#i always feel a lil sad for other people when i see posts that are like 'every local alternative music station is like this:'

[peachydinosaur]

local alternative radio station late night dj REAL gay tonight

[effortandmore]

isn't this more beautiful | knj x f!reader

summary: you meet namjoon by accident. you fall for him without noticing. he slips in and out of your life at will, and you let him. but as you get closer, you start to wonder if he’ll always feel lonely, even with you by his side. or, a small story told out of order about time, loneliness, and knowing (or not) what we deserve

pairing: namjoon x f!reader

rating: explicit (18+ please)

genre: smut, angst, a lil fluff/hopeful ending

au: this is idolverse

warnings/tags: this is told asynchronously, so please know these little vignettes are not in chronological order. namjoon is a mess, but so is reader. she's an artist so there's one cliche on board already. they probably should talk more about important things but neither of them like feelings. smoking, drinking, smut, including unprotected sex, oral sex, exhibitionism, maybe like… mention of belly bulge kink, cumplay (kind of)

word count: ~6700

a/n: this is for the bts x beatles across the btuniverse collab hosted by my dearest @ugh-yoongi who also checked this for vibes. so did @the-boy-meets-evil in its early stages - thank you both!! banner + borders from @hobeemin (thank you so much!!!!). my member was namjoon (obv) and my song was eleanor rigby. idk how it really shows up in here except through vibes lol

you can find everything i write on ao3

Namjoon talks in unanswerable questions. He calls you at hours the owls don’t even see, talks quietly even though you’re not sure who he’s afraid of disturbing.

“Do you remember Bageundae?”

“Of course I do.”

“If you pressed your body against one side of the rock, and I pressed mine to the other, could you feel me?”

What you want to say: go to sleep, Namjoonie.

What you say instead: “I can always feel you.”

“Always is a funny word,” he replies. “Maybe worse than never.”

“Maybe?”

“You never know,” he says, and you can hear the sad smile he wears even from your desk across the ocean. 

Sometimes, when people give the retelling of how they meet their “person,” it’s all sparks and fireworks and floods and worlds being turned upside down. 

That’s not how you met Namjoon. 

You met him softly.

You met him in a lazy river current and not a waterfall.

You met him like Sunday morning sunshine sneaking through cracks in defeated curtains.

You met him and the woodwind orchestra blew a quiet processional before the brass joined in much later.

You met him with a whisper. Literally. 

“This is one of my favorites,” he said, a stranger whispering beside you. He wasn’t even talking to you—you remember being pretty sure about that. Just announcing it as an affirmation to himself and you happened to be there to be the unintentional recipient. 

Now, you know it’s probably a foreshadowing of your whole relationship. 

Then, you said, “It’s a misconception that you have to whisper in a museum. It’s not a library.” 

Namjoon didn’t even give you the sitcom satisfaction of arguing with you about it. Just gave you an affronted side eye and huffed under his breath. Crossed his arms over his chest and planted himself further into the floor, staring at the Chung Sang Hwa in front of you. 

To yourself, you rolled your eyes. It was almost like he was determined to outwait you, that there would be some satisfaction in it for him if you left for the next work on the wall before he did. 

He didn’t know (yet) that you were as or more stubborn than he was. So, you both waited. You didn’t even know what you were waiting for, just that neither of you wanted to lose. 

(And now look at you.)

It was near closing time on a weekday, and all of the special exhibits were crowded earlier, but the permanent collections were easy to be alone in. You were almost wishing someone else would walk in. Minutes passed, neither of you moved. In your periphery, you saw Namjoon stealing glances at you when he (presumably) thought you wouldn’t notice. 

Finally, “This isn’t going to be some naver post later, is it?” 

You were annoyed, not blind. You knew exactly who he was (or did you, you wonder now)—everyone in this country knew, his picture plastered over billboards and bus stops. 

“Which story? BTS RM, weirdly stubborn art jerk, won’t walk away from painting first? Or, BTS RM casually checked me out at a gallery when he thought I wasn’t looking?” You didn’t look over at him, just raised your eyebrow in a challenge. 

“Don’t flatter yourself.” 

“So, you prefer the ‘jerk’ narrative?”

“I prefer to be left alone.” 

And you still don’t know why you said what you said after that, as you turned to face him for the first time since he walked up next to you. “You probably don’t get that very often. Alone time.”

Namjoon looked back at you then, and it still wasn’t butterflies or choruses of angels. Instead, he just looked surprised and a little sad. “I don’t.” 

“I’m sorry,” you replied. And you found that you meant it.

“Do you ever wonder,” Namjoon said, and again, you didn’t know if it was to you or to himself, “how it is you can be surrounded by people and still feel profoundly lonely?”

You hadn’t. But you still thought you understood what he meant. “No, but it makes sense that you would.”

Namjoon laughed then, maybe a little bitter, maybe just nervous. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” he said. 

“And yet…”

“And yet,” he agreed with a small nod. 

The two of you were quiet again then, but not in a stand-off anymore. Behind you, you knew his manager was fidgeting, worrying that something was off. That you’d reveal yourself to be some sort of wild stalker or obsessed fan. 

“It’s not personal,” Namjoon offered, like he could already read your mind. 

“I know,” you conceded. 

You started to walk away, ready to see a different painting, ready to not feel like you were doing something wrong by incidentally being in the same room as someone famous, when Namjoon stopped you. “He wanted to paint heartbeats, to give them a language, to let people see what all the emotions that fuel our hearts would look like,” he said. “Do you think it worked?”

Next to this person that you didn’t know but somehow you thought you might understand anyway, you nodded.

Next to Namjoon in a room so quiet you were sure you could hear the steady thrum of your heartbeat (or his, or both beating at the same time), you nodded.

Next to him, who you didn’t yet know would become Him, you nodded.

“Yeah,” you said gracelessly. 

“Can you see it?” Namjoon asked. 

“Which one?” you countered.

He shrugged, not breaking eye contact. “Aren’t love and hate and pain and pleasure all the same at the end of the day?”

Eventually, he will teach you that they are.

It starts with phone calls.

(Sometimes it seems it might end with one, too.)

Namjoon speaks like the shallow pools of blended color on a painter’s well-loved palate. There is no certainty. He uses gray words like “sometimes,” and purple ones like “maybe,” and the soft peach “don’t you think?” 

“Morning, Namjoon-ssi,” you hum into the air, hoping you’re close enough to the microphone that you don’t have to shout. 

“What if we were in Florence?” he asks in return. 

“Then I would still be asleep, or you would be getting smothered with a pillow for waking me up.”

He laughs, not the bright one you know he saves for when there’s an audience, but a small one that bubbles up from his chest with a deep timbre. “So, in Florence, you and I are in bed together?” 

You sigh into your (not Italian) pillow. 

“Good morning,” he adds. “Can we speak informally?”

Your sigh turns into a smile you hadn’t asked for. “Yeah.”

“Good.” 

You’ve been speaking for weeks. Namjoon is busy, you are not (at least, not in the same way, not to the same magnitude). You make a space for him in your life with much less consideration than you usually use with others. Or, maybe he just takes it. 

“What are your plans for the weekend?” he asks. 

“Same thing as all the other weekends.” 

“Can I watch this time?” 

“It’s boring.” 

Namjoon pauses. “Does it bore you?” 

“No, it’s what I love.” 

“Then,” he says, in what you think is probably his typical fashion (at least with you, it is), “I think I might find it easy to love, too.” 

“Oh, Namjoonie,” you tease, “I’m starting to think you find everything easy to love.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. This is a thing you’ve noticed about him. He’s serious in a flash. He’s jokes and teasing and talking to you about what ifs and what nots until suddenly he is very determined that he should say something meaningful. Or very convinced that you have. 

“I want to,” he says. “I want my heart to be more full than my mind. It’s hard.” 

“I know,” you say, even though for you, it’s not. 

“I’m glad you don’t,” he says earnestly.

“Come see me on Saturday,” you say, deflecting. You can do this for him, you think. You haven’t seen him since the museum, but you’ve seen the pastel splashes of his words, the geometric lines of his heart, the post-modern dilemma he thinks he carries down deep. You’ve seen the important things, so you know you can give him the distraction he doesn’t know he needs. 

“I think I will.” 

You hang up in black and white. 

Namjoon fucks like a surrealist. Shifts your body until you’re still recognizable in the mirror, but fundamentally different, too. 

Pulls your hips up too high: Ernst. 

Makes butterflies soar out of your mouth, gusty with your labored breath: Magritte. 

Fucks you cross-eyed, spit dripping hourglass slow from your lips: Dali. 

You thought he would be a talker, like he is on the phone. Thought he’d try and work through the freightliner of thoughts steaming through his brain. But Namjoon is all breath and whispers and sighs and moans and fragments of the pretty words he used to get you like this: bent over your worktable, chest smeared into cadmium red and titanium white. He talks, but it's oil paint instead of watercolor this time: thick and precise. 

“Fuck, you look perfect like this,” he says, voice a little dreamy, slapping another pink-paint handprint onto your ass. You’re never going to get it scrubbed off your skin.

It makes you laugh, breathy and high. 

You came first (and second) on his tongue. Told you to keep painting while he got underneath you, pretty on his knees, honest and plain telling you he wanted you.

“Want to see what art tastes like,” he said, cotton soft breath on your thigh. 

“Silly,” you replied. “Does anyone fall for lines like that?”

“Doesn’t matter, don’t want you to fall. I told you to keep standing.” He’s smug when he licks across your core, startling you. 

It went like that until your hand was shaking and the thick outlines around nameless figures on the canvas shook with you. 

“Pretty painter, taste as good as you look,” he paused to say. You moaned when he fucked his tongue into you, clenched around it, wanted to be greedy, wanted more, wanted everything. “Sound even better,” he added, chin slick, eyes sparkling. 

After you came, he didn’t stop. When your paintbrush fell to the ground, he doubled his efforts, two fingers sliding inside of you while he sucked your sensitive clit between his lips. “Come on, baby,” he said, “I know you have another one for me.” 

Your hand gripped his hair instead of your brush, you chased the overstimulation instead of wriggling away. It felt right, somehow, to just take what you want, and Namjoon didn’t seem to mind. Moaned into your cunt when you fucked his face, holding him in place while your hips moved. A muffled, “fuck, please baby,” into your skin when you pulled his hair just to see what it would feel like. Lips curved into a grin when you rocked against him through your second orgasm. 

And now, he reaps the benefits of his efforts. You’re pliant beneath him, fucked out and pleased, easy and eager as he slides his thick cock in and out. You watch him carefully in the mirror, you see his focus on where he thrusts inside of you, his awe when you clench around him and pull him just a little farther in. You see him grin when he slaps you, telling you he knows you’re watching, asking if you want more. “A greedy little thing,” he breathes. “Think you want more? Think you want me to fuck you harder, want my cock in you so deep you can feel it in your stomach?”

You feel stupid with it, nodding in agreement, mouth open and drooling onto your worktable while he fucks you to a third orgasm. 

“You fuck me so good. Such a big dick, gonna feel you all week, Namjoonah.” 

“You should paint this,” he says, slowing his thrusts. “No one’s ever looked as good as you do taking my cock.” 

“No one?” you ask, suddenly a little desperate for the praise.

Namjoon bends to kiss the back of your neck, lets his lips mark a pathway down your spine that his fingertips follow. He’s so deep inside of you, hips grinding slow against your skin. When he reaches your waist, he grips and pulls you into him even closer. 

The space between you (barely there to begin with) bends to his will: Carrington. 

“Nobody, baby,” he whispers his first certainty to you, fingertips teasing between your thighs now, careful where you’re still too sensitive, but wordlessly asking you to give in, to give more. 

“I’ll give you anything,” you say in response to a question you don’t think he’ll ask as he starts to circle your clit, pulls almost all the way out of you and fucks back in harder than before.

“You’ll take even more,” he says, and he comes inside of you, hips stuttering unsure, a bassline under the clear melody of his words. 

Lazy, you lie face up together on discarded canvas, forgotten starting points of ideas you hadn’t intended to complete. Unabashed, you have a knee up so your thighs don’t tack together with the mess you’ve made. Namjoon talks about nothing, blows smoke in halos above your heads and offers you the cigarette careful between his long fingers. You don’t smoke, but you hold it anyway, watching him, carding the fingers of your free hand through his hair as he stares at his cum leaking out of you, catches it on the tender part of your thigh and wipes swirls and squares onto the canvas around you. 

He finishes the thoughts you began before you even knew him.

“Tell me a story,” you whisper roughly into the air, hoping he can hear you through your shitty phone microphone. 

It’s early, that sacred pre-dawn you save for yourself (and now, somehow, for him)  and you’ve woken up from a shitty sleep and a worse dream and couldn’t stop yourself from calling him back when you saw you’d already missed a call from him. 

“It’s late, baby.” 

You let out a puff of breath, Namjoon laughs almost silently at you. 

“Please?”

“You don’t like books,” he says, almost a tease. It’s true. You like them conceptually, but you told him you don’t feel like you have the patience sometimes. That you want to give them energy you don’t have.

“But I like stories.” 

“FIne.” Even his sigh is fond. You like him like this so much—easy, willing, teasing but still giving in eventually. 

You fall asleep fast, the first words you hear are the last. “Once upon a time…” When you wake up, you have messages from him. A whole lot of them, a whole story written out in your Katalk chat. A love story, sort of, one where they’re star-crossed and destined but always just a little too far apart. It ends with a “maybe” instead of a “happily ever after.” You don’t even let yourself think about that too much—it’s perfectly him—a little drama for the sake of it, a little sadness to make the joy feel better.

Your world is tiny. A firefly in a sky full of bold, bright stars. It is you, in your studio, alone. It is you with your friends, it is you getting a cat so you have someone to talk to when your friends aren’t around. 

For Namjoon, it expands. A firefly to a star to a burning red giant. 

Still, it feels small when you’re inside of it. It’s you with your friends, it’s you with Namjoon in your studio, it’s Namjoon gently stroking your cat’s fur while he talks to himself and you paint. 

It’s difficult to describe, but when you’re with him, you either have his full attention to the extent it’s overwhelming, or he seemingly pays no attention to you or what you’re doing. Just works on whatever he’s working on while you paint, speaking to you because he knows you won’t answer. 

On one of the nights when you’re together (but not at all), you finally ask. He’d let himself in around two in the morning and kissed the top of your head before he put headphones in and stuck his face into his notebook on the other side of the room. He likes to sit by the window so he can crack it open and blow his smoke out of it instead of into the room. 

“Why’d you come tonight?” 

“I wanted to be near you.” 

“I don’t think you’ve even looked at me.” It’s not an accusation, just an observation. You like that Namjoon will know the difference, you like that he’s hard to offend, and doesn't mind when you speak plainly. Gives you plain answers in return (usually). You stick the small paint brush you’ve been using sideways in your mouth and grab a larger one.

“Baby, you’re all I can see lately,” he says, staring at the trails of smoke curling around the outside of the window pane. 

You laugh around the red-tipped paint brush you’re biting down on, a pause for the cadmium to add a little white to the edges. Namjoon looks over then, snaps a picture of you with your eyes crinkled and your head thrown back, red oil threatening to drip like blood. 

“Beautiful,” he says, looking at the picture before he goes back to writing.

There are more phone calls every time he travels for work. It’s the same routine. He texts you a photo of something he’s seen that he liked, and when you respond, whether it’s five minutes later or five hours, he asks if he can call you. 

Sometimes they’re quiet, simple recountings of the things that have happened in his day or are about to happen in the next (timezone dependent), sometimes they’re ranting about the industry and the pressure and how he never thought about time until he realized he was running out of it. Sometimes he’s worked up in a different way, wants to see your face in pixelated halos while he comes on his own stomach, alone in a hotel room far away. 

All of this, you let him take. It’s not completely sacrificial, by any means. You like to hear him talk, better than any podcast you’ve ever heard. You like to know what he sees—he’s touched parts of the globe you could only dream about seeing. You like that he never makes it complicated. 

Never promises to take you there one day, never says he wishes you were with him.

You’ve been fucking in secret for a while when Namjoon wants you to meet his friends. 

“Why?” you ask. 

“Because I want you to see me, too,” he says. Simple and complicated at the same time. You’re afraid to ask why again, not sure if you want to know the answer. This is sex. It’s incredible sex that happens far more often than you thought he’d be able to make time for. 

He shows up at your studio at odd hours of the morning (or is it still night?) and talks to you about all the frivolous things while you take each other apart. Rambles about Murakami while he fucks you, tells you about a Youngkuk he saw while you swallow his dick. Naked and sprawled amongst your paint and mess and half-done work leaning against the walls, he tells you a little about his work, too. Asks you about a painting he’d seen you working on—diligently adding splashes of blue, tells you about a song he wants to do the same thing to somehow. Asks you uselessly if color and sound are the same thing if you think about them too hard.

They are. It’s a thing you both know that you don’t think many others do. It’s one thing he’s sure about. You think he only likes you because you’re sure about it, too. 

It’s incredible sex and pretty good conversations that happen at what most people probably think are strange times, but it’s not more than that. You can’t afford to get your heart confused, and he can’t afford to give you anything other than exactly what he’s giving. 

(He can’t afford to give you what he does, but he tells you there’s no reward without risk. 

“Am I the reward, then?” you tease. 

Namjoon never answers you.)

But you don’t tell him no. You think this is a bargain you can make with your heart, you can ask it for temperance while you do this thing he wants, you can meet the people who are truly important to him without convincing yourself you’re counted amongst them. You can try, anyway.

So, on a rooftop in Hannam-dong, you sip whisky with a photographer friend of Namjoon’s while he stands behind you, an arm wrapped around your waist, and alternates between sucking bruises into your neck and smoke into his lungs. 

“How’d you meet?” the photographer asks. 

“Hoam,” Namjoon replies into your skin. “She picked a fight.”

You laugh, he laughs, the photographer laughs. It’s carefree and light—your laugh, your thoughts, your skin under Namjoon’s wandering lips. Your heart is holding up its end of the deal, you don’t feel anything but pleased to be there, pleased to have his attention again (still). 

“Our Namjoonie likes a challenge,” his friend says. 

“Our Namjoonie is a challenge,” you tease.

Namjoon nips at the thin skin between your neck and shoulder in retaliation (or to prove your point, you’re not sure). You yelp, turn in his arms, see him smirking before he goes to take another drag. Swiftly, you pluck the cigarette out from between his lips, stamping it out on the cement. 

“Baby,” he whines, looking down where the cigarette is brown and white dust under your sneaker. 

“Better things to do with your mouth,” you retort, pressing up onto your tiptoes and pulling his bottom lip between your teeth. 

His mouth is ashy and yours tastes like peet, you’re sure. It’s filthy and a little cheap even though the cigarettes and the whisky and the lip balm he always wears were all expensive. Namjoon kisses like he does everything else: completely single-minded, treating the soft curves where your mouths meet as if they’re the edges of the world. 

You walk him a step back until he’s flush against the wall and lean into him again, pressing your bodies together hard and your lips together plush. He’s hard in his joggers and it’s every last piece of self-control you have to not sneak your hand under his waistband and tease him until he’s leaking and begging to get inside you. 

It wouldn’t take much. 

Takes a lot out of you to not drop to your knees and choke on his cock where everyone can see, where everyone would know for sure for sure for certain that he’s chosen you for this for now for some reason. To not make him moan around your name while he comes down your throat, a different kind of concert. 

Your hands stay in appropriate places while your lips beg for more. 

He was right, something he said the first time you hooked up: you are greedy for him. But he’s just as bad for you, begging in your ear for you to let him take you home, for you to let him fuck you right here so everyone knows you’re his (right now, in only this way, for some reason that neither of you are willing to speak into existence). 

You give in, no cares about who sees, it’s safe here with friends who would never betray him. You feel ever weightless against his body, whispering, “Yes, come on Joonie,” you say. “Need your cock. Need you.” 

(Briefly, it occurs to you that those sentences mean two completely different things, that they’re both true, and that either it’s Namjoon choosing to ignore the odd, heavy weight of the second one or you both are.)

You’re halfway out the door before you remember you were in the middle of a conversation. 

You don’t notice his friends whispering. 

You don’t notice his manager rolling his eyes. 

You don’t notice the way Namjoon looks at you when he knows you’re not looking back.

And you surely don’t let yourself notice that both of you want more than you’re willing to give in return.

“Can you come over?” he asks, but it doesn’t quite come out like a question. 

“I’m working, maybe a different time?” 

It’s abundantly clear he hadn’t expected you to say no. He’s silent on the other end of the line for a moment before he lets out an aborted sigh. 

“You can work whenever you want.”

Before you realize he’s serious, you laugh. “Yeah, and now is when I want to. You know how it is to get inspired.” 

Namjoon huffs. “I’d still make time for you.” 

It’s almost more absurd than the sentence before it. First, you know from firsthand experience that he wouldn’t, not really. Your “relationship”—or whatever you’re (not) calling it—revolves almost entirely around his schedule. And that’s fine with you, usually. It was expected, anyway. You don’t exactly drop everything to see him, but you haven’t been the best at keeping plans with the other people in your life, either. You don’t blame him for it, it’s just how things are, and it’s your own fault (at least partially) for bailing on your friends to “chase dick” as they so delicately put it. The second point is that you wouldn’t ask him to. If you don’t ask him to change for you, if you don’t need him to bend, then you never have to stop to ask yourself what the two of you are even doing. 

As the static of the connection is drawn out like a fermata with neither of you willing to break it, you wonder if this is your panoply, the armor you don, one of the ways you’ve been protecting your own heart without realizing it. 

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you say, repeating it to yourself, admitting it to him. 

“I know,” Namjoon agrees, but he sounds disappointed instead of conciliatory. 

“I have to go.” 

“Sure,” he says quietly before he ends the call. “Let me know when you have time.”

Namjoon is obsessed with time. 

How much is left. 

How much has passed. 

How much until the next thing. 

How much he’s wasted. 

You think this is because he puts a deadline to his regret, says things like, “It’s been a year, I can’t worry about it anymore.” 

It’s hard not to wonder what schedule he’s given whatever this thing is between you. Are you still regrettable? Is there a space between regrettable and forgettable you can build shelter in? 

It makes him fill his time. He’s always doing something, likes to feel productive. Holds himself to an unspoken standard that you’re not even sure he could articulate if he needed to. He gets antsy when he has to relax, twitches and fidgets and fills the space with words. 

Sometimes, after sex when you’re quiet and lax and content to just sit with him, he uses the time to write. He sits tall up in your bed and holds his notebook above your head where it rests in his lap. He says you help him organize his thoughts, says having you to bounce things off of gives him clarity, says you think of words like colors like he does and you know how he likes to paint. Says he gets his best work done in this time in between pleasure and sleep. 

He hums to himself while he writes—you don’t even know if he knows he does it. Sometimes, it wakes you up from where you didn’t know you’d fallen asleep on top of him. 

“Is it morning yet?” you slur, still mostly asleep. 

“Relax, baby,” he whispers when you stir. “We’ve got time.” 

You don’t break up, because there’s nothing tangible to break. It’s a quiet thing, without dramatics, but oh how you grieve. 

It’s not linear. You’re not in a predictable pattern of feeling. One morning he doesn’t call, and you don’t even notice, but another makes you sob quietly in the corner of your studio, curled up under the window where he used to sit, like you can fuse yourself with the ghost of him. 

There are days when it’s easier, days when it’s difficult. When you mourn the way the curve of his bicep felt under your fingertips or the future you never considered until it wasn’t an option anymore. 

(You still don’t know if it ever was an option, but that’s the tricky thing—you can grieve for the things you had and also for those you didn’t. No one can stop you, Namjoon’s not there to pull you back to reality. He was never very good at that anyway.)

Some days, you wonder if he grieves, too. It would be easy to read interviews and read into things, it would be easy to assume every word, look, gesture is a window into his mind, but you try not to do that to yourself, try not to do it to him. 

At four in the morning on a Saturday, when days without him have long turned into weeks, you mindlessly scroll through your phone, idly wondering what he might be doing at this time when he used to be with you.

“The quiet hours are all for us,��� he would whisper into your skin, no distractions, no demands. 

Those hours are infinitely louder in your mind without him there. So, you distract yourself, you look at every app and you get lost in reels and tiktoks and tweets and then you go back to instagram to see his story is updated. And you think twice before you do it, but you still click on it, curious and heartbroken and a little bit hoping he’s not already found someone new to spend daybreak with. 

It’s just a song, an old one, a sad one. Text he added in small font across the bottom: 

“Grief is love persevering,” he says.

In your corner, under the window, you cry over the silly quote for the both of you.

“Do you know about alpine sunflowers?” 

You laugh as you put your phone on speaker and set it down next to you. You’re not laughing at him, and he knows it—you’re full of a particular fondness you only feel for him, one you especially feel when he’s thousands of miles away, busier than busy and running on no sleep, but still calling you to bullshit. 

“No, tell me about them.” 

“Okay,” he says, voice pitched up, a little excited, like he’s sitting up straighter and getting ready to tell you something wonderful. “So, they only grow high up in the alpine tundra. The Swiss Alps, the Rockies, you know what I mean?” 

“What about the French Alps?” you tease.

Namjoon huffs. “There too, jagiya, but you’re missing the point.” 

“Okay, make me see it, then.” 

“I will if you’ll stop teasing.” 

You do stop, not because he’s making an impeccable argument, but because he’s always going somewhere with things like this, and without realizing it, you’ve stumbled into a reality where you’d follow him anywhere. 

“They grow slowly. ‘Cause of the snow and the subzero temperatures and the fact that there’s just not much up there for them. They take their time, you see?”

You’re starting to, your paintbrush dipping into a dusty yellow to test in a small corner of your canvas. You nod, forgetting he’s not there in the room with you, that you should speak if you actually want to answer him. He doesn’t care if you do or not, you know, not until he gets to the punchline, and sometimes not even then. 

On the other end of the line, you hear him suck in a breath before he continues. “They save up everything: the sunlight and the water and they hoard it all. They're selfish little things, baby. Just these spindly stalks of nothing sucking up everything good out of the Earth.”

“Hmm,” you murmur so he knows you’re with him. 

“But then, and this is the best part, then one day, after ten fucking years if you can believe that—after ten years do you know what happens?”

“Climate change?”

Namjoon ignores you now in favor of finishing his story. It’s fair enough, you suppose. “They bloom. Big and beautiful, brighter than all the other sunflowers like an explosion of little suns across the mountains.”

“That sounds beautiful,” you reply. 

And you know what Namjoon is thinking. That their beauty comes at a cost, that he hasn’t quite untangled yet whether he loves those stupid flowers for taking what they need and becoming something incredible or if he despises them for waiting so long to do it, for keeping something so lovely to themselves. It’s not what he says, though. As you paint something that might be tangling green vines of selfish sunflowers across gesso, he surprises you. 

“I wonder if in all relationships, someone is the sunflower and someone is the mountain.”

You can’t help but pause, because he might be right. One of you might take something from the other to become more beautiful, one of you might give up everything to be made more whole by the other, if even for a moment. 

“Maybe they are,” you agree. 

“You know what happens after the alpine sunflower blooms?” he asks, voice softer now, more tired as night turns into morning where he is. 

“What happens, Joon-ah?”

Namjoon sighs into the phone, the mood has changed since he called you—and this isn’t unusual. He can be ebullient and he’s gorgeous when he’s happy and carefree, but it changes quickly sometimes depending on the circumstances, depending on how much he’s let himself think, how much time he’s spent alone. 

“They die. They do all of that and they work hard for so long, and then they’re gone.” 

Carefully, you ask, “You want to be the mountain, then?” 

In the background, you can hear the rustle of sheets and the careful clacking of his glasses hitting the bedside table. He yawns, and you can picture the way he’s rubbing his palms over his face, pulling his shirt off before he dives all the way under the duvet, probably taking advantage of being alone to take up all the space he possibly can in the big hotel bed. He sounds half-asleep and sad when he finally answers you. 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“Why not?” You put your brush down, stare at the small mess you’ve made. 

“The mountain has it worse, she can only watch them go.”

He is everywhere, even when he’s not. 

There are the obvious things: the ads with his face, the gum and coffee and candy with his picture on them, the music, his lyrics, playing in cafes and bars and pages and pages of his songs in every noraebang. 

There are the private things, too. The reminders that are just for you.

You see him in the way the leaves change: reliable but not predictable. 

You smell him after it rains, when you pass by cafes and smoking rooms and when you take the train to Yeosu just to remember the way the saltwater can make the air sting. You hear him every time you hear the train sail into the station at Yongsan and when you hear the river gently shove against its banks. 

It’s a couple months after you meet him, and along that river, you walk a less-loved path. With all the words you know, you explain all that to a friend, one you’ve known a long time, who doesn’t know who you’re talking about as you try to describe the person who’s taken up all of your time and attention lately. 

Because you can’t tell her anything about him, you tell her these things instead and you hope it’s enough for her to understand. 

And maybe she does, maybe better than you do. 

“Does that make sense?” you ask. “It’s hard to explain how much he is.” 

“To you,” she says. “He’s that much to you.” 

You hadn’t even considered that he wasn’t all of those things to everyone. It never even crossed your mind. It’s probably apparent that you’re mulling it over, trying to true it up with how you feel. 

She shrugs with one shoulder and smiles, brings a finger up to smooth the wrinkle in your brow.  “Don’t think about it too hard, yeah? Love is supposed to be simple.” 

Those two words had always each seemed so big to you, to carry so much power on their own. It’s the first time you let yourself consider putting the words Namjoon and Love in the same sentence. 

And in that moment, you know that if Namjoon is the changing leaf, you are the one that falls.

“Do you love me?” you ask—afraid to know the answer, more afraid of never knowing. You stare at unfinished bunches of sunflowers and handprints of pink and white borders that never got filled in. All of it undone, all of it paused. Abstracts in stop-motion waiting for… him to come back? You to get your shit together? Inspiration? What’s the difference, anyway, you think while you wait for him to speak. 

He doesn’t answer right away, hums a little, clicks his tongue, things you can sense more than you can hear. It’s a rude way to start a phone call, especially when you haven’t spoken in a long time, especially when you’re not each other's to love. 

Not anymore. 

Not that you know if you ever were. 

You need to know, you think. Questioning whether all of it even mattered is making you worse off than thinking it didn’t. Listening to him tell foreign interviewers he’s had a rough year, lost something great, was finding it hard to trust—himself, others—you, your brain supplies… it’s making you feel a little wild, a little reckless. 

One drink past good decisions, you call, and when he answers unexpectedly, you forgo “hello” for “do you love me?” 

You wait, expecting exasperation, complication, maybe a long and drawn out description of how maybe people can never know if they’re in love, if they have the capacity to love completely. 

And then he surprises you. 

“Of course I do,” he says, sounding soft and a little scared and more definitive than you’ve ever heard him. “You know that.” 

“I didn’t,” you reply. Not to be argumentative, but because it’s true. Because you love him and you want him to be happy and you know he’ll never get it right if he thinks what he gave you was enough. 

“I don’t think I knew then, either,” he concedes. “But I wish I had. I do now.” 

“I miss you.” 

“I know. But you did then, too.” 

The laugh you let out is wry and wet with your tears, the ones you’re shedding for the you that did miss him even then, even when he was by your side, even when he was buried inside of you. “I’m lonely,” is what you say, too honest. 

“I know. I am, too.” 

There’s nothing to say to that, you think. Maybe this is where it really ends, a torn-open wound for both of you—you’ll paint it all in vivid acrylics, probably never finish it just to be ironic. And then Namjoon adds, “Can I come over?”

You reply quickly, a taste of his own medicine. “Maybe,” you say. 

You should have never left, you mean. 

He laughs then, watercolor yellow and orange joy dripping over the phone line. It’s bright and hopeful—you listen to him shrugging on a jacket and swearing out a curse when he runs into his dresser, rushing to get to you, scrambling for time—and it makes you decide that for once, with him by your side, you might finish the picture.

[m1sa-w1sa]

Can you do platonic harbingers with a reader harbinger that was once cruel, a bit immature, arrogant, and sadistic suddenly become more mature, calculative, has more control of their emotion, and takes things more seriously after being humbled by their many defeats at the hands of the Traveler and her allies? How do the Harbingers Pierro, Dottore, Arlecchino, and LA Signora feel about the reader's drastic change of personality?

(Oo!! Sure I will! You can always request again if you want the rest!!)

Frozen Heart

Pierro

•He was relieved that you finally got your emotions under control but also slightly sad about it

•Before you were always so excited or happy to see him but now you just walk past him with a slight nod and a deep sigh

•When he offers to train you the only word you say is “No” and walk away, harbinger meetings you said nothing

•Pierro saw you as a grandchild and even though him and the others wanted you to get your emotions under control he does miss the spark you had before

Dottore

•Its like he had a weight lift off his shoulders when he saw you change

•Yes you two were on good terms and you helped him with experiments and you related to him and his mindset

•Back in sumeru when he was known as Zandik he gad trouble finding people you related to him and you did fill in that spot

•So if you really think about it he is a little saddened by the fact that you changed yourself for them knowing that other harbingers, the people from sheznaya wont understand his ideas

Arlecchino

•She was a little disappointed that you had to learn the hard way about your emotions but didnt look into it

•Arlecchino did see you as a child either way and seeing you not even say hi to any of the harbingers anymore

“Good afternoon [NAME]”

“Hm”

•she sometimes thinks of the times she was overboard with you when you failed mission like she hasnt either

•Seeing your head down holding your tears as all the harbingers gaze at you harshly all of them yelling at you

•She does think that it was her fault that your spark was tooken away

La Signora

•Again she was relieved that you changed

•She should be happy that you dont act like a stupid little kid anymore

•But she isnt? Why isnt she? She was apart of the ones that WANTED you to change so why isnt she happy?!

•Theres a part of her that was sad when you grew emotionless you reminded her of him (meaning that you made her happy like she was before she joined the harbingers)

•She looks at you during meeting, missions, training, any time she could get she doesnt show her emotions none of them do how could they after they shut out yours?

This is what they wanted, so why are they so saddened by it?

(Fin!! Sorry if i posted a lil late!!!)

[asbealthgn]

okay I keep seeing posts about steve dying in season 5 and I simply do not claim that energy BUT it got me thinking about what would happen if he did? and uuuh this lil baby ficlet about steve and eddie in the afterlife happened

———

Steve opens his eyes and there’s no monsters, no Upside Down, no Robin or Nancy or Dustin. There’s just the soft sound of water lapping against wooden boards, filtered afternoon light, and the dusty interior of Reefer Rick’s boathouse.

The hell?

“Good to see you again, Harrington.”

Steve sits up so fast that he would normally see stars at the edges of his vision. Guess being dead means that doesn’t happen anymore. Eddie Munson is leaning back against the wall, smoking a cigarette and grinning at him.

“What are—why—” Steve takes a breath and tries to gather his thoughts, because there are too many questions swirling around his head that he wants to ask. “Why am I here?”

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Here, like, in the afterlife?” he asks, “I hate to break it to you, man, but you kinda died.”

“Yeah, no, I got that,” Steve says, “I mean, why here? In the boathouse?” If the afterlife is just this shitty little wooden structure he’s gonna be so mad.

But Eddie just shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine, dude,” he says, “When I kicked it, I woke up in my chair at Hellfire. I think it’s supposed to be some place that was significant to you before you died.”

Significant. What’s significant about this place over any other place in Steve’s life? Unless… No. That’s ridiculous. 

“Was anyone there?” Steve asked. 

Eddie gets a sort of sad look on his face. “My mom,” he says, “She died when I was little.” But then his face brightens again. “She’s here! Not, like, here, in this moment, but around. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

“That’s really nice,” Steve says. He wonders how it happened that Eddie is his welcome wagon to the Great Beyond. Probably because the only people Steve’s really lost have been distant family he never knew that well. Eddie was the first person whose death cut him right to the core. 

Eddie pushes off the wall and crosses over to Steve, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him. “It’s so weird to talk about her,” Eddie says, “Because I’m so used to being sad about her being dead. But now so am I, and I’m getting to see her.”

“Where did your mom wake up, when she died?” Steve asks, wondering if maybe that’s too nosy of a question. 

“She said it was the little café down the road from our old apartment,” Eddie says. “She always loved it ‘cause it got so much sun.”

The image makes Steve smile. He imagines Eddie sitting on a woman’s lap in a big, sunny window, watching people pass by outside. “So is that what the afterlife is?” he asks, “Just a whole bunch of places from our lives?”

Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it all out,” he says, “I haven’t been dead that long, and anyway, time is funny here. I’ve explored a little, but there’s a lot to see. Mainly I’m trying to find some door that’ll let me go back to earth, because there are some people I would love to haunt the shit out of.”

Steve laughs. He could get behind that. Eddie reaches out and pokes him in the knee.

“So what makes the boathouse significant to you?” he asks, “I’ll be honest, I figured it would be, like, your house or something. I didn’t think you even knew Reefer Rick.”

“No, I didn’t,” Steve says, “The only time I’ve ever been here were those couple times with you.”

“So why…?” Eddie raises his eyebrows, waiting for some sort of explanation that would make Steve waking up in the afterlife in a place he’d spent a grand total of maybe two hours in make sense. 

The only answer Steve can come up with is pretty embarrassing. He lets his eyes drift to the wall, the spot where Eddie had him pinned with that broken bottle. With everything else going on, he’d barely even had time to acknowledge that all of that had made him feel some very confusing things, because they had to rush off and help Max and kill Vecna and then try to kill him again when the first time didn’t stick. Steve hadn’t taken the time to muddle through why he felt so much every time Eddie grinned at him or touched him or called him big boy. Then Eddie had died, and it didn’t matter anyway, because nothing could ever become of it. 

Except now Steve’s dead too. And Eddie’s here.

“Uh,” Steve says, stalling for time. Eddie follows his gaze over to the wall and then looks back at Steve.

“What’re you lookin’ at, big boy?” he asks. 

And fuck, who knew blushing was possible in the afterlife? Steve meets Eddie’s eyes that are so dark in the shadows of the boathouse but that he’s seen glow gold in the sunlight. Something crosses over Eddie’s face and it’s like he knows what Steve’s thinking. He opens his mouth and starts to speak. “Steve—”

“D’you wanna go out sometime?” Steve blurts. He’s already dead; might as well take some risks, right?

Eddie laughs and Steve doesn’t know if it’s a good laugh or a bad laugh. But then he reaches out and takes Steve’s hand. “Yeah, I do,” he says, “I’ll be honest, I haven’t really come across any good date spots in the afterlife yet, but I’m sure they’re out there.”

Steve stands, pulling Eddie up with him. He looks at Eddie’s face, his eyes that are sparkling even in the shadows, his smile that has been so inviting from the very first second Steve saw it. “Bet we can find something,” he murmurs.

Grinning, Eddie pulls him over to the door and grabs the handle. “C’mon then, big boy,” he says, “Let’s explore.”

[nnaminxz]

“𝕻𝖗𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖞 𝕲𝖎𝖗𝖑𝖘 𝕯𝖔𝖓’𝖙 𝕮𝖗𝖞“

↳ 𝔰𝔲𝔤𝔲𝔯𝔲 𝔤𝔢𝔱𝔬

⤑ 𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: smut & angst

⤑ 𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: if the saying is “misery loves company” why isn’t Suguru happy right now?

⤑ 𝔱𝔞𝔤𝔰: Gojo Satoru slander I’m sorry but I had too, I love him very much tho, sad feelings, sad reader, suguru is kind of ass too, maybe a lil ooc but it’s fanfic so don’t attack me, vaginal sex, riding, the ending may be dumb but it’s whatever, minors dni

⤑ 𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯𝔰 𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢: I wrote this for an another fandom a WHILE ago and always wanted to redo it so I thought why not redo it for my first jjk fic. I hope you guys enjoy this is my first time posting for this fandom so I’m vv nervous/excited. Pls be kind

Suguru always thought this would make him happy.

Seeing you around campus with Satoru made him angry enough, so he just knew that when the inevitable happened and Satoru started acting like well—Satoru again the sight was guaranteed to bring much happiness to his heart.

He knew it was sick, that he wanted to see whatever you and Satoru had going on fail but Suguru couldn't help it.

None of it mattered though because it didn’t happen.

Suguru sat in the same place for two hours watching the two of you—waiting for the feeling of bitter happiness to fill his bones but it never came.

In fact, it was the exact opposite.

Watching you fight to get Satoru’s attention made him sad. Seeing how no matter what you did he would rather pay more attention to everyone else made Suguru angry. And watching you finally leave the room and the other boy not even bat an eye made him furious.

If he was truly surprised or even thought the other boy would care, Suguru would’ve went over to him and said something but it wasn’t worth it. Satoru was just like him.

An idiot.

A dumbass.

They couldn’t tell when they had a good thing even if it’d slapped them across the face.

“Where you going?” Haibara questions as Suguru stands to his feet.

“Need a smoke,”

“Ah,” The other boy nodded his head. “Are you having fun?”

Suguru decides to lie again. The happiness on his friends face to pure to ruin with his sour mood.

“I told you coming out tonight would be a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Suguru fakes a grin. “I’ll be back.” He took the pack of cigarettes out his pocket waving them before walking away.

Suguru easily maneuvers his way through the thick crowd until he was standing on the back porch. The screen door shut with a thud causing you to swiftly snap around. There was a hopeful and expectant look on your face but when you saw it was him all that fell as you turned back around.

“Well, hello to you too,” Suguru jokes trying to hide the actual physical pain he was feeling in his heart.

That used to be him you were so eager to see.

“What do you want?” You huffed softly.

“Needed a smoke.”

The way you turned to look at him with such concern almost made Suguru laugh. Here you were angry at him, going through your own shit, and still somehow harbored enough care to be concerned with his health.

“I though you quit?”

Suguru plops down next to you pulling the carton out his pocket flipping the cap open. “I did.” He says showing you the empty pack..

“You carry around an empty pack?”

“It’s a good way for me to make an exit,”

You left out a long sigh. “I looked that pitiful huh?”

“You don’t look pitiful. He just looks stupid.”

Though you didn’t say anything back you didn’t need to for Suguru to already know what you were thinking. He knew you like the back of his hand and no doubt you were beating yourself up, angry with yourself when in reality you should’ve been focused on the one who deserved it.

“I’m so stupid,” You whisper and its so low that it Suguru wasn’t already so hyper-focused on your very existence he would’ve probably missed it.

“No, you’re not.”

“You told me he was like this.”

“People told you about me and you still gave me a chance,”

“So I am stupid.”

“You’re trusting,” Suguru counters. “You give people the benefit of the doubt.”

“why is it that trusting people always end up looking stupid?”

“because others take advantage of it.”

Something he knew all to well.

You both fall silent again. The only noise filling the space are the sounds of nature and the muffled thumping music that escaped the noisy house. Suguru looks over at you wishing there was something he could to do. Something he could say. Seeing you like this hurt him.

He hated seeing you cry.

He felt like dying when you were upset.

But it also hurt to see you happy so Suguru wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted.

All this shit was so weird. An uncharted territory before you came along.

Every time the screen door would creak open you’d twist around to see if it was him and every time you ended up turning back around in disappointment. As your disappointment grew, so did Suguru’s anger.

You only deserved the best things in life. None of this push and pull, ‘I’m here but around others I’m not’ bullshit.

Suguru was such a hypocrite.

Here he was furious with Satoru when he used to just as much of an asshole to you as well. He too would push and pull right until he pushed you away completely.

“I’m sorry,” He quietly apologizes. If he’d just gotten his act together sooner there would be no you and Satoru. You wouldn’t be sad and he would still have you.

You shake your head softly shushing him. “Not right now please,” You say. “Can you take me home? I just really want to go back home.”

Without saying anything else Suguru nodded. As both of  you were walking to his car you passed a big window. Sadly it was a clear shot to Satoru who now had another girl seated next to him in your place.

Not only had he not noticed your absence but that easily he’d replaced you.

“He’s such a fucking ass.”

“Yeah,” You agree. “Let’s just go,”

Suguru had evert urge to go in there and go off but when he looked back over you were already halfway to his car so he kept it moving. Satoru wasn’t worth it anyway. He was just another dick who thought way too much of himself.

Satoru didn’t deserve you.

Neither did Suguru.

One in the car Suguru sent Haibara a quick message saying he was going home before shifting the car into gear.

As expected the drive was silent. There wasn’t much to say. As much as Suguru wanted to comfort you he didn’t know what to do even if he did you probably wouldn’t want to hear it from him. Why would you?

Suguru knew every route to and from your apartment but decided to take the longest one. If you noticed you didn’t say anything. All you did was keep quiet as you looked out the window.

You stayed that way until he pulled up to you complex. Before getting out of the car you whisper as soft thank you and force a smile.

“yeah, no problem,” Suguru murmurs.

He’s about to pull away when out the corner of his eye he spots your small tube of lip gloss sitting in his cup holder. You had a million of them and even thought you probably wouldn’t even realize this one was missing Suguru still found himself on a journey to your front door.

Who know this could’ve been your favorite one.

The one in the pink tube was your favorite actually.

But Suguru already knew that.

“You left this,” Suguru says once you open the door.

“Thanks,” You mutter grabbing it from his hand. “I have a million in this flavor.”

“I know.”

For the first time tonight a genuine smile filled your lips. It was small and not the one he was used to seeing but for right now it would do. It was better than nothing.

Though your eyes were sad and bloodshot you were still as beautiful as ever to him.

“Please don’t cry over him. He doesn’t deserve your tears.”

“I just want something real,” You say in a small voice your arms wrapping around your body.

“What we had was real.”

“You were just like him.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry,” Suguru adds, his voice wavering as he tries to get out the words. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know,” you say this time.

Suguru is walking away when you call out his name. As soon as he turns back around your lips are on his. He’s shocked for a moment, standing there with wide eyes, but quickly he fall back into your old routine. His heart is pounding so hard against his chest and Suguru wonder if you could feel it as well.

With every kiss he pulls you closer to him. It’s been months since he’d last had you this close and Suguru didn’t want it to end any time soon. He missed this, the soft breaths that escape you, the fruity taste of your lip gloss, the way your hands cradle his face.

Slowly your hands roam from his face to his jacket and then finally when they land on his belt Suguru forces himself to pull away.

Suguru lets out a sigh resting his forehead against yours. “We can’t.” He mutters.

He wanted you but not this way. Not when you were like this.

“Why?”

“You’re….” his voice trails off.

“I’m sober,”

“You’re sad.” He counters.

You give him a shrug. “ I want this. I need this.”

Suguru knows what this was. A rebound fuck. Simply a way for you to get back at Satoru in your mind but couldn’t bring himself to care as he kisses you again. He knows this was going to hurt in the morning but he’d deal with that when it came.

A satisfied moan leaves your lips. “Please,” You beg and Suguru nods, not even needing to know what exactly you were asking for because he already was prepared to give you everything.

Reaching behind him Suguru pushed the front door closed. “Where?” Without saying anything you guided him both over to the couch lightly pushing him down before climbing on top.

You pulled off your dress and without a second thought, Suguru hands find their way to your breast, lifting the mounds out of the cups. His tongue gently swipes over both nipples before picking one to suck on while he twisted the other between his fingers.

“Fuck,” Soft moans escape your plump lips as you arch further into him. “It’s always about him.”

Suguru pulls away for a brief moment and shushes you before taking in the other nipple. He didn’t want to hear about you and Satoru. The thoughts tortured him enough. 

It did bring him a sick satisfaction to know that Satoru was a lazy lover.

“M’sorry,”

“Don’t be. This is just about us right now.”

You nod, pressing your fingers underneath Suguru’s chin as lift up his head so you could kiss him again. Suguru’s hands were everywhere. From your ass to your stomach, your thighs, he couldn’t get enough.

“Touch me,” You command.

Suguru happily listens, his fingers easily finding their way into your panties. You were already so wet. The juices soaking him with just a few movements. His fingers dances across your clit pulling airy groans from your mouth. To him you look so beautiful, your head tossed back, eyes fluttering, as your hips rocks into his fingers.

“Need you in me.”

“Wanna taste you.”

You shake your head, big glossy needy eyes focused on him. “Next time maybe.”

His heart jumps at the words ‘next time’. Suguru really hopes there is a next time. Not even for the sex. He just wanted you.

You lift up allowing Suguru the room to pull his pants down. After pulling your own panties to the side you grab his cock and align it before sinking down.

Groans leave both of your mouths and before Suguru can even collect his thoughts you began to bounce up and down. Suguru isn’t even sure were to focus. Your bouncing breast, the perfect contortions of your face, or the lewd scene between your legs.

He leans forward and takes your nipple into his mouth again. You felt so good. So wet. So warm. The tight grip on his hair only sending more pleasure through his body while you alternate between bouncing and grinding. Your eyes were closed and you weren’t focused on anything but yourself.

You were using him but none of that mattered.

“Suguru,” you whine, finally looking at him. “feels so good. It feels so good.”

“Only ever want to make you feel good y/n,”

 Suguru says it so quietly that he wasn’t even sure you’d heard or if you did you’d understood what exactly he meant but when your eyes began to water again Suguru knew you had.

You hide your face into the crook of his neck, wrapping your arms around him. When your hips began to falter in pace Suguru knows your close. Once your pussy tightens and your legs begin to shake, Suguru lets himself fall apart too.

You both stay like that. Breathing labored wrapped in each other's arms not saying anything. You stay that way until he hears your little sniffles and feels the tears falling onto his shoulder.

“Don’t cry. Pretty girls don’t cry.”

“Then stop making me.”

[vasito-de-leche]

;R1999 PAVIA - General Headcanons

Compilation of headcanons and analysis on Pavia as a character and other related things.

the post about Pavia's love languages and how he shows his affection got a lot of love, so I'm doing a lil more thinking into his character to rlly flesh out how I see and write him before getting to write the second part of that post <3

just a heads up, its preeeetty fucking long. but all of my posts tend to be lmfao

On the subject of Pavia, loneliness and trauma.

In this post talked about the concept of showing affection (not exclusively romantic but just in general) and the relationship Pavia has with his reputation, both as a lone wolf and a skilled mercenary, which affect the way he interacts with those he might deem close for better and for worse. So it's only fair that I do that again in a more general context.

Let's get this out of the way. One cannot talk about Pavia without mentioning or alluding to his solitary lifestyle in some way or another, we've all read his 02 Story, but to only read him as someone who fakes this aura of confidence and who feels deeply insecure and lonely 24/7 is an obvious disservice to his character.

Pavia is defined by a strong sense of self which, yes, originates from isolation and neglect. And you may read this as an active choice for survival, a coping and defense mechanism or the natural progress of someone who has had no one to rely on but themself - all of these readings are valid and can easily coexist! But I would like to insist that Pavia as we know him is confident and comfortable in his own skin, happy to live as an outlier to conventional norms and behaviour.

And that's because he's weaponized loneliness into a strength and a shield. He's outgrown that small, neglected child in the basement.

Hell, in his interview with Pandora Wilson, he mentions the fun of "causing pain" onto others, in the context of his presence being used as a "punishment" for others. He's surrounded by people he considers stupid, and he has fun at their expense when they try to bring him into their shenanigans. Pavia is a confident asshole, it is not a façade for a sad boy.

One quote in particular comes to mind when discussing this aspect of Pavia.

Go back to Rome, where the wolves were born. Said my former boss. He knew I was born in Rome, but didn't know I was raised in Piemonte. He was such a fool, even tried to kill me. So I only kept his tie clip. I didn't tell him that as long as the night will come, everywhere I live is Piemonte.

This line in particular, from my reading on it, speaks volumes about how Pavia has reclaimed the night - alluding to the one place he was forced to live in for his entire childhood, a dark and isolated basement, the concept of loneliness itself - as something that defines him and should inspire fear into others. His wolves are made out of darkness, his Ultimate in-game shows him manifesting out of a dark fog on the ground. And the context of that quote is hostile, it's Pavia's former boss telling him to go back to Rome, and Pavia mentioning that no matter where he goes, as long as the night comes, he's home.

One could argue that the quote is meant to be read differently - instead of Pavia reclaiming something that hurt him to now empower him, he's haunted by it. No matter where he goes, he'll always be in Piemonte, in that dark and isolated basement, with no one to pull him out. And that's fair! To each their own, both are banger readings on that dialogue. I just personally think the former fits better with the character as a whole.

The former reading is also supported by his 02 Story, where he describes the wolves that his Arcanum abilities manifested as "friends he found in the darkness and would never leave him".

One wolf hid behind another, and the pack surrounded him in the darkness of the night. They held each other's heads and tails and coiled together like snakes, bringing with them warmth and restful sleep. These were the friends he found in the darkness, ones who would never abandon or leave him, and who would forever watch over him.

In his Cover profile, his Afflatus is also "Mourning of the Feral Pack [Beast] Night View".

And when you check Pavia's small description in the Role Garment menu, his main garment and the one unlocked at Insight II form the following phrase:

He's always alone, both in the basement and on the street. It doesn't matter now, though. He will never be "alone" from now on.

His Afflatus, his Arcanum abilities, every small detail - everything points towards Pavia owning the night and the darkness that used to hurt him so much as a child. Because it cannot hurt him now that he's made friends with it, in the form of shadow wolves who will never leave him. He's not stuck here with you, you're stuck him with him. (that Insight II quote will be relevant again later when I talk about the lack of? Humanity? so to speak? in Pavia's character)

But anyway! This doesn't mean that the discussion on Pavia and loneliness/isolation should stop there.

After all, his Afflatus also says "Mourning of the Feral Pack" - mourn what exactly? A lost childhood? The family he could've had if his mother hadn't been admitted to an asylum? The young and innocent child that died in that basement so that the current Pavia could exist?

Who knows! Talk about it, it's fun and I love to read other people's takes! <3

On the subject of trauma specifically, I do see Pavia as someone who lives in the present and doesn't think much about the past - he only mentions his parents once in a seemingly disinterested manner, stating that he never visited (and most likely will never visit) his mother. Piemonte is where his abusive aunt raised him, but he shows a certain pride in his city anyway.

It's not that he's overcome and healed from his trauma, it's that he doesn't even register the things that happened to him as traumatic experiences due to the distance and recontextualization of everything.

The fandom portrayal of Pavia as a deeply lonely person often comes hand in hand with him being touchstarved and the experience of feeling any semblance of genuine human connection for the very first time - but I would like to offer an alternative, explained in the next bullet point.

On the subject of Pavia, conventional society and his pack of wolves.

Pavia's official description, as seen in this tweet made by the official global account of the game, is the following:

An independent mercenary lacking in collaborative skills. Employers are content with his excellent abilities, but can't stand his work ethic of ignoring his coworkers.

This, along with his other quotes and the interview with UTTU, point towards how the world sees Pavia as a nuisance of sorts - a punishment, we know this - but it also points towards Pavia's rejection of conventional society.

The way Pavia behaves, the way he insists on maintaining the barrier between himself and conventional society, the pleasure he takes in making others suffer just by BEING THERE NEXT TO THEM, the stress he puts into being alone - it leads me to think that THIS is the result of his trauma.

It's not a deep seated loneliness, it's not yearning and secretly wishing for genuine connections, it's not a fear of the dark or enclosed spaces - it's an absolute and total rejection of the world that failed him.

Pavia cannot feel or grasp loneliness on the same level as other characters might because there is not a single person in this world he would rather spend his time with other than himself. The details of how he got out of the basement and began a life of crime haven't been revealed yet, so I won't theorize about it, but I like to think that everything that Pavia is and represents is one big "fuck you" to a world that left him to rot in that basement.

It all loops back to the previous point - by rejecting mankind and society as a whole, Pavia becomes the opposite: a beast who acts on his own accord rather than the rules that make up polite society. And in doing so, grows closer to himself and his pack. In doing so, he allows his humanity to slowly slip away.

The Insight II quote I mentioned before is a great example of this - the change in his sprites shows Pavia's eyes changing, now with black sclera and sharper teeth, darkness (and two of his wolves) surrounding him. He will never be "alone" from now on because he is now ONE of the pack, because this is where he belongs.

The medium for his Arcanum (not the "wand" used to cast spells and magic, those are different things from what I understand) is "Beast Teeth". Compare this with other characters: Zima's medium are poems, Dikke's medium is the law, Sonetto's medium is curiosity. An arcanist's medium seems to be a concept or object that represents who they are and what they believe in, something that is essential to their life and dear to their core. Pavia's is beast teeth. He's a beast Arcanist.

I like to think that Pavia based his behaviour, knowingly or not, on his pack of wolves. After all, he's the one who conjured them, it makes sense to me that he would subconsciously latch onto them. This would explain his more animalistic traits that show just how disconnected Pavia is from what a regular human being should be.

You guys freak me out when you sleep. What kind of people needs such a long sleep like that? Fall in a coma like a crispy critter, and wake up 8 hours later. …Only god knows how you can do that.

This dialogue implies that Pavia cannot wrap his head around a normal sleeping schedule - which is extremely ironic, considering that wolves sleep a LOT. But I'd attribute this more to the dissonance between him and conventional society than Pavia trying to larp as a wolf. We have to understand that he spent most of his days sleeping away the hunger, that he went on to reject the company of other people - it makes sense to me that he wasn't taught or didn't get to see how a normal person should behave in theory.

Despite this rejection, we can clearly see that Pavia enjoys a very hedonistic life - going on clubs, having a sweet tooth, wearing fancy clothes, shopping, films and whatnot (He's literally wearing Louboutins, guys. The soles of his shoes are RED). He plays the role of mercenary quite well, too. But it doesn't strike me as a writing inconsistency or hypocrisy from his part, Pavia is known for doing whatever he wants, one of his hand tattoos spells "LIBERTA" or freedom in italian, so this tracks. It's hard to be a hypocrite when your moral compass is all about being a wildcard.

I mentioned this in my first Pavia post, but the items attributed to him are all said to be cheap, fake or crudely hand-made.

His glasses are a copy of an actual Italian brand that no one would ever think of mistaking for the real thing, his bracelets and rings are dented and damaged, Pandora Wilson even goes as far as calling it junk. They even describe his earrings as rough workmanship. And yet, Pavia brags about his clothes and enjoys shopping. There's that small dissonance again - he enjoys bragging but does not know (or care) about the actual value or authenticity of his material possessions. (Pavia wears fake Louboutins, this is my headcanon, thanks for coming)

He plays the role of mercenary quite well, too. I'd also argue that the more violent aspects of his personality have to do with his line of work. This tweet confirms the majority of Pavia's tattoos and what they say - the one on his arm is "La Cosa Nuova", the sicilian mafia for those who didn't know. I won't go in-depth about the real life actions of such group, but it's clear that Pavia is or has been part of it within the world of Reverse: 1999.

Entering headcanon territory.

The two bullet points from before were mostly just analysis on how I read Pavia based on all evidence in-game, but now I get to talk about personal headcanons I have about him <3

I've explained pretty much everything I wanted to say about Pavia for now, so these are just gonna be rapid fire headcanons.

First of all, Pavia is a light sleeper.

The lightest sleeper you'll ever meet, even a soft whisper could wake him up - but this isn't because of some hidden fear of waking up back in his aunt's basement. Because he had nothing to focus on but the sounds within that basement, he greatly developed his hearing and his Insight II development further heightened his senses. Pavia is used to dark, silent spaces, so any unknown noise will put him on edge and wake him up. Sometimes, he pretends to sleep to get out of doing work.

Contrary to popular belief, he doesn't move at ALL when sleeping and tends to stay in the same position throughout the night.

This is something he learned, rather than something that comes naturally, because he tends to sleep with the pack and there's little space to move without accidentally kicking Andrea or Leon in the face.

Next. Pavia doesn't know that he resembles his mother a lot.

As for his mother, there are two possibilities: One, she's truly dead and he doesn't know, based on his 02 Story where his aunt confirms that Pavia's mother died a few years later, as well as Pavia's dialogue in which he talks about his mother as if she were alive. Two, she was alive the whole time and Pavia found out years later that she was committed to an asylum and his dialogue about his parents is correct.

Regardless, I like to think that he never saw her again once he was taken into his aunt's care, and that she never told him that the reason she put him in that basement was because he looks so similar to her "deceased" sister. Since they weren't there to raise him and he didn't hear anything about them from his aunt, Pavia holds no resentment and no love towards his parents, because they're total strangers to him.

Next. His wolves' names are interchangeable.

Pavia cares for his pack, and the wolves care for him in return - they were created for that very reason after all. Their dynamic and relationship is a mystery to everyone and it's much too complex to even put into words, but because they're still magical constructs he creates, their behaviour and individuality relies heavily on Pavia's skills as an Arcanist.

There are days in which it's very easy to confuse them, and there are days when it's very obvious how to tell them apart. He's had years to perfect them, to "raise" them if you will.

While the pack might not be around 24/7, they're always in the back of his mind. He can also communicate with them because of it. They don't mind if Pavia confuses them, but if someone else does it? Prepare to get bitten to death, I guess!

[thekatebridgerton]

I've said this before in other posts but One of the things I resent the most about Colin's playfulness being given to Benedict in the show is that I was robbed of seeing on screen how Colin and Anthony were written as foils of each other in the books. And that's something that's been hard for me to get over.

The irresponsible vs the responsible brother, the prankster vs the serious, the troublemaker vs the troublefixer, the one who travelled vs the one who was never allowed to leave his responsibilities, And how that is slowly reversed when they fall in love with Kate and Penelope

It's just that I love the show but I'm sad that because of the changes in personality made mostly to Colin's character, that contrast between Anthony and Colin that's so prevalent in the books practically from the moment Colin tricks Anthony into dancing with Kate, will never come across in the way it was originally.

I really derived a lot of humor from how Anthony thinks Colin is a lil shit put on this earth to try his patience. And Colin thinks Anthony is a stick in the mud who needs to lighten up.

And then they fall in love and it's Kate who starts out thinking Anthony is a rake who just wants to play with people's feelings and Penelope is all about telling Colin he needs to relax because being LW isn't such a big deal

So maybe I just want one scene of book Anthony and Colin offer each other a sincere apologies with condolences included

Anthony: hey Colin remember all those times you tried to make me see sense and I acted super suspicious of your credibility... well Kate is doing a fine job introducing me to the feeling

Colin: hey Anthony remember how you always wanted to kill me for pulling crazy crap behind your back... Well Penelope is doing a fine job introducing me to that feeling

*Click of glasses*

And that's something I really would love to see in the show

[quietblueriver]

hug (Kate/Yelena)

Yay, Kate/Yelena! A quick lil thing about them dancing around each other.

Thank you for the prompt and for giving me a reason to post my first venture into writing them. 💜🏹🕷

-

Lucky knows before she does. As soon as Kate opens the entry, he’s bounding up the stairs in the way he only does for food and a handful of people, so Kate isn’t exactly surprised to see a familiar form in a well-worn black leather jacket crouched down and scratching at his belly, blonde hair spilling out from under a rust-colored beanie. 

Her stomach flips anyway, as it does around Yelena these days. It’s kind of nice, to be doing a normal twenty-something crush thing. It’s kind of weird, to be doing it with a former Black Widow who came into her life via an assassination attempt on her partner/mentor and who may or may not be working for some pretty terrible people right now. 

That mixture is in line with the rest of her life recently. Because she’s Hawkeye. And that’s just how it is. 

(She can see Clint’s eyeroll in her mind and ignores it, as always.)

Anyway. Kate isn’t surprised to see Yelena but she is a little surprised that she’s outside of Kate’s apartment instead of in it, which is where Kate often stumbles on her if it’s a surprise visit or they’re not meeting out in the world—sprawled across her sofa or lurking in the corner like an absolute creep, ready and waiting with stupid fast reflexes and a crooked smile. 

The crooked smile is still there (the stupid fast reflexes, too, but those aren’t distractingly plastered across Yelena’s face) and Kate’s only a little bit jealous that it’s currently being directed at Lucky instead of her. 

If she thinks about it like someone else might, like basically anyone else might, it’s strange to see Yelena the Black Widow, Yelena the deadly mercenary, cooing at the Pizza Dog flopped belly-up in the dingy hallway outside Kate’s apartment, tufts of golden and white dog hair floating into the air and sticking to her black jeans. 

But she doesn’t think about it like anyone else, hasn’t thought about Yelena like anyone else since she shook her head at Kate on that rooftop. And that’s absolutely, totally stupid. She knows that. Kate’s very, very good at what she does. She’s the world’s greatest archer. She’s Hawkeye. 

But Yelena was a Black Widow. She was put through a whole bunch of very, very fucked up shit by a bunch of heinous people that she then escaped and also, apparently, destroyed. (Which, good riddance, and Kate is sad she never met Natasha for a million reasons but near the top of that list is the hug she’d like to give her for helping to demolish The Red Room.) 

All of that has made Yelena one of the best killers in the world. Yelena could absolutely kill her. Yelena nearly killed Clint. 

But Kate, for some reason (other than being, like, desperately gay for her, which is absolutely a thing that’s happening but which she wouldn’t let wreck her life as Hawkeye) trusts her. And more and more, she thinks she’s getting to know her. And like her. 

And she can’t help but feel like it’s a good thing. 

Clint trusted Natasha. Clint loved Natasha. And all it ever gave him was good. All it ever gave the world was good. So Kate’s jumping on the Hawkeye-and-Black-Widow bandwagon with an assassin of her own and if it gets messy she’ll deal with it later. 

Right now, she’s busy watching Yelena Belova, whose eyes crinkle when she laughs and who has a dog named Fanny and loves sour candy and The Muppets and the Thai place around the corner. Right now, she’s listening as Yelena praises the rescue dog who’s wriggling happily against her bent legs, tail thump-thumping against the floor. 

“Oh, you’re a very good boy. Very good. Very good.”

“I don’t know about that.” 

Crinkled green eyes meet hers as she finally steps closer, crouching down to join in the pets and letting herself stare at the slope of Yelena’s nose and the quirk of her lips for a second as Yelena’s eyes turn back to Lucky. 

Possibly she should be a little more discreet about her big gay crush but she’s only human and Yelena is stupidly beautiful and right here and smiling and it doesn’t matter if she gets caught, because it’s only Yelena here to catch her and Yelena definitely knows Kate has a big gay crush on her. She’s been trained to notice and track human behavior and also, Kate is not and never has been described as subtle. So whatever. Might as well lean in. 

She scratches at the spot that makes Lucky’s leg kick as she says, “Yesterday he rolled in trash sludge for a full minute before I could get him away, and we were both covered by the time we got home.”

It sucked. Kate’s joggers had been irredeemably corrupted by the New York City grime and her whole bathroom had needed a deep clean by the time she managed to get Lucky through a bath. 

“Why did you let him roll in the trash, Kate? He’s a dog. You’re a person. It is your responsibility to tell him no, yes?”

She’s smiling, and she’s clearly proud of herself, and Kate’s hand twitches with the desire to tuck some escaped hair behind her ear and also maybe definitely kiss her. She lets half the impulse win, because Yelena knows about her big gay crush and is still at her apartment and petting her dog and smiling at Kate and Kate has never been a coward. 

She moves slowly, an unspoken question, and Yelena doesn’t back away, so Kate keeps going. Her hair is soft, and Kate’s fingers catch in it as she tucks a few escaped strands back, the wool of her beanie scratching against her knuckles. Yelena’s staring at her, green eyes curious and open and Kate seriously thinks about letting the second part of her impulse win, too, but then Lucky’s head pops up between them, a distressed whine making his displeasure at the shift in focus known, and Kate blinks out of her thoughts and back into her gross hallway and decides now isn’t the time. She pulls back instead, presses to her feet and puts her key in the lock. 

When she looks back, a question on her tongue about Thai for dinner, she finds Yelena fully seated, arms around Lucky where he has leaned his entire body into her chest. 

She catches Kate staring, eyebrow raised, and shrugs, lifting one hand from Lucky’s shoulder to gesture at him. “He wanted a hug.” 

And she still doesn’t kiss her, because they’re still in the grungy hallway with its bad lighting and Kate’s needy dog and most importantly because they haven’t talked about it and Kate doesn’t want to rush any of this. But the desire to do it runs through her in a fierce way. 

Not now. But soon. She’s never been a coward, but she knows the dangers of letting the arrow loose too early. 

That’s the good thing, though. She’s Hawkeye. She’ll know when to take the shot.

[solusprime987]

I was supposed to do this weeks ago so i apologise for the delay but i finally got a chance to write the post about Medix and how his autism is portrayed in Rescue bots academy, I apologise If this post doesn't make much sense or if the grammer is poor since I'm very tired but I wanted to rant about this adorable lil medic so much that sleep came second lol

In season 1 episode 30 when wedge rejects wess's offer to help him and makes him sad Medix literally pulls out a datapad with different emotions and presumably descriptions of said emotions, I loved this moment! Not only did it subvert the trope of the autistic coded character saying something insensitive for "humour" but it also showed something I've never seen in a show before, an autistic character using something to help them in a situation they don't know how to deal with, most shows I've seen have either had the character say something insensitive, say something rude or just not care when someone around them is upset

Obviously this isn't accurate to autistic people at all, we might not realise at first that someone is upset around us due to not understanding social cues but when we do realise we want so badly to help and make the person feel better but we just don't know how particularly if we don't know that person, So to see Medix, a character who's been shown to not understand emotions or social cues, use something to help him work around this instead of the show depicting him as rude, unfeeling or faulty made me feel incredibly happy and represented seeing as I'm also an autistic person who uses a variety of items to help me function in this world ( I also really wish that I had an ipad that told me how someone was feeling lol)

As well as this, the show also does a brilliant job of showing how the despite the other students not understanding Medix they are willing to learn and apologise when they realise they've upset him as seen in season 1 episode 35 Life of the party when they refer to him as a "stick in the mud" and in the season 1 episode "Suprise, Medix!" Where they assume his dislike of surprises can be changed by throwing him a suprise however by the end of the episode the other recruits realise their mistake and apologise, compared to other shows where the other characters borderline hate the autistic character just for existing this is a breathe of fresh air and wonderful to see.

As well as everything I mentioned previously I also want to gush about Medix and his love of animals, this aspect of his character is especially relatable for me and I'm sure many other autistics as well, This being that Medix understands and bonds with animals much easier then he does other bots or people, I love seeing an autistic character be depicted as loving and caring towards animals because that's often how it is in real life obviously i don't speak for all autistic people but for me personally I've always been able to connect with and understand animals better then people so I adore this part of Medix's character plus every interaction he has with animals is adorable to watch

In other words I love and relate a lot to Medix and I think he's one of the best autistic characters that I've ever had the joy of watching and he truly deserves more appreciation and love in this fandom along with Chase who is the next character I'll be doing a post on and it'll probably be much longer then this post because as much as I love Rescue bots academy it doesn't hold a candle to Rescue bots which I absolutely adore more then any Transformers media with the exception of MTMTE

[starlightshadowsworld]

I just saw your earlier post about Percy being protective over Jason and i sooo agree I mean it’s literally canon at this point because at the end of blood of Olympus, Percy was almost ready to fight alongside Jason when he was defending Apollo and asking Zeus to not put the blame on one single person (my precious Jason 🥹) and then in a lot of the other extra books such as Greek heroes and Greek gods, Percy mentions Jason when telling anecdotes and it’s so sweet like I don’t remember the exact scenes rn as it’s been years since I’ve read the book but I feel like they were surely there 😅😅 idk why people always pit them against each other so much when the only time they truly fought was during mark of Athena and that was under Hera’s influence 🥲 it truly feels like everyone is always projecting their hate of Jason on their favourite characters and it’s really sad to see 😓

But I also had to tell you I love your thoughts on Jason a lot so thanks so much for sharing them. It’s so hard to find people who like Jason in this fandom and I am glad to have found your account but funnily enough I first found your account because of Odasaku and loved your thoughts on him too 😅😅 (sorry for the rant!!)

Don't apologise this is so sweet 😊 I'm really glad you like my silly lil thoughts on these silly lil guys.

Unfortunately Rick decided trying to redo the Thalia Percy rivalry with Jason and Percy. And decided to pit em against each other.

Which, I'd argue is dumb and so I instead love to focus on them being friends. The only time those two fought was when they were possessed.

Jason is very underatted and I adore him. Percy would fight Zeus if that shit went too far.

I am suprised you found me through my Odasaku posts, man I should talk about him more. But glad to have you here :)

[starstruckkittensweets]

chapter one

Fandom: My Hero Academia Pairing: Dabi x Reader Words: 6.2k

A/N: The first chapter of my lil Dabi passion project. Partially inspired by "Haunting Adeline" (awesome book but PLEASE heed the warnings in it). The full list of warnings is included in the main masterlist, but individual ones will be posted at the beginning of each chapter. Also this is my first time writing from both Reader and Dabi's perspective, so I hope it's not too bad. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: 18+ only (minors DNI), explicit language, mentions of arson, mentions of violence, stalking, breaking and entering, working in retail (I'm sorry), Reader lives in a cute lil house in the middle of the woods, Reader also has 3 plushies (that all have names, because I'm a dork)

"Kerosene and Butterflies" Masterlist

It’s raining again, for the fourth day in a row. Barely any light to work with at the little workspace you’ve made for yourself at the kitchen table. So instead you rest your hands on your arms, watching the rain patter against the window panes. Pen and paper pushed away and left forgotten on the surface.

Rain always makes you feel nice. Not happy or sad, just nice. Gives you something to look at, the sound mindless enough to put you at ease. Soft and warm, more often than not lulling you to sleep with its voice. It’s hard to explain, but it seems to make sense in your mind.

Your phone lights up on the table with a text. It’s your mother again, sending her weekly check-in text. Even though you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself and living on your own. But it’s more for her than you; you think it helps her cope with one of her kids living abroad, so far out of her reach.

Well, that’s what enticed you about this house in the first place, but you’ll never tell her that.

With a yawn you grab your phone and send a quick reply. Yes you’re okay, you’re getting enough sleep, you miss her home cooked meals. Call her tomorrow, put her mind at ease. Buy another few days of freedom before the cycle inevitably repeats itself.

When you finish and place your phone back down, you give the paper and pen one last look. Maybe you could try one more time, see if anything comes to mind?

Your chest deflates at the thought. No, the spark is long gone. Try again a different day, get some sleep for now. You need it.

You can almost hear it laughing at you, the uncapped pen lying dangerously close to its blank skin. You’ve been hearing it for the last hour or so, wracking your brain to come up with something, anything. Words, ideas, or even bullet points you can just jot down in your chicken scratch handwriting. Just a sliver of something to get those creative juices flowing.

But your eyelids are already drooping, the rainy weather not helping you one bit. Your brain feels like it’s all dried up, giving you a never-ending headache. Telling you that you’ve already reached your peak; that nothing else you make will ever come close to how you want it to come out.

Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day, right?

But you know damn well you’ll be back to square one tomorrow night, when you get home from work. Staring at that blank page with your head in your hands, praying for the words to come. For the inspiration to strike—to make you feel anything other than this.

At least the paper’s still good, maybe you can use it for a shopping list later in the week. That way it’ll get some good use out of it.

Your job isn’t exactly the flashiest; definitely not what you envisioned yourself doing at twenty-four years old. Working at a dead-end department store in the shady part of town, along with four or five other people—and none of them are close to you in age. But it keeps the bills paid and food in your fridge, so you guess it’s not as bad as it could be. You could do without the annoying entitled customers, though.

At least your shift stretches into the latter half of the day, meaning you only have to deal with them for about four hours, five tops if you end up taking your lunch break late. Then the store closes, the customers are ushered out, and you spend the rest of your time stocking the shelves and getting ready for the next busy day.

Most nights the store’s already empty, with only a handful of customers roaming the aisles. That gives you some extra time to start stocking; you prefer putting stuff back on the shelves rather than ringing on register anyways. Register gets boring and repetitive fast, but working on the floor always gives you something new to do.

“Excuse me, where can I find the laundry detergent?”

“Down the next aisle and to your left, all the way down at number twenty-four.”

“Where’s the soup and all the instant meals?”            

“Right over here actually, on the middle shelf.”

“You have any beer?”

“Last aisle down, all the way to the end. You’ll see the freezer straight ahead.”

Every interaction gives you a rush of excitement, as sad as it sounds. In all honesty, your job isn’t the complete worst. Most customers are fine and even pleasant to deal with, and it always makes you feel good when you’re able to help them find something on their lists. Besides, it tests your knowledge of the store, almost like a matching game; after three years of working in the same place, you pretty much know it like the back of your hand.

Tonight seems like one of those lazy nights, with only a couple customers roaming through the aisles, the lone cashier at the registers looking like he’s about to fall asleep. You’re sorting through the grocery bin at the front (either what customers decided they didn’t want, or items found randomly throughout the store). There’s quite a bit today, must’ve been pretty busy earlier in the day.

It doesn’t take long to put the shelf-ready stuff into a cart and trek down to the grocery section. Most of it is candy anyways, which is in the first couple aisles. One item after another, until you start to see the bottom of the cart.

You step back from the shelf, a handful of candy bars clenched between your fingers, when your back suddenly collides into something—or someone, judging by the grunt they let out.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean that, I should really watch where I’m going, I’m really sorry about that—”

The words die right there on your tongue as you glance up at the person. You can barely see his face behind the dark mask over his mouth and his hood pulled over his hair. But something catches your eye—something dark and heavy beneath his eyes.

He’s got some serious bags under his eyes, poor guy must be working himself to death. Must be a college student, you know how it feels.

Wait a minute…bags?

Your head begins to buzz. You don’t think you’ve ever seen bags bad enough to leave the skin so…wrinkled. Almost like they’re—

But he’s already walking away, his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. Head hanging low and shoulders tense as he disappears down the next aisle.

It’s not until another customer asks you where the hand soap is, that you remember to blink—and breathe. It takes a bit of effort, but you manage to give them the right aisle across the store. But then you’re staring off into space once more, thinking about the strange person in the black hoodie and mask.

Dark patches under his eyes… Could it really be…?

No way, stop thinking like that. You know where your mind is going, don’t you dare entertain the thought.

You shake your head. You’re being ridiculous. It’s getting late, anyway. You didn’t get that much sleep last night to begin with, it’s early to bed when you get home later tonight.

You file the last of the candy in its proper home on the shelf before heading down the main path towards the registers. Pet food, paper goods, detergent, body wash… A couple aisles here and there for every department. You should check and see if there’s any chemicals up front that need to go back on the shelf. Probably the easiest department for you to handle, other than food and appliances—

Your jaw drops when you turn the corner and come face-to-face with the dark stranger from earlier. Staring down at you with those dark eyes—no, the patches are dark, his eyes are actually quite bright, and oh my fucking God they’re blue—

There’s something sticking out of his pocket—the red and white label of a box of Band-Aids. And that’s not the only thing in there, judging by the awkward bulges and pointy corners. Maybe some extra medicine or painkillers.

You glance back up at him. Neither of you make any move to leave.

“…I won’t tell if you won’t.”

The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. All you can think about is how this little corner of the store lacks any functioning security cameras, and how it’s probably only a few dollars, it won’t necessarily put the store out of business if he gets away with it. Just this one time. No one has to know, except the two of you.  

He’s glaring now, probably curling his lip at you from behind the mask. You swallow the growing lump in your throat, your heart throbbing furiously against your ribcage.

“Can…I get you anything else?”

“Fuck off.”

He shoves his way past you, shoulder nearly knocking you on your ass. Your throat runs dry as his words echo in your ears, his voice sending chills down your spine.

You know him, but from where? You know his voice, his looks—but why can’t you remember him?

You glance over your shoulder but he’s already gone, most likely heading towards the exit. Not like you’re gonna stop him.

Still, you can’t get your little encounter out of your mind, even as you try to busy yourself with your work. Not even ten minutes pass by before you grab another box of bandages and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, mumbling to your coworker, “Store use, I’ll claim it out when I get back,” all the while feigning injury as you cradle your wrist against your chest (where a small pack of cotton balls is pressed between your fingers).

The back of the store leads out to the dumpsters in the back alley. A prime spot for smoke breaks, despite smelling like absolute crap. Chalk marks and spray paint decorating the walls, trash bags spilling out of the dumpsters in the corner. You clutch the supplies to your chest, head swinging wildly in search of the stranger.

But there’s no one out there. He’s gone for good this time—and for some reason, you can’t explain the sudden ache in your chest.

You don’t know what makes you leave the bandages and alcohol in the corner of the alley, hidden by the shadow of the dumpsters. Or why there’s a pang in the pit of your stomach, as you remember how bright his blue eyes looked.

Here’s a tip for any aspiring writers out there: get comfortable with constantly going on the internet. Whether it’s looking for an obscure random fact about Victorian houses in the 1800s or learning just how long it takes to recover from a bullet wound in the shoulder, search engines like Google will become your best friend. It won’t always provide the most accurate information, but it’s a start to get the ball rolling.

But this particular search doesn’t stem from a story in your drafts; all you can see are those mysterious blue eyes from the store, and the dark wrinkled patches beneath them.

It doesn’t take long at all to find your answer: a thread of articles and blurry photos of the infamous League of Villains—the same ones that have been terrorizing the country for the past year or so. Casualties, crimes, and even past victims. Every word brings another wave of goosebumps, but you can’t tear your eyes away.

Of course. That’s where you knew him from. Makes sense now.

There’s a handful of people in the photos, each one more terrifying than the last. A young girl with a feral smile, associated with a string of murders involving severe blood loss. A man capable of decaying anything with just a brush of his fingers. And the same stranger you saw in the store, known for over thirty murders and thousands in property damage, all thanks to those dangerous blue flames.

You slam the laptop shut and suppress a shiver. What were you thinking? Acting so casual with a villain—you knew you recognized those eyes somewhere—and oh my God, were you really going to try to meet him outside at the back?

And for what? Some bandages that he’d clearly already stolen? Hell, you’d let him walk away even when you knew he was planning on stealing them!

Hopefully your boss never finds out about that.

You glance out the window of your living room, pulling the lapels of your jacket closer to your chest. The door’s locked, the windows are latched, and the curtains are closed. Nothing out there but the trees and the moon and the gentle rainfall.

Calm down. Why would he come after you? You didn’t do anything to piss him off, did you? So what makes you think he’d try to figure out where you lived? What would he have to gain from that?

Still, you triple check the lock on the door, before moving backwards towards your bedroom. Also clicking the lock into place once you’re safe inside.

A villain. You can’t believe you came across an actual villain.

Villains were a common presence even back home, and you knew before moving abroad there was a possibility you could encounter some of them. But they always kept to the shadows, staying out of the spotlight for as long as they could. Only showing up in cities far away from your own. You’ve never come face to face with one of them, never been so fucking close to one of them before—

You crawl into bed and throw the covers over your head. Trying to focus on the pitter patter of the rain against the windows.

But you can’t get those images out of your mind. No matter how hard you squeeze your eyes shut, or bury your face into the pillow, you can still see his face. Those horrid wrinkled patches beneath his eyes. The same shade of blue as the flames from his palms. The way he looked at you as though you were nothing but a smear of dirt on the bottom of his boot.

He could’ve burned you right then and there.

You don’t fall asleep easily that night.

Despite your paranoia, the next few days go by without any issue. Work, errands, go back home. Your life continues just as it did before you met that crazy villain—and knowing that, you can breathe a little easier when you rest your head on your pillow for the night.

The little pile of medicine and supplies you’d left in the back alley had disappeared the next morning. Someone else had probably picked them up, who could say no to free medical supplies? There’s a slim chance that villain came back and took them for himself.

You know it’s a long shot. And yet there’s still some part of you that clings to it, wondering if he’s still sticking around this part of town.

Come on, what’s wrong with you? Are you really that eager to put your life in danger like that?

The rational part of your brain says no. But there’s another part, a much more vocal part of your brain, that can’t stop thinking about your little encounter. And what you would’ve done if he’d been in that alley that night.

Probably cry your eyes out. Then get killed like the dumbass you are.

Still, no matter what you do or what you try to focus on instead, he keeps coming back to your mind. And you find yourself visiting those damn websites, those stupid forums night after night when you get home from work, speculating just who he might be beneath those painful scars and bright blue flames.

What kind of life did he lead before joining the League? Does he have any regrets about becoming a villain? Does he actually enjoy being on the run like this?

It’s only when you’re lying wide awake in bed at close to two in the morning, still worn out from a long day at work that the more innocent questions start to plague your mind:

What’s his favorite color? Is it blue, or does he actually hate it? When is his birthday? Does he have any friends, either before he became a villain, or anyone in the League? You wonder, what’s his real name?

“Why am I even thinking about this? Not like I’m ever gonna see him again…” And you should be grateful for that.

But there’s still an ache in your chest, an awkward swirl in your stomach, every time you remind yourself of that simple little fact. And you don’t really know what to make of it.

Another hour passes before you push yourself out of bed and right to your desk in the corner. Grabbing one of the little notebooks you’d bought for story notes and ideas, but haven’t really touched in the last few months. Sliding into the seat with a sigh and clicking open one of the many black pens from the drawer at your side. Flicking on the small desk lamp and squinting against the sudden brightness.

It’s not uncommon for the inspiration to hit at ungodly hours of the morning. Honestly, you do your best writing between midnight and six a.m.; the only drawback is being unable to stay awake at work the next day. But at least you have some damn good writing to show for it.

But that hasn’t happened for months now. Not since you moved and started working nights. Now you have to hit the hay almost as soon as you come home, if you want any chance of a normal sleep schedule.

The pen moves on its own. Every breath brings another word on the page. Ink starts to smudge the side of your hand.

They appear in front of you: all the questions circling around in your mind, begging to be answered. The honest, the childish, even questions you think of on the spot. Anything and everything you would ask him if you were ever given the chance.

What are you doing? You should be in bed trying to sleep. Not doing…whatever this is.

You swallow hard as a single word appears before you: Dabi.

And immediately you start to shiver, your cheeks growing warm beneath the scathing looks of the ink and pages.

You’ve always had a strange complex when it comes to writing out people’s names. They’re much easier to speak out in your mind, or even say verbally. But once you write them out, it becomes almost final. It’s different to actually see those letters right in front of you, rather than just imagining them in your mind. Guess it makes everything seem so much more real that way. 

It’s stupid, so fucking stupid.

But you don’t stop, even when your hand begins to cramp. Because this is the first time in almost half a year that you’re actually letting your pen guide you. The first time you truly feel at ease, not even caring about what you’ve written, or even stopping yourself to edit it.

What’s it called, word vomit? It’s therapeutic, but incredibly hard to do sometimes.

It’s not until the sun rises a couple hours later, and you’re half-asleep at your desk. Your arms curled beneath your head, the muscles in your hand throbbing like crazy. But then you see all those words you’ve written, all that ink staining those pristine white pages…

And you can’t help but smile as you drift off to sleep.

The air is stale with the scent of smoke and ash. The city always smells like shit, but it’s usually better on the outskirts. But the burning pile of flesh at the end of the alley begs to differ, and his hands still ache as blue flames lick at his palms.

Another shitty night coming to an end, thank fuck.

Dabi’s been in this damn city for the better part of two weeks now, boss’s orders unfortunately. Scouting for any possible members, new blood they could add to their ranks. But every group is the same; they’re either loud-mouthed fucks with more muscle in their arms than their own damn heads, or they’re practically children, fresh out of school and all set on playing hero. Still thinking this is a fucking game, and that they can stand to take the League out from the inside.

He’s already had one guy try it a couple months back, but he knew better than to go through with it. Can’t say the same for the rest of the dumbasses burning in the alley, though.

Oh, well. No doubt the heroes will find them tomorrow, if they even bother showing up. Not many of them like to venture all the way out here, especially if it means real danger.

He slides a pack of cigs out from his pocket, choosing one and lighting it with the tip of his finger. He’s walked these roads too many times in the last few nights, practically knows them inside and out. And it’s not long before that silly little department store comes into view—the same one that oh-so-generously let him borrow some of their stock last week.

Didn’t even need to use his quirk to make it happen, either.

The double doors slide open, the blaring lights a stark contrast to the shadows of the streets. He barely has time to step back before someone steps out, waving their hand behind them with a smile on their face.

Oh, the same one from that night. He can’t help but smirk at the memory.

It’s a girl—and if her face and height are anything to go by, he’s starting to wonder if she’s even old enough to work at a place like this. Apparently her brain must be impressively small too, with the way she’s walking down the darkened street without a care in the world. One hand fastened on the strap of her purse and the other dangling down at her side, a dark lanyard wrapped around her wrist. She must have a shit-ton of keyrings on them, judging by how hard she swings it back and forth. As if that’s going to protect her if someone tries to jump her.

Fucking dipshit.

He rolls his eyes and takes another long drag of his cigarette. Watching the stupid kid out of the corner of his eye—and nearly dropping the cig altogether when he watches her veer off the sidewalk and head straight for the forest.

What the fuck is she doing? Does she want to get herself killed?

Maybe it’s sheer curiosity—or maybe it’s hoping something out there will pick her off so she’ll learn her lesson—whatever it is, it has his feet moving on their own. Picking up the pace to keep her within his sights, the cigarette barely hanging from his mouth.

Didn’t anyone teach her not to go walking around this late at night? For fuck’s sake it’s nearly one in the morning, does her shift really last that long? What compelled her to take a walk in the goddamn forest of all places? No way she lives all the way out here, she’s probably got a place somewhere in the city. Probably just looking for a cheap thrill so late at night.

Stop it. She’s not your problem to worry about, so quit it already. Just sit back and watch the show.

He follows her down the old trodden path, waiting for her to hit a stray root or trip over a rock and fall flat on her face. But nothing happens, other than a few scuffs of dirt on her ratty old sneakers. Almost like she knows these woods—like the back of her hand.

It’s a struggle to keep his footsteps soft. His boots do nothing to quell the sound of leaves crunching, dirt spraying across the path. Luckily she doesn’t hear, either that or she just doesn’t care.

Where the hell is she heading at this hour?

His answer appears in the form of a house. A pretty shitty-looking one, if he’s being completely honest. Shabby roof, flimsy door, moss creeping over each and every corner. Almost like no one’s bothered to visit the place in the last decade or so—at least.

The girl steps right up to the door, swinging that stupid lanyard at her side. Shuffling around until she finds the right key, before disappearing into the house altogether. A light flickers on in the window, her shadow visible behind the aging curtains.

Fuck him, she does live here.

In the middle of nowhere, secluded from the rest of the world. She’s stupid, isolating herself from all those people in town. Help’s not gonna come if you’re stuck in some random forest, she’s probably better off in the heart of the city. Then again, it must be nice for her. Being able to wake up in the morning without the blaring of sirens in your ears. Tucked away where no one can find you, safe and sound in the comfort of your own quiet home.

He almost envies her. Almost.

The longer he stares at the little mossy house, watching her shadow flit back and forth behind the curtain, the more he starts to wonder what she has inside. Must be stocked on food and medicine; that shit’s hard to come by these days. Might be worth a peek once she’s gone. She’ll probably leave tomorrow night for her shift, right? He’ll slip in then, see if she’s got anything worth his time. Better this random cottage than an apartment in the city, right? From what he can tell there’s not a soul in sight, save for the looming trees and starry sky.

He’s smirking now, slipping back into the shadows of the forest, right beside the old trodden path. She never even sees him.

The house is dark and empty by sundown. The path is easier to walk in the daylight, but he still waits until nightfall before scoping out the house. Just in case she getany bright ideas and decides to return home sooner than she should.

It’s a two-story house, and while the front door’s latched shut, the windows sure aren’t. It slides open with a squeak, like it hasn’t been touched in years. Looks like the kitchen—or a sorry excuse for one, if he’s being honest. A small table with only two chairs, neither of them looking like they’re from the same set. Papers and books and pens litter the surface, with the napkin holder knocked down on its side.

Not that they have a better one back at the base. Hell, they’re lucky enough if they’re able to sit down for most of their meals, if they can get their hands on any.

Which reminds him of his mission, and he’s scanning the room for any possible food. And there, to his left: a crowded counter stacked with boxes of cookies and candy, below a pair of cupboards with even more food stored inside.

Jackpot.

The League’s not picky when it comes to food, anything will do when your stomach’s keeping you up at night. Well, Dabi can’t say the same for himself—he fucking hates fish. He’d much rather deal with an empty stomach rather than scarf down a few meager bites of sushi. Just the thought of it makes him want to puke.

He can’t take too much the first night, that’ll only make her wonder. It’s best to have as little people in this secluded house as possible. So for now he stuffs his pockets with small snacks for the guys back at base…and maybe even a few candy bars for Toga. Last thing that little psycho needs is more sugar in her system, but he’d rather not hear her whine that he didn’t get anything for her when he gets back.

Plus, this girl doesn’t seem to have any pomegranates around (or any fruit or vegetables, for that matter), so candy will have to do.

When both pockets are jammed with food, he takes a step back to survey the rest of the house. At least the inside looks marginally better than the outside, save for the abhorrent dining room. Simple and sweet, even if it’s a little bland in color.

A gray couch with a couple of pillows in bright colorful pillowcases. A side table with one too many remotes on it, along with a paperback that’s definitely seen better days. A kitchen isle with a sink cluttered with dirty dishes, and a single stool resting beneath the opposite end. Not a single house plant in sight, but plenty of photos throughout, some on the wall but most taped on the fridge. Must be friends and family—but so far, he can only see one person living in this house.

How sad, she must be so lonely without anyone else here…

He rolls his eyes and trods up the creaky set of stairs. Might as well take a peek at the rest of the house, right?

The hallways split up into three major bedrooms. One is filled with storage totes and moving boxes, still waiting to be unpacked (though, by the layer of dust on each of them, he’s not thinking any time soon). The other bedroom is filled, and he means filled, with books. Every square inch is either vacated with an old aging shelf or a stack of hardcovers on the floor. It’s messy and cluttered and he slams the door shut as soon as he opens it.

Lives like a fucking slob, doesn’t she?

The final bedroom turns out to be the biggest one of all, and it’s the only one in the house that actually lives up to its name. A dresser, a desk, and surprise, surprise, another fucking bookcase. There’s also a bed with a thousand plushies on the covers, each one more ridiculous than the last. A giraffe, a raccoon, and whatever the fuck that is. Some weird fuzzy brown creature with a large snout and a bitchy expression on its face. Toga probably knows the name of it, but Dabi couldn’t care less.

There’s also a set of double doors that leads out to a little terrace. It looks better than the rest of the house—must be a newer addition—overlooking the forest beyond. Overall it’s a cute little spot to live in.

And still no sign of anyone else living here with her.

He’s smirking now, thinking of all the things he can sneak out of here in the next few nights—when something else catches his eye. A strange outline under the blanket of the bed, in the center of all the damn toys staring back at him.

He has half a mind to burn the little giraffe to a crisp as he reaches in for the mysterious object. And it’s…a book. Fucking shocker.

No, wait—it’s a journal. Only a few pages filled in so far, the ink messy against the bright white pages. It’s the size of his palm, with a black leather cover and a matching black string attached to the spine, probably to act as a bookmark. And sure enough it’s stuck in a certain spot in the book, the entry dated to just a few nights ago.

I want to see him again. I know that sounds wrong, but it’s the truth. I can’t really explain it, no matter how hard I try. Everything that comes out just sounds wrong…but in my head it makes perfect sense.

I know I’m probably screwed in the head for thinking this. For thinking about him like this. Like I could be the one to change him, to be the only one he wouldn’t kill on sight.

No, wait a minute. I was, wasn’t I? We saw each other that night at the store, and he didn’t even try to hurt me.

He can feel his brow inching further up with every word he reads. What the fuck is she talking about? He flips to another random page—

And the answer’s staring him right in the face, in stark black ink.

Dabi

Dabi

Dabi   

Dabi

I want to see him again. Ask him so many questions, the same ones that keep rattling away in my head. Why did you become a villain? Where did you come from? What is your favorite color?

Please, just one more time. We don’t even have to talk to each other. I just wanna see him with my own two eyes. Now that I know he’s real, that he’s the villain everyone’s afraid of. And I know I should be too, and I am…but I think I’m more curious of him. Maybe that just makes me stupid.

Yeah, I’m just stupid.

The words are swimming on the pages, blurring together, screaming in his head so loud he wonders if he’s read them out loud. But no, it’s dead silent in this room, in this house. Just him and this little black book, written in the hand of that little weirdo. The same one that chooses to live in a creepy old house in the middle of the forest, the one that works at a sketchy department store well into the night. The same one that didn’t scream once she saw him—but instead offered to let him go, even when she knew he was stealing.

And for some reason, he can’t hold back the smirk that stretches across his face.

Of all the people in this city, in this whole damn country, he thinks he’s found the one that intrigues him the most.

Poor girl, doesn’t even know what she’s caused. Just mindlessly writing her thoughts down in her diary, hoping no one will ever read what she’s written.

As carefully as he can, he tucks the book back in its place under the covers. As tempting as it is to take it with him, he knows that’ll only cause more suspicion. Still, he wants to leave her a love letter of his own—something that lets her know she’s not alone in her fascination.

So he does.

And a few minutes later he’s climbing out the kitchen window and making the trek through the forest, pockets full with snacks and a shit-eating grin on his face.

You hate Saturday nights. Arguably the busiest night of the week, and yet you’re still so short-staffed the cashiers end up taking the full brunt of the work. Ringing register, sorting supplies, stocking shelves—oh wait, we need you back up front to do register. Wait why aren’t you working on that cart I told you to finish? Excuse me, can you unlock this item for me? Can you help me check out, and only me, these lines are too long for my liking. Why can’t you be in two places at once?

Not that you ever find it fun to come to work…but Saturday nights just make it a little less fun. And once it calms down and the store closes up, you have to make the journey back home half-asleep. It’s a miracle you haven’t woken up in the middle of the forest yet.

Tonight is one of those nights, where you stumble your way back home like you’ve just had one hell of a night at the bar. But no amount of rubbing your eyes or chugging the bottle of soda in your hands will keep you upright. Eventually you see your little house in the distance, and your chest starts to feel a little lighter at the promise of sleep.

You fumble with the keys twice before managing to unlock the door. Latching it shut behind you, you don’t even turn on any lights before heading straight to your room. The dishes and laundry can wait till tomorrow. Right now, all you need is some fucking sleep.

The trio of stuffed animals on your bed greet you when you step into the room. Before coming to live here, your mother insisted you bring along some childhood stuffies with you, just so you wouldn’t get too lonely. And you hate to say it, but she was absolutely right. More often than not do you find yourself cuddling up to them, wondering about your family back home.

You kick off your shoes and drape your jacket over the back of the desk chair. Then you flop face first onto the bed, not even bothering to change into pajamas. You know you’ll be out cold within five minutes, so what’s the point?

“Goodnight, Rascal,” you mumble to the little raccoon, “goodnight, A.J.,” you pet the little giraffe, “and goodnight, Maxwell.” The little capybara toy is your favorite, but you’ll never admit it out loud. (Not when the other two can hear you.)

You roll over onto the bed, but something sharp juts into your side. You groan and force your hand beneath the covers to yank it out—oh, that’s right… you forgot you’d left your little notebook in bed with you. Must’ve fallen asleep while writing in it last night.

But there’s something sticking out of it, something that prevents it from closing all the way. You open it up and a scrap of paper falls out; not a loose page from the book, but a folded-up index card. One that’s got a note of its own written messily on the side.

One that makes the exhaustion all but vanish from your body.

You should keep this book in a safer hiding spot. You never know who might be reading all your little love notes, doll. 

[mercurygguk]

TEASER; if it’s not you | kth (m)

↳ summary; Kim Taehyung grew up watching his parents fall more in love for each day that passed and he always longed for that great, passionate love himself. But if it’s not you? Then he doesn’t want it.

POSTED !! read here

pairing; taehyung x f. reader

word count; tba.

rating; 18+

content; exes to lovers!au, smut/angst

warnings; will be stated in final post.

release date; nov 18th 2022, 10 PM CEST

chapters. part one | part two

↳ listen to the playlist here.

author’s note; took a break from jk fics and wrote a tae fic !! please let me know what you think of this lil sneak peek and make sure to reblog if you enjoy it as much as i hope you will 🫶🏼 happy reading! (ps. pls ignore all my typos if you see any)

will be posted next Friday! stay tuned and lmk if you wanna be tagged <3

Kim Taehyung is not sad.

Sadness is not what he feels when he goes out with his friends and spots two people all over each other, happy and in love. Sadness is not what he feels when he sits at home, watching a movie by himself. Sadness is not what he feels when his friends tell him they’re engaged and are having an engagement party to celebrate.

No, Kim Taehyung is way past sadness.

If anything, what he feels is most likely something more akin to a feeling called ‘I don’t care anymore’... a certain, unexplainable emptiness. He doesn’t care that everyone around him is falling in love and getting engaged, he doesn’t care if two strangers are all over each other when’s at a bar. He doesn’t care that all of his one-night-stands give him a nasty look when he tells them to leave in the middle of the night after having emotionless – I don’t care who you are or what your name is – sex with them.

Taehyung just doesn't care anymore. Or that’s what he thought, at least.

He thought that he wouldn’t give two shits when he saw you walk through the door, arriving at the engagement party his friends are currently throwing. He also thought that he wouldn’t care that some unknown guy was trailing right behind you, his hand tightly wrapped around yours.

But Taehyung should’ve known better.

He should’ve known his mind would play tricks on him and pull up flashbacks to the day he lost all belief in love.

Two years ago…

“Kiss me,” he pleaded, voice barely above a whisper as he spoke. He begged you, the unsteady tone of his voice giving away that he was on the brink of breaking down if you didn’t connect your lips with his within the next few seconds. He was desperate, breathing heavily as he tried his best to keep the tears from welling in his eyes.

The last few weeks had been absolute hell. The apartment has been empty beyond measure, most of your stuff gone by now. You haven’t been in the apartment since the day you left and the only reason you were back tonight was because you forgot a few things and wanted them in your own, new apartment. Taehyung knew you’d come, you had texted him to let him know just so that you wouldn’t be barging in on him at a random hour. One thing he just didn’t realize when you texted him was how much he genuinely hated all of this before you stood in front of him with a small, sad-looking smile on your face.

How you ended up in the bedroom, cuddling and now almost kissing, was unbeknownst to him and you as well. Taehyung had been sitting on the edge of the bed, watching as you packed your remaining things in utter silence. When you were finished and wanted to give him one last goodbye hug, he had made the first move to urge you onto the bed with him. It’s not that he had bad intentions with it. He just needed to hold you one last time before you’d move on for good. Cuddles then turned into him pulling you on top of him to straddle his waist, begging and pleading for you to kiss him.

“Taehyung…” You softly let his name fall from your lips in a sigh as you looked down at him from your straddling position on top of him, “we shouldn’t-”

“Please, ____,” he tried again with pain laced in his words, sitting up with you still perched on his lap, “please, just kiss me.”

[end of flashback]

Two years since he last saw you and talked to you. Two years of losing every ounce of belief he had in ‘the great love’ of life. Why continue to look for love when he already had the love of his life and lost her?

In Taehyung’s head, there was no reason to look for love when the person he loved more than life itself left him with only half a heart to live by two years ago. Even if he wanted to find another great love, it simply wouldn’t be possible. He lives with only half of his heart and you can’t love a person with just half a heart.

Not when someone else has the other half.

[vipernoir]

Here's some random headcannons I've thought about Luka for a while

♡ He's not that well liked in his own class and only gets along with a select few at school, and the people he gets along with are the sorts friends you have at school but you don't hang out outside of school if that makes sense?

♡ He's a bisexual king cough cough lukadrien

♡ Also I remember reading a fanfic in a different fandom where they found out their crush was their dad fuck I truly hope Luka didn't have a thing for Jagged yikes

♡ He and Juleka just hang out, paint each others toe nails, dye each others hair, Juleka just uses Luka as a lab rat doing his hair, makeup, maybe even drawing sharpie tattoos on him, but Luka just likes seeing her doing something creative and encouraging her so is more than happy to be said lab rat

♡ Luka respects everybody's music taste, and truly tries to understand every kind of music someone creates/likes even if he isn't partial to it

♡ Anarka raised her twins on the classics; Nirvana, the sex pistols, the cure, the who, Metallica, motley crüe

♡ Both Ju and Luka went through that BVB emo phase, I'm talking full on Andy Sixx makeup, unironically rarw xDing, wearing the billion band wristbands Luka totally still wears some of his

♡ Anarka raised both the twins to live your own life, love who you love, play what's in your heart

♡ Luka has a lot of strong opinions on certain things, and whilst he will always respect and validate someone's different opinion as much as be can he always sticks to his own morals

♡ Luka occasionally does graffiti to promote these morals

♡ He's ran from the cops before for getting caught spray painting ACAB under a bridge

♡ His forgiving nature means he automatically trusts everyone and wants to give them a fair chance, so all of the built up frustration and sadness from being neglected by his own father all of those years is buried under a layer of fake happiness, he hides how he truly feels to give his dad a chance but a strong part of him wants to not forgive him as easy but it just isn't Luka's nature

♡ He's fascinated with bugs, he used to collect them as a child and study them, draw them, watch them, eat them

♡ He has a small following on YouTube for posting covers of popular songs, he isn't that big as he isn't regular with uploading as he just does it when he feels like it

♡ Luka's music taste varies it can go from political pop punk like Mindless Self Indulgence, to more hard-core sounding music like Rob Zombie or Slipknot, only to switch to sadboy sound cloud like lil peep, to then soft pop punk like Paramore, then one minute he's sat listening to old Disney playlists, his music taste is so versatile

♡ Luka definitely obsessed with the camp rock movies as a kid, like him and Ju would sing and dance out all the songs together, always on repeat

♡ I like to think Luka is vegetarian just because either he felt kinda bad eating meat, or Mylenne converted him somewhere down the line

♡ Luka always keeps a spare pair of headphones, a spare guitar pic, and a notebook and pen for lyrics, with him at all times

♡ After his break-up with Mari he started writing sad, heartbreak songs, he wasn't trying to be that cringey but it's all that would come out.

♡ He refuses to play them though, because they're that sad that probably even Chloe would shed a tear hearing them, and he would never want Mari to feel guilty for hurting him in such a bad way

It's 3 am now so ima stop but I have so many Luka crack hc's it's crazy so ill post some more later

[wildflowwer]

Hey I saw ur post asking for ideas so here's mine ??? Idk if ita any good tho so feel free to ignore this.

I'm a sucker for the reverse comfort trope istg. So maybe something like (any bts member) is feeling insecure about their body/weight bc of comments online or smth and reader comforts them and maybe sum body worship and soft pegging or u can make it totally fluffy upto u 💕.

heyy cutie. I hope you don't mind me being a day or two late and I hope you like this one<3

I added sum more stuff too, hope you don't mind and I hope it's the way you wanted it to be and the way you imagined ❤️

Warnings: sub jungkook, dom reader, pegging, nipple play, body worshipping, nicknames (mommy, pretty boy, my love, baby),jungkook is feeling insecure so reader try to make him feel better. There's more ig, let me know if I missed anything and excuse any spelling mistakes<3

it was 11pm when you came home from work. You expected to see jungkook running to you and hugging you like every other day but thus time it was quiet in the house. You wondering if he was asleep already so you didn't really think much of it. You went to the kitchen to grab a class of water and went upstairs.

you heard quiet sobs coming from the bedroom as you panicked and opened the door. You saw jungkook sitting at the edge of the bed, crying. You rushed and wrapped your hands around him

"Shhh jungkook. It's okay its okay baby shh" you patted his head trying to calm him down.

"y-yn" sobs loudly and hugged you back

"Im here jungkook, it's alr." Wipes his tears away

"What's wrong baby? You can tell me. I'm here"

"d-do you think I'm too heavy for you." Sobs

what escaped jungkooks mouth broke your heart. you hated how people make him feel this way. Jungkook was the type of person who always try go be perfect and enough for people. When someone mention his weight, look or anything like that he always take it in a bad way and think he's not enough. That literally breaks your heart.

"noo jungkook, look at me baby"

Jungkooks looks at you with teary, puffy eyes.

"Who said that? You know it's not true my love. No matter what you do people always will judge baby" holded his hands in yours.

"y-yn.. but what if it's true? what if I'm too heavy and overweight" looks down

"jungkook no my baby, youre beautiful. You're so so beautiful my love."

jungkook looks up at you

"make me feel beautiful yn. Please?" Jungkook said with a sad voice. He needed to feel beautiful again. who else can make him feel that way other than you hm?

You smiled, placing a kiss at his lips, then his cheek ,down to his jaw line and to his neck without stopping.Jungkook moaned softly, holding into your hair messily.

"I will make you feel so beautiful mu love" you opened his button up shirt, take it slowly off him and throw it somewhere in the room. You lean down kissing his neck once again, slowly pushing his body down.

you kissed down his chest, whispering sweet words between each kisses, telling him how beautiful he was and how enough he really is.

Jungkook almost cried out of happiness.

you stoped kissing him when you reached his pants, looking up at him with a smile.

"May I take this off?"

"Yes please" jungkook relaxed his body, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

you took off his underwear tossing them somewhere behind you. You placed a kiss on his pretty cock making him whimper.

You smiled at his reaction and got up to get your strap on. You wanted him to feel good. So so good that he will forget about those hated comments and thoughts.

"W-where are you going?" Jungkook said slightly panicking, thinking you will leave him like that.

"just to grab something real quick " smiled at him looking at his face relaxing a lil.

you came back with the strap wraped around your hips tightly. You went between jungkook legs, holding them up a lil so you can easily place yourself inside him.

"ah p-pleasd make me feel good mommy" jungkook said looking up at you, bitting his lips

"Oh I was planning to anyways baby" lean down to place a kiss on his lips. Jungkook deepened the kiss, wraping his legs around your waist, moaning into the kiss.

after a good short make out you pulled out and grabed the lub from the night stan drawer, putting sum on your fingers to prep your pretty boy before fucking him.

"Hold your leg up baby so I can prep you"

jungkook wraps his hands around his legs, holding them up letting you easily put your two fingers inside his hole,slowly moving making jungkook let out a whimper.

"a-ah~" mewls

"How's that baby?" Looks at him

"s-so good~" arch his back at the feeling of your fingers moving inside him.

he whimpered when you took out your fingers but quickly replace it with your cock. You put a lil more lub so you won't hurt him. You pushed it slowly in and started moving in a slow place.

"Oh god" jungkook lets out and rolls his eyes back.

"my beautiful boy, look at you taking my cock so well" the praise made jungkooks toes curls. He let out a whimper, pulling you closer to him and wraping his arms around your neck.

"p-pleasd move faster, I need to cum so bad~ please fuck your pretty boy" jungkook said between moans. He was so cute how he called himself your pretty boy. He really is your pretty boy tho.

You speed up your movement, jungkooks moans filled the room and the sound of skin agains skin slaping.

"Oh g-god please don't stop-ahh~" jungkook arched his back moaning loud as he was about to reach his orgasam

You started playing with his nipple, taking him at the edge. His nipples are so sensitive, so playing with them while fucking him really does drive him crazy.

"How beautiful you look right now jungkook. So beautiful just for me my love" you took his nipple in your mouth, circling your tongue around it.

"YESS~ just for you mommy!~" jungkook melws

"yeah baby? Is my pretty boy going to cum?"

Jungkook nodded his head

"Go ahead baby"

jungkook trowed his head back,eyes closed, mouth open in a silent scream, as he reached his orgasam making a mess all over him.

"A-ah fuck~" jungkooks body relaxed down on the bed, his eyes still closed.

You pulled out the dildo taking it off of you and putting it down on the drawer so you can clean it later or tomorrow.

"my beautiful boy" you said making jungkook smile softly and throw his hands around you, hugging you.

"are you okay my baby?"

"mhm, thank you sm yn"

"Ofc my love, one thing tho. Don't let those comments get into you again because you know they are not true and as I said, what ever you do people will always judge you for it"

"yeah.. you're right.. im sorry"pouts

"No baby it's not your fault, no need to be sorry. I just want you to ignore those comments. I'm always here with you no matter what and if you would like, I can always make you feel beautiful" winks making jungkook laugh

"You know yn, I'm happy to have you" smiles

" me too my love, I'm the most happiest person ever alive" smiles " I love you jungkook" pecks his lips "I love you too yn" smiles

[luffyrose]

Ghost in a Birdcage - DC x DP AU

I got a name for the Au! I am referencing the song Rule #4 Fish in a Birdcage as the title. I thought the song actually fit this whole au pretty well so yeah :D

Anyway, I told y'all I was working on stuff and part of it was this (plus the memes, which I'll share later) as well as thinking of a design for my Danny in this AU. I have a few ideas, but I'll probably work on the story itself before actually solidifying it.

Here's a little bit of sadness and softness from the past in this AU. Idk if this will be put into the main story, but it's just a general short story that is canon for this au.

~~~~~~~

GiaB AU Taglist: @markus209 @olivethetreebitch @chrysanthemum9484 @blackroserelina @avelnfear @edgyboi10000 @lokiaddams @samgirl98 @phoenixdemonqueen @iceknight-of-sun @autumnwulf @chronicallyonline-fandomwh0r3 @thegatorsgoose @nikki-pondtheauthor @jaxinkh @paper-bag-boy @dxrksong @lesling123 @learning-to-fly-on-my-own @gmkelz11

(As a lil side note the tag list is gonna be on any writing I do for this au, if I make other posts about it I'll leave it to the tag for people to find. Not including a link to the Ao3 when I do make the fic or one-shot series itself, taglist will be there too :D)

~~~~~~~

Small sniffles filled the room. Jason's gaze shifted toward his little brother, a frown overtaking the anger that'd been apparent on his own face. Danny, his precious little brother, was laying on the mattress on the ground beside him. Turning and scooting closer, Jason's hand lightly landed atop slightly wet and messy curls.

"Danny, are you feeling better?"

He could see the younger open his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by coughs. Along with the coughs, a loud clattering noise came from the door that had been locked from the outside. Gritting his teeth, the instant yelling from outside telling them to shut up making him look toward the door. Really, almost three years, and Catherine still couldn't accept that a toddler was going to be loud. Danny wasn't even loud on purpose! Huffing in silent rage, Jason's eyes fell back on his little brother.

Danny was staring up at Jay, his eyes wide in slight fear at the yelling, but he knew his brother would protect them. He was very small, almost 4 now according to Jason! But he was also very smart. His brother told him that a lot, especially when he hid away when the yelling or fights started. Danny liked to be smart. He didn't like seeing the other with new injuries though, but Jason let him put bandaids on them, and then he would take them out to the library.

The library was nice.

Catherine, that's what Jason always called the angry lady, didn't like to go in there. She didn't like to go anywhere with them, but Jason liked to take him places so it was okay. They didn't go places when sick though...so why was Jason getting some of his stuff?

"We're gonna go to the library buddy."

Seeing the smile that crossed the kid's face, the tension in his shoulder's loosened, but with the loud rattling of the door and cursing, they were right back to how they were before. Getting up quickly, he shoved what he could into a little bag and helped Danny up, the small boy coughing again.

"CALEB DANIEL TODD I SWEAR WHEN I GET THIS DOOR-"

Jason didn't let Danny hear the rest of it, carefully getting them both out onto the fire escape. He knew Catherine had been...less than ideal. His father was worse. But now with Willis gone, she didn't hold back. Half the time she wasn't home, the other half the time Jason was keeping her away from Danny. Sometimes he wished she just wouldn't come home, or that Danny wouldn't be in danger because she did.

So he made a plan. He was gonna get Danny a better home. A safe one. Except, when he'd gotten sick and wasn't getting better with the cold medicine he stole, Jason's plans didn't matter so much anymore. Danny needed somewhere to get better, but he needed a way to do that first. He'd found a way...though he didn't like it.

Carrying the younger on his back, the backpack slung over his front while a star blanket Jason had actually bought for once was draped over them both. Danny was watching the people they passed by, a small but nervous smile on his face before he inevitably hid his head in the crook of Jason's neck. "Jay Jay..." The elder hummed, feeling the smaller hands tighten for a moment after. "Is Cat-rin gonna be mad at you again?"

Slowing for only a second, Jason scanned the area before looking at his brother. Danny was too smart for his age, and Jason knew it was because of their stupid 'parents'. "She's not gonna have the time to be mad at me..." He trailed off, the lump in his throat stopping him from saying anything else until they were already in front of the Library. Slipping through the door when a young adult couple was leaving, too distracted in their conversation to notice the two poor kids, they made their way to a small dusty nook.

The nook itself was filled with old books that most no one wanted to read, and the librarian who'd seen them reading there tended to leave them be. Setting Danny down, Jason held up a finger, turning to go get some better books from elsewhere. A small sneeze made him chuckle, knowing his little brother hated how dusty it was when they hadn't been back for a while. Slipping through the isles he got himself some bigger books, and a few picture books for Danny. He knew the kid would read one or two before asking for Jason to read him his books, so he'd started picking light-hearted stories or classics whenever the two came.

Making his way back and sitting down, Jason passed the smaller storybook about stars to his brother, watching Danny's expression almost glow at seeing it. At first, Jason let himself be absorbed in his own book, the only thing other than it he paid attention to being the gentle pressure that was Danny leaning against him. It was after a little while that Jason realized Danny hadn't started to bug him like usual. Looking over from his own book, he saw Danny staring at one of the pictures of a constellation.

"Do you wanna learn more about the stars?"

He'd jumped, but Danny had nodded after a moment. Something was bugging him, Jason could tell, but he wasn't about to push it. Instead, he smiled and grabbed one of the nearby books. It was a much older book, more of a journal really, but it held a bunch of sketches of the constellations. So the two sat there, whispering to one another in the privacy of the little nook. Jason was glad he knew some astrology, and Danny was so genuinely amazed, that he could ignore the lingering pain from old injuries that hadn't had time to heal.

Feeling a small tug, Jason looked toward Danny, frowning slightly when he saw small tears. "Jay Jay...are you gonna go somewhere?" He could feel the pit in his stomach knot even more at that, staring for a moment before a wobbly smile tried to cover his face.

"...What?"

A sniffle caused the smile to fall. "Danny, hey, buddy, I'm not going anywhere...I- I'm gonna find somewhere better for you though. Somewhere where you'll get to feel better and not be afraid." Looking down as Danny's small tears covered his face, he gently used his sleeve to wipe them away, knowing he would never have the heart to lie to him. "That's not gonna happen yet though...and when you have a nice home, I'll make sure to visit. We can read and look at constellations too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'll do everything I can to try and keep that promise, alright?"

"Promises are hard to keep..."

Jason felt a sigh escape his lips, putting the book fully to the side and pulling Danny in for a hug. "They are...but just because they are doesn't mean that I won't try my best." Holding onto the younger, he felt the tears soak through the shirt on his chest, ignoring it. After Danny had stopped crying, he moved the boy back, hands on his shoulders. "If I can't keep my promise, you can get back at me." The small gasp from that made him laugh.

He seemed almost offended that Jason had said such a thing. "I don't wanna!" Jason tried not to laugh more, ruffling the younger's hair. "If you don't" —he was clearly thinking deeply about a suitable punishment— "then you have to help me." A proud smile formed on his face. With a slight smirk, Jason pulled the other back onto laying on his chest.

"Help ya with what?"

"With family."

It was quiet for a moment, Jason's fingers twitching for a moment before he started messing with Danny's hair. "How so little mans?" Danny seemed even more confused, pursing his lips as he kicked his feet some. Watching him with a small smile, Jason couldn't help but think this was the reason he'd survived so long. Danny was the one good thing in his life that had no strings attached. He was fine with that...but he needed Danny to be alright, even if it meant not being right there.

"You gotta help us have a BIIIIGGGG family. With more sib-a-lings!"

There was a snort from the older, ruffling Danny's hair. "You said it wrong you little dingus." Danny's own laughter erupted from him after a moment, swatting Jason's hand away. "But sure. If I break my promise, then I'll help you get a big and nice family." The toddler seemed to absolutely beam at that. "However! I still get to be the best brother-" Danny giggled at that, "and if anything is ever wrong you come to me, no matter what. Alright?"

With a happy nod, Danny's hair was once again ruffled up by Jason, the laughter filling up the small area they were in. Even when a few older ladies glanced over, not a word was spoken to the two. And when the librarian found both boys sleeping...well, if she gently readjusted the blanket they'd brought and let them sleep it was between her and the other librarians.

[nkn0va]

Let out a lil (manly) scream when I saw requests were open lol. Could I please get general relationship headcanons for Nine? I really enjoy your characterization of her, and so far out of the (admittedly like 3) blazblue writers ive seen you do her best. Thanks a lot man.

I could've fucking sworn I already did this. Guess not. Other two writers I'm assuming are @your-phantomfield and dopp before their old blog got deleted.

Speaking of phantomfield's writing though, I'd rather not have my HCs come off as just a carbon copy of their Nine post, so as opposed to writing Nine in the CF era, this will instead be for Nine post Dark War and before she got yeeted into the abyss. I'll try not to make it sad like I did with the Ragna post. This will unfortunately be shorter than the rest of my single character posts because I'm exhausted.

(Also sorry for not posting so much lately I've been finally trying to get good at UNI2 in my off time and my edgy ass was forced to pick Seth as one of my mains. Fuck TK dragonfist inputs.)

-It's...going to be a while before Nine is comfortable with intimacy in any capacity. She's spent so much of her life fighting now that she always has her guard up out of habit.

-It's a long road to the lowkey recovery from the trauma of a decade long war against a giant, world-ending, radioactive hydra, though once she does feel comfortable around you, her passion will burn as hot as her magic.

-It's not easy to get close to her, but those who manage it are in for life. She's quite overprotective of you not entirely unlike she is with Celica regardless of how good of a fighter you are. It's just in her nature.

-She is not one to shy away from PDA. She doesn't go out of her way to do it necessarily but if she just so happens to be in a doting mood she will not care who sees it. If anyone tries to reprimand her for it they will promptly be shut up with a glare from Nine as her hand lights on fire.

-Nine's family and friends are more important to her than anything else. She wants nothing more than for you all to get along, which considering who they are should be simple enough.

-Unfortunately get-togethers with everyone can't really happen considering how busy everyone is, especially her. Whenever the two of you finally can spend some time together she learns to treasure it.

-Of course this naturally soon escalates into the want to have a kid, especially after you get married. Your honeymoon is spent in bed for the most part...

-Nine is surprisingly traditional in her love/family values. She wants the idealistic happy ending that most people dream of. Get married, settle down, have a child, or children if the both of you feel so inclined. It's way more wholesome than initially expected from someone like her but it's certainly not unwelcome.