#i didn’t know you existed until i was 13 and i didn’t meet you until i was 15. we’ve met Twice and your husband talked to me

[fingertipsmp3]

My sister messaged me

[ambrosiagoldfish]

Adam x third spouse part 3 I’m begging pookie ❤️

like a time skip to when Charlie appeared and proposed the idea

Benifit of the doubt Pt.4

Adam x 3rd Spouse! Reader

Warnings: General Adam TW’s, a little bit sad for a moment but it’s ok. Gn! Reader! honestly that’s about it I think?? Wow this is the first time it’s been this short in this series.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Request Box: Open

Word Count: 4617~

A/n: So… it’s been almost 2 months… whoops. In all seriousness though I’m sorry it’s been so long. I’ve just not been in the mood to write and a lot of stuff has been happening (which is finally over) and I’m glad I could finally post this. I was also, if I’m honest, nervous to post this, cause I’m not sure if everyone’s ready for the direction of the story. But I have made it clear that I wanted to do a time skip to the show at somepoint and decided to do it now! If you enjoy this, please let me know cause I’m really nervous about (Not my words of affirmation love language coming out-) ALSO to the requester, I know you said part 3, but I used it for part 4. I got your request as I was making part 3 soooo my bad. Hope you don’t mind tho <3 this will be the last part before the angsty finale (and maybe an epilogue)

Reblogs are always appreciated!

Anyways this was NOT beta read unfortunately, I tried to get as many errors out during the writing process so hopefully it’s fine. Also, there’s probably some words I might have wanted to italicize or make bold that aren’t, but I’m too tired to care honestly.

Tags: @tired-of-life-86 @nervoussystemss @qopia @lovelyemily @hcneyiced @v3r41ynn @ghostdoodlen @nxptvne-13 @ximenavc-che @edgyfluff @ericityyy @diffidentphantom @faimmm @slasher-whore69 @1-randomized @ozzersauce @fanlovedlt @alientee (if I forgot someone or you want to be added just tell me !!)

Days turned to weeks, to months, to years. Until eventually an eon had passed. An entirety filled to the brim with an indescribable happiness and love, threatening to spill over at any given moment. You loved Adam and Adam loved you.

To say it was all happiness would be a lie, there were some moments of sadness and pain, but all relationships were like that, even ones that lasted for eternity. You both always bounced back, apologize and moved on with a stronger bond than before. And you loved every second of it.

A lot has changed in these last few eons. Adam formed a band and is now the most popular guitarist in all of heaven. You both made new friends, some got into heaven while others were made there. Emily was one of these people to you, she looked up to you for being older than her. You’ve existed for almost all of human existence so, of course she’d look up to you.

Adam had also made new friends, his band members, some officials in heaven, but someone he’s grown close to recently was Lute. You're really happy about his friendship with Lute. She seems like a strong and loyal friend, someone that can keep him grounded while still encouraging him to be more himself. Overall, you really liked her.

How they became friends though is something… less tasteful for you. All the way back when Heaven and Hell had their first meeting on what to do with the surplus of sinners in hell causing an uprising. Neither side came to an agreement in the end, you do feel partially to blame for that, but you still stand by what you did.

You never returned to any of the follow up meetings

But Adam did, surprisingly to you. In the end, you were called to talk with Sera and Adam. You were told of the agreement between Heaven and Hell, about the yearly “cleanse” that Adam and his “Exorcists” would have to commit. At first you were shocked, sure, you didn’t have the best experience with sinners and especially with the rulers of hell, but was death really necessary? You didn’t know what to say, and Adam clearly saw this.

“Babe, you alright?” He puts his hand on your shoulder rubbing his thumb in circles. You place your hand on his.

“Yeah it’s just a lot to take in. Are we sure it has to be done… that way?”

Sera looked down in pain “they’re… uprising and are becoming to much of a threat to heaven.”

You sighed as Adam took you in his arms. Adam was fully aware that you don’t share the same sentiment towards sinners as he does. His hatred towards the unholy souls down in hell was brought about by events that you simply cannot understand. Which he is thankful for, he never would want you to experience what he did.

“If there isn’t anything else we can do then… I guess we have no choice. But I don’t want to… kill anyone, even if they are sinners.”

Adam holds you closer “You won’t have to,” you smile at him, the now familiar flickering of his LED mask meeting your gaze before softly frown “you ok?”

You nod, “yeah, just…I wish there was another way.”

-

That was it. Adam would take his exorcists down to hell to kill as many sinners as they could each year. Adam knew you didn’t want him to talk about it , he kept it as separate as he could from your life. You did have to attend meetings regarding it, as one of the very few people to know about it, that was your duty.

You were fine with having that part of the job. You weren't sure if you could kill someone, sinner or not. So, for the countless years to follow, you played your part with every new extermination, attending meetings to deal with the repercussions of each cleanse.

Adam would also have to attend the occasional meeting. Which is exactly what today was. Sera had called you both in to talk.

“Thank you both for coming. I have to inform you that you will be attending a meeting tomorrow.”

Adam groaned “What! Again? This is like the 4th fuckin’ one this week! Ugh fine! Where is it this time? halo city? Cherub towne” Adam’s voice mocked the locations you’ve both been sent to countless times with a high pitched voice. Even you have to admit that the meetings could drag a bit.

Sera's face turned into a slight grimace as she looks away from you both, she sighs and continues “The meeting will be in… hell.”

“What!” Both your voices raise in shock

“Sera, you know I don’t want to go down there again!”

“Why can’t you just send the other fucking dipshits who know about-“ Adam crossed his arms defiantly

“Stop,” Sera raises her hand toward you both “no one wants to go there, and I know you both especially don’t.” She pauses “But you both are the only available angels who know of the cleanse that aren't busy. Please… I understand your disdain but heaven’s business comes first.”

“Who are we even gonna be talking to -Wait a damn minute- Don’t fucking tell me we have to talk to him.”

“I'm sorry…” You all sat in silence for a moment before Sera begins to speak again, “But you both won’t have to worry about physically being there, we have prepared holograms for you, so neither of you would be in any danger.”

“I'll have an Angel escort you to the ‘meeting’ room tomorrow, please, get some rest. I’m sure you both have had a long day.”

With that, you and Adam went home, you were definitely not feeling well about the meeting, but the fact you wouldn’t actually be there calms your nerves a bit. You had to be a little honest with yourself, hell wasn’t really the issue for you, it was more so the people. Lucifer for one, that made you feel uneasy.

The next morning, you and Adam got ready, you had to motivate him a little. He was clearly not excited for this meeting like you. The entire way there he held you close, even though nothing could have hurt you it made him feel better knowing how close you were.

On the way there, you also got Adam some ribs, his favorite. You thought it would help his nerves a bit. Turns out, Lute was the one Sera assigned to escort you both there. That also made you both a little calmer knowing a mutual friend would be there.

The three of you waited in the ‘meeting’ room for a while, about an hour. At first you thought the meeting might had been canceled or moved and you just weren't told. But then, Lute walked up to you both.

“Sir! The Seraphim has told me to inform you that there’s been a change in plans!”

“What? The fucks that mean?” Adam said stuffing a rib into his LED mouth

“Lucifer won’t be attending the meeting, instead… his Daughter will be here in his stead.” Lute’s mask showed a continuous frown and stern expression as she spoke.

“Daughter?” Your voice shook a little. This was news to you, as long as you’ve existed you had never heard he had a daughter while in hell. You look over to Adam to see His LED eyes were wide in shock but his mask turned into a smile as he sighed.

“Phew boy, we sure dodged a big ass bullet, huh Sweetcheeks?” He laughed as his arm pulled you closer. The whole thing caused you to join in. Suddenly your nerves felt a lot better than before.

“When should she be arriving, Lute?”

“Within the hour.”

-

Adam scarfed down another plate of ribs as you all wait for the “princess of hell” to arrive. The entire time you just had to wonder what kind of person she’d be. The daughter of Lucifer and Lilith. The more you thought about it, the more bizarre it seemed.

But suddenly your thoughts were interrupted by the sliding doors opening to the meeting room and a girl steps in, asking if anyone is there.

“She can’t see us?”

“Yeah, Sera gave me a long ass lector on how this stuff works before we got here. Let’s see here…” Adam pushes a button causing a click to sound out as he says “Sup!”

The girl jumps back and falls to the floor, shocked by Adam’s sudden appearance in the room. She introduces herself as Charlie. Adam offers her to shake his hand, only for it to go through.

“Ha! I fuckin’ got you! Did you fucking see that? Good shit.”

You let out a slight laugh, as you sit and watch the meeting happen. Well, you say “meeting” but nothing about it seemed very professional. Adam for the last hour (you honestly wasn’t sure at this point) had been talking about the most random of things.

You or Lute occasionally shakening your head yes or no while listening to him, while Charlie seemed quite tired already. Not that you could blame her, people who weren’t used to Adam’s banter definitely weren’t cut out for it. But You love every word that comes out of his mouth.

Eventually Adam decides that it’s time to get into what you all came here for. Pulling out a bunch of papers, Charlie begins explaining her solution to hell’s overpopulation. You were only really half listening at first, at least before she mentioned that her solution could stop the extermination which peaked your interest.

She explains her “Hazbin Hotel” and its purpose to rehabilitate sinners, you wanted to hear more of it but Adam cut her off.

The meeting didn’t really go that well, At least for Charlie. But the whole thing left quite the impression on you. The idea of ending the extermination was stuck in your head for so long, and now you had someone who had an alternative.

“Adam, are you sure that it couldn’t have worked?”

Adam looks at you in surprise “What? Do you think that shitshow could have actually worked?” He laughed as he placed a hand on your back. “Don’t even pay it any mind, alright Babe?”

“I know, it’s just… you know I don't like the extermination. So another way to lessen the population of hell should at least be looked into.” Your voice was soft enough to barely hear.

Adam’s gaze softened but he didn’t say another word, only wrapping his wing around you pulling you closer. You lean towards him, snuggling into his soft robe. No matter how much you wanted to ignore it, you couldn’t. You needed to do something, anything.

So that night, after Adam fell asleep, you asked to talk with Sera. Leaving a note for Adam saying you went to buy something just in case he woke up.

“What is troubling you?” Sera’s voice was clear and concise.

You looked toward the ground, your nerves feeling tighter than ever, as you struggled with how to put your words together. “You're aware of all that happened in the meeting with Lucifer’s Daughter, right?”

Sera nods her head “of course, all meetings are documented about as they happen.” She tilts her head slightly “What about it?”

“Well!” You steel yourself before continuing “I would like permission to observe Charlie Morningstar’s ‘Hazbin Hotel’”

Sera’s eyes widen, breaking her calm demeanor before giving a firm “No”

“But-“

“It’s too dangerous for you to be there, Adam wouldn’t want that anyways”

“He would listen if it was an order from you!” Your eyes felt watery but you continued “Please Sera… I know you don’t want the extermination to continue. Just let me do this!”

Sera looked away from you, her feelings evident on her face, any mask now down. ‘Just a little more’ you thought

“Sera, I promise you, I’ll be careful! We don’t even have to fully support them yet, just let me observe them. It would be devastating if so many souls parish if we failed to seek all options!” You beg

Sera sighed, shakingly “…I’ll see what I can do.”

Your eyes gleamed up at the tall woman “Sera, thank you, thank you!” You wanted to hug her but out of courtesy, you advised against it.

Sera tells you that she can’t guarantee anything but she will try as she sends you home to rest.

-

A few days past after that and you haven’t heard anything from Sera. It was a little worrying and felt like a bad sign to you. That was, until you were informed by Sera that your request was accepted!

“But.” Sera stops you before you can celebrate “You're only there to keep track of the progress and to make sure nothing is happening under our noses” You nod your head in understanding

“Also…” she pauses “If anything involving this hotel happens, you will have to take full responsibility, understood?”

You nod again “yes I understand. Have you… told Adam yet?”

She shakes her head

“Ok… can you… not tell him it was my idea, please. I don’t think he’d agree if he knew.”

Sera sighs before nodding her head “Very well, I’ll tell him after you leave”

“Thank you.”

-

You return home, when you got back Adam was already gone, Sera must have already called him to the office. You dreaded when he got back. You didn’t want to see him upset, it hurt you to know how worried he was for you.

A few hours later, Adam comes through the door in a panic. He stomps up to you and pulls you into a warm and intense embrace.

“Don’t go down there. I need you here with me” his voice hitches as his wings wrap around you both, curling you both into a warm and feathery ball.

“Adam…” you paused, was this really the best thing to do? No, It had to be. If this goes well, not only will the extermination stop but Adam wouldn’t have to go down to hell ever again.

“Adam, you know I can’t go against Sera’s orders.” You kiss his cheek “and I won’t be gone forever, I’m only supposed to be there till the next cleanse. Not to mention, I’ll always come back to see you.”

Adam grumbled a little “I know, I just… don’t like you being in the same place that bastard is, and in his brat’s stupid hotel! ”

You laugh softly “Adam…” grabbing his hand, you put yours in it, showing off the gold ring on your finger “I’ll never forget my promise. You know that, right?”

Adam looks at the ring, the gold wrapped around your finger with a perfectly snug fit. Everytime he looked at it was just a reminder of your love for him. That promise was something he could never forget. He slowly raises your hand to his LED mask, kissing the back of it. “Of course not.”

“Good. I promise I’ll be fine, ok?”

He nods. Hand in hand, you slowly lead you both to the bed. The both of you lay next to each other, your bodies linked together like knots. You slwoly remove his helmet from his head, laying it on the nightstand.

Your hands move up his body before landing on his face, cupping his cheeks before pulling him to a kiss before snuggling into his chest.

-

Finally it was Time for you to leave. Sera allowed you to create portals back to heaven in case anything happened and you were in need of assistance. Adam walked you to the front gate.

“Ok, do you have everything? You didn’t forget that fucking angelic dagger I had Lute get for you right-“

You shush him “Adam, I told you I’ll be fine!”

He’s sighs “Damn it- I know that but just make sure to text me while your there ok-

You kiss him deeply “Adam. I know, you’ve told me a hundred times.” You smile as you cup his face “I love you”

He sighs “Love you too Sweetcheeks”

With one final kiss, you give Adam a tight hug before waving goodbye as you went through the flaming portal. As you went through, you take a second to look at your surroundings. In front of you was a tall building. You take a few steps back to see LED lights of a sign flashing the words ‘Hazbin Hotel’

You let out a sigh of relief. You had been a tad bit worried you’d spawn somewhere random and you’d have to find the building yourself. But it seems heaven at least spared you of that.

The red skies of hell were quite different from the pristine blue ones of heaven. Even though you just got here, you could already hear the sounds of screams and explosions in the distance. How welcoming.

You steel yourself and with three hard knocks to the door, you wait for someone to open it. Muffled Scurrying sounds of footsteps approach the door before it creaks open revealing the young blond woman in the doorframe, Charlie Morningstar.

“Hi! I’m-“

The door is slammed shut, Before opening again

“Be not afraid-“

It shuts again…

Well, this may be a bit harder than you initially anticipated. You go to knock again only for it to open once more. This time, the door doesn’t close again, instead the girl mutters a quick “Hi” before going quiet.

“Hello! I didn’t mean to scare you!” You give a small laugh before continuing “I believe we met a couple days ago?” You bring your hand towards her for a shake, to which she reciprocates.

“During the meeting with.. Adam? Right?” She grimaced when she mentioned Adam, which you decided to ignore, you simply smiled and nodded. ”but I don’t believe I caught your name?”

You tell her about yourself, about how your there to stay and monitor any progress the hotel may have. You made sure to pronounce ‘may.’ While you were hoping for this idea to show some kind of positive results, even you weren’t sure if it’d would work.

“Charlie? who’s at the door- WhatHolyShit-“ a woman with a red X over her eye suddenly shouts in surprise. You look over at her, She looked very familiar…

“Wait, you are-“

“Vaggie! Charlie’s sinner girlfriend! And you are?!” The woman known as Vaggie, highlighted the word sinner while performing a “be quiet” gesture with her hand. Your eyes widen a little at the ex-Angel in front of you but you simply smile a nod “I’m Y/n, I don’t believe we’ve met, yes?”

Look, lying is the last thing you’d want to do as a citizen of heaven but you figured that it would be fine if it was to protect someone. Vaggie nodded, her face scrunched up in a tense look.

“You feeling ok Vaggie? You’re looking a little… red?”

“I’m fine! *ahem*, Hun, how about you give them a tour of the hotel.”

Charlie gasped “Yes that's perfect, you may as well get acquainted with everyone if you’re going to be here more often!”

Charlie ran off, telling you “this way! This way!” Over and over. Before you went to follow her, you leaned toward Vaggie and said a quick “Relax, I won’t tell anyone.”

She lets out a sigh before muttering “Thank you”

You both follow Charlie as she shows you the various rooms in the hotel before leading you back to the hotel’s lobby and lounge area.

“Hey! Hello everyone!” Charlie’s voice picked up a little “I’d like to introduce you to our uh… new staff member?” You nod in agreement with the title. The room in front of you was shrouded in looks of both horror and amazement.

“What the hell’s an angel doin’ here?” A lanky spider demon spoke up first

“It’sss an ambush! seek Cover!!” The Snake demon shouted, seemingly grabbing an army helmet from thin air before taking a deep dive behind the couch.

“No Pentious-” She sighs “they’re here to monitor the hotel! Heaven sent them to scout any potential progress the hotel will have”

“It’s nice to meet you all” you look at the people in front of you, to say it was a colorful cast would be an understatement.

“These two are our current tenants of the hotel! Angel dust and Sir Pentious!”

The snake slithered slowly from behind the couch up to you, while the Spider demon remained rested on the couch

“Oh… *ahem* Excuse me dear! I am Sir. Pentious! Formally known as ‘the Architect of destruction’!” He laughs, a slight hiss sounding in his voice.

He offers a handshake which you accept. To which you immediately regret. ‘ Slimey’ you thought, before wiping your, now wet hand on your clothes.

The spider demon, who you now know as Angel Dust, just gives a wave with one of his 4 arms.

“And-“ Charlie extends the word as she quickly walk to a bar by the entrance “this is the recreational area, run by our Bartender, Husk!”

The winged bartender seemed entirely uninterested in your presence or even Charlie’s. The most you got was a small glance before he takes a swig of his alcohol and walks off.

“He’s not the most… social guy in hell” she awkwardly laughs before moving on to the next person. “And this is Nifty, our one and only maid at the hotel! Nifty say hi.”

The short woman scurried moved around you, her eye quickly looking at every every nook and cranny of you as she moved. She made numerous attempts to touch and grab various things on you, your clothes, wings, and eventually she tried to climb up you to get to your halo. That’s when you finally grabbed her in place “you're a… fast one, huh? Nice to meet you!”

“And last but not least! This is Alastor, the hotel’s executive producer and our first -and only- overlord sponsor!”

Immediately, you could tell there was something off about Alastor. The entire aura he gave off was as if he was restraining something completely and utterly ungodly. The static that surrounded him was just one of many whispers you could hear from his soul.

“Hello! It’s quite a pleasure to meet someone of your… holy status!” He offers a hand to which you, hesitantly, shake. “And what do we owe the pleasure for your service?”

“They’re going to be here to keep track of the progress of the hotel…” Charlie paused “you know I’m starting to sound like a broken record- here, it’s late, how about we all get some sleep and we can talk about it in the morning!”

“Fine by me, I am waaay too sober to be having social interaction this late” Angel picks himself up and stretches “I’m gonna hit the hay”

“Here I’ll show you to your room!” Charlie smiles “We -obviously- didn’t have time to make your own so I hope you don’t mind using one of the guest rooms” she laughs

She and Vaggie walks you to your new room before leaving you be, The room was nothing more than just your average hotel room. Of course it did have its differences, a multitude of… eyes seem to be on the wall, staring at you. Well, that’s not the least alarming.

You place your stuff down and begin unpacking, you mostly just brought the basics. Clothes, hygiene stuff, your phone, and, most importantly, a framed photo of Adam.

You sat the photo on your nightstand, angling it just right so that it would always be visible to you. As you do so, you think about the memory the photo brings, you took it on one of the first dates you went on with Adam. It was a relatively tame date, you and Adam, having a picnic by a lake at night. You brought candles so you both weren’t completely in the dark, and you just loved the way he looked, his golden eyes watching the water. The dim candle light illuminating his face with a warm golden shade. Adam hates photos of him with his mask off but… You just had to keep that moment in time forever.

*Ding* *Ding* *Ding*

Speak of the- well, you know the rest. The bright light from the phone comes with the notification sound displaying Adam in bold letters. You smile as you read his messages.

Dixkmaster69

Heyy Sweetcheeks, it’s been a bit since you left

You there??

Fucking answer

You let out a small laugh at Adam’s barrage of messages. He’s not used to you being away from him for more than a day, huh? Not that you could blame him, this is honestly nothing compared to how you feel each year he has to do the extermination.

Sweetcheeks

Hey love

Everything’s fine, I’m ok.

Aside from not having you with me :’(

Dixkmaster69

Fucking finally

You know you don’t have to do this

If I bitch enough to Sera I can get you back by tomorrow

Sweetcheeks

Please don’t, Sera already has enough on her plate.

I promise I’m going to be fine

I’ll be back before you know it.

Dixkmaster69

I know

This shit just worries me

Gonna miss hearing your sexy ass voice at night too ;)

You blush at the message before sighing. Whenever you or Adam approached a topic that made him uncomfortable, he would always try to change the subject to something that made him feel better. You knew why, Adam’s someone who rarely talked about his feelings, even after all these eons together that was something he hadn’t changed. You knew exactly what he needed, even if he didn’t explicitly tell you.

Sweetcheeks

I already miss yours too <3

Do you want to help me fall asleep with that heavenly voice of yours on the phone?

Dixkmaster69

Whatever you want Sweetcheeks <3

You smile when, almost immediately, Adam begins calling your phone. You click the lights off before You make your way in your new bed, not even bothering to change out of the clothes you’ve been wearing. You grab the cover and pull it over you and tapping the answer button.

“Sup”

You yawn “Hey handsome, I missed your voice”

You hear his voice hitch before he caused on “Of course you did, no one has a better voice than the dick master. But uh, yours is a close second”

You’re let out a tired giggle, “such a charmer, you. How’s your day been huh?”

“Oh! don’t even get me started on that- Lute took me to get some ribs to ‘calm my nerves’ or some shit and they had me, ME, wait in line for like 15 minutes! The fucking audacity!”

You smile to yourself as Adam tells you about his day, the sound of his voice was like a sweet lullaby to your ears and you couldn’t get enough of it. But eventually…

“And then when I got home, I couldn’t find my damn charger and it took me like 40 fuckin’ minutes to realize it was under our bed, do you have any idea of how it keeps getting there?” He waits for you to respond only to be met with silence. “Uh bitch, I’m talking to you.”

More silence… well no, actually if Adam focused on listening, he could hear the faint sound of your snoring from the phone. Adam sighs,”Long day, huh?”

Adam lays back in your shared bed, getting comfortable. He sets the phone beside him, plugging it in while keeping it on speaker. He yawns, “Goodnight Sweetheart, can’t wait to see you again”

Slowly, the soft sounds of both yours and Adam’s snores filled each others rooms, a distant, but intimate connection. Even in slumber, you couldn’t stop thinking of your handsome and caring soulmate.

[clockwayswrites]

City Pigeons Bleed Green - Part 13

Cass looked up as Jason came out of Danny’s room. He looked better.

After Danny had been stabilized, Cass had taken Jason away from the safe house and to Jason’s place with the gym in the basement. She knew what it was like to have that need to act— to hurt to ruin to end— burning under her skin. She gave Jason the fight that he needed, letting him punch and kick until they were both covered in bruises and he was shaking apart in her arms.

Today he looked better.

“N is going to stay with Danny,” Jason said with a little nod backwards.

Dick, Jason, Tim, and herself had all been taking turns staying with their new brother. He was sleeping a lot right then; he was waking with nightmares a lot too. Waking up with one of them touching him seemed to help him calm the quickest so they took turns staying close.

“Red?” Cass asked with a little tilt of her head.

Jason glanced at the clock on the oven as he opened the fridge. He wasn’t really hungry, but eating out of habit. “He’ll be over here in two hours, I he doesn’t get distracted.”

“Be nice. Red cares. He’ll be here,” she said.

Jason seemed to settle on something and popped the top off before throwing it in the microwave. “Yeah… yeah. Danny’s pretty much wormed his way into all of our hearts, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. Will for rest too.”

Jason snorted. “As if he already hasn’t with B. They didn’t need to meet for that. You know how the old man is, a real bleeding heart of stone.”

Cass rolled her eyes and ordered again, “Be nice.”

Jason frowned at her but she just smiled serenely back until he rolled his eyes. It was a win enough for her.

The heated food was set on a trivet between them and Jason stuck two forks in it.

“I’m thinking we get O in here in a few days,” he said around his own large bite of lasagna. “Danny is healing better this time, but we don’t know what sort of set back this will cause mentally and all. Having another set of hands would be good.”

“O will like him.”

“Course she will,” Jason said with almost a scoff.

“No O and Red,” Cass added thoughtfully after she had chewed her own bite. This was definitely Jason lasagna and not Alfred lasagna.

“Yeah… I don’t think I’m going to trust those three in a room together for a long time,” Jason said with a dawning sort of horror. “Danny took apart the remote here and now it has buttons for services I didn’t even know existed. I swear it will change shows on its own too if no one is paying attention to it. It’s useful, I guess, but a little creepy.”

“Ghost brother,” Cass said with a little shrug.

Jason’s eyes narrowed before he let out an exhausted sounding sigh. “I hate that you might be right. Our controller could be haunted now.”

“Alas poor Yorick?”

“Wrong character,” Jason said, pointing with his fork, “but that is a play with a ghost in it so good job.”

Cass smiled happily at the praise. “Once Red is here, you and me errands?”

“You just want to buy Danny another present,” Jason said, jabbing his fork in her direction.

“Yes,” she said with zero shame.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Fine, but we have to do groceries too.”

-

Babs had been warned that Danny was still very skittish, but he hadn’t actually expected him to freeze like a scared rabbit when she came into the apartment. She stopped rolling forward and moved her hands to where he could see them both clearly.

“Hi Danny,” she said with her kindest librarian voice that she had. “I’m Oracle. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Danny shook his head, the motion ran through him like a shudder and whatever had frozen him shook off him like water off a dog. His smile was still shaky though, so Babs didn’t think that whatever the reaction had been was completely done.

“Hi, Oracle.” His voice was soft, rough, a little broken.

She’d heard from a number of the bats about the latest development and the trauma that went with it, but it as still something to see someone that looked like a young Bruce covered in bandages and looking more than worse for the wear.

“Are you alright if I come in? If you aren’t, that’s alright. I’ll just talk with Nightwing in the hall for a little.”

“No, you can come in,” Danny said, sitting up a little straighter. His eyes flicked over her again. “It’s just… your hair reminded me of someone is all. No one… no one bad.”

Babs offered him a smile and came the rest of the way into the apartment. “If that changes, just let me know.”

“It’s fine, really,” Danny said, though the words were still a little bit of a whisper.

“Well then,” Dick said, interrupting the end of the oddly tense moment, “Babs, do you want any hot chocolate?”

“Thank you, but without the mountain of whip cream I know you liked to put on it,” she said, giving Dick a playful glare.

He shrugged unrepentantly. “Danny?”

“Yes please,” he said. He was fussing with the blanket he had been sitting under, folding it up just so.

Babs moved towards the kitchen to give him a little bit of space and the illusion of some privacy.

‘What was that about?’ Babs asked Dick silently through raised eye brows, a slightly twisted frown, and a subtle nod towards the living room.

‘Not a damn clue,’ is what Dick’s shrug said back.

It almost made Babs sigh.

Danny was still a complete mystery to her. While they were being good and had avoided taking blood or fingerprints from Danny, Barbara had at least been trying to find Danny’s path through the city. She’d been saying for days now that the boy was like a ghost.

She just didn’t expect that to be as literal as it was.

The nickname had lost any of its fun.

“Danny, whipped cream for you?” Dick asked.

Danny’s eyes darted from Dick to Babs.

“Oh, feel free to have it like N,” Babs said with a smile. “I just don’t have the sweet tooth that he does.”

“She never has, it’s tragic,” Dick said with a sigh as he started to warm a pot of milk. “So, whipped cream.”

“Um, yes,” Danny said.

“I will take sprinkles though,” Babs said. “Do you have the little—”

“Bats?” Dick scoffed. “Of course I have the little bats. You can’t have proper hot chocolate without the little bat sprinkles.”

“Of course not,” words serious but unable to help the little smile that she sported.

“You all really like the theme, don’t you?” Danny asked, though he was smiling too now.

“The boy in the hoddie with the Bat logo on it does not get to talk,” Dick said and tossed a large marshmallow at Danny with pin point accuracy.

Danny caught it effortlessly and started to pull it apart with a little shrug. “Hood got if for me as a present.”

“Of course he did,” Tim said as he finally emerged from wherever he had been tucked away. He handed the tablet he was carrying over to Danny before he sat down in the neighboring armchair. “He’s just trying to claim you first, as if him and I didn’t find you together.”

“Hot chocolate, Red?” Dick asked while Danny was busy looking bewildered at that.

“Sure, but add some coffee to it?” Tim asked.

“No,” Dick replied far too cheerfully. “But seriously Dandelion, a Bat logo from a Bat means something.”

Danny’s face scrunched up at that and he looked down at himself. “I don’t think… he was trying to claim me?”

Babs snorted. “Oh, trust us, he was absolutely claiming you. He probably felt that he had to do something material to even start to compete with B.B., as if he wasn’t cooking for you all the time.”

Danny stared back at her with wide blue eyes. The open surprise and desperate want was odd to see on someone that looked so much like Bruce. Damian certainly never let himself appear that way.

“And Red is already souping up your tablet, I’m assuming— though if you really want an improvement let me see it,” she continued, talking over Tim’s little snort, “and N is making you the special hot chocolate. Even Signal is thinking what he can get you and Spoiler is whining that she hasn’t met you yet.”

“She is getting so annoying,” Tim whined while Danny stuffed the shredded marshmallow in his mouth, likely to get out of saying anything. He looked more than a little teary eyed. Tim gave him the out by continuing, “We’ll have her over one morning when she’ll be tired and easily distracted by waffles. You’re not up for the full Spoiler experience yet.”

“Trust Red on that,” Dick interjected as he stirred the coco, “he dated her.”

“I don’t know what either of us were thinking,” Tim said with a sigh. “We are both way too high maintenance in different ways for it to have worked.”

“You were still waiting for you bi awakening, baby bird, you were missing out on half the options,” Dick said. He dropped one of the oversized marshmallows in each of the four mugs before pouring the scalding hot chocolate over it.

Babs left him to his sorcery and wheeled over to the couch before working her way onto it. Danny helpfully moved the blanket out of the way and then offered it back after. She draped it carefully over her legs.

“So what did Red do to your tablet?”

“I actually didn’t do anything,” Tim said, and then had to pause. “Well, not after I gave it to Danny at least. I was just making sure everything was still good. Danny’s been tinkering with it.”

Danny gave a little shrug and picked at the edge of his hoodie.

“Do you like engineering then? Or inventing?” Babs asked, trying to encourage Danny to open up a little.

“Yeah, my— I—, I mean…” Danny stumbled over his words. He lost some of his color with each false start until he was worryingly grey. He swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I used to at least.”

“Danny, hot chocolate,” Dick said with impeccable timing as always.

Danny whispered a thanks and took the almost overflowing mug. He could basically hide behind the mound of whipped cream and he definitely tried to. Babs took the offered mug with a much more modest dollop but an absurd amount of bat sprinkles. Her lips twitched up in a smile as she took a sip.

Tim’s portion was somewhere in between Bab’s and Danny and of course Dick’s was practically laughable. It’s a wonder he didn’t make an absolute mess of himself drinking it as they argued over a movie to watch. It was clever of the Bats, really, they had started to narrow down how long Danny had been a test subject by what movies he had seen or not.

It was somewhere between seventeen and twenty-three months.

Nearly two years.

They were all lucky that Danny had made it out at all. They all knew the statistics of something like that.

Hot chocolate turned into dinner turned into Danny cuddling Dick on the couch and eventually resting against Bab’s legs. A good sign about her acceptance, according to the birds.

“Oracle?”

Babs had thought that Danny was asleep. She reached out to run the tips of her fingers through his hair. The lights from the movie that was still playing glinted off her pink nails. “Yes, Danny?”

“If I asked… would you be able to find someone for me?”

She tilted her head. “The person that I remind you of?”

“Yes. Just… just so that I know she’s okay.”

“Is she in danger?”

“No, she’s not like me. She’s…” Danny cut himself off, swallowing back the words.

“But you’d still like to know.”

“Yes.”

Babs hummed. It was technically an abuse of her powers, but they were something she abused all the time. “Yes, if you ask me to, I can find out if she’s okay.”

“Okay. I’ll… maybe I’ll ask. Thank you.”

“Of course, Danny.”

---

AN: I struggled with this chapter at first, but it was because I was jumping right to Barbara meeting Danny and not giving the others some more time to deal with the change in Danny. They still haven't really dealt with it, right now they're focused on healing and getting more help through Babs being around.

All our poor Bat's. So attached already and so traumatized.

But not as traumatized as Danny...

Stay delightful, darlings!

[bucketslutz]

Don't Be Late (Logan Howlett/Fem mutant reader)

Chapter 1

(A/N): btw this takes place in an alternate universe where the x men as a team don't really exist, but the members and mutants obviously still do. readers powers are similar to atom eve from invincible, if you haven't seen that show i highly recommend it, but if not, you don't really need to know any of that to understand readers powers, they'll be explained in more detail later on.

Summary: You've spent your entire academic career trying to hide who you really are, your goal to end up working in a small museum or archive and live the rest of your life going unnoticed. The first day of grad school you meet someone that sparks something deep inside you that you never thought existed. Your history professor, Logan, makes you feel things you've never felt from someone before. Will you keep hiding your feelings, or will you get too close and risk him knowing who you really are?

Warnings: 18+!! explicit sexual content, minors DNI!! pls!!! oral (fem recieving), logan being a munch lowk, oral on the couch, teasing, dirty talking, cursing, logan being an asshole professor, no use of Y/N.

Word Count: 3,208

You anxiously rub your forehead as you struggle to find parking on campus, circling and circling the lot. Finally, someone pulls out and you turn in aggressively, someone in front of you flips you off, probably eyeing the same spot. You’re late. Very late. You have an American Civil War class, it’s an advanced level, with a professor whose name you cannot remember for the life of you. You’ve been preoccupied this summer, and time escaped you before you got the chance to research his credentials. It’s your first day of grad school and you’re late. A long commute, a new college, and shitty parking. You hope to god the professor doesn’t care or notice when you slip in late, as you carry a specific kind of disdain for drawing attention to yourself.

You were 13 when you first noticed something was wrong, walking home alone from school when a stranger tried to pin you down and do god knows what to you, until your eyes glowed a deep fuchsia and you threw him across the alley with a strength you didn’t even know you had. Your veins began glowing the same pink color and pulsating, scaring you shitless. You ran to the woods behind your house, avoiding your family for fear of harming them. With enough practice over the years, you’ve learned to control your abilities. Your eyes only glowing occasionally when you’re especially frustrated or angry. Sometimes even when you’re…taking care of some sexual urges. While you don’t know what causes these powers, you do know the general population’s feelings about mutants enough to understand that no one can know what you are. You don’t keep boyfriends for longer than 3 months, you don’t let friends become closer than you need them to be, and you don’t tell anyone what you are. You just want a normal life.

Your forehead is slick with sweat by the time you arrive at the history building, your breath heavy and labored, not from how fast you were walking to the building, but from anxiety, which is also the source of the excessive sweat on your brow. You cannot recall this courses class size, and you damn yourself for forgetting to check; not knowing if you can slip into the large class quietly or if everyone will be able to see you come in. This isn’t undergrad where people stumble in hungover with 10 minutes left of class, this is a graduate program where people go on to become masters in their fields of study. And you’re going to look like a fool in front of everyone. You approach the door to the classroom and can see through the window that it is, in fact, a small class. Fuck. There are maybe 15 people in there total. You hold your breath as you attempt to quietly push the door open, but it fails you with a loud, obnoxious creak. Every head snaps towards you, including the teacher, and you offer a meek smile to your classmates and turn your head towards the professor to issue a brief apology. You swallow hard when your eyes land on him. his tall frame is leaning against the white board, a little scary looking with muscles that bulge against his crossed arms, peaking out from under his rolled up sleeves. You’re surprised they’re visible even through his plaid button-up. His hair is fluffy, dark, as well as his beard…or actually, you should say mutton-chops, as that would be a more accurate descriptor. He glares at you, and you swear you’ve held his gaze for hours, but realistically it’s only been no more than a few seconds.

“Sorry,” you offer timidly.

The professor nods lightly, his jaw tense, and waves you off as he continues addressing the class. You attempt to quietly maneuver to an empty seat in the back, trying your hardest to not trip over your classmate’s bags and chairs. You feel like it takes forever to get to your seat, hoping no one pays too much attention to how clumsily you scoot past the chairs and over obstacles. You try and settle as quietly as possible, unzipping your shoulder bag and retrieving a pen to take notes. He’s still going over the syllabus, thank god.

“The only homework you’ll have is an essay, every week—every Friday—you have an essay due. Then every 3 weeks you’ll have an exam,” he instructs, rather nonchalantly. “And while I don’t give a shit if you waste your money and don’t come to class,” his eyes suddenly are fixed onto you, you swallow a lump of anxiety lodged in your throat as he continues, “The school cares a helluva lot more so, if you don’t mark your name down on the attendance sheet, you forget, you’re late, or whatever the hell, you’ll be absent. I’m not going back in and fixing shit.”

Noted. He turns his gaze back to the rest of the class and continues talking about the curriculum for the rest of the semester. you try to keep your head down as you scribble notes into your notebook, trying to look busy, when in reality you want to kick yourself in the face. You left your apartment too late, you didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic on the interstate, and you conveniently forgot how terrible parking is on college campuses. You look up to see the professor checking his wristwatch with a furrowed brow, like he’s considering something.

“Alright, that’s all i’ve got today, get out,” he commands, his gravelly voice showing slight indignation.

There’s a general look of confusion around the room at his abrupt dismissal with 45 minutes left of class. As people begin to shove their belongings in bags, you quickly get the memo as you collect your notebook and pen in your hands and stand up, ready to depart from this nightmare as soon as possible. But you’re the last in your row, shoved into a corner. the line of people in front of you have their chairs pushed back to the wall as they slowly collect themselves. It takes an obnoxiously long time for you to get out from behind the the long row of desks, even longer to leave the class as everyone shoves their way past you and out the door. Finally, you find an opening, but before your foot can even reach the threshold, there’s a strong grip on your arm. You turn your head to meet the gaze of your professor. Your heart skips a beat as he maintains eye contact briefly, before he hands you a piece of paper and lets go of your arm.

“Find your name, mark it,” he directs, causing you to scramble for the pen in your hands as you scan the paper for your name.

You try and offer a polite smile to the professor, but he remains stoic and unamused, making you feel even more uncomfortable. Once you find your name, you ungracefully set the paper against your flimsy notebook for structure, and scrawl a shaky check mark next to your name. You offer the paper back to him.

“Here, thank you, um, professor…” you trail off awkwardly, forgetting that you never actually checked what his name was. He takes the attendance sheet from you.

“Logan,” he answers.

“Ah, thank you professor Logan—”

“No,” he cuts you off with a wave of his hand, “just Logan.”

“Logan, right. thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, his tone far from indicating the typical politeness of the statement, and rather literally cautioning you to never bring up this act of kindness again. And with that you turn to leave the class, unsure of why this gruff, sturdy, serious professor bended his own personal rules just for you. But no matter with that, you at least know you’ll never be late to his damn class again.

***

You pull into the driveway of your house with a sigh. It's late, the time you prefer to get home, so you can fully relax and use your powers in peace. Despite living in the middle of nowhere, you still fear someone will mistakenly pull into your driveway and catch you flying into your second story window or creating an apple from nothing. The lack of sound, except that of the chirping crickets and cicadas, puts you at ease. You release the tension in your shoulders and float off of the ground, propelling yourself to the patio on the second story of your house. You unlock the door with a flick of your wrist, the fuchsia energy encasing the doorknob and letting you into your bedroom, you then toss your things down onto the floor. An exhausted groan escapes your lips as you face plant onto your cool, soft bed. Not even coming up for air when you fling your arm up and slam the door shut with a pink, crystalline whoosh. You turn over to face the ceiling, your eyes fluttering shut within the comfort of your bed. Longing to get out of your stuffy jeans and bra, you trail your hands over your body and watch as your clothes dissipate into a pink flash while you manifest some boxer shorts and a loose t-shirt. Finally comfortable, you slide under the covers, wanting to sleep off one of the most stressful days you've had in a while. A morning full of classes, then 5 hours interning at the museum, before finally finishing off your day at the convenience store down the road working a 6 hour shift. While you can create most anything you want with your powers, you cannot create the full nights sleep that you most desperately need right now. 

As you drift, you think about how embarrassing of a morning you had. Stumbling into class like a fawn learning how to walk, Logan directly looking at you when speaking about attendance, Logan shoving the attendance sheet in your face so you mark yourself as present, Logan's strong arms and the way they looked with his sleeves rolled up. Logan's fluffy, dark hair and--No. Shut up. Don't think about that, he's your professor for god's sake. And, more importantly, an asshole. No amount of muscle or sheer sexiness will distract from that fact. You repeat this fact to yourself as you doze off, not wanting to give in to immature thoughts of attraction. Despite falling asleep to the negation of that attraction, your subconscious drifts somewhere you know you shouldn't physically go.

You're in Logan's office, your ass perched on the edge of his desk. Logan's back is to you, locking his door and drawing the blinds. He turns to you, his stance almost primal and animal-like, like he can't wait for the chance to devour you. The thought of that causes your arousal to swirl deep in your stomach. Logan saunters towards you, bearing his lower teeth like a predator ready to take their prey. Your breath hitches in anticipation as he gets closer, causing you to spread your legs, hoping the clear view of what lies beneath your skirt will draw him in closer. It seemingly works as he closes the distance between you two, his waist now flush against your lower stomach. Tingles shoot down your spine at the sudden contact, blood rushing down to your pussy. He pants as he brings his hands to your waist and strokes up and down the sides of your body, then achingly slow up your neck, then finally stopping at your chin. One hand creeps to the nape of your neck where he lays his palm flat while the other pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger. Your eyes flutter shut, anticipating that he's close to having his way with you. He holds you there for a beat, his face so tantalizingly close to yours that you can feel his breath against your skin. You whine gently when his lips teasingly graze your own. The fingers pinching your chin adjust slightly to grip your jaw instead, allowing him better control to tilt your head up towards him. His other hand, at the nape of your neck, travels upward allowing his fingers to gently rake through your hair until he roughly takes a fistful and tugs. A soft moan escapes your throat and you try to satiate the throbbing pressure between your legs by rubbing your thighs together. An amused huff leaves Logan's lips as he looks down at your squirming figure beneath him.

"You gonna be good for me, princess?" he asks in a low, gruff tone as the hand on your chin trails down the side of your neck before landing on your breast. He massages the flesh fervently, finding it harder to hide his own desperate arousal and need from you. You moan into his touch and arch your back into him, your pussy searching for more friction that Logan is expertly avoiding giving you by not allowing his pelvis to meet yours.

"Logan," you gasp.

"C'mon, baby," his voice soothes, like smooth velvet, "tell me you want it."

"I want it," you whisper, desperately seeking any sort of release.

"Good girl."

And with that, Logan removes the hand on your breast so he can aggressively hook an arm under your ass and easily hoist you up with one fell swoop. Your legs wrap around his waist and your arms around his neck, reveling the feel of his palm that covers your asscheek. With a growl Logan spins you around and throws you onto the couch in the corner of his office, barely allowing you a second to recover when he crawls on top of you and captures your lips with his own desperately. The kiss is aggressive and needy, tongues dancing together ungracefully, teeth clashing, hasty lip bites between kisses. His hips grind against yours roughly, causing you to hook both your feet around his ass to keep him there for as long as you can, desperately seeking more friction. His hands alternate with each other between grasping your breasts to gripping your face passionately. Without breaking the kiss, he hooks his arms under you and drives you further up the couch so your upper back lays against the armrest. You whine when his lips leave yours, but it's quickly replaced with a moan as his lips travel down your neck, chest, the stomach he exposes by lifting the hem of your shirt, biting the fabric at the waistband of your skirt. You squirm underneath him, anticipating what's gonna happen next as his face nestles between your legs. He licks, bites, sucks, and kisses the skin of your inner thighs, causing you to gasp with each harsh move of his mouth, before promptly melting into a moan when he alleviates his biting or sucking with a kiss or flick of his tongue. Your clit is throbbing, your pussy aching for him to get closer to your center. So he does. His tongue dances along the edge of your panties, not dipping much further into the fabric, his head alternating between each of your lips. You whine desperately as Logan's mouth hovers above your core, his hot breath teasing you further. He looks up at you and into your eyes as his mouth latches onto your thinly clothed pussy, causing you to squirm and moan underneath him, the already damp fabric from your arousal, getting further soaked from Logan's saliva.

"Logan," you whine fervently. "Please."

His mouth leaves your pussy, just barely hovering above it now.

"I gotta make you want it, princess, it's no fun unless you're begging for me to taste you," he breathed against your pussy, his voice low and syrupy. He quickly resumes the hold his mouth had on your pussy, making your back arch off the couch with a moan.

"Okay, I'm officially begging, please, Logan, please," you whimper, not sure how much longer you're able to take his teasing.

"Atta girl," he rasps against your pussy. Like nothing, his fingers hook around the fabric of your panties and he rips it off of you with an experienced strength, leaving your pussy now exposed to Logan, and your torn lace panties on the floor.

"So wet for me, huh?" Logan teases through a cocky smile. You squirm more underneath him, causing his hands to move to your hips to hold them down. Logan stares hungrily at your cunt, removing one hand from your hip and bringing it to your pussy lips to rub it tantalizingly slow with his fingers. Flicking his eyes up to meet yours, he finally brings his tongue to your folds and licks up to your clit. You moan throatily and bring your hands to his hair to give it a tug of appreciation. He groans enthusiastically into your pussy, eating at it like your core is the forbidden fruit dripping in molten pleasure. He's animalistic in his movements and noises, lapping at your clit with groans and grunts in pleasure, almost growling even. He brings his fingers to your core, tracing the hole before shoving two digits inside of you. He pumps his fingers in and out of you, curling them with each push inside. The noises are lewd and wet with each drive of his fingers. Your moans grow more desperate and needy as you climb towards your climax, the death grip you have on his hair growing stronger and stronger. The hand holding your hip down crawls up to your breast, grasping desperately at your flesh, hastily circling your nipples with his thumb. Your breaths quicken, your eyes flutter shut as he continues the steady onslaught of your pussy with his mouth and fingers. 

"Logan, I'm so close, don't stop...please..." you trail off, beginning to lose yourself in your pleasure. Logan responds with needy moans against your clit and the continuous pumping of his fingers in and out of you. His grip on your breast loosens to grasp your side, slinking down to your waist, definitely leaving a mark with how rough he grabs at you. As his lips and tongue continue lapping you up, you can feel your arousal swirling in your stomach more and more. Your moans grow louder, your hips begin bucking. Logan groans into you, desperate to feel your release around his fingers. White hot pressure forms around your clit as you teeter on the edge of your orgasm, you look down at Logan and lock eyes with him just as you feel yourself dropping off.

The feeling of hot pink fire pricking your eyeballs jerks you awake, mid-orgasm, your eyes glow a pulsating fuchsia. You pant heavily, your orgasm ending unceremoniously against your fingertips. Leaving you disappointed. You huff in annoyance, wishing you could plunge yourself back into the wet dream that ended in a rather mediocre way. No, wait, that was your professor. You shouldn't be feeling, or thinking, this way at all. You feel disappointed in yourself for having such lewd thoughts about another person, especially a person of authority. You catch your breath, turn your head to face the clock on your nightstand and gasp when you see the time.

"Shit, shit, shit," you curse, hastily throwing yourself out of bed. "Please don't be late today."

(A/N): and that's that!! i hope people enjoy! this concept popped into my head earlier today so i've spent my sunday working on this, if people are interested to see where this goes, please leave a kudos or comment!!! TYYY🫶🏻🙈 i also posted this onto my ao3 here if you would like to view it there and keep up with it there as well!

[writingdumpster]

wait for me

pairing: Jake Seresin x reader (no pronouns used)

warnings: just being sad over jake leaving

summary: you and jake haven’t been dating long when he gets called away for an emergency deployment and you’re faced with deciding whether or not you’ll wait for him

word count: 1.1k

It was cruel really. Your whole life you had never let yourself fall in love. You were careful to avoid the people that had almost made you weak. You couldn’t afford it. You saw the way that love could break a person when your mother died, leaving your father in shambles for years. So at the young age of 13 you had vowed never to fall in love. And you had been doing so well.

That had all been ruined by a tall and muscular pilot who had wandered into the bakery where you worked six weeks ago. His smile was infectious. And he was quite persistent—but not in an invasive way. It took Jake one week of daily visits to convince you to go to the Hard Deck with him, with the assurance that his friends would be there as well.

You only ended up meeting one of Jake’s friends, a man that told you his name was Rooster. You remembered Jake being quite annoyed to see Rooster there. It was clear Jake told his friends not to come to their usual Friday hangout. Rooster was glad to stay and tell you embarrassing stories about Jake all night despite the constant hints that Jake dropped encouraging Rooster to leave. The stories Rooster told you only made you want Jake more. It took everything in you not to invite Jake inside when he dropped you off at your house that night. You couldn’t stop yourself from seeing him the next day though—or the one after that.

Now it had been six weeks since Rooster had third wheeled on your first date. You hadn’t told Jake that you loved him yet, but you knew you did. And you hated yourself for it.

You had been enjoying it until three days ago. You were practically laughing at your past self for writing off love when it could make you feel this way. And then Jake knocked on your door. That was usually the best part of your day, but when you opened the door that day the wide grin you were accustomed to didn’t greet you. Instead you were faced with a solemn and sad expression.

Jake sat you down to explain to you that he had been called on an emergency deployment. He was leaving three days later and would be gone for three months. Your heart had fallen through the floor. You had been right all along. All love would do was break your heart. Jake was well aware of your feelings on love. You’d told him all about why you were so reluctant to let him in. He was sure this was the end for the two of you.

Things had been strange since then. The two of you had been cautiously avoiding the topic of whether you would wait for Jake while he was gone. You had only started calling him your boyfriend the week before. It was like you both wanted to hold onto this time—this time that would never exist again, even if you did wait for Jake.

Today Jake was leaving though. You were going with him to the base, where he would get on a plane that would take him away from you—somewhere that you wouldn’t know and couldn’t go. He had given you a key to his house on the way out and asked you to find someone to check in on the place every week or so. He hadn’t said who, silently implying that he wanted that person to be you. He put his truck in park and then pulled out the key, handing it to you.

“Take it back to my place for me?” He asked. His voice was hollow. You nodded wordlessly and took the key. The two of you sat in the car, looking away from each other, unable to move—unable to leave the comfort the two of you had provided each other with for the last six weeks.

“I—” You paused, holding back tears. “I don’t want you to go.” Jake let out a sigh.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he told you. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly before opening the car door. You took a deep breath before following after him. He had his duffle bag in one hand and your hand in the other as he walked towards the room that family was meant to say goodbye in. You looked around at the crying children and spouses as they held each other tightly. You were standing in front of Jake, staring down at your shoes, neither of you touching.

“Y/N,” Jake called. You breathed in before looking up at him. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it before he could get it out. You gave him a sympathetic smile and raised your arms, wrapping them around his neck. Jake quickly reciprocated your actions, his arms moving around your waist. You leaned up towards him and kissed him. His lips were warm against yours and his fingers dug into your hips, pulling you impossibly close. The kiss left you breathless. When he finally pulled away he kept his forehead pressed to yours.

“Will you wait for me? Please will you wait for me?” Jake asked, staring into your eyes with more desperation than you could imagine. You nodded.

“Yes,” you told him. “Under one condition.”

“Anything,” he assured you.

“You promise not to make me wait forever,” you said, your voice breaking and a tear slipping from your eyes.

“Oh, baby,” Jake cooed. He pulled you into his chest and pressed his lips to your hairline. “Nothing is ever stopping me from coming home to you.”

“Jake, I—I—” You stuttered, terrified to tell him what you knew you felt. Jake wanted to say the words he knew were on your lips more than anything, but he wasn’t going to do that now. Not for the first time—it felt cruel to leave you that way after everything you had told him.

An announcement over the PA called all the soldiers to the airstrip and everyone started giving their final hugs and kisses. Jake kissed you again. He started to back away, one of the only remaining soldiers left in the room. His hands were still just barely holding onto yours. Jake looked at you and smiled as brightly as he could manage.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he said.

“Jake, I love you,” you blurted out, grabbing onto his hands before he could slip away. Jake grinned. He leaned in and kissed you one last time, cupping your cheeks in his hands and letting you run your fingers through his hair. He finally released you, leaving one last chaste peck on your lips before picking up his bag.

“I love you too.”

[chaos-in-one]

That particular brand of fakeclaiming that’s like “oh if you just took away their phone for a while their alters would go away!!!” is so funny to me because like I DID have my phone taken away at times after I started noticing my symptoms Guess what? Symptoms still happened even when I was offline because it’s an actual thing, not just something from the internet Not to mention that, for me, I started noticing symptoms before I started really using the internet. I was like... 12... when I started noticing something was wrong. Technically, symptoms showed for me even before that, but a, I don’t remember almost anything before 12 (even my memory from between 12 and 15 is really inconsistent and fuzzy), and b, 12 is around the time we started actually realizing “hey, something about this isn’t normal, there’s something going on here”

Hell, I didn’t even learn any of the words for what was going on with me until about 14-ish. I didn’t know what the fuck a system was, I didn’t know what alters were, what DID and OSDD meant. I briefly knew of DID when I was 12, almost 13 upon meeting someone who had it, but my brain blocked out the memory for years (surprise surprise, my brain didn’t want me to know that the word for what was going on was related to trauma). So for the majority of the first 2-3 years I was noticing my symptoms, I didn’t even know what it was. So you can’t pin it on “lol just following the internet DID/OSDD faker trend” because I didn’t know about the disorders, let alone the online community.

But I still experienced symptoms. I didn’t have the words for it, all I knew is “oh, I’m not always in control of my own body, there’s other people here, and I don’t see them as me/ apart of me especially the ones who are super different from me behavior/appearance/personality-wise, and I have severe memory problems, and I don’t always feel connected to reality or myself”. That’s it. I just knew I had all these individual experiences, didn’t even know they were connected to one another. Because believe it or not, the symptoms existing is a requirement for having the disorder. Not everyone knows there’s a name for their experiences. Not everyone notices the symptoms exist right away. But the symptoms are still what comes first.

TL;DR: Saying systems would just stop being systems if they went offline is fucking stupid, and coming from a system myself who noticed symptoms outside and before I touched the internet and/or online system community, blatantly not true. 

Find better reasoning to fakeclaim, or, better yet, don’t fakeclaim at all because you aren’t these people’s psych’s, you aren’t a professional treating them with the knowledge and training to figure out what is going on in their head.

[oceanbug]

when worlds collide

smau non!idol ningning x reader

13. library meetings.

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Aeri ‘Giselle’ Uchinaga, better known as Spring Hill’s backstabbing drug addict, What could she possibly want with you? You’re almost positive she didn’t know about your existence in high school, so what could she want to talk about three years later?

Study room 3B, How’d she even reserve a study room if she doesn’t go here?

Before you even get to open the door, it shoots open, and you’re greeted by the empress herself.

“Hey girly! How’s it hanging?” She spoke so casually to you, almost as if you had been friends for years. With all the rumors circulating about Giselle, you expected a cold aura to surround her, but she seemed pretty warm and happy. Still, you had to keep your guard up; she does have a backstabbing reputation.

“Hi.” 

“You don’t sound too happy to see me?”

“Oh, no, I’ve just had a long day. Sorry.” Thinking back on all the harsh texts you woke up to made your head ache, or maybe you’re still hung over. The thought of having to sit and talk with Karina was enough to make you want to vomit, so you intended to stretch this meeting out for as long as you could.

“I could only imagine. Well,  then let's get straight to business! You and I have something in common.

“So you mentioned before... but I don’t understand.”

Oh, silly, don’t you see? We’re both Ning’s public enemy number 1 at the moment!” How could she say that so enthusiastically? I guess she’s been fighting this battle for 4 years, but still, how is there any positive to this?

“You mean the school’s gossip site? Yeah, I didn’t do anything, though! I swear!”

“That’s what we all say. Let me guess, Ning shut you down and threatened you.”

“How’d you know?”

“I have experience in the ways of Ning Yi Zhuo. Don’t worry, I won’t let her hurt you. We just have to work together, okay?”

“But why do you want to help me? I mean, we’ve never spoken.”

“I don’t want to see another hot girl get hurt; that seriously burns!” You didn’t understand her metaphors, but you appreciated them. The real decision is: Should you trust her? After everything you’ve heard about her?

"Look, Y/N, I get it. You have no reason to trust me. But you do know Ningning; if you’re going up against her, you’ll need backup.” She’s right; there’s no way you could face off with Ningning alone. You definitely didn’t want to get your friends involved, so this is the best way.

“Okay, let’s do it. Let’s take down this bitch.”

“Woah, hold your horses now. I said we'd go against her, not take her down.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Listen, I know she might seem like the spawn of Satan, but she’s really not. Ningning wasn’t always so uptight. It wasn’t until our fallout that she became the Ice Princess. Not until Yeonjun cheated.”

“With you.” Fuck, you just said that out loud? This is the perfect start of friendship—calling your fellow teammate a cheater.

“Those are the rumors, aren’t they? You know, I never understood why everyone believed them so quickly. There wasn't even proof.”

She was right. You never had any evidence of this. You just heard the rumors. Why did everyone believe them?

“It hurt the most when my own best friend believed the rumors. But I understand why Ningning did; they came from someone equally close to her. There is no way her best friend would lie to her about something like this.”

No way. She’s not talking about...

“Why would she think Wonyoung would lie about that?”

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masterlist ~ next

(Synopsis) Y/N had never been the type to take life for granted. You grew up with the mindset that if you wanted something, you had to work for it; So getting paired up with the university’s “Rich Bitch” Ning Yi Zhuo for your midterm was the last thing you wanted. Are you willing to step into the world of fame for an A+?

taglist (open): @azraism ; @kimsgayness ; @sewiouslyz ; @winieter ; @llluvbluy ; @i06kkura ; @everydayiloveyves ; @edamboon

[firstelevens]

and if yes, then for the taylor swift lyrics prompts: sambucky and nr. 13 and 14 (not necessarily combined, more so you can choose which one you like best or do both, i don’t know :)) 🩵✌️ btw I love, LOVE your sambucky f1 au 🫡

This is part of a canon divergence AU that I'm hoping to write more of this coming year. It just fit the spirit of the prompt, if not the letter of it, so I had to throw a little standalone prologue out there. Hopefully you'll see more of this soon!

13. never called it what it was

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

The voice comes from behind Sam, and he mentally congratulates himself for not jumping out of his skin in surprise. He knows that Bucky almost can’t help how quiet his footsteps are, but if Sam keeps getting snuck up on like this, his blood pressure is going to suffer.

“I know,” says Sam, and leaves it at that. He and Bucky have had this conversation a hundred times in the past two days, and the hundred and first is unlikely to be any different. He keeps his eyes on the lake in front of them and changes the subject. “Pretty sure it’s bad luck for us to see each other right now.”

“Pretty sure that only applies to real weddings,” is Bucky’s quiet reply.

Sam doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he doesn’t. He has the stray thought that they should work on the communication thing, maybe. His parents could have whole conversations in a single look across a room, in one touch of the arm. Sarah and Aaron would tie up the phone line for hours when they were first dating, even Sam and Riley had developed a language entirely their own.

In fairness, Sam thinks, those relationships had all had years to grow, and until forty-eight hours ago, Sam had no idea that he was getting married at all, much less to whom.

Privately, he thinks he might have jinxed it. After a five day period in which he’d re-materialized into existence, fended off an apocalypse, attended a funeral, and watched his best friend disappear to live seventy years of life without him, Sam had been certain that nothing could catch him by surprise anymore.

Then a woman in a crisp pantsuit had appeared at the lakeside property where they were hunkering down, carrying stacks of paperwork and photocopies of birth records from a hundred years ago. She’d sat down in a meeting room and reported to them what she’d discovered five years ago, right before being Snapped out of existence: that Bucky might have been from Brooklyn, but he hadn’t been born there, or anywhere else in America, and that the information had been easy enough to find that Ross’s people were sure to locate it as soon as the motion for a pardon was submitted.

It wasn’t hard to make the leap from there. Calling Bucky’s citizenship into question would be silly, but it would be enough of a distraction that Ross could mire the proceedings in bureaucracy and take Bucky back into custody in the interest of public safety. Sam didn’t imagine it would take too long for the paperwork to suddenly get lost after that, and with it would go any notion of Bucky’s freedom.

He remembered watching the Raft rise up out of the ocean for the first time. His whole life, the water had been home to him, but the desolation of that place had warped it somehow. 

That’s what Sam had been thinking of when he wracked his brain for a solution. That’s what he’d been thinking of when he turned to the lawyer and asked, “Well, what if he was married to an American citizen?”

Bucky, who’d spent the entire meeting until now sitting concerningly still, had suddenly whipped around to look at Sam, eyes wide. He’d felt Rhodey’s eyes on him, too, but the lawyer hadn’t blinked. In a few seconds, she’d sketched out a game plan on a legal pad, laying it out on the conference room table alongside all the other options she’d presented.

The first ‘You don’t have to do this’ had come shortly afterwards. Sam’s response had been the same then as it was now.

He feels Bucky come to stand beside him, his left hand resting on the railing a few inches from Sam’s right. The gold threaded through the vibranium sparkles in the sun, and he has the childish urge to trail his fingers over it.

“I’m disappointed,” says Sam, just to stop himself from reaching out. “I would’ve expected Princess Shuri to make a flashy black-tie addition to your arm for the wedding.”

“She added strobe lights, but they only work when it’s dark,” says Bucky, dry as a bone, and it startles a laugh out of Sam.

“At least we know the reception will be fun.”

Bucky hums in what he assumes is agreement. It’s quiet again for a moment, but he can sense Bucky shifting uncomfortably and he knows that there’s more.

“While, um– while we wait for the strobe lights to kick in, she did make us these.”

A crown of flowers suddenly appears in front of Sam, jasmine and jacaranda woven together with some kind of vine. He gingerly takes it from Bucky’s hand.

“Is…is this traditional? For a Wakandan wedding?”

“No,” comes another voice from behind them, and this time Sam does startle, nearly dropping the crown in the process. They both turn to Princess Shuri, dressed for a wedding and grinning cheekily at them both. “They’re not Wakandan tradition, but they are the kind of thing that Americans do when they get married abroad. I thought it might make the wedding pictures more believable.”

Sam laughs and perches the crown on his head. “You really do think of everything.”

Shuri’s mischievous smile softens. “I’m glad you’ve joined us here, Sam Wilson,” she says. “Nobody else appreciates my foresight.”

“Putting a bluetooth speaker in my arm is not foresight, Shuri,” says Bucky. “It’s just the product of a weird dream you had after staying up for forty hours in your lab.”

“It could be both,” protests the princess, laughing, and Sam can’t help but look over at Bucky, tired of sticking to peripheral glances.

He’s got the flower crown on his head, too, purple and white just like Sam’s is. His suit is a deep burgundy to complement Sam’s rust colored brocade, and Sam can only guess that Bucky received a visit similar to the one that Sam got from Ayo this morning. He’d opened the door to his quarters to find her holding a garment bag. She’d offered it to him and told Sam that she would be honored to see him marry James—it had taken Sam a moment to remember that his husband to be wasn’t actually named after a college mascot from Wisconsin—in the reds of her tribe. Sam, who’d spent the morning missing his family something fierce, had almost been too overwhelmed to thank her. 

Now, he can see that it was a two-pronged attack, and while Sam’s suit fits him pretty well, there’s clearly a tailor in Birnin Zana who had all of Bucky’s measurements stashed away on file somewhere, because the way that that jacket sits on his shoulders and hugs his arms could not possibly happen by accident.

When Sam manages to tear his eyes away, he only barely catches the end of Shuri’s sentence.

“...whenever you are,” she’s saying. “But I can stall, if you two want another moment here.”

“I think we’re good,” says Bucky. “How much time does anyone need to get ready for a fake wedding, anyway?”

Shuri tsks at him. “Perhaps you shouldn’t ask that question to someone who knows how long your spent on your hair this morning.”

Bucky makes a face at her, and Sam’s pretty sure that she blows a raspberry in response, but he’s distracted. Something about Bucky’s words feels wrong, even though all he’s doing is telling the truth.

He can’t get all caught up in that now, though. Instead, Sam turns to the princess. “I’m all ready to go, too.”

“Good!” says Shuri, clapping her hands decisively. “I’ll escort you in, Sam, if you will allow me. Bucky will follow shortly with Ayo.”

Sam tells Shuri that he’d be honored to walk with her and offers her his elbow, which she takes. They start to make their way to where the ceremony will take place, but Sam hesitates for a moment, looking back over his shoulder.

Bucky’s name comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and Bucky’s gaze immediately lands on him.

“Yeah?”

It’s not a fake wedding, Sam wants to tell him. You marry someone because you want them to stay and I think you should be able to stay. That’s not fake; that’s as real as anything else.

But he loses his nerve and just taps the flower crown on his head. “Your crown’s crooked. Just so you know.”

“Oh,” says Bucky. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

They look at each other for another beat, and Sam is so sure that Bucky is going to say something, but then he looks away, reaching up to fix his crown, and all Sam can do is let Shuri lead him away.

[badbatchlover99]

What the Bad Batchers kids would be like!!

(a short collection of characters to keep my mind off my current WIP)

Disclaimer!! There is no ‘timeline’ per se, just ages. You be the judge.

Markus: 

the son of Tech and Phee (sorry, I had to!). 

He is 16 years of age and the epitome of the best of both worlds. 

He is very intelligent, and adventurous. He also has a strange love of geology, but we won’t get into that. 

He is generally quite bashful like his father but leans a little more towards extrovert like his mother.

 One of those kids who really prefers to stay out of trouble at all costs, but then surprises you with lock-picking skills or something. (still working on him. Will probably add more later)

Leonié (or as preferred, Leo): 

the daughter of Crosshair (I had too much fun with this one.

 She is 14 years old and was… not meant to happen, but here she is. 

She lived with her mother until she was eight (mainly because Crosshair didn’t know she existed) but now she lives with her father and the rest of the bad batch. 

She is very monotone, yet sassy like her father, and (though she’d never admit it) wants more than anything to be just like him. 

She is an ambivert with the social battery of an Android phone.

She looks just like Crosshair but with some… obvious differences.

She is a troublemaker, but not the normal kind. She’s the kind that will go days acting like an angel, and then one day, there’s Suran wrap on all the toilet seats, which distracts you from her sneaking out to go get piercings and a tattoo. Yeah.

Is, as the writer of Enola Holmes said, prone to melancholy (aka she’s a smidge bipolar).

Buck (shut up, I know it’s a dumb name)

Is Hunter’s son (I ship Fennter, but we’re not getting into that right now)

He is 13 years old, and a scrappy little kiddo.

He definitely inherited Hunter’s shortness and gets into regular arguments with Leo about it.

And yes, he and Leo are the “you're an idiot, said with (platonic) love” duo.

He is an extrovert and very curious. Loves to see all the different cultures of planets.

Also inherited his father’s fabulous hair

Usually stays out of trouble, but… things happen.

Scout:

Wrecker’s (adopted) son.

8 years old.

Wrecker found him on the planet equivalent to Scotland (don’t ask) as an infant, and was immediately like “This child is mine now.”

He is very high-energy. All.the.time!

Is the kind of kid that is always accidentally getting into trouble, and it’s cute for some reason.

Extrovert. No way around it. 

Want’s to try everything, meet everyone, do everything, eat every food, all at the same time type of energy.

Please leave comments, I'm new to all this and wold love feedback!!!

[ghostedflakes]

Alright long post about Sol Bufo, death and the intense dread I feel about the future of Swag Daniels.

Throughout the campaign, Sol has built a very complicated connection to death. Obviously his connection to the fungal network is part of that but it's been building since the beginning. He has his first near death experience in the ep.4 “A Frog in the Fog”. The next time he gets this close to “death” is in episode 13: “Alexandrite”, when Alexandrite almost takes him over.

Episode 27: “King of Dragons” is where everything changes. All in one episode Sol forms a connection to Shroomrot, watches him die and then nearly dies alongside him in the mud. After this episode, Sol establishes a connection to the fungal network, his first encounter with the idea that death is not an end but a cycle. Shroomrot was a sad loss of course but the network becomes a comforting connection for Sol. Then episode 29 happens “Crown of Dreams” and it’s a mirror of Sol’s experience in ep.27 but much more grim. Sol in this moment comes the closest he’s ever been to death and all he can do it watch helplessly as his friend gives himself up to save his life. Calder giving his body to Ultrus was not a death but it was a profound loss and it likely held more guilt for Sol than any other experience in his entire life. It is this point that Sol decides he never wants to be that helpless again. His switch to Way of the Long Death Monk is fascinating because it’s an assertion of his resolve to always bounce back but also a further acceptance of the Fungal Network and the comforting association it has to death. And things start to look up for Sol, he meets Swag, he battles Utlrus and is nearly un-hitable, and they get Calder back. All’s well that ends well for Sol Bufo.

Except, Swag goes missing. The only connection he has to his origins gone to Alexandrite, who tried and failed to take him in ep.13. Sol didn’t go down, he didn’t do anything wrong, and yet Swag is gone. Life goes on, Sol refuses to go down and the next time he sees Swag is in a dream eerily familiar to the one he had in episode 27 as he was drowning in mud. Floating carefree in a warm swamp this time with Swag by his side. The things Swag says in this conversation are very concerning. He starts drifting away, he tells Sol that he is thankful for having met him. His language is so final. He's thankful for the time they *got* to spend together. He got to be a hero "in the end". And Sol tries to push back, reaffirming their future, telling Swag that they are still looking for him. "To keep everyone safe" he says. And Swag responds "You've been studying the bond of life and death so you have to know you can't keep everyone safe." He tries to say that Sol needs to let him go but cannot finish that sentiment until Ep. 57 "Cold Hard Truths".

Swag has accepted the end, but Sol refuses it. Just like how he refuses to go down. He keeps telling Swag that they will find him, help him but Swag already accepts his fate. Notice how in this episode Duck Team are revealed as Peregrines, people who affect destiny, forge their own way forward. Now remember that Sol is a clone, supposedly a copy of Swag and yet they do not share this title. Sol, despite his status as a clone, is his own person. He defied fate in his existence, the only complete clone of the original Sol Bufo, breaking away from Mothership, and now fighting actively against Alexandrite. I think it is Swag's fate to die but I also think it's in Sol's nature to reject that premise. In the last few episodes, Sol has been reminded that he has family besides Swag. Albin is his brother, Kenna is his little sister, Duck Team is his family. And in a way, this is all preparing Sol for a profound loss. So we'll have to wait and see. Will he be able to deny fate, to somehow save Swag? Or will he be fully confronted with loss and inevitably, that he did nothing wrong and yet Swag is still gone? Food for thought and also immense dread.

[mikrokcsmos]

Evermore

synopsis; in which you can no longer ignore all the signs of your husband’s affair.

pairing; husband!kim taehyung x wife!reader

genre; angst, marriage au

rating; PG-13

warnings; infidelity, not so much a warning but mentions of Yeontan to help keep you sane yw

w/c; 889

a/n; happy angsty reading! pls keep sending more if you enjoyed! <3 this is a repost from my old account.

song to listen to; evermore by taylor swift ft. bon iver

It was currently November, though it all started in July, or so you think. Least, that’s when you first started noticing the signs. Who knows exactly how long this whole affair has been going on.

Gray November, I’ve been down since July.

Your whole body felt heavy due to all the bottled up anger, sadness, and despair you kept inside, selfishly trying to keep yourself alive amongst all the chaos and denial you dealt with daily.

It was the night before the 4th of July, you recall. You were supposed to meet up at the movies to watch the third installment of your shared all time favorite franchise. A movie that you booked tickets for together months in advance. Only to be left in the dark room all alone, the only light illuminated from the projector. Glancing down at your phone that emitted a soft glow, you let out a quiet sigh of discontent not wanting to disturb fellow movie goers around you.

From Husband:

Sorry y/n, won’t be able to make it. This meeting is going on for way longer than expected. I’ll see you at home later, don’t wait up for me, okay? Save me some popcorn, though! Can’t wait to hear all about it! Love you.

That should’ve been your first red flag.

Motion capture, put me in a bad light.

Not that he left you to watch the movie alone, but yes, that sucked. He’s done it before, though. When you know for a fact he was caught up in a meeting, or so you hoped, thinking back on it now.

No. No, it was a detail that no one would’ve picked up on besides you, and in fact, most people would just scoff at and say you were over reacting. He was probably in a rush to send that text, they would say. He didn’t have time. Yeah, okay. Sure, whatever. But you knew.

Especially since you made a pact not too long after you started dating that you would use your pet names instead of your actual names when addressing each other. Or, not so much a pact, but more so just an unspoken rule you developed out of a daily habitual use of said pet names. He literally hasn’t called you by your name in years.

I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong.

It was engraved in you since you were a little girl to be the ever doting, ever loyal, ever loving, ever faithful wife. Whenever you so chose to be one. Lord knows you were never in a rush. In fact, it wasn’t until you hit your 5 year anniversary that he got down on one knee and popped the question. Yet, you were still surprised when it happened. Still not expecting it for another 5 years later, at the very least. But, Kim Taehyung had other plans it seems. Ever the hopeless romantic, you should’ve known. Him always being the one to talk about your future together, hinting at a wedding and a big family with a little dog. At least you were able to cross off two of those, you thought bitterly. Contrary to the gentle pats you were currently giving to the Teacup Pom, Yeontan.

As the months progressed, he became less subtle. The lipstick stains on his collar of a color that didn’t exist in your make up collection, the waft of perfume you would smell as he kissed your cheek upon coming home that you knew wasn’t yours. And yet, you were still in denial. Not willing to risk losing him, your heart suffered instead.

Writing letters, addressed to the fire.

The only solace you had, being to write out your aggression of the day onto a piece of paper that would then meet the kiss of fire you would ignite nightly in your fireplace and burn, each time hoping and praying for it to cleanse your head and heart along with it.

It never worked. And you always cried silent tears of misery so as not to wake your peacefully sleeping husband curled up with the Teacup Pom in the next room over who came back from yet another late night out.

You never thought you would end up here. Being that wife that would become the gossip of other fellow wives. Becoming the ever pining wife that would stand alone in the dark at two o’clock in the morning looking out the window and waiting for your husband to come home. Craving his words and his touch. Knowing you weren’t currently getting either of those. She was. Whoever she is. You had no clue.

And I was catching my breath. Staring out an open window….

You stared longingly at your husband who just pulled up in the driveway. Yeontan running around your feet in excitement upon recognizing the sound of his human’s car. As he went to step out of the car, an article of clothing fell out, one he was quick to recover and throw in the backseat. More importantly one that was very obviously, not yours. Looking around to see if he had been caught, he locked eyes with you in the window. His widening in guilt, yours crying unrelentless tears as you stared emotionlessly, arms crossed over your chest where your heart just broke for the last and final time.

Catching my death.

[sarsaparillaart]

"There is no Hunger I fear more than the thirst for connection, no person I’d deem more dangerous than a lonely man.”

Swordtember 13 - Ice

long lore blurb below, probably to the point where the length is affecting the quality, but I'm not proofreading anyway so whatever.

In the time before the foundation of the Pentapolis, when all cities on Diyar were ruled by their separate kings and monarchs, there lived two siblings*, a boy and a girl.

The girl was henosis-fated and the boy was not, but both were stricken with deep and intense starvations. The boy rebelled against the slightest thing, painting with a brush too dark for a child his age. He Changed all that he saw, sometimes building and sometimes destroying, but never being satisfied with his work. The girl was afflicted with similar starvations. She thrived in court and study, building a deep knowledge and attachment to every person she knew. But with every friend she made, the lonelier she felt. With every secret she learned, the more she found herself in the dark. These were the signs of true and potent Hunger, and the siblings’ guardianship knew they must feed them.

The girl was sent to a shrine on a lonely island to the North to live with a widow much older and deafer than she. She was barred from speaking with others her age, and while the shrine was filled with books, they were written in languages she could never learn and coded so thickly it would take a lifetime to understand. 

By the time the girl left that place, now a woman of twenty-four her thirst for silk and need for pearl were so profound that she could taste the connections between all things and smell the outcome of rolled dice. 

No one knows where the boy was sent nor how long he spent there** but by the time he returned to society his skin radiated a disgusting heat and shined like burnished brass. The ground he walked upon turned to glass beneath his left foot and wood beneath his right. His face was a burnt and shifting mess of flesh that looked at once like your father, your brother, and you.

The two didn’t meet again for a long time, so caught up were they in their new lots in life. The girl returned to her childhood home and ruled as a benevolent and wise matriarch for many years. The boy only returned home once, in the middle of the dry season thirty-five years from his birth. He did not come for reunion, nor did he seek favors. He returned sword-in-hand to deepen the hunger he already felt. He returned to Change.

The ensuing conflict was vague and incomprehensible. The boy became she and the girl became he then both changed back but were someone new. Their hands were tied to blades that should not exist and exchanged 1000 blows in three strikes. 

By the end of things the Silkmoon eclipsed the Nacremoon in the noontime sky, casting the well-trod waste in sickly pearlescent light. The girl was covered in wounds shallowed by probability and riddled with holes in organs that were rewired so that they weren’t needed to keep her alive.

Her foe was covered in scars of cauterized gold and dried blood. His rage smoked off of him in thick clouds that cracked with thunder at their ends. The air around him pounded with the drums of revolution, but his heart beat a different tune. An unpredictable improvised thing that could hardly be called a rhythm.

It was clear to both of them that a fight continued would lead only to mutual oblivion: a Change that suited only one of the opponents. The desperate girl reached inside herself to her unquenched loneliness and impossible naivety and found a solution that could not but must happen. With arms-unreal the girl grabbed the tether that tied the boy to the Sun. It was thick and rough like sailor’s rope, far thicker than her own ties to the moons behind her. With immense effort in an infinite moment she stretched the thing out, thinning the line as far as she could, until the thing was little more than a hair. Then she cut it. 

It is not possible to destroy Connection, but possibility was behind her. So hungry was the girl that she could burn all the coral in the world, altering the chances of a clean cut to the point that impossible became improbable then improbable became inevitable. The resulting cut was a messy thing, as breaks in reality tend to be. The boy at once stopped, keeping a position longer than he had since before his creation. His tether was gone and with it went all possibility of change. He was and is sterility-not-Saline. His unbearable heat changed to an impossible stone-cold. The world froze within him and around him and snow fell for the first and only time on the isle of Diyar.

*In some versions of the tale the two are betrothed, father and daughter, or cousins

**There are some claims that he was placed under the care of a continental noble actively participating in a civil war. This is unverified and likely apocryphal.

[destieltaggedfic]

Canon Divergence - Part 13

I'm back from my mini-holiday and I haven't had a lot of time to read new fic so its back to regular posting.

virga(e) – shineforthee   Ao3

Canonverse AU.  Drifting after John died on a hunt and with Sam still at college, Dean feels the need to go to Death Valley, expecting plenty of ghosts that will need to be dealt with.  Instead, he meets something that is not a ghost.  Castiel doesn’t know what he is, all he knows is that he hasn’t been able to leave the desert since he appeared there 26 years ago.

Word Count: 72k                              Graphic Sexual Acts

Windows – someonetoanyone   Ao3

Set S12 AU.  In the aftermath of Dean’s death with Amara, Cas is taking care of Sam and sometimes that is the only thing holding the angel together, but occasionally he slips and unleashes destruction in his grief, especially as Sam slowly starts to heal over the months.  Meanwhile Amara has Dean visiting people in heaven until it’s the right time for him to go back to earth.

Word Count: 20k                              No Sex

Do I Have To Say The Words - Tess_Lucetram   Ao3

Set S6 AU.  After an alternate civil war NOT involving Crowley, Dean and Cas slip into a relationship.  Sam lets slip that he worked out the handprint was actually an angelic mating claim and that the 2 are married in the eyes of heaven.  Just for a bit extra, while consummating their bond Dean gets some shiny new wings.

Word Count: 23k                              Non-Graphic Sex

One Drop, when What You Need is the Ocean – Baileys   Ao3

Set S12 AU.  Cas at first was missing for a few weeks and then Jimmy’s corpse was found, leaving Dean a wreck until Eileen happens to find him.  Now his grace is practically non-existent and both he and Dean are having strange dreams, which is making Cas remember the things that Naomi had wiped from his brain so many times.

Word Count: 47k                              Non-Graphic Sex

Chuck’s Vision - TheWritingPrisoner AO3

Set S15ish and S12. Chuck wakes up Sam and Dean from a vision of a possible future. A future where because they all didn’t stick together Jack was able to manipulate people and events from his birth in order to become god. Chuck also takes the time to point out a few characters flaws in the Winchesters and how they should fix them.

Word Count: 13k                                              No Sex

[xiaonesis]

Soft Serve 13 // Flavor 1

Flavor 1: Rainbow Sherbet (Suna x Reader)

Tags: Romance, Fluff, Awkward Romance, Summer Romance, Growing & Learning, Miscommunication

A/N: I started writing this more than half a year ago and decided to pick it back up and finish it but I forgot where I was going with it. I initially wanted to write something more light and introspective, on the pains of growing up and the awkwardness and inability to communicate many of us have, as this fic is partly based off real life experiences, and thus it is a slightly personal fic to me as I reflected on my own past, experiences, and regrets, and hopefully, growth. Then, I had a breakdown and lost the plot lmao. Anyways, have this melting cone of chaos and idk's.

(This fic is cross-posted to my AO3)

Suna Rintarou doesn’t believe in love at first sight.

He thinks that people who fall head over heels for someone at first glance are fools. Love is something that is grown into, to be slowly nurtured with time and dedication. To his logic-based brain, the entire idea of smashing head first into love at a glance is ludicrous, like a bad car crash where you never see it coming until it's too late. And that doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it?

But you know what else they say about love at first sight?

That everyone becomes a believer when it happens to them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suna first meets you in his hometown of Aichi in the summer of his fifteenth year.

He is there for summer break, helping out at his uncle’s ice-cream shop a stone’s throw away from the nearest beach. He didn’t want to be but his parents had insisted, claiming that it would be good for him to spend time with his grandmother and uncle. 

Had he been given the choice, he would be spending his break lazing at home playing video games instead of being dressed in this ridiculous pink and yellow striped ice-cream boy cap and uniform, scooping out cones of ‘Soft Serves With A Smile.’   He’d rather be slamming hard serves into the twins that made it onto the same volleyball team as him.

AC doesn’t even exist in the shop as a silver lining. There are only three fans on maximum power, twisting and churning air as they swivel. With the unbearable heat amplifying his discomfort, days at his seaside hometown pass slowly, thick and syrupy from dawn to dusk. 

It doesn’t feel like summer at all.

That all changed the day the shop bell chimed and you walked in.

“Welcome to Soft Serve 13–”

People often say that love at first sight is similar to a lightning strike, fast and purple hot. But there was no purple summer lightning electrifying him, no volcanic eruption setting his heart on fire for Suna. 

There is only a great void, white and silent, that descended upon his mind unforeseen; a tsunami that crashes down his frozen body, washing away all sensible thought and bodily functions before leaving him stranded on unknown, pristine shores.

For the next twenty seconds that stretches like a lifetime as he is caught in his first glance of you, Suna is suspended in that void. White sand in his ears, and his eyes sees nothing and everything simultaneously in an ivory world.

(It feels exactly like the moments before a car crash where life flashes by in a white blind)

Suddenly, his hand is freezing hot and Suna is dragged from that sandy void.

“Shit–”

Dulcet chocolate covers his hand, trickling from the melted cone he was supposed to hand to the perturbed, waiting customer in front of him. Uttering a quick string of apologies, Suna sets about serving a fresh cone whilst enduring your barrage of giggles as you wait next in line, his face hotter than summer itself.

The door chimes again, and he is left alone with you in this tiny, humid shop with fans blowing revoltingly loud and you’re still grinning teasingly – blinding – at him. He pulls his stupid pink and yellow cap down over his eyes.

“If mine melts, can I get a free scoop?”

‘No,’ his mind says but his mouth fires off a “Yes.”

He didn’t think it was possible for your smile to grow any wider. Windchimes jingle in the timbre of your pleased laughter, not expecting his answer. “Guess I’ll have to make sure to distract you long enough for it to melt,” you chirp, browsing the display with an impish smirk. 

Suna knows right away he wouldn’t mind getting ice-cream all over his hand again if it means you’ll stick around longer. 

By the Gods , was he always this much of a chump?

He’s not a casanova (that’s Atsumu’s shtick), but Suna never gets nervous around the opposite sex, and he likes to think he can pull in girls if he wants to. However, between school, games, and volleyball, there was no space for romance in his life yet Suna finds himself pulling and fanning at his collar as he tries to maintain eye contact with you. He’s strangely nervous and it shows in the way he continuously drums his fingers on glass.

Suna never talks to customers beyond what is necessary but he continuously finds ways and topics to keep you around. Usually, he works fast to have all his customers served so that he may return to his phone. Yet, thirty minutes has passed since you entered the store and you’re still standing without a cone in your hand and he’s leaning across the glass, handing you your thirteenth free taste. 

In that period, he’s found out that you’re visiting the area with your mother for two weeks, that you’re his age, and attend school in Tokyo. And he’s shared that he’s originally from Aichi but goes to school in Hyogo, is working here for the summer, and this is his uncle’s shop. Favorite music, recommended sights and places, food, hobbies, and a slew of other random tidbits about each other were also mutually exchanged in between.

(He wonders if he can entice you to stay with the other flavors available.)

Another ten minutes later and you finally settle on a flavor, but Suna knows by that curl in your lips that’s been there since twenty-five minutes ago that you already knew what you wanted the moment you stepped foot into the shop.

“I’ll have Rainbow Sherbet.”

He makes a face. “I’m judging you.”

“It’s a good flavor!”

“It’s sour–”

“And sweet.”

“–and leaves this tart, prickly taste in your mouth. It’s terrible.”

“No it isn’t! Here, try some!” You bring a small spoonful to him.

“No–” he swats your hand, “I know what Rainbow Sherbet tastes like. I work here.”

You press against the glass– he’s going to have to clean it of your grubby hand prints later – but he doesn’t mind it one bit when he sees you straining over the display in an attempt to reach him. Honestly, if his uncle saw him now, he’d get an earful for ‘messing and flirting’ with a customer but Suna is unable to stop himself from gravitating towards your hand and the spoon pinched precariously between your fingers.

“Just try it!” you insist.

Suna frowns at your persistence, adjusting his cap with one hand as if he’s about to tell you off. But he tips it up instead, so that he has a clear view of you when he grabs your wrist and leans in to close his mouth around your spoon. His cheeks hollow and Suna sucks the sweet ice with an obnoxious slurp that has him smirking around the spoon and you, gaping. 

Zesty lime and sour raspberry goes off like fireworks on the roof of his mouth before melting with a trail of fragrant pineapple on his tongue.

Your eyes widen, clearly not expecting him to do that, thinking that he would at least take the spoon from you first. 

To be honest, Suna didn’t expect himself to do that either, especially not with the rapid pace of his heart. It’s worth it though, to see the obvious flush racing up your neck to fill your cheeks. It matches what is on his but he tells himself it’s the heat.

He releases the spoon with a pop but keeps his grip on your wrist. He can’t stop grinning but forces an impudent gag through the stretch of his cheeks.

“Yuck.”

He lets you go, fingers sliding soft on the back of your hand. 

The spoon is brandished at him. “You liked it. Don’t lie. I also demand a free scoop.”

“But it didn’t melt?”

You stick your hand out and sure enough, there’s a trail of sticky green and orange running down your arm.

“You took too long,” you murmur, avoiding his eyes. “Could have just eaten it normally.”

Another smug smirk. “Where’s the fun in that?”

The fans are deafening but its winds are cool on his hotter-than-ever skin and lovely in the billow of your dress. The bell chimes and a gaggle of children rush into the store alongside a woman that taps your shoulder with a call of your name. He guesses that’s your mother, wondering where her daughter’s been for almost an hour. 

He realizes then that neither of you introduced yourselves.

Your mother leaves and your eyes flicker to the tag pinned to a strip of pink right above his heart. “I will collect my free scoop tomorrow, Suna Rintarou.”

The promise of your return lingers in this tiny, breezy shop, and tomorrow can’t come fast enough.

It finally feels like Summer.

 (And he’s on his way to a car crash)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Why here? There’s not much to do in Aichi in general, needless to say here.”

You shrug. “We just wanted some place a bit more slow, more relaxing, you know? My mum’s tired of the city and I don’t really mind. She’s paying for everything anyway.”

“Where would you choose to travel though?” He steals a spoonful of colorful ice-cream from your cup and you let him.

“Hmm, I don’t know for sure,” you muse. “Probably somewhere outside of Japan. I’ve always wanted to go abroad. What about you, if you’re not working here?”

He shrugs. “Nah, too much effort.”

“Can’t believe you got scouted for volleyball with that lazy-ass attitude.” You fling your crumpled tissue at him. 

Suna catches it and shoots it straight into the bin without moving from his seat. “Work smarter not harder.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Two weeks whirl by quicker than a sunshower.

Suna spends it chatting with you during your frequent visits (your hotel isn’t too far) to the store, hanging with you at the beach (the one a stone’s throw away), and texting with you till late night in the comfort of his bed.

Your mother definitely gave him a few looks during the times she came to the store with you. Her flavor of choice is caramel coffee and yours, rainbow sherbet. 

He gave her a free scoop once, and now she praises him, “You’re such a good kid,” every time before leaving. You’ll roll your eyes and he’ll give you a peace sign.

He stays in touch with you for the rest of summer break after you leave. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

When school restarts, the two of you are still in contact. You don’t use social media, but you’ll send him photos of your life in Tokyo and he���ll send you links to his posts and stories.

September wind blows and this gradually peters out in autumn as the Inarizaki High Volleyball Club shifts into full gear for Nationals in winter.

[Good luck preparing for Nationals! Maybe we can catch up in Tokyo when you’re here!]

He’s so tired from practice, he tells himself he will reply tomorrow. But Suna forgets, and he does reply, only two weeks later. Yours come in another week. Then his, the week after.

Eventually, rainbow sherbets and the girl he met over summer fades to the back of Suna’s mind, just as the last leaves of autumn sheds. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It momentarily crosses his mind to contact you again, two nights before Nationals.

In the rush of prepping for the games and packing for the trip to Tokyo, it slips his mind until he’s standing outside the stadium gates. But they lose to Karasuno, and the message is never sent as he is once again packing to leave.

He suddenly feels like eating rainbow sherbets, but it’s too cold for ice-cream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The next time Suna sees you, it is once again in Aichi, in the summer of his sixteenth year. 

He didn’t plan on coming back here, but after their loss at Nationals and the rigorous training in the following months, Suna decided he needs a break away from Hyogo and the goons he calls his teammates.

He definitely did not expect to see you again.

The sight of you, fingers waving timidly from the sunlit entrance accompanied by bell-chimes, melts the cone in his hand. A fuzzy, sticky repeat of last year.

He’s in that void again, where everything else seems to vanish and there’s hot sand in his ears, between his toes, warm wind in his stomach running up his throat– déjà vu has never felt more full yet it’s different. It’s the same blank space, only less… empty. Less white. There’s color to the sand this year, and he can hear rustling in trees that weren’t there before, only it’s not the wind but fans.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I had fun here last year so,” you shrug, small and shy, head tucked into yourself. “I asked my mum if we could visit again.” A finger twirls a lock of hair.

Suna’s heart leaps as his mind races, jumping and wondering if it was fun because of him because he remembers how you brought Summer into his August. Even if he hasn’t tasted rainbow sherbets since he last saw you, and cannot remember what you talked about under the cover of night and cotton sheets.

In a close replay of last year, Suna feels rejuvenated with your presence in this tiny, warm shop. The fans are a godsend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He wonders if he should apologize for not responding about Tokyo and his haphazard responses until that point. It’s probably weird to do that now.

You don’t mention it either so he figures it doesn’t matter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I wondered if you would be here, but didn’t think that you actually would,” you say, licking at your rainbow sherbet. Typical.

“Me? I’m more surprised you’re here again. There’s nothing to do here.”

“That’s not true. My mum liked it. She likes that it’s close to the ocean but she can still hop on a train and go shopping.” 

Suna side-eyes you with doubt but finds you facing him with a grin. His body naturally turns towards you.

“Besides, you’re here too!” you giggle, meaning nothing more than a joke easily said between friends. His chest thrums all the same and white shores seep into his vision. 

Suna flicks your forehead in response.

“Hey–”

“Gimmie a bite.”

“I thought you hated rainbow sherbet!” you protest, but bring your cone up anyways.

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” 

He grabs your wrist as if to steady the cone and prevent any attempt to smash the entire thing into his face. The way he looks at you, steady and unwavering, from underneath the hood of his uniform cap is telling you something else. 

Cracks dance up the cone from where your fingers press tightly into the biscuit, raining crumbs onto the space between your bodies. Suna pulls back and you take a large bite opposite of where he sunk his teeth into yellow.

“Yep, it still sucks.”

His face scrunches and you punch his arm. At least he didn’t gag this time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Suna keeps in touch with you regularly through the year, until the following summer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On his seventeenth summer, Suna plans to go back to Aichi again. This time, he knows you will be there because the two of you planned it.

Now that you’re older, your mum is allowing you to travel on your own; she also trusts the ‘good kid’ to take care of her daughter, to your chagrin.

The Miya twins are constantly bothering Suna this year, wondering why he keeps going back to Aichi when all he’s done is complain about how boring it was in previous years– which it is, besides you. They’ve heard about you before though, the girl he met in the summer of two years ago.

“Ya’ know, she must really like ya’ if she’s goin’ all the way there again to visit ya,’” Atsumu comments, chomping on yakisoba bread. Osamu makes a garbled sound of agreement through his food.

“We’re just friends,” Suna says, face straight, but he wonders if you know how the world vanishes into nothing when he’s with you. He feels anxious merely thinking about it. 

“Sure, friends,” Atsumu waggles his brows and Osamu nods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

This year, his uncle invites you to join them for dinner at his grandmother’s home.

He’s spotted you a few times over the years, and gives Suna much grief about the girl his nephew's constantly loitering around with outside of work, and during work. He often says with a wink, “I’m paying you to work, not to flirt!” 

Suna never says anything in response, only squints his eyes and shakes his head at the older man that acts younger than Suna himself; he knows he does the work expected of him even if he may slack here and there.

Dinner with his uncle, grandmother, and a cousin that decided to join them last minute is a simple yet loud affair. 

Suna’s uncle is rowdy with a positive outlook on all things in life; says he chose to open an ice-cream shop because ice-cream makes everybody smile. His grandmother is along in years, silver crowning her demure frame and lovely smile. She absolutely adores you. 

“I’ve never seen Rinrin bring a friend, much less a friend, around. You are his girlfriend, yes?”

Suna’s never had miso up his nostrils before but there we go. A first time for everything.

“Grandma–” he groans but says nothing more; doesn’t attempt to deny it, only glance at you snickering next to him. He notes with a little shake of his leg that you didn’t either.

(He’s overthinking, he’s assuming, he definitely is–)

It’s late when you finally leave, and Suna volunteers to walk you back to your lodge before his uncle can offer to drive you. He can feel their grins burning into his back as he puts on his shoes after you, and throws them an exasperated glare before the door closes.

“Your family is really nice.”

He rubs the space between his brows. “I’m glad they live here and not in Hyogo. They’re too much.”

“What are your parents like?”

“Like that . My mum had to get it from somewhere. My father’s quieter.”

You laugh and conversation flows easy as it always does when he’s with you. He doesn’t have to think about anything in particular; colors naturally flow to color the void without his intention. It’s all peaceful, the world vanishing and leaving a blank canvas that’s meant for you to cover with pale cream footprints, and greens, pinks, and oranges. 

Night zephyrs slap a leaf onto your face and you throw it at Suna. A splotch of green spreads on the canvas. 

You’ve long since walked by your lodge and Suna follows without question, trailing gravel crunching beneath your shoes and the ocean breeze in your hair. The stars are out in full force tonight but the brightest star is next to him, voice shimmering with August life.

His Summer.

The ocean, pulsating in deep indigo, stretches beyond  concrete barriers erected on the road side. 

Suna watches when you ignore the barrier’s sole purpose and climb onto it, inviting him to join you with the beckoning of your hand and a pat to the empty space next to you; a space he gladly fills.

“You don’t see stars like this in Tokyo,” you whisper, afraid of shattering the quiet seaside.

Suna takes his phone out, wiping at the black of his screen. You tilt your head, asking doubtfully if he can even snap a photo of the stars with that, but it changes to pleasant surprise when he flips the camera and shifts closer to you.

The dim light from a nearby lamp is barely enough to illuminate your features but if he squints and zooms in, barely – just barely –, you can make out the ridge of his nose below glinting chartreuse through prismatic noise. And Suna can somewhat trace your teeth glowing baby blue and the push of your cheeks. 

“It’s so shit,” you guffaw, snatching his phone to zoom around your unrecognizable faces.

“It’s natural lighting. None of those disgusting filters you kids like to use.”

“We’re literally the same age!”

His phone is returned, and Suna’s fingers tap on the back of his case as he deliberates, jittery under the universe and you, wholly unaware of his nerves. 

In another 3 hours, the sun will rise and when you finally stand, he finds the courage to blurt the words that have been spooling in his head since midnight.

(He wishes for a longer Summer with you)

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

All the nervousness that hounded Suna when he invited you to the local fireworks festival a few nights ago? It’s all gone the moment he sees you in your yukata, the folding fan his grandmother lent you slipped neatly into your obi.

Never mind that you packed one for your trip. “Swimsuits are not the only essentials for a summer vacay~”

So you say. Suna isn’t complaining.

Festivals have never been his thing; it’s hot, humid, crowded– moist . Yet, he looked forward to this one with you. He’s never been to this festival until now, walking next to you with a cooler in his hand.

“What’s in there?” you peek curiously at the box, reaching for the clasp. 

Suna lifts the box up high where your grubby hands are unable to grab them. 

“Later.”

You pout; long fingers poke your cheeks but later comes sooner than you expected. Sitting on a green picnic sheet that has seen better days, Suna opens the box. A pint of rainbow sherbet beams from a bed of ice, to your great pleasure. 

“I thought you hated rainbow sherbet!” you exclaim, heartily accepting the spoon he hands you.

Suna shrugs, struggling to keep his expression even at your simple joy. “It’s alright,” he says coolly, popping the lid off and letting you take the first scoop.

A triple-colored wave curls against your spoon just as the first boom goes off, splashing starlit skies with fiery flowers of red, green, and gold. 

The plain skies above white shores he shares with you, too, are filled with bursts of rainbows.

(Perhaps it isn’t purple lightning. Instead, it is a pint of ice-cream between your bodies. Love at first sight is a trifecta of colors, exploding)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” 

Your jaw drops, not expecting that question from Suna Rintarou. Nonetheless, you pause, and Suna can see the gears churning in your head. He doesn’t know why, but he appreciates that; a certain pair of twins wouldn’t have given him the same courtesy.

When you finally answer, Suna leans in. “It’s hard to say for sure but I probably do.”

“Probably?” 

“I mean, I don’t know if it is love at first sight, but maybe more like wanting to know a person more. Way more than other people, right away.”

Your answer, though not bad, makes Suna a tad nervous. 

“It’s like discovering a new place, you know?” You nod to the world outside the shop window, sweltering in the unforgiving sun. “I didn’t think I would love this place the first time I came here. Now I’m here for the third year in a row!” 

“With this shop or my hometown?” Suna wears a teasing smirk but it feels like he’s about to have a heart attack. 

You smile furtively and Suna never gets an answer. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He very much does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

On your last night in Aichi before you take Summer away with you, Suna unlocks the door to his uncle’s ice-cream shop. He has received express permission to “help yourselves” to a buffet of ice-cream as your farewell gift (until next year).

He’s never eaten so much ice-cream in one sitting before in his life, and likely, neither have you judging by the way you’re massaging your stomach. His own hurts, and the sugar running in his blood makes him want to grab your hand and run out onto the beach.

You groan, poking at the remains of your rainbow sherbet. “Rin~ help me finish this!��

His tongue juts out. “Ew, rainbow sherbet. No thanks.”

“Please! I’m struggling,” you bemoan, listlessly swallowing another spoonful.

Torn between sighing and chuckling at your torment, Suna moves his chair next to yours. His acquiescence revitalizes you, and you immediately bring your spoon up to feed him in a familiar repeat of the first time you met him.

And just like the first time, Suna wraps his hand around your wrist, pulling the spoon– you– closer as he leans in. His palms burn like the mid-August sky over your midsummer skin.

His lips part.

Lime and raspberry. The sour taste makes him squint. 

His expression makes you grin, causing the little stripe of green lime on the corner of your mouth to stretch. 

It’s that damn stripe’s fault.

It compelled Suna, pulling him beyond the spoon falling loose in your hand to touch his lips on that stripe of green.

A soft taste of lime. Sour. It makes him squeeze his eyes shut, or so he tells himself. 

It’s not the hard beating of his heart, the panic that lances him when he realizes what he has done, the fear of seeing your reaction and feeling your mouth tremble against his.

Surprise and nerves, he likes to think, and tells himself.

Suna keeps his eyes squeezed closed, the layer of sweat between where his hand meets your skin palpable as the damning taste of lime on both your lips.

Hours seemed to come and went in the seconds he allowed his hormones and stupid, summery feelings get the better of him and you only sat there, still and silent. Suna still has his eyes sewed shut, and can’t see your expression. He can’t see jack shit and the only thing telling him that you’re still there is the unbroken touch of your lips against his and your shaky, warm breaths.

It was only seconds but it felt like an eternity to Suna, before you finally moved and saved him from his spiraling mind and the awkwardness that was creeping upon him.

It’s tentative, unsure, and Suna wasn’t sure if he imagined it at first but there’s no mistaking the light press back and gods, Suna would have heaved in relief if he wasn’t still connected to you by the mouth, featherlight it may be.

At seventeen, you and Suna shared your first kisses with each other. It was awkward, weird, sticky and tasted like lime. Short. But sweet.

 Perhaps rainbow sherbet isn’t as bad as he thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

He’s not sure why but in the weeks, then months, following that kiss– unaddressed, unspoken of henceforth– the two of you don’t speak as much anymore. The messages petered out like the end of a summer shower, muggy and uncomfortable, and clings to him long after summer and rain have gone.

The last exchange had been amiable.

‘Good night.’

Yet, it was excruciatingly hard picking it up again as the days slipped by.

The last of autumn’s leaves fall and Suna wonders if it would be strange suddenly messaging you out of the blue. He stares long at the ‘seen’ and timestamp from hotter days.

Gods, he’s seventeen and thinks it’d definitely be lame to do so. Besides, if you wanted to talk to him, you could always message him first too.

And you haven’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

You too, stare at the ‘seen’ and timestamp recollecting balmy days. With cheeks pressed deep into your arms and blankets wrapped tight all around against the encroaching winter, wondering what it’d feel like if it were the arms of a certain ice-cream shop boy instead.

But you’re seventeen and the future is scary and uncertain.

The letter confirming your acceptance to your chosen study abroad program peeks tauntingly at you from underneath stacks of books.

You were happy– still are– when you received the news back in July. You had planned to share that joy with Suna when you met him in Aichi in the summer. Yet, something held you back, kept the words from being spilled even as ice-cream melted and foolish secrets were shared under starry skies and blanket of waves.

You were resolved to tell him and had been prepared to do so on your last night in Aichi–

Then he kissed you. And you kissed back, with surprise and an elated heart.

And you didn’t say anything after that.

Stupid.

It’s all so silly. This crushing in your chest– you want to stay, to visit Aichi and see Suna again. You want to go, pursue your dreams and studies abroad as you have always planned before him and his damn pink-yellow cap ever appeared in your life.

You want more summer days with Suna, and autumn, winter, and spring! You want all the seasons with him, to explore this undeniable attraction but–

‘Good night.’

It’s been weeks since either of you said anything. They always say that if a guy truly likes you, he would reach out no matter what.

And he hasn’t.

You’re going abroad. You already know that, deep in your mind, despite what your young heart longs for.

You’re seventeen and decided that it would be illogical to pursue anything with the ice-cream boy, with the most brilliant, unforgettable set of eyes you met over summers.

And just like that, it was as if neither of you were ever in each other’s lives.

Like fireworks, the two of you splashed and burned brief, shared months and dispersed in wisps of smoke to the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

On his eighteenth summer, Suna returns to Aichi again to work at his uncle’s shop.

He has since moved to Tokyo to pursue his own ambitions, but something he wishes to not name pulls him back to his uncle’s shop, like it had every year, for the past three years. 

His eyes constantly dart to look at every shadow that passes by the windows, and his head zooms up with every ding of the bell. The days pass slowly, more excruciating than usual, thick and syrupy from dawn to dusk.

You never showed up.

(It doesn’t feel like summer at all)

The bell chimes for what would be the final time for Suna. As the last customer of the summer and the rest of his life ponders what flavor they will have, Suna impetuously stabs the tasting spoon he had been holding into the swirly tub of green, orange, and pink– and takes a bite.

Yuck. Rainbow sherbet isn’t as good as he thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are eighteen and abroad, young and excited.

Yet everytime you come across an ice-cream shop, hear waves and feel the sand between your toes, see the occasional, miraculous starry sky–

From halfway across the world, you are reminded of brilliant yellow eyes and a boy in pink and yellow stripes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

On your nineteenth summer, you return to Aichi.

With a thudding heart and hopes and young daydreams of what could be. 

Will it be awkward? What shall you say first? Something witty or nostalgic? What will he say when he sees you? Will he be happy to see you?

The bell chimed and none of those mattered when it wasn’t Suna at the counter but his uncle instead. 

“Didn’t he tell you? He isn’t returning to Aichi this year.”

“Oh.” Your throat is closing up. “I wanted to surprise him so I didn’t ask him in case it tipped him off–” You rub your neck to alleviate the embarrassment burning hot there and blink multiple times, forcing away the rising pressure in your eyes.

“You silly kids!” Suna’s uncle laughs. “He was here last year but you weren’t! And now you are! Wait till I tell him–”

“Please don’t tell him! He might feel bad if you did, and it was entirely my fault for not checking with him.” In truth, you called but the line didn’t go through. His number has changed. 

“You sure? Knowing Rintarou he’d just scratch his bum about it–”

You giggle despite your falling heart. “I’m sure. Perhaps next year.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

You return to Aichi again on your twentieth summer. And your twenty-first.

Unlike previously, it was less for the specific purpose of seeing him and more to visit a place, and its inhabitants, that has grown close to you.

But the hope that he would be there never truly died, and each time you entered the ice-cream shop with a full heart close to combusting, that does, inadvertently burst.

For Suna never visited Aichi again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It’s been four years since Suna last visited his hometown. He is now twenty-two.

In his defense, he presently plays for EJP Raijins and has been incredibly busy with his career; the last few years have been tough: training, press, tournaments, and everything else that comes with becoming an upcoming pro athlete. 

His family understands that. Still, it has been a while since he saw his grandmother and uncle; his parents visit him in Tokyo every year. So he’s invited them all to his game this year, fully paid for by him.

Only, in place of his grandmother, he saw you instead when he went to greet them in the hall before the game. There you were, shuffling nervously next to his uncle, looking as if you haven’t changed at all in the last four years, even if you have grown up. The both of you have.

Suna felt it again, the same feeling he had when he saw you all those years ago. It’s faint, dimmer than when it first manifested in his fifteen year old self; a white void, great and silent, cascading onto him. But it’s the same one, he’s sure of it. Because he’s never felt it with anyone else he’s met, and he’s met a lot of people in recent years.

Suna doesn’t know why; it’s illogical, but he supposes that everything concerning this feeling is, though he is reluctant to name it. He’s always thought that, long before it happened to him. 

Long before he met you.

“Hi,” you say shyly.

It feels like he freshly emerged from an overtime match when he breathes out, “Hey.”

These two words are all that is said between you before he is marching off to the locker rooms with an empty head– white shores– ‘Hi’s and ‘Hey’s etched in the sand. Suna wants to ram his head onto the lockers for reasons he cannot comprehend. 

Seeing you again after all these years…he is transported back to his uncle’s shop, wearing that stupid pink and yellow striped uniform with chocolate dripping down his hand. The EJP Raijins jersey he’s quietly proud of melts away in the face of you, an occurrence he never fathomed.

The void stays when the whistle blows, but he isn’t distracted. On the contrary, the thought of you in the crowd, watching him, sustains the quiet shores inside of his mind and heart; its peace drowns out the cheers.

And Suna played the best he has ever played since he joined the team.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Rintarou, stop being dumb. I thought you’re smarter than this.”

“Uncle, what are you talking about–”’

“You know what I’m talking about! Watching you two during dinner was embarrassing! You barely spoke! Your grandfather’s rolling in his grave!” 

“...no one asked you to look,” Suna counters weakly. “And leave grandpa out of this. Have some decency.”

His uncle rubs the palms of his hands into his eyes before carding them through his graying hair.

“I’ve watched you dance around each other since you were fifteen! Especially you, Suna!” he complains then repeats, “Fifteen! I didn’t let you have an ice-cream buffet for it to turn out like this!”

“We weren’t doing anything–”

“Rintarou.” 

The serious tone his uncle took on made stops Suna mid-sentence. “She visited Aichi the last three years that you haven’t. She says it’s not to see you but she always asks how you’ve been doing.”

The information stuns Suna. You went back to Aichi? Why didn’t you say anything– oh. He changed his number. Well, why didn’t his uncle say anything?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he inquires.

“She told me not to tell you, says she didn’t want to bother you and that ‘it’s weird.’ You kids and your social taboos. Still, I promised and I don’t break my promises.” He jabs Suna on the chest and adds, “You better not too!”

“It’s why I don’t make promises,” Suna mumbles and swats his uncle’s hand away. “Anyways, there’s nothing to say–”

His uncle lets out a loud, garbled cry of random sounds. “Your grandmother didn’t give her tickets away for you to chicken out! Your parents raised you better than this!”

“I can’t believe even grandma is in on this…”

Strong hands clasp him on the shoulders and Suna is forced to look his uncle in the eye.

“Go and talk to her. Properly. Like an adult.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

knock knock

  ‘Talk to her or I’ll tell grandma about the things you post on your Instagruel, Instrument– whatever it’s called!’

  Suna sighs as he wonders why he never saw his uncle as the extortionist that he is. The man quite literally made him promise, with linked pinkies and all, to go talk to you before the night is over. 

Suna doesn’t make promises but he keeps those that he does.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to you. But what is there to say? Things weren’t exactly… clear , the last you and him spoke and saw each other, for that matter. He kissed you, you kissed back, and then poof. In modern dating terms, it’s safe to say that you mutually ghosted each other out of sheer– he doesn’t know what on your end– but definitely young stupidity on his.

“Rin? It’s getting late, what are you doing here?” You blink at him, surprise plain on your face at the unexpected guest.

Suna almost smiles at the nickname. It’s been a while since he heard you address him by that. At all, really. 

He takes in your appearance, notes your fingers tugging at the hem of your shirt and the drumming of the other on the doorknob. Have you been as restless as he was this entire evening?

“I was wondering if you’d like to go for a walk with me?” Suna winces at his unnatural politeness. It’s you; he’s never this polite with you, not even when you were a customer. It’s bizarre.

There’s a brief moment of hesitance, unconscious, in the way you took a small step back before you’re nodding and asking him to wait whilst you went back inside your hotel room to change.

The winter air is crisp, wind tunneling between the buildings whipping at your figures as Suna leads you around aimlessly. Truth be told, he had no idea where to go or what to say. 

“How have you been?” You break the ice. 

Right, that’s a good place to start. 

“I’ve been good. You?”

“I’ve been good too.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Yeah.”

Suna wishes a truck will run off the curb and hit him now. His fingers are freezing off in his pockets and somehow they’re still sweating. 

This is absolutely terrible.

A ray of hope cuts the grey path ahead, and Suna manages to peel his eyes away from his shoes to gaze upon his salvation–

Oh. It’s an ice-cream shop. 

The irony isn’t lost on him. You don’t miss it either, for you peek up at him shyly, scratching at your cold cheeks, and ask, “Do you want to get any? For old time’s sake.”

When he nods, you turn and lead the way, grabbing the handle and missing how Suna stops following you just shy of the shop’s awning. He prefers to quickly rip the bandaid off.

“What happened?” 

“Huh?” You look over your shoulder, confused. “What do you mean?”

Suna buries his face into his scarf as if to hide the burning ridge of his nose. “That night… you kissed back,” he mumbles. He has to force himself to look back at you, to discern and verify the rapid changes in your expression as you look for an answer. 

Surprise, self-consciousness, bashfulness, nervousness, nostalgia–

“I–,” you clear your throat, the shop light shining like a beacon on your blushing skin, “I did.”

“Why did you kiss me back?” he addresses the giant, tri-colored elephant that has been slumbering in the back of his mind for years.

You sputter. “Why are you asking this all of a sudden? It was so long ago.”

“Tell me.” Suna persists, taking a step forward with narrowed eyes, pushing for a reason, an excuse, to justify the cloudy feelings he has been harboring for all these years and now jostled up by your unannounced appearance in his life again. 

He’s not mad, he doesn’t not want you here, but the lack of closure for his young feelings, your reaction, and the lack of events that followed all those years ago isn’t pleasant. It leaves a muddy clog in his chest and quite frankly, he dislikes it. There was so much left unsaid and unexplained; perhaps he should have let it go and Suna thought he did. Until he saw you again.

And Suna knows, he just knows, that you feel the same way as he did.

Why else would you come see him play? Why else would you go back to Aichi the last couple of years?

Why did you two simply drift apart?

He’s so close to you now that he can see the perspiration beading on you, feel your warmth radiating and seeping into the folds of his clothes. You refuse to meet his eyes, looking here and there and everywhere but him right before you. Similarly, his heart is beating so loud that he’s sure you can hear it.

“Tell me.”

“Because I liked you! Okay?!” You finally cave, admitting with eyes squeezed tight. It reminds Suna of how he too kept his eyes closed as if his life depended on it when he first kissed you.

“Then why didn’t you say anything!? Why did you stop responding?”

“Don’t try and pin it on me. You didn’t contact me any further!”

“Neither did you!”

“Well, you changed your number and didn’t tell me!”

“That’s because I thought we’re no longer speaking with each other!”

You’re both breathing fast, hearts and emotions rising, and Suna glimpses the shop staff staring in concern through the glass. He deflates with a sigh and steps back before the staff misunderstands the situation and calls the police.

The streets of Tokyo are rarely silent yet somehow, this little area in the big city is exactly that. There’s only the sound of distant cars humming like waves on distant shores, and the muted chatter of people buzzing like summer cicadas; it reminds Suna of the times he went on late night walks with you along the beaches of his hometown.

You slap your hands over your face. “Oh my god…”

He snorts and laughs in turn at the incredulous conversation that took place. It doesn’t take long for you to peek through your fingers and join as well, chortling in disbelief.

“We were fucking dumb ,” he states.

“In our defense, we were young.” 

“Still dumb.”

“Yeah, we were.”

An embarrassing silence follows as you stare at each other. Sunca can see the gears in your head churning, processing the revelation that the two of you had been, well, dumbasses for years. He can empathize, for his brain hurtles through the same process.

You break eye contact and look down at your shoes, scuffing them against concrete. “I guess there’s also another reason why I was hesitant to contact you after,” you begin mumbling, and Suna reflexively curls his hands into fists within the confines of his pockets.

“Yeah? Besides being a teenager incapable of communication?”

“It’s a better reason than that!” you pout furiously, head sinking into your scarf. “I was going abroad. I have been abroad, the last few years. College.

Suna whistles, sincerely impressed. “Nice. Where at?”

“Irrelevant. I’ll tell you later,” you brush off his question to continue your explanation– reasoning– to why you stopped contacting him. 

Suna watches intently as you take a deep breath, idly noting how the ice-cream store staff are still staring at your figures with too much curiosity and intensity, the shop door failing to completely mute his conversation with you, bits and pieces filtering through the little vents at its foot. 

One male staff even holds a cone in his hand, watching the scene unfold as if this were a movie. The man takes a long lick, eyes all the while glued on your figures.

“That night when you– we, well, you know–” you stumble over your words and Suna finds not much has changed; you were still as bad at communicating your feelings as you were at seventeen. You clear your throat of the clogging shyness, “At that time I already knew I was leaving Japan as soon as I graduated. I planned to tell you but then you–”

“I kissed you,” he supplies plainly.

“Yes. And, well, there didn’t seem to be a good moment to tell you after that,” you finish softly. Regret isn’t the right word to describe your feelings in this moment, reflecting back on that summer night and the next four years without closure. You do not regret ever following your aspirations abroad, especially not over a boy in your youth. You weren’t that dumb. However, you admit that you could have handled it better, communicated it, talked with him– “I should have handled it better.” 

“Yeah, you should have.”

A disbelieving gasp leaves you, head whipping up angrily to tell Suna off but the teasing grin that greets you has your anger easily deflating. 

Suna understands. He really does, because he would have done the same thing in your position. Had he known you were going to leave the country, would he still have kissed you? Probably, only because his body moved on its own that night. Though it doesn't mean he forgot the flutters, the want, whenever he was with you back then. It’s not too far off from what he’s feeling in the present; it’s dimmer, but it has grown, matured with him in age. He’s no longer as jittery and blinded by white shores.

He’s grown. You’ve grown.

“I should have done better too.”

A cloak that has long rested on the depths of his heart– of gray clouds and why’s, unnamed yet felt, ignored but not forgotten, existing as surely as he does breathes– lifts the moment he utters these words. He feels revivified– released, of this midsummer memory that has crawled into his mind countless times in the minutes before sleep takes him (his brain has a penchant of replaying it for him unbidden at 2am). Suna shudders to think that had his family not invited you to his match, he and you would have continued on with your lives carrying overcast hearts caused by something as silly as simply being teenagers still learning and growing.

Judging by the smile dimpling your cheeks, Suna knew you felt the same.

He nods at the shop door behind you. “We should probably go inside. That is…if you still want to?”

Your answer comes in a shy smile burrowing into clothes and a blast of hot air that his chilled body welcomes. The shop bell chimes and you are both transported to past summers and the first time you met in a wave of nostalgia. 

Suna hasn’t gone to an ice-cream shop since the last time he worked for his uncle, having subconsciously avoided them in the shadow of his volleyball career as an excuse; your love for ice-cream shops developed because of many days spent at one with a special boy, and many more visited over the years in reminiscence and perhaps regret.

“There’s a buy one free one scoop deal for couples.” The male staff, the audacious one from before, announces when you reach the counter.

“Oh, we’re not–” you begin but Suna nudges you sneakily.

“Pick whatever flavor you want, honey. My treat.”

You had been his first love at first sight. And likely, you are the last.

Because Suna thinks that people who fall head over heels for someone at first glance are fools. Love is something that is grown into, to be slowly nurtured with time and dedication. To his logic-based brain, the entire idea of smashing head first into love at a glance is ludicrous, like a bad car crash where you never see it coming until it's too late. 

He knows because he’s experienced it. Both the unexplainable, ridiculous butterflies sprouting into existence the moment you stepped through the door and into his life, and the subsequent 7 years it took to nurture it.

There was no car crash however, only teen folly and human imperfection.

You glance up at him with a cheeky grin as you answer, sing-song and all-knowing.

“I’ll have a rainbow sherbet.”

“Yuck.”

“It’s a good flavor!!”

An expression you’re not sure you have ever seen Suna make before lights his face for but a transient second. It’s one of those laughter-smiles, all teeth with wide lips and wrinkles accompanied by tuneful joy. Suna knows it too because the muscles pulling at his cheeks are unfamiliar, straining wider than he usually lets them in his side smirks. 

“In that case, two rainbow sherbets please,” he tells the staff. He can feel your gaze pressing onto the side of his face with a question unspoken, and this is when Suna brings out his infamous smirk. 

He takes both cones and turns to you with green, pink, and orange in the palms of his hands. A trifecta of colors.

They say that everyone becomes a believer of love at first sight when it happens to them. Well, Suna rightly doesn’t know.

All he knows is that, instead of purple lightning striking, there was only a void filled with empty white shores whenever he saw you; it didn’t matter how many times or how long in between. All Suna knows is that the world fades away in the presence of you.

As he hands you your cone, Suna sees colors dyeing the white shores below his feet once more.

And Suna knows he will do it right this time.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Who lies more: Charlotte, Fouché or Barère?

Frankly I know way too little about both Fouché and Barère to be able to say something really concreate about how much they lie (@tierseta @kocokoala anyone? would you mind adding what you know?) All I really have is that what Barère wrote in his memoirs regarding the way Collot d’Herbois returned from Lyon does not seem to line up with what better, more contemporary sources have to say. In Réponse des membres des deux anciens comités de salut public et de sûreté générale… (1795) Barère, Collot and Billaud-Varennes also claim that the law of 22 prairial had been worked out in secret between Couthon and Robespierre, while the rest of the CPS had had nothing to do with and even protested against it. Only on June 10 1794, when the law was introduced to the Convention, Barère is recorded to have called it ”a law completely in favour of the patriots.”

For Charlotte, I know of the following things, which all originate from her memoirs:

Charlotte writes that before the revolution her older brother gave up his functions as a judge after having had to sentence a man to death. But according to Robespierre (2014) by Herve Leuwers, he actually never resigned from this position.

When writing about having dated Fouché, Charlotte claims this happened during the revolution, which can hardly be accurate given the fact Fouché was already married by then.

Charlotte declares a letter written by her to Augustin dated July 6 1794 had had apocryphal parts inserted into it when it got published after their death. In an inserted footnote, Laponneraye writes that”this letter […], I am convinced, was for Charlotte Robespierre an object of constant torment; the idea that someone could have thought she could have written it the way it is, and that it had really been adressed to Maximilien Robespierre, tantalized her. All the times I saw her, she spoke to me about it. One day we read it together, and I asked her to indicate which passages she hadn’t written and where infamous falsifications had been added; I publish this version in the Pièces justificatives section.”However, an encounter with the fac-simile shows that no alterations has been made to the letter, which is entirely in Charlotte’s hand.

When describing her arrest right after thermidor, Charlotte writes that she, after having been insulted and struck by guards at the Conciergerie on 10 thermidor for begging to see her brothers and been led away by some people moved to pity, she completely loses her reason and doesn’t come back to herself until a few days later, finding herself in prison with a woman who, after yet another few days, convinces her to sign a letter she has written, the content of which Charlotte doesn’t look at (and if even real, has never been found). The letter is sent off, and the next day both are set free. A story which doesn’t line up completely with what official documents tell us about Charlotte’s arrest, which according to them took place on 13 thermidor. An interrogation of Charlotte was held the very same day, in which she disowns both her brothers and the Duplays, denounces a man named Didier and claims she had almost been the victim of the Revolutionary Tribunal. For some reason or another she also gave her age as 28 when interrogated, which is obviously false… The circumstances regarding Charlotte’s release from prison are however dubious here as well, as no order for it appears to exist…

Charlotte claims to have been witnessed meetings both Marat and Pétion had with her older brother. But in both cases, the meetings she alludes to appear to have played out before she even came to Paris in late September 1792…

She also writes that her brother went to visit Desmoulins in prison once he ”learned of” his arrest, but that the latter didn’t want to see him, something which I found unlikely given the fact Robespierre had both already signed Desmoulins’ arrest and prepared his indictment, while Desmoulins in a prison letter to his wife reveals that he is writing to Robespierre, meaning he shouldn’t have repulsed him was he to come visit.

Like I have already written here, I also doubt Charlotte actually tells the whole truth regarding the things she was up to during the revolution and what it was that caused a split between her and her brothers, even if the things she does say about them do not have to entirely dismissed.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Barère and Fouché lie about more/more serious things compared to Charlotte. Though I guess the reveal of fabrications/alterations in her memoirs is still more surprising given the fact Fouché and Barère didn’t really have the reputation of being honest men/reliable narrators to begin with… Then there’s of course also a discussion to be had regarding how much of what they’ve written that is blatant lies and what is simply a partial telling/personal conception of the full truth or honest misremembering.

[mh073099]

"I'll Find you" Part 4

This is a fluffly piece, no trigger warnings on this one. Just be aware that there have been and will be in the future. I just wanted something light to break things up.

Madrid, Spain 04/13/2068 08:41

The sunlight littered in through white curtains softly blowing in the wind. The tall windows were open, letting the sounds of the market below in to fill the silence of the morning. I lay in my soft bed thinking of the past year, and how the hell it was I got here.

Over the last year I had been making moves for the separatist organizations and feeding information to Rex. I still am confused about him, about how I feel I can trust him when I know deep in my bones that trust doesn’t exist. It’s been beaten out of me. Which conflicts me on turning on them in the first place. However, I remember my home before all this started. Sure, the extracurricular activities my mom introduced me to at that time were weird and totally in preparation for this lifestyle. But I remember the Christmas and the Halloweens. Family dinners and target shopping trips. Camping and School. What normal felt like. I just want that again.

Talking with Rex was surprisingly easy, knowing how to get information out when I am so close to everything. I know where people aren’t looking. His letters to me are love letters. Words telling me how strong I am, How when this is all over he will take me away from this world, and things will be safe a quiet. I want to believe him. My letters are plans, tips, straight to business with no name. He never talks about work in his letters though. I have grown fond of him.

It had been surprisingly easy to gain the trust and favor of the Count and My mother. I was confused at the time, but that horrible late May night meant I was one of them now. Because I didn’t break.

Then I realized that we are far less organized than I was trained to believe. Sloppy. Hiding in plain sight. So obvious that it’s hidden from the naked eye. The corruption that has slowly weaved its way into the world is so visible, if only one knew where to look.

And because I had proven myself, and making sure everything I had been doing was never a failure while sabotaging Maul and Dooku secretly, no suspicion was on me.

I’d plant incriminating evidence against a low life senator, Mauls murder plans for a General in the Jedi Special Forces of the GRA were spoiled by tip offs. It goes back and forth.

Sidious has been on a hunt for a mole and punishing Maul for his inability to get the job done. I wish I could say I was sorry for him. However, Maul has been a whole new problem in my life. He haunts my steps. Grabby in dark corners. I know he wants me. While I know I could use that to my advantage the thought itself disgusts me.

And with all this going on, these have started to settle. I am gearing up for the job Sidious has given me, meaning I am to begin a new life. Long term.

I am to be a translator for a senator from the far south, removed from most civilization and that is part of our cause. He is now starting negotiations with the Republic to join their cause, or so they think. It’s an in the senator is giving us.

Life gets boring these days. I love it. I wake up, make myself tea and take ace on a walk. Then the ever-loyal dog and I make our way to the embassy, a plus that I get to bring him to work. Boring meetings, translating for the Senator Po Nudo, listening to the office drama. It’s peaceful, and I almost started believing this is my life.

Well, boring until today.

Madrid Spain 04/13/2068 14:45

I was sitting at my desk, just outside the senator Po Nudo’s Office. Ace sitting in his dog bed by the desk, a silent sentinel as ever. And in they walk.

“Hello, I have a meeting with Senator Nudo,” says a soft voice. I look up and there is standing Senator Amidala, and Rex. His eyes go wide while it takes everything in me not to make a reaction.

“Of course, Senator, we’ve been expecting you. The Senator is awaiting you in his office. Please, may I get you any refreshments for you and your guest? Tea, water?” I say as I walk around the desk to open the office door for her.

“I am fine, thank you for the kind offer. Rex might want something though while he waits for me,” She gestures.

“Thank you ma’am, but I am fine.” His lips purse in a small smile. She walks in and I closed the door. I turn and take him in. I must play this smart, but he looks good. Dark suit, earpiece. Armed. His eyes shine with knowing, and he smiles at me.

“I’m El. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I assume with the work the senators are about to prepare for, you and I will see a lot of each other.” I extend my hand out to him, giving him a fake name. His hand is warm in mine.

“I’m Captain Rex of the 501st, and personal protector of the Amidala family. It’s a pleasure.” He voice is like sin and he pulls me in close by the hand. “Hello princess.” I shiver and step away.

“Can I get you any tea sir?” I offer. Ace is alert behind me, looking at Rex.

“No I am fine. Good looking dog there.” He sits down at the chair in front of my desk, crossing his legs. His thighs look like they will burst from the seams of his dark pants.

I shake the thought from my head. “His name is Ace, Here!” and I pat my thigh. Ever obedient, he heals to my side and at attention waiting the next command. “Say hello to the Captain Ace.”

The black Doberman woofs softly, and sniffs at Rex’s outstretched hand. “You trained him well. I have a dog, a German Shepard, Ally. She seems to have a brain of her own though.”

“Smart lady,” I laugh. The conversation breaks the ice, and he and I spend the meeting talking about the dogs.

We start to hear the senators rapping up, and I am briefly reminded that Rex knows what I do, getting tips from me here and there. This being so close to each other, its dangerous. Fror me and my dog. But Rex seems to read my mind. He looks into my eyes, and I into his honey gaze. “I trust you.” He whispers. I cannot fathom why. He shouldn’t.

“Can I see you again? Maybe...dinner?” I ask hesitantly. I could say it’s for the job if I was asked about my intentions from my …handler. I refuse to call her mother.

The smile on Rex’s face is dazzling. “like a date?” I blush. I haven’t blushed in ages.

“Yes, exactly like a date. Tonight? 7? I know a quite spot.” He offers standing up. Very close to where I am leaning on my desk. I can smell his spearmint tooth paste.

“O-Okay. Sounds like a date.” I say looking down. He lifts his hand, pulling my chin up into his eyes.

“Chin up princess,” he smiles.

Just then Senator Amidala walks out of the office and pauses. I slide away from rex, eyes wide. He has the decency to look bashful, and she gives him a knowing smile.

“Have a beautiful day Miss.” She offers and walks out. I give a nod and look at Rex. He just smiles and turns, looking giddy.

Senator Nudo calls for me and I snap out of it. Back to work.

But I can’t help the butterflies in my stomach. I am excited for tonight.