cold of winter was beckoning you to close your eyes; to rest under the pine trees a few steps away from you....just for a while--

"...!"

The call of your name coming from his lips felt like they were melting the snow on your feet. And as he brought you into his arms, the restlessness also melted away.

"Let's go back."

"Young Master Kazuha..."

You heard your name being called again--this time by your worried father who had just known that you strayed from the group of children gathering firewood in the forest. He brought the two of you in embrace, his broad and strong arms feeling unbelievably smaller than usual.

Even as the two of you were being scolded, it didn't feel so bad. His next words echoed your unsaid sentiments.

"We share the blame, after all."

He whispered the familiar words to you on secret, bringing warmth to the winter of your thoughts.

You didn't know what changed that winter. He now stood with you as you and the other children gathered around and played in the snow, laughing along. Gone were the longing gazes he sent your way, as he was finally there. The apprehension the other children had at first disappeared instantly at the brightness of his laughter.

From then on, you wished to stay by his side....

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

Your gaze of knowing

Melts away the cold of snow

Spring begins anew

...yet even with the strength of your resolve, you knew those fun winter days will come to an end. One winter passed. Two. Three, until you lost count--you have grown old enough for such days to be regarded as your long past childhood. Along with it came the responsibilities you had as a retainer's child. It wasn't like you were going away. You planned to uphold your promise to stay by his side until the day you die. Boundaries were only meant to be made. The lines you weren't meant to cross grew even more obvious as seasons passed, and you only intended to follow along its path.

Young master Kazuha was old enough to take in a wife. He could only delay such duties for so long.

"But I don't want to get married." He told you, admiring the pink mop of cherry blossoms giving you shade overhead.

"Young master, it isn't a matter of choice." you scolded.

He wouldn't say anything back but a sigh. This caused you to sigh in return.

"Even servants have a duty of marriage to sustain future generations, young master."

"Even you?"

The rustling of cherry blossoms awoken you from your trance. You pretended not to know the implications of his questions. The pounding of your heart shouldn't ever be known, not even to the whispers of spring breeze scattering pink petals that looked eerily similar the the ones scattering in your heart.

"Yes, even I."

Ignorance is the kindest gesture you can return to him--for knowing what he meant will only lead to a thorny path.

Spring was the season of beginnings, but even you know such beginnings were only possible if something were to end.

"Young master Kazuha?"

He looked at you with the same gaze you pretended you were numb from.

"Let's not see each other anymore."

...it was a beautiful spring day, but you couldn't help but long for the harsh winters of your gentler past.

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

Standing tall and proud

You, with gleaming golden crowns

Waiting for the sun

Eternity.

In the land of fleeting beauty, only she remains constant. She was the pinnacle of Inazuma's legacy, as well as its stronghold. With the Raiden Shogun's rule, Inazuma in all its transience will remain with her.

Yet, were all her actions at present excusable?

The Kaedehara clan had fallen--its tragic heir had gone missing. No one knows where he had went...or so that is what most of the servants' narratives were, but you knew. Perhaps silence is the only way to protect him; their kind and gentle young master deserved freedom in this eternal land.

You didn't want to dwell on what ifs. In the blaring heat of the sun, among the sunflowers looking up at its radiance, he stood there, even brighter than summer itself.

He called for your name as he took your hands, kissing its back.

"I will always remember you."

He was a free man, freer than he was in the confines of his samurai household. Yet, you knew his life of pursuit will always remain with him, and the eternity the Raiden's land had promised was far too comforting to even consider the thoughts in your head.

'Take me with you'

'I won't ever forget you too.'

'Ị̶̛̺̜̣̝̰̣͚̫̓̾̈́̆̈́̊̔̍͂͋͛͌͘͝ ̵̢̨͉̟͖̱͚̆̐̏̚l̷͖̥̃͋͒̉̈́̈̎̃͆̽̈͊̃̈́̆̓̕o̶̡̧̡͖͙̖̙͙̥̻͍̣̗̱͖̦͍̺͙̒̏̏͛͗̌̄͊̽̓͆͌̚̚̕͝ͅv̶̧͕͔̤͚̰̟͙̭̟̠̫̞̀͆̊͗͗̅̊͠ͅͅę̶̘̦̲͓͕͂̑̕͜ ̷̡̢̯̯͙̞̣̲̥̥̞̞̺͕̲͔̆̂͆́̋̑̀̆̃̀͐̀͜͝͠y̷̧̬̜͕͉̣͉̱̩͚̪͒̓͒ͅǒ̸͚̳̠͚̘̯̼̗̳͖͉̫͇͕͔̿͛̉̈́͌̈́͐̑͌͝u̵̧̡̖̼̺̼̯̖̙̲̺̰̮̩̯̜͛̑̃̐͊͛͌̌̓͋́̒̌̚͜'

So he waited and waited for the three words he uttered on your ear to return, and even then, promised of waiting even as you parted ways--even if orange dyed the world around you again.

For like the sunflowers, you were his sun.

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

Many summers have passed, and you had left the comfort of eternity to seek out the world on your own. The Raiden Shogun and her eternity was showing its signs of fading in ironic tragedy. Yet you wondered why such fleetingness felt comforting instead.

They called the land you chose to reside in the City of Freedom. Their ruling archon was nothing more than myths and childlike wonder, yet Mondstadt thrived even in their absence.

Like the carefree breeze, its people were equally so. They did not mind your origins nor your reasons, and instead welcomed you in their land with kindness and hospitality. Often, you wondered if the Anemo Archon chose this path of rule to embody the freedom that he is--that perhaps, this might be even his wish.

"I received a vision! It's--"

You smiled to yourself as you stopped that train of thought. You knew your reasons for choosing Mondstadt as your new refuge. Deep in your heart, you were waiting too.

Rain was quite an unusual sight in Monstadt--you were far too used to sunlight and breezy afternoons that the sight of darker skies were comforting to you instead. You liked the sound rain made as it hit the roof, the smell of petrichor in the air--

"Hello?"

Such appreciative thoughts were brought to a halt at the sound of a familiar voice. But he did not speak again, so you weren't sure if you have imagined it instead. The knocks on your door however, reassured you that not everything you heard was imagined.

Your heart pounded at every step, silencing yourself from the hopeful yearning that keeps on resurfacing as you went closer to your doorstep.

But he was there. He wasn't only hopeful yearning. The orange hues of the trees from afar only seemed to deepen the sunset reflecting on his eyes. They widened as they gazed at you.

"I'm very sorry, but can I trouble you for refuge for the night?"

Laughter. You haven't shared one since that distant, summer day. You took the stray maple leaf out of his hair and echoed the words he had uttered to you on the day you first met.

"Did I startle you? You have it stuck on your hair."

..but this time, you chose to stay by his side.

That night, I listened to the hymns till dawn, not for serenity, but to seek a sliver of your soul;

That month, I flipped through all the scriptures, not for enlightenment, but to touch the pages where your fingers once lingered;

That year, I knelt on the grounds, my head embracing the dusts, not to pay obeisance to the Gods, but to feel the warmth you left behind;

That life, I wandered through ten thousand great mountains, not in search for an afterlife, but to cross paths with you –

#genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin #kazuha #kazuha kaedehara #genshin fic #genshin imagines #kazuha x reader #kazuha x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #reader insert #genshin fanfic #kaedehara kazuha #kaedehara kazuha x reader

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mandoalorian · 3 years

Note

Hey, can I request Javi Gutiérrez having a fight with the reader because they want to make their relationship public but Javi knows that he can’t because of the whole plot and blabkabla. But at the end Javi apologizes and have a fluffy/angst moment?

Together [Javi Gutiérrez x F!Reader]

Warnings: vague spoilers for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, allusions to sex, pregnancy mention, toxic family mention, drugs mention

Reblogs appreciated as this isn’t showing up in tags. 🧡

Javi was your world. He was your sun and your moon. And you were in love with him.

You and Javi had been together for a couple of years now, and you were living together in his secret jungle mansion. You had never met anyone like Javi. He was so pure of heart, and endearing in every sense of the word. He had his hobbies and interests and he was so passionate. You could listen to him babble on forever about his favourite films and the screenplay he’d been working so hard on.

You’d talked about marriage, sure. Javi was keen to start a family and have kids of his own one day, that much was clear. The conversation regarding yours and his ‘future’ was beginning to crop up more and more often nowadays, occasionally during after-sex pillow talk or occurring amidst movie night. It seemed like Javi wanted a small, private wedding. It’s not like he could make it a big deal, after all. He vaguely spoke about wanting three kids; a boy and two girls, but again, he seemed hesitant on the subject.

You knew that Javi loved you, even during the times you and him argued. It seemed like lately though, your arguments were about your future.

“You say you want to marry me, and yet I haven’t even met your mom. Lucas doesn’t even know about us. Nobody knows about us.” you muttered, crossing your arms over your chest.

Javi’s gaze briefly flicked from the Nic Cage movie that was playing on the television, over to you, where you were sitting on the opposite end of the sofa, your lips curled into a frown.

“You know why that is.” Javi told you, his usual expressive voice now monotone and serious, like there was absolutely no room for questioning him.

You did know. You knew exactly what kind of dysfunctional, narcotic-selling family you had wormed your way into two years ago. To be fair, at least Javi had the decency to warn you.

You didn’t reply, instead looking down at your nails and picking at them nervously. Javi sighed and paused the movie before turning to face you.

“You know fine well what Lucas is like,” He sighed, running his fingers through his long brown curls. “If we were to elope, and start a family, I wouldn’t want him to be involved at all.”

“I feel like Lucas likes me.” you shrugged quietly.

“He does,” Javi coos, shuffling closer to you and adjusting the cashmere blanket that was resting over your lap. “But baby, if he finds out that we’re together. He’d have you killed. Maybe even kill me too.”

You were fighting back tears now. “I just want to be with you Javi. We shouldn’t have to worry about this.”

Javi nodded his head understandingly and took your hand, brushing comforting circles into your skin. “What if we marry in secret?” he proposed, but you weren’t having it.

“Everything is ‘in secret’. We’ve dated in secret for the past two years. Then what? We marry in secret and neither of us can wear our wedding bands? And what about when I fall pregnant, Javi? Do we have a secret baby? How the hell is all of this going to work?”

“I don’t know!” Javi snapped, pointing his finger. He was angry, sure. Not at you, but at the fact you were hurting like this and there was nothing he could do about it. His heart yearned to make you happy, and knowing that there was no way to do that pained him so much. You sniffed and rested your head on his shoulder. “We could run away.” he suggested quietly.

“The world thinks you’re a freakin’ king-pin, Javi. If we ran away, and Lucas didn’t catch us, then the cops certainly would. We’re prisoners if we stay and we’re prisoners if we leave.” you sighed.

“You think one day they’ll find out the truth about Lucas?” Javi swallowed thickly at the thought. “Because I’m not as bad as they make out.”

You laugh quietly and press a kiss into your boyfriend’s jaw. “I know you’re not, Javi. Your favourite movie is Paddington 2 and you eat Marshmallow Fluff straight out of the jar. I know you’re not as bad as they make out,” Javi smiled at your comment, the corners of his honey brown eyes crinkling with delight. “The day the world figures out the truth about Lucas will be the day we’re set free.”

Javi pulled the blanket over the both of you and grabbed the TV remote, playing the movie.

“But for now, you’ll stay with me, won’t you? I know it’s hard, but I love you, my dear.”

You kissed him again, this time your lips delicately brushing against his. “Of course I’ll stay with you Javi,” you promised. “We’ll get through this together.”

Permanent taglist: @paintballkid711 1 @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @xoxo-callie @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal l @castiel-barnes @honeymandos @rocketqueen @girl-obsessed-with-things @elena-myth @moth-guillotine @pedro-pascal-love @hayley-the-comet @pinkninja200 @maxiarapamaya @autumnleaves1991-blog @artsymaddie @harrys-stan @kennedywxlsh @cripplingmoon @cheekygeek05 @mrschiltoncat @rye-flower @theamuz @persie33 @sleepylunarwolf @martellthemandalor @pedro-pastel @steeevienicks @rrtxcmt @saphic-susperia @beskarprincessjenny @readsalot73 @softmedics @jade10077 @dodgerandevans @planetariumx @pascals-cat @ajeff855 @spideysimpossiblegirl @smoldjarin

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #javi gutierrez #javi gutierrez x reader #tuwomt #the unbearable weight of massive talent

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 2 years

Text

X-Files cancer arc 3am angst session mixtape [spootify]

The Modern Leper covered by Julien Baker — "you must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last leg" // "you're not ill 'cause I'm not dead, and doesn't that make us the perfect pair?"

Francis Forever by Mitski — "I don't need the world to see that I've been the best I can be, but I don't think I could stand to be where you don't see me"

mirrorball by Taylor Swift — "hush, I know they said the end is near, but I'm still on my tallest tiptoes," // "I'm still a believer, but I don't know why"

Killer by Phoebe Bridgers — "I hope you kiss my rotten head and pull the plug; know I've burned every playlist, and given all my love," // "I am sick of the chase but I'm stupid in love, and there's nothing I can do"

Headstones and Land Mines by Lizzie McAlpine — "headstones and landmines, flowers and red wines," // "and it all hurts, but it's fine"

the lakes by Taylor Swift — "is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?" // "...with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief"

Last Words of a Shooting Star by Mitski — "carefully, I was going to live," // "you'd say you love me and look in my eyes but I know through mine you were looking in yours," // "I always wanted to die clean and pretty, but I'd be too busy on working days"

Moon Song by Phoebe Bridgers — "now I am dreaming and you're singing at my birthday and I've never seen you smiling so big; it's nautical themed and there's something I'm supposed to say, but can't for the life of me remember what it is"

Chinese Satellite by Phoebe Bridgers — "I want to believe; instead I look at the sky and I feel nothing, you know I hate to be alone; I want to be wrong"

Historians by Lucy Dacus — "this is what I want to talk about but somehow the words will not leave my mouth; was i most complete at the beginning, or the bow? if past you were to meet future me, would you be holding me here and now?"

A Burning Hill by Mistki — "so today, I will wear my white button-down; I can at least be neat, walk out and be seen as clean; and I'll go to work, and I'll go to sleep, and all of the littler things; I'll love some littler things"

Bag of Bones by Mitski — "flourescent store lights, you shine through the night, illuminate my pores and you tear me apart," // "I'm tired of this searching, would you let me let go?"

Appointments by Julien Baker — "well, don't argue, it's not worth the effort to lie," // "maybe it's all gonna turn out alright; oh I know that it's not but I have to believe that it is"

Painkillers by Gracie Abrams — "I almost liked the way you fooled me to make me think that this would last forever,"

Learning How To Die by Jon Foreman — "all along i thought I was learning how to take, how to bend not how to break, how to live not how to cry; but really, I've been learning how to die"

Claws in Your Back by Julien Baker — "I'm conducting an experiment on how it feels to die... or stay alive," // "it's more than the skeleton next to my coat, the black that I held in the back of my throat follows you straight into the dark; the easy way out and the hardest part"

Give Me A Minute by Lizzy McAlpine — "I'll say goodbye to cloudy blue skies; I'd trade all I've got in my name for you instead of this pain"

epiphany by Taylor Swift — "something med school did not teach you," // " 'doc, I think she's crashing out,' some things you just can't speak about" // "just one single glimpse of relief to make sense of what you've seen"

I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers — "went looking for a creation myth, ended up with a pair of cracked lips"

Tokyo by Julien Baker — "a seven-car pileup of every disastrous thing that I've been"

Organs by Of Monsters and Men — "I am sorry for the trouble, I suppose; my blood runs red but my body feels so cold," // "and I cough up my lungs, 'cause they remind me how it all went wrong; but I leave in my heart because I don't want to stay in the dark"

Repeat Until Death by Novo Amor — "snow, brother I'll bet it all gold; shudder with blood in my nose, I had it almost" // "I can't seem to not need to need you, but I can't breathe anymore"

Conversation Piece by Julien Baker — "'cause it already feels when you hold me that your hands could pass right through my body; so do you think when I die I'd get a second try to do everything right i couldn't the first time?"

Try A Little Tenderness by Otis Redding (or the cover by Florence + the Machine) — "you know she's waiting, just anticipating for things she'll never, never, never possess" (p sure this song is in the background during that one part of Small Potatoes)

Sprained Ankle by Julien Baker — "whenever I'm alone with you, can't talk; 'isn't this weather nice? are you okay? should I go somewhere else and hide my face?'"

Coming Back to You by Sara Bareilles — "I made a list of what I love to make a document that shows what I'm made of," // "these days it's harder to breathe; I'm no saint and sometimes I barely believe"

Repeat by Julien Baker — "doesn't matter what you tell me, I just need to hear you speak; all my greatest fears turn out to be the gift of prophecy; all my nightmares coming true, come do my outline in the street"

Red Door by Julien Baker — "bend my knees and paint the concrete the color of my bloody knuckles, pulling splinters from the chapel door, and do you see me anymore?" // "a ruined sinner and a wasted soul; and i want you"

Come In With the Rain by Taylor Swift — "talk to the wind, talk to the sky, talk to the man with the reasons why, and let me know what you find; I'll leave my window open, 'cause I'm too tired tonight to call your name"

Funeral Pyre by Julien Baker — "call me a coward, but I'm too scared to leave, 'cause I want you to be the last thing I see," // "and i would have loved you with a dying fire, let you smother me down to the embers, frostbite turning my limbs as black as cinder; a funeral pyre"

#moon song is literally only here for the birthday line bc it's. literally tf/max #and those lines from chinese satellite are the END of tf/max when scully is waxing poetic about the keychain and mulder is #looking at her Like That #some of these i associate with specific eps but some i don't lol #might like. give commentary on the playlist if anyone wants a peek at my weird brain #Lu rambles #music #playlists #txf #the x files #txf s4 #dana scully #fox mulder #msr #mulder and scully #mulder x scully #cancer arc my beloved #gurt look!

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salemwritesxx · 4 years

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lycoris radiata

↳ pro-hero bakugou x pro-hero reader

summary: The myth around red spider lilies, lycoris radiata, is that, when you see someone you may never meet again, these flowers will bloom along the path. Thus, when Y/n and Katsuki depart on the morning of their 6th wedding anniversary to walk to their respective agencies and spider lilies bloom along the path Bakugou is walking on, Y/n gets an uneasy feeling, unaware that the legend surrounding these flowers may have a germ of truth to them after all.

w.count: 2k

content warning: angst, major character death, which leads to reader committing suicide, afterlife happy ending

“Okay, hey-“, you grinned and pulled him back one last time to peck his lips, “-don’t forget our rendezvous tonight, yeah?”, to which Bakugou only rolled his eyes – in a playful way though as he immediately pressed a soft kiss onto your mouth once more, not caring that you two stood in the middle of the streets.

“Don’t worry, I won’t forget.”, and with that, you finally let your husband go, though as he walked away from you, you couldn’t help but witness red spider lilies blooming along the pathway, hence you yelled after him, “Babe? Be careful, okay?”

“Ha?”, when he turned around and you pointed to the flowers, Katsuki only laughed and gestured a ‘whatever’ and saying a “Don’t be so superstitious, Y/n. It’s just a myth!”

Even though you both chuckled as he turned around and walked away for real this time, you still felt a slight uneasy feeling in your stomach, though you simply thought it was because you were excited to celebrate your 6th wedding anniversary with your husband.

“KATSUKI!”

You screamed as if you were the one being impaled, your knees were shaking, feeling like the ground was opening up underneath your feet and you fell into a dark, black hole any second.

Coughing up blood, he was hanging on the villain’s arm which was weirdly transformed to look like a lance – Bakugou hadn’t seen it coming, if he would have, he…

“Pathetic.”, the villain almost spit into his face before dropping him onto the pavement like some sort of trash, only to jump back immediately when other heroes already attacked him again.

You were rushing to your husband’s side who was coughing up more and more blood while squirming in pain, his “Y- Y/- Y/n…” being interrupted by his coughs, though you were already dropping to your knees to hold him.

“It’s okay, Baby, I’m here. Everything’s gonna be okay! Don’t worry, everything will be okay!”, you cried and sobbed, tears already streaming down your face while pressing him against your side and one hand against his wound where the villain impaled him.

Bakugou knew though. It’s why he was clawing at your hand so much, both of them soaked with his blood that just wouldn’t stop – he knew he wasn’t going to be okay. As he almost couldn’t speak anymore, because his lungs filled with more and more blood, he still grasped your hands as tightly as he could, smearing his own blood all over your arm in an attempt to stay.

“Y/n-“, gasping for breath, he was almost completely over the bridge as his tight grip slowly softened.

“I love you, Baby. I love you so much! Katsuki please, don’t go!”, not being able to suppress your desperate sobs, you barely choked out a “Please.” again as his grip loosened more and more around your own hand.

“I … love… y..o…u…”, were his last words, a single tear trickling down his cheek as his ruby eyes lost that sparkle you fell in love with the very first time you looked into them.

“Katsu… No….Kat… Nononono please! PLEASE!”, literally begging him to not go, you hugged his bloody, heavy body so close against your chest while you cried, not caring about the explosions from further back into the streets as other heroes still fought against the villains, while rescue heroes only gradually managed to get through the wrecked buildings.

You shouldn’t even be here. Bakugou and you had been in two different agencies, it only should have been a calm day at your respective work places, wanting to be done quickly so you could enjoy your wedding anniversary tonight, but then, all available heroes were called up when the villain went on a rampage.

How…? How did it turn out like that? A harmless villain turned out to be so strong? How… could have anyone guess that? How could have anyone seen that coming?

So, it was true. Walking along a path where red spider lilies bloomed meant you wouldn’t see each other again…

Rescue heroes tried to calm you down and get you to let go of Katsuki’s lifeless body, but you just yelled at them, your voice high-pitched and so full of pain, and cried and held him tighter, not caring that you were full of his blood as you still couldn’t process that this wasn’t a dream, but it was reality… Harsh reality.

Your husband was dead.

And with that, your soul and heart shattered into million little pieces, unable to be whole ever again.

-------6 weeks later--------

You sat in front of Katsuki’s grave.

It was a cold spring night, though to be honest, you hadn’t been warm in the last weeks ever since that accident – the coldness you felt was never going to leave ever again.

Your fingers were softly playing your guitar. Making music had always brought peace to your husband’s mind, whenever he felt angry, frustrated, anxious or any other negative feeling, he would flop beside you and make you play the guitar for him. It calmed him and sometimes, you would both sing crookedly to get him back into a better mood – very fond memories indeed.

Tears were blurring your vision, even though you shouldn’t have been able to cry anymore with how many tears you had shed in the last weeks, but it still felt surreal. Knowing he was never going to come back again – never.

Slowly, your fingers stopped as you stared onto his gravestone. There were red spider lilies planted around – how ironic. Though they weren’t blooming as it was now spring.

Was is really just superstition? Or should you have been warned that day? That uneasy feeling you had felt - it wasn’t excitement, it was a sense of foreboding, and you had ignored it…

Putting your guitar, that had stickers with his hero name and your own, as well as stupid little things like a dick doodle on it, to the side, you sighed and rubbed your red, swollen eyes. You did have this guitar since your middle school days after all. And you remembered when all these things happened oh so vividly. Still hearing the giggle and laughter of your, back then in high school, boyfriend, while you yelled at him for being an idiot. Being angry over a dick doodle seemed so petty now.

Taking your permanent marker, you opened the cap with your teeth, before leaning in and doodling a broken heart onto the surface with the date of your husband’s dying day on it. Spitting out the lid of the marker, you put the pen onto your guitar, before staring back at Bakugou’s grave.

“Please tell me.. Who should be my soulmate now? Who will hold my hand while I drive? Who will hold me when I can’t sleep at night? There is nobody like you out there, Baby…. so please tell me…”, you were crying again as you sobbed and rubbed over your face, “Tell me, who could possibly take your place? My first and last love. I won’t be able to do anything without you…”

Your heart was hurting so much, you couldn’t take it. You knew he was irreplaceable, there was no one out there that could ever give you what he gave you all those past years.

Bakugou was sitting beside you, though you didn’t know – of course you didn’t, was he a mere spirit now, never leaving your side as his translucent hand touched your own.

“Please, you need to go on. Don’t do it…”, tears were in the corner of his eyes, wishing he could talk to you, wishing you could hear his desperate attempts to keep you from committing suicide. Katsuki loved you, he wanted to be with you, but he couldn’t be selfish anymore – you couldn’t throw everything away just because of him.

Though, as he was a mere ghost sitting beside you, he couldn’t do anything but watch.

With a shaking hand you then reached for the gun you had purchased today on the black market – to think, at last, you were doing illegal stuff even though you were a hero – before coming here and sitting in front of his grave for hours. You couldn’t possibly be alive without him beside you. It just hurt too much. You didn’t care about anything, you had no one besides him. Katsuki was your everything and all you wanted to do was finally meet him again.

Sobbing quietly, you then held the end of the gun against your temple, your e/c still staring at his gravestone, before you whispered one last time, “I want to meet you again. Please. I miss you so much.”

“I promise, I’ll be there.”, Katsuki whispered.

For the first time in weeks, there was warmth surrounding your heart and with a smile you barely mumbled “I know you’re waiting for me.”

And then, a loud bang echoed through the silent night and the cemetery, cherry blossom petals, that were in full bloom now, swaying in the wind and slowly falling down and onto your lifeless body.

“Y/n…Y/n…”, the familiar voice made you gradually open your eyes – above you, it was an ocean of pink and white cherry blossoms. But then, as you looked further back, you saw directly into Katsuki’s face, his smile making you feel so warm and fuzzy instantly. It was in that moment you realized your head was resting in his lap.

“Katsu…”

“You should have lived a long, happy life…”, his voice was so soothing and calm as he combed through your hair, though you just shook your head, tears already welling up in your eyes.

“I was already dead inside the moment you were gone.”, and then, you finally sat back up to connect your lips, Bakugou immediately slinging his arms around your neck and pulling you in closer as you both fell back into a pile of cherry blossoms.

“I love you. I love you so much. And now we’re together again.”, you whispered against his lips, lacing your fingers together and Katsuki squeezing your hand tightly, the sparkle in his ruby eyes back as tears shimmered in them as well.

“And we will never be apart again.”, he barely mumbled back, before you hugged each other tightly as your lips melted together tenderly.

Katsuki and you were sitting on the gravestone together, it was the day your lifeless body joined Katsuki’s in the shared grave. Watching your family and Katsuki’s once more crying so much, it really did break your heart.

“I wish they wouldn’t have to go through that again.”, he said and sighed, though also squeezing your hand tightly.

“Mh… But it was inevitable… I know they know that, too…”, since you and Mitsuki were quite close, she, of course, knew how badly Katsuki’s death affected you, even though she tried to help, the moment you were alone, you knew you couldn’t take the loss of someone so precious to you.

“Y/n… I know your pain was immense… I just hope you are both happy now wherever you are…”, Mitsuki quietly cried as she stood in front of the grave with your coffin in it, joining Katsuki’s, Masaru holding her close by his side, both of them a red spider lily in their hands that weren’t blooming.

Looking at each other for a moment, you both stood up from the gravestone and walked towards his parents, softly touching the flower, making them bloom in their hands.

“Let’s go. We are free now. Let’s see the world - together.”, Bakugou smiled and you chuckled and nodded, “Yeah.”, only to pull him closer and softly kiss him and whisper, “Together forever.”, which earned you Katsuki’s soft giggle and him pulling you closer to connect your lips once more.

Mitsuki and Masaru were both completely astonished when the red spider lilies in their hands started blooming, as if it was your answer to their question if you were both happy now, making Katsuki’s Mom smile and cry a little harder.

Though, once she looked ahead, she thought it was probably because she was sleep-deprived and in so much emotional pain, but… she saw you and Katsuki holding onto and smiling at each other. His mind must be playing tricks on her and yet, it was bittersweet to witness you two like that…

“They are happy…”, she wiped away her tears and with a smile on her lips, Mitsuki threw the blooming spider lilies into the grave eventually, knowing that her son and son-in-law were now happily dancing in the cherry blossom trees.

@salemwritesxx || do not repost, edit, modify or translate my works

writer’s note: ya boy literally chickened out the last minute and made it a somewhat happy ending instead of leaving it sad… idk i kind of just want them to find their happiness again in their afterlives 💌 my first idea was to make Y/n sing his heart out on like a roof and then jump, then I wanted him to sing his heart out in front of katsu’s grave and in the end, we just have some soft guitar play and a gun… but while I listen to the song I had playing on repeat while writing this, I still imagine Y/n singing loudly for his Baby and grieving terribly 💔

#salemswriting.#bakugou katsuki #bakugou x male reader #bnha x male reader #bakugou x you #bakugou angst

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