#i dont usually post snippets but i am this time

[inkedtension]

Something like a pulse

Note:

went with a different approach than usual

probably more into plot but please get it

new writing style?? [Implied: gojo x reader]

errors [if found] with the main plot is intentional [they're none, but just in case]

constructive critisism is welcome

please dont be rude

long? very long, but i didnt count the words

enjoy!!

dividers by: @sisterlucifergraphics

for: @ghostykitty00, @scarsandmoons, @minminminswreckingmalife, @krispyloverlady

I'm bad at connecting two scenes so there are cuts often, and my network suggests I write small fics but this one's long, also there will absolutely be a part 2, I already wrote it too, but it will be posted later on, dont judge, and enjoy!

Got carried away. Sorry. these might seem more like snippets of a story written separately, i just got out of writers block

The city is a different beast at night.

It doesn’t breathe, not really. It holds its breath, like something is waiting. Watching.

By 11:03 PM, you’re past the school gates with your coat collar up, your cursed pen tucked into your inner lining, and your phone flipped to silent. Again.

You sneak in through the south wing to avoid Gojo.

Except he’s waiting.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, voice not bright, not smug—just awake.

You stop.

He’s leaning against the hallway wall, still wearing his uniform from the day before. No blindfold tonight—just dark glasses pushed up in his hair. Pale eyes sharp in the low light.

You exhale. “Go ask Nanami.”

“I’m asking you.”

You say nothing.

He pushes off the wall slowly, hands in pockets, posture too casual to be unintentional. He stops a few feet in front of you, eyes searching your face.

“You didn’t sleep.”

You shrug.

“You come back with blood on your cuffs and bite marks on your wrist. You haven’t filed a patrol report in three days.”

“It’s handled.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

You snort. “Since when do you care if something’s okay?”

There’s a flicker in his face—just the slightest crack. You’ve learned how to read them.

“Since always,” he says, too quiet.

You move to brush past him.

He snatches your cigarette pack from your pocket as you pass.

You freeze.

“Hey.”

He tosses it in the trash. “Go chew gum.”

“You are insufferable.”

He grins now—real grin, lopsided and shitty and boyish. “That’s what you like about me.”

You shove his shoulder. Not hard. He lets it move him.

“Go to bed, Satoru,” you mutter.

He blinks.

You don’t say his name often.

You both notice it at once.

Something in him goes quiet. That grin slips off like a mask dropped in a hurry. You don’t look at him as you keep walking. But he watches you go.

The streets are cold. Not in temperature—but in feeling. You step past sleeping convenience stores, under flickering signs, by alleys that hiss and whisper with low-grade curses.

You clean up. Quietly.

You don’t come back until 6:27 AM. Your fingers are numb, and your coat smells like the city.

The sky is orange by the time you step off the train.

You don’t remember boarding it. You barely recall climbing onto the platform, coated in the stink of hollow, half-cleansed air. The city glows dim, just past sunrise, all orange and dying pinks like an old bruise stretching over high-rise buildings.

Another night gone. Another set of curses erased. Three low-grade, one semi-grade two, and something in the shadows you didn't bother engaging. You made a report about that one. Let the higher-ups deal with it. You aren't paid enough to lose a limb over curiosity.

Your coat’s collar is flipped up, not from style but habit. You roll your neck until it cracks.

By the time you pass the school gates, your hands are shoved in your pockets. A glint of silver reflects against the faint morning light—your cursed pen, swings from a chain inside your jacket.

You’re two steps from the main building when a blur of movement rushes your left side.

“Morning, sensei!” comes the too-bright voice.

You instinctively move aside.

Yuji’s fist punches through empty air and he nearly eats pavement.

"HEY!" he yells, skidding across the courtyard. 

You reappear behind him with the flick of your cursed technique—soft distortion, shimmer, and then solid.

"Try harder," you mutter, your voice gravel from sleeplessness and street smoke.

Yuji beams at you, the way only a kid high on sunshine and sugar could.

"You saw that, right? That spin—I just learned that move!" He throws a quick, animated reenactment of the motion, eyes wide with excitement.

"It’s supposed to be this clean, but you—you actually blocked it!" He laughs, half in awe, jogging a few steps to catch up beside you.

"Okay, now I have to figure out how to break through that. Maybe— ooh, what if I go low next time?"

You grunt.

You head inside without another word, past students who are just arriving, past the smell of breakfast rice from the cafeteria. It’s early, but not for you. Never for you.

Nanami's already in the staff room, sleeves rolled, mug steaming, eyes quiet.

You drop into the seat next to him without removing your coat. You don’t need to speak. He glances at you once, notes the dried blood on your cuff, then slides a thermos your way.

Chamomile tea.

You murmur a thanks.

“Long night?” he asks, without looking.

You nod. “Shinjuku again. Something’s nesting under the rail yard.”

He exhales. “You sent the report?”

“Tagged the coordinates. Left a marker.” You lean back in your chair. “Didn’t engage.”

“Smart.”

You stare at the steam curling up from the thermos. “Didn’t feel smart. Felt like running.”

Nanami tilts his head, just slightly. “Running is only cowardice when it costs lives. It’s called strategy when you come back breathing.”

You don’t respond. Just sip the tea.

It burns, but you welcome the pain. It’s sharp. Real.

You don’t notice Gojo until his shadow falls across your table.

He’s always sudden. Even when he’s not trying.

“Look who made it back in one piece,” he says, grinning like he didn’t just appear out of thin air. “And in the same wrinkled suit. Impressive.”

You don’t lift your head. “I have three.”

“Oh, I know. I just think it’s cute that you rotate them like a cartoon character.”

“Bite me.”

“Tempting.”

You finally look up. He’s still grinning. Always grinning. That smug, radiant thing that shouldn’t feel as safe as it does.

“Tell me,” Gojo says, crouching down beside your chair, voice lowering. “You didn’t check that curse near the railyard, did you?”

Your jaw twitches, Nanami sighs.

Gojo hums. “You’re supposed to call us if it smells like a Special Grade.”

“It didn’t feel like a Special Grade,” you snap.

“But it made you walk away. What if it followed you?” His voice is soft now.

You hate when he’s like this. Kind through a knife's edge. 

You turn away. “I left a marker. Do what you want.”

“Already dispatched a team,” he says. “But next time, you wait. You call. Or I’m stapling a tracker to your back.”

Gojo stands, ruffling your hair—your carefully flattened, barely combed hair. Then goes to ruffle Nanami’s too, he ducks.

Later, after Nanami leaves for a mission and Yuji is dragged off by Nobara for training, you find yourself alone in the shade behind the school. The city stretches beyond the fence. 

Endless. Pulsing. You crouch there, smoke in your hand.

You don’t sleep because when you do, the dark things follow. But out here, in the sun, maybe you can rest your eyes. Just for a second.

You feel the presence before you see him. A subtle shift in the air. A footstep with too much weight behind it to be ignored.

snatch.

Your cigarette is plucked clean from your fingers.

You sit up fast. “What the—”

Gojo flicks the smoke to the dirt and crushes it under his heel. “Wow. So this is what thirty hours of no sleep and government-issue self-loathing looks like.”

You glare. “I was using that.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly, waving his hand through the faint curl of leftover smoke. “Smells like old men. Very sexy.”

“I will break your nose.”

He grins. “Kinky.”

You lunge for him, but he’s already dancing backwards, long limbs loose, laughing like this is his favorite game. Which it is. You know it is.

“You’re unbelievable,” you snap, standing now, brushing your hands off like you didn’t just fall asleep in the dirt.

“And you’re adorable when you’re homicidal.”

“Go away.”

“Make me.”

You step forward, ready to try, but he just keeps walking in a slow circle around you, hands behind his head like he’s on vacation.

“You know, most people smoke after something good happens. Not before they collapse like a cursed ragdoll under a sakura tree.”

“Maybe I like doing things backwards.”

“Maybe you like attention.”

Your stare is sharp. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Gojo spins, walking backwards now, his sunglasses glinting. “I’m not the one brooding dramatically behind the school like a tragic anti-hero. What’s next? Monologues about the weight of power?”

“Go choke on your own ego.”

He gasps, mock-wounded. “You wound me, senpai. And after I graciously saved your lungs.”

You march past him, done with the scene, done with the sun, done with him—but his voice follows.

“You owe me one,” he calls.

“For what?” you snap over your shoulder.

“For the cig! I saved your life! That’s worth, like—coffee. Or dinner. Or naming your firstborn after me!”

You don’t answer.

You just raise your middle finger without looking back.

He’s still laughing when you vanish into the building.

You make it exactly fifteen minutes into breakfast before Yuji starts poking you with chopsticks.

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks, voice too loud, energy too raw for six-something in the morning.

“No,” you deadpan.

“You should! Rice is life!”

“I hope you choke on it.”

“Wow,” he says, chewing anyway. “So mean before 7 a.m.”

Across the table, Megumi watches you like a suspicious housecat. Arms crossed, head tilted, judging in silence. Nobara is eating, avoiding your eyes. You ignore them.

Your tray is untouched. You’re not sure why you got one. Habit, probably. Something about pretending you’re normal.

Yuji goes to poke you again—and then Gojo drops into the seat beside you like he’s been summoned by chaos itself.

He props his chin in his hand and smiles.

“Morning, sunshine.”

You sigh without looking at him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Be delighted to see you alive?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Aw, c’mon. Would you prefer... sweet cheeks? My little gremlin? killer cutie?”

“I will put a pen through your eye socket.”

He grins. “Still not a no.”

Nanami sits down across from you, sipping from a thermos, and you actually relax a little.

He doesn’t comment. Just murmurs, “You’re late,” to Gojo.

Gojo shrugs. “Had to stop someone from setting themselves on fire behind the school.”

“I was fine,” you mutter.

“Oh, you were smoldering, alright,” he grins, elbow nudging yours. “In a hot mess kind of way.”

You finally turn to him, fully, and say—quietly, evenly

“Satoru.”

His smile flickers.

Just for a second. Like something short-circuits behind his blindfold.

Like you just dropped a match into his mouth and told him not to flinch.

“Die.”

He smirks.

You shove your tray toward Yuji without a word. He blinks at it.

“Wait, really?”

“Eat it before I change my mind.”

Yuji fist-pumps. “BEST SENSEI EVER! I’LL MAKE A SHRINE FOR YOU.”

Megumi suddenly looked horrified, you think you saw Nobara choke. 

Gojo, beside you, clasps a hand to his chest in betrayal. “You fed the child and not me?”

“You’ll survive.”

“But will I, emotionally?”

You stand, grabbing your coat from the back of the chair. Nanami looks up at you.

“You leaving?”

“Bathroom,” you say.

He nods. Doesn’t press.

You leave the cafeteria. Step into a quiet hallway. No footsteps behind you—until there are.

You don’t turn. “You’re following.”

“Obviously,” Satoru says, less smug now. “Didn’t even try to lose me. You’re slipping.”

You pause by the window at the end of the hall, sunlight slicing through glass and dust. Below, the courtyard shimmers with the morning heat.

He leans against the wall beside you, sunglasses pushed up onto his head now, hair sticking up like it always does.

You don’t say anything. Just turn and start walking to the shower rooms.

The water takes too long to get warm.

You stand under it anyway.

Let it hit cold, like punishment. Like proof. The tiles are cracked at your feet, and the soap smells too clean, like a hospital pretending to be a spa. 

You don’t wash your hair. You don’t even undress all the way—just peel the top half of your clothes off, let it slump down over your hips, the soaked sleeves dragging along your elbows like dead weight.

Steam rises eventually. Not enough.

You lean a hand against the wall, breathing like it’s a task. You hear a sound.

A click. A familiar one. Lighter flint.

“You smell like blood,” Shoko says through the thin stall divider.

You grunt. “Takes one to know one.”

A drag. A pause. 

You stare at the chipped tile. 

“I wasn’t going to light up in here.” she says.

You inhale. You hear the scratch of her back against the tile.

There’s something comforting about the quiet that follows. Not peaceful but familiar. Like the moment before a fuse burns out.

You shut the water off and let it drip from your eyelashes.

“Gojo’s looking for you,” Shoko says after a moment.

“He found me already.”

“Did he annoy you to death?”

“Almost.”

“Rookie numbers. You look half-dead anyway.”

You wring the water from your sleeves. “Don’t care.”

“Clearly.”

You wrap a towel over your shoulders and slump against the stall wall, mirroring her position—two backs to the same half-inch divider. You both stand there, for a while.

There’s a beat. You can hear the cigarette sizzle faintly in her hand. She knocks ash into the drain.

“You’re not sleeping again.”

You don’t answer.

She doesn’t push. “Nanami’s worried.”

You close your eyes. “He doesn’t say anything.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

You breathe. Let the silence sit. Water dripping down your back. Steam clinging to your skin.

“He said I should’ve called,” you mumble.

Shoko hums. “Satoru?”

You nod, even though she can’t see it.

“He’s not wrong.”

You turn your head. “Would you have called?”

She flicks ash again. “Nope.”

“Thought so.”

“But” she adds, “I also wouldn’t have walked into a rail yard alone with a bleeding suit and a hunger-activated cursed pen in my jacket. So.”

You sigh. “Touche.”

“Next time,” she says, tapping the wall once between you, “maybe don’t wait until you want to disappear.”

You stare at the grout line.

Then whisper, so faint she might not hear it:

I already do. You thought.

No answer. Just a flick of the lighter again. Flame, smoke, breath.

You walk out still damp.

Didn’t bother with a hairdryer. Didn’t pack spare clothes. The sleeves of your shirt cling to your arms, the collar wet and dark where it hugs your throat. Your jacket hangs off one shoulder. Steam is still caught in your skin. You look like something dragged from the ocean and left out to dry.

Gojo is exactly where you expect him not to be—leaning against the wall just beyond the turn, pretending to scroll through his phone.

His head lifts, very casually, half a beat too late. “Oh,” he says, like he just noticed you. “Fancy seeing you here.”

You don’t break stride. “Stalker.”

“Rude,” he hums, falling into step beside you. “I happen to haunt this hallway daily. This is my corner.”

You adjust the towel at your shoulders and keep walking. “Like mold.”

“I’m versatile,” he says. “You’re wet.”

You throw him a glare.

He shrugs. “Statement of fact. Didn’t think you owned a drowned rat aesthetic, but—”

“Bite me.”

“You keep offering. One day I’ll say yes.”

You pause. You do pause. Just long enough to make him stop walking, too.

“Satoru,” you say.

His mouth opens. But you’re already walking again.

He stares after you for a moment. Then jogs to catch up.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, quieter now.

“No.”

That shuts him up.

For two whole seconds.

Then, softer, trying too hard to sound casual, “Did you dream?”

You look at him.

Not like you hate him. Not like you want to kiss him. Just—like he asked a question that split you open.

And still you answer.

“Yeah.”

You’re already rounding the next corner when you say it, but he hears.

“Was it Haibara again?”

You don’t answer. You don’t have to.

Because he was there. He knows.

He remembers the three of you—back then. When Nanami still smiled sometimes, when Haibara lit up every room with something bright and stupid. You were younger. Meaner. Alive in a different way. Haibara used to call you by a nickname no one else was allowed to use. He was annoying and gentle and so, so good.

Too much like Yuji.

Too open. Too earnest. Always asking if you were okay, like he didn’t know you were capable of lying.

You breathe.

Gojo’s voice breaks the silence. “Yuji’s not him.”

“Yuji?”

He nods. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t say it like that,” you snap. “Like I hate him. I don’t.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I don’t.”

“I know, I know.”

You stop again.

This time, Gojo doesn’t pretend to be doing anything else. He’s just there.

Waiting.

You speak into the quiet.

“I dreamt about the last time we had lunch. Haibara and I. He brought that stupid plastic bento box. The one with the broken latch and the cartoon rabbit on it.”

Gojo’s mouth twitches. “You threw it at Nanami once.”

“He called it lucky.”

he tilts his head. “It wasn’t.”

“No” you say. “It really wasn’t.”

The air hangs heavy between you, grief caught in the walls, in your soaked collar, in the creases under your eyes that never really go away.

“I miss him,” you say. “And every time Yuji smiles like that, I think—what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of training these kids if all they do is die with their eyes still open?”

“I don’t know the answer,” he says.

You blink at him.

“You’re not supposed to,” you say.

His hand drops. He smiles again. Weaker. Realer.

Nanami rounds the corner just then, eyebrows lifting at the two of you. “You’ve been gone for thirty minutes.”

You blink. “I showered.”

“You’re still wet.”

“She’s going for a drenched aesthetic” Gojo chirps.

Nanami eyes your soaked collar, your towel-draped shoulders. “Very convincing.”

You roll your eyes and push past both of them.

“Breakfast is cold,” Nanami says mildly, falling in beside you.

“So is the grave,” you mutter.

Gojo snorts behind you. “Wow. Inspiring.”

The gravel crunches under your soles as you sit on the low ledge behind the training yard. It’s always quiet back here—except today, when Megumi shows up and ruins the silence without even speaking.

He just sits. Maybe two feet away.

You don't tell him to leave. He wouldn’t.

Instead, you stare ahead, both of you looking at nothing, like the ghosts hanging off your shoulders have names you’re too tired to whisper.

Yuji’s laughter echoes in the distance, high and bright—fighting with Nobara again, probably. He sounds so alive.

You don’t move.

“He’s loud” Megumi mutters after a while.

Your lips twitch. “He is.”

Silence again.

But it’s thick now. Not awkward—just too familiar. Heaviness is a language, and you both speak it.

The wind shifts. Megumi’s hair stirs across his forehead. For a second, you look at him—not for who he is, but who he reminds you of.

That brooding quiet. That reluctant kindness.

Suguru.

Then Yuji again, loud and laughing in the sun, and it’s like time folds in on itself. You see Satoru, years ago, with his unbearable smile, chasing after Suguru down the hall after stealing his drink.

You look away before your throat tightens.

One of them will die, or both.

You don’t know when. You don’t know how. But you’ve felt it since the first day Satoru dragged these kids into your world with too much faith and not enough fear.

you ask softly, “You sleeping okay?”

He shrugs. “Enough.”

You nod once and let the silence bloom again.

The sun filters through the clouds, weak and pale. There’s warmth in it, but not enough.

And for a moment, in the stillness, you remember the tile walls of the old dormitory showers. The steam. The quiet. Suguru. The beach.

You didn’t talk about it with anyone, honestly.

But it counted.

Back then, everything counted. Because it was before.

Before the split. Before the blood. Before Nanami found you in a stairwell with a bottle in your hand and told you “Don’t you dare.”

He’d meant it.

So you’d stayed.

Even when you didn’t want to.

Even now. You stand.

Megumi glances up but doesn’t follow.

“You should head in” you say.

He doesn’t argue.

Yuji barrels around the corner a few minutes later, cheeks red from running, hair damp with sweat. He’s too breathless to speak, too alive to hold.

You hesitate.

Then, without thinking, you lift your hand and pat his head once, gently. It’s not playful. It’s not sisterly.

It’s mourning.

Yuji stills under your hand.

Then smiles, eyes wide and simple and open.

You pull away and walk off before your hands can shake.

Nanami finds you in the corridor between classrooms later, where the light through the glass is watery and cruel. He doesn’t speak at first—just stands next to you.

“You were somewhere else today.”

You shrug.

He’s quiet a beat too long.

“Do I need to worry?” he asks. It’s not casual. Not rhetorical.

You look at him. Nanami, with his rolled sleeves and calm voice and the scar down his back you stitched up once in a storage closet with trembling hands. Nanami, who dragged you out of a freezing river two winters ago when you were sure you’d done enough living. 

You say, “No.”

And it’s mostly true.

He eyes your posture. The way your hands are stuffed deep into your coat pockets. The way you’ve started wearing your collar higher again, like back then.

“You saw something” he says.

You nod.

“About the boys?”

You close your eyes and dont answer. Because he knows.

Because he saw what losing one did to Satoru.

And what nearly losing you did to him.

He doesn’t reach for you. He never has. But his presence leans warm against yours, the way walls don’t move when you collapse against them.

Somewhere down the hall, Yuji shouts something about donuts. A desk crashes. Nobara yells.

It’s so alive.

You want it to last.

Even though you know it won’t.

You’ve been avoiding this conversation since last week. Maybe longer.

The knock is half-hearted.

Yaga grunts from inside. “Come in.”

You step in, still wearing the suit from last night’s patrol. It’s stained—not from blood, but from the sweat and dust of another mission run solo. Your hands are in your pockets. Your face is unreadable.

Yaga doesn't look up at first. He’s hunched over a rectangular planter on his desk, two vine-like plants growing in a tight, impossible twist. He adjusts the soil, prunes a stem with careful fingers.

“I heard you didn’t return till after 7.”

You shift your weight. “Time slipped.”

He grunts again. That non-committal sound he makes when he knows you’re lying but doesn’t care enough to press. “You were supposed to check in. Gojo was pacing the hall like a cat in a thunderstorm.”

“He does that anyway.”

A faint smirk flickers over Yaga’s face, quickly gone. “He wanted to go looking. I told him you’d show up. You always do.”

You glance at the plants. “Barely.”

He looks at you this time. “Are you eating?”

You don’t answer.

Yaga sighs. It’s that deep, weary exhale only a man who's raised too many broken kids can make. “You keep doing this. Working yourself into the ground. One of these days, even Gojo won’t be fast enough to drag you out of it.”

You look away. His words cut in the way soft things do—quiet and clean, but deep.

Then he switches gears.

“Yuji came by earlier.”

Your eyes narrow.

“He asked—no, requested—on being assigned to train with you. Said your cursed technique was ‘cool as hell’ and he wanted to learn stealth and ‘mysterious girl fighting.’”

You blink slowly. “I’m not fine with it.”

“He seemed fine with that.” Yaga’s smile returns, subtle and fond. “Said he’d die ‘invisibly’ and it would be poetic.”

You roll your eyes. “Tell him to stick with Kento.”

“I tried. He called Nanami ‘too structured’ and said ‘you’d understand his artistic chaos.’”

You stare at Yaga, deadpan. “…He doesn’t know me.”

“No,” Yaga says, leaning back in his chair, “but he’s trying to.”

There’s a beat of silence. You want to dissolve, go back to patrol, disappear into the hollow between buildings where thoughts don’t follow. But you stay.

Yaga reaches out, fingers brushing the twisted vines in the planter. You watch them curl slightly in reaction—alive, maybe too alive.

“I’ve had these since before you joined. Same seeds. Planted in the same soil. Look at them now.”

You do. The vines are impossibly entwined, their stems so knotted they almost look like one plant.

“Tried moving one,” Yaga continues. “Thought they’d do better on their own. Thought the roots were fighting each other. But once I split them, they stopped growing. Like they didn’t know how to live without the other.”

You don’t speak.

He plucks a single dead leaf. Drops it in the trash. “So I put them back together. And they started again. Twisting, adapting. Never separate. No matter what pot I place them in.”

You shift—barely—but something flickers in your expression. Your eyes remain on the vines.

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet” he asks softly.

You say nothing.

Yaga doesn’t expect you to. he says after a moment. “Maybe it’s obsession. Maybe it’s survival. Maybe it’s just something they were born with—coded into their roots. But it’s... something.”

Silence again. Then, your voice, so faint it barely stirs the air.

“Is that a curse?”

Yaga looks at you. Really looks.

“If it is” he says gently, “it’s an old one.”

You nod once, more to yourself than him. The words crawl under your skin.

The vines are still twisting.

And Gojo’s face flashes uninvited in your mind—laughing, bleeding, tired-eyed, soft-voiced when he thought you weren’t listening. His words echo again.

You think I don’t know?

A thought suddenly flashes through your mind.

You don’t like that thought. But you don’t pull away from it either.

Yaga returns to his task, brushing soil over the roots, like covering something sacred.

You turn to leave.

“Don’t kill Yuji” he calls after you. “He’s just curious.”

You pause in the doorway.

And you’re gone.

But that question lingers in your head long after:

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet”

You never said it out loud.

But something in your chest curled in recognition.

Two winters ago.

You walked into the river like it wasn’t a decision.

No thought. No panic. Just one foot after another.

Boots left behind in the snow, socks soaked through. The water welcomed you without question—silent, freezing, black under the skin of ice. 

The cold was crushing. It clung to your skin like teeth. And still, you didn’t stop.

You stared ahead—eyes dry, breath slowing—until the world narrowed to numbness.

You felt the coldness seep into your clothes, hair, ears and when you opened your mouth due to lack of breath, your lungs.

Then again, you felt nothing.

Not the wet fabric pulling at your shoulders. Not the bite of the wind cutting through your soaked clothes. Not even the trembling that began to climb your spine.

It was peace.

And then—it wasn’t.

Hands under your arms.

A jerk backward. Ice cracking beneath shifting weight.

“No—” you started, weak and hoarse, but the river swallowed the word.

“Get the fuck out,” a voice growled behind you—familiar and furious.

You thrashed, limp at first, then full-body jerks, kicking at the snow and ice, coughing out water as Nanami’s arms locked beneath your shoulders, dragging you up the bank like a corpse. You tried to twist free, elbow him, spit, scream. It didn’t matter. He was stronger. He was relentless.

“Let me go—Kento, let me go!”

“Shut up,” he snapped.

You clawed at his wrists, shoved at his chest, but he moved without hesitation—grabbed you fully, hoisted your soaked body up and threw you over his shoulder like dead weight.

You screamed. Hit at his back, fists weak. Legs kicking. Your nose started bleeding.

“PUT ME DOWN!”

He didn’t.

He didn’t speak.

He just walked—steady, powerful strides through the snow-covered path, through wind and silence and nothing but your fists pounding at his spine.

And then—gravel underfoot. The road. Streetlights in the distance. Some old van parked crooked in the snow. He dropped to one knee, and set you down on the roadside, your body folding in on itself.

You pushed yourself up to swing again—and he slapped you.

Just once. Sharp. A clean sting across your cheek. Not hard enough to bruise. But it landed.

You froze.

Eyes wide.

Mouth open—but no sound came out.

His face was twisted—jaw tight, red eyes wild with grief and panic and something unspoken. His breath steamed in the air between you.

“You don’t get to do that,” he said. Not shouted. Said.

You stared. And then you broke.

You collapsed forward, arms wrapping around him so fast it was clumsy, trembling fingers clawing at the fabric of his soaked shirt, blood seeping into his shirt from your nose.

“Don’t,” you sobbed. “Don’t yell at me—don’t leave me—don’t—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, hands wrapping around you, voice low. “You hear me?”

You were shaking, your chest heaving with a sob that wouldn’t stop.

“Everyone keeps leaving,” you cried, nose pressed to his collarbone, teeth chattering. 

“Kento—everyone keeps leaving!—”

“I know,” he whispered, folding his arms around your back.

“everyone’s fucking gone!”

He held you tighter.

You clawed at his shirt, screamed into his chest until your voice cracked.

He said nothing for a while.

Just wrapped his coat over your shoulders, rubbing warmth into your frozen arms, kneeling in the snow with you.

“I’m here,” he finally said. Quiet. So quiet it barely registered through your sobs. “You’re not alone.”

“I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can.” His hand slid to your face, fingers brushing the hair from your cheek. “You already did.”

You looked up at him through tears, lips trembling, face blotched red from cold and crying and blood. His expression was exhausted. His own eyes were red, rimmed with disbelief and grief, jaw working to hold in his own pain.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. His thumb brushed just beneath your eye. “You should’ve called me.”

You leaned into his touch like a dying thing starved of light.

“Don’t leave me,” you said again, barely audible.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. Not this time.

You stayed there for what felt like hours—kneeling in the slush, in the quiet aftermath of almost dying, clinging to the only person still standing in the crater your life had become.

And he also ate ice cream with you as he walked you home the same night, blue lips and numb legs.

For the first time in a long time you felt warm.

That was before he left,

You just added his name to the growing list of people who’d left.

Suguru. Nanami. The Class of 2007.

And eventually—you stopped reaching for anyone at all.

The villiage massacre.

You were used to the aftermath of curses. Used to blood. Screams. Silence.

But nothing prepared you for what you saw that night.

The village was hollow. Burnt out. The kind where people don't even realize they’re dying until they're dust. Suguru’s work.

You and Ichiji had arrived shortly after the incident was reported — a routine check. You expected another Level 2, maybe a rogue curse.

"I'll report it" Ichiji had said, his voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t just a cleanup job.”

You nodded. "Tell them everything."

But you didn’t go back.

Instead, you turned toward the one place that hadn't yet been mentioned in the reports.

Suguru's family home.

You'd never met them before. His parents. You barely knew what they looked like. But you'd heard him mention them in passing — his mother cooked seaweed soup in winter, his father worked too much. Casual remarks. Nothing special.

And now they were dead.

Bodies limp. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing stolen. Just tea cooling in ceramic cups, and two lives cut quietly at the root.

You knew right away that he’d done it.

Your knees gave out first. Then the sob caught in your throat, and you didn’t stop it. Not this time. You didn’t know these people. You had no memories to cry over, and yet you cried anyway. For whatever piece of his soul had died before he made the choice to do this.

You cremated the bodies, standing in silence. You watched the smoke carry their lives away.

You held a small funeral. you lit the incense with your lighter. You knelt before their ashes. Your hands trembled as you bowed, tears streaking down your cheeks.

"May you find peace" you whispered. "Even if your son couldn’t."

Telling the elders was worse.

Worse than the fire, the ashes, the way your voice gave out every time you tried to explain what had happened.

You became that person. The one who brought bad news. Who always returned alone, with blood or silence on her tongue. Some said you had bad luck. Some said you were cursed.

You believed it.

After that, you stopped going on joint missions. You stopped reporting directly to anyone. You took over the patrolling job.

You never quite came back from that house.

Eighteen and two months, the party.

The dress code was strange. White shirt, black pants. A marker in your pocket.

You hadn't questioned it — not out loud. Yaga had said it with a straight face, and no one dared poke the bear when he was in one of his "building camaraderie" moods.

But this was different. This wasn’t a mission or a funeral or blood-soaked silence. This was a… party?

If you squinted.

Suguru was the first to greet you, hair in his usual half-up style, a ridiculous party hat already askew on his head. “Hey, you made it,” he said, genuine and easy. “I had five bucks that you’d ghost this.”

You only blinked at him.

Behind him, Nanami nodded toward you, then shifted to open a pack of those tiny plastic forks with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb. Haibara was bouncing, literal sparkle in his eyes, waving you toward the table like you’d won some prize. “You came! Ah, Kento, she actually came!”

“I’m not blind,” Nanami muttered.

You sat without a word.

Gojo took the seat beside you before anyone else could. His hair was tied up loosely, his shirt already creased and messy, like he’d put it on last minute, possibly while wrestling a raccoon. He smelled like sugar. Why did he smell like sugar?

“You brought your marker?” he asked, mouth too close to your ear.

You gave a small nod.

He grinned wide and leaned back dramatically. “She speaks!”

“I didn’t speak.”

“She denies!” He clutched his chest. “God, I’m so into you.”

You turned your head, slowly, to stare at him.

He winked.

You ignored it.

Yaga gave a speech that lasted exactly three minutes too long and then mysteriously disappeared. The moment the door shut behind him, Geto clapped his hands. 

“Alright! You heard the man. Mark each other up. Memories, insults, love letters. Whatever.”

You watched silently as chaos bloomed around the table. Suguru wrote something very questionable on Shoko’s shirt, laughing when she threw a grape at him. Haibara’s shirt was already covered in stars, hearts, and the phrase “I’m a sunshine disaster” in at least three different handwritings.

Nanami's said “Sleep is for the weak.”

Yours remained untouched.

Gojo watched it all.

Sprawled sideways, legs long and unruly under the table. Shirt already covered in chaos. Someone had written “dumbest genius in the room” across his ribs, and he wore it like a badge. He kept laughing, loud and easy, but his eyes never left you for long.

“s’my turn” Gojo announced, somehow behind you now.

You should’ve noticed. You usually did. Your brain, your… unwelcome noise, usually warned you when he was too close. But this time, there was nothing — just the heat of his presence and the pressure of the marker as it pressed against your back.

“Don’t move” he whispered.

Suguru watched him with tired eyes.

“What are you writing?” Suguru asked.

“Compliments. Vulnerable truths. My social security number.”

You didn’t move. You didn’t even flinch. You let him write whatever he wanted.

He placed a hand flat against your spine to keep you steady. His palm was warm. Fingers a little too long.

He dragged it out. Literally.

Big loops. Careful slants. Words that didn’t need to take up half your back but did, just so his hand could trail after each one. You didn’t flinch. It was strangely comforting.

He paused once.

Then kept writing.

It ended just above your lower back.

The others kept talking. Laughing. You focused on the hum, on Haibara’s dumb giggle, on Nanami trying to slap Geto’s hand away when he drew a cat on his neck.

When he finished, he didn’t say anything.

He just passed you the marker.

You turned.

“Satoru” you said.

He blinked, suddenly serious. “Yeah?”

You handed him the marker. “Your turn.”

His grin returned, lazy and lopsided. “You’re gonna write something sweet?”

You shrugged. Then uncapped the marker.

And across his back, in clean, blocky letters, you wrote:

“You’re exhausting. And maybe I’d miss it if you stopped.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he tilted his head at you and whispered, “That’s basically a confession.”

“Keep dreaming.”

“Oh, I am. Every night. Want details?”

You leaned slightly closer, voice low. “huh? no”

“…whatever you want, pwincess”

Later, when the food was just crumbs and soda cans, and Haibara was passed out on Shoko’s lap, you felt a tug on your sleeve.

Nanami leaned in and said, “Do you want to know what he wrote?”

You frowned.

He nodded toward Gojo, who was now drawing stick figures on Geto’s pants while humming.

You shook your head. “No.”

“You should.”

You didn’t see what anyone wrote. You just know those who read out aloud as they wrote. Like Haibara, Suguru, Shoko.

There were flashes of the real.

Like Haibara, crawling across the bench to get to you, nearly knocking over the soda can you hadn’t touched. He scribbled “Eat more fooooood” on your shoulder blade in giant bubble letters, rambling on about how he wants to write more, then added a small smiley with fangs.

He leaned close after and whispered, “If anyone bullies you, I’ll beat them up. Even if it’s Kento.”

Nanami sighed, long-suffering. “You are the one who keeps jumping out from behind doors to scare her.”

“That’s bonding!”

You let Haibara hug your arm and left it at that.

Utahime was already yelling, “Group photo! Everyone, let’s go, before someone falls asleep or explodes.”

Shoko had set up a disposable camera on timer, already blinking red.

You all crowded together in front of the old mission board. Half the room still wore party hats. Nanami looked faintly betrayed. Haibara squeezed between you and Geto, dragging your arm up for a crooked peace sign.

Satoru’s hand settled heavy on your shoulder. His thumb tapped once against your collarbone. Light. Unnoticed.

Click.

The camera flashed.

And for a second, there were no voices. Just a silence that felt like belonging.

You didn’t see the photo until weeks later.

After a shared mission with Nanami, your house.

The key creaks in the lock.

You hate that sound.

It meant you were here. Home. Back in this... place. A place that, even by accident, refused to feel like anything but a dark hollow shell. A mattress on the floor. No fridge. No electricity. No trace of softness. You didn’t need it. You were never here long enough to justify having anything. Nights were for patrols. Mornings were for school. Evenings? Brief flashes of a quiet bed and clean suit before heading out again.

And you liked it that way.

You and Nanami step into the darkness, the door groaning as it opens. Your eyes adjust automatically, though Nanami, who’s already sighing, flicks on the lights—

Click.

Wait.

Light?

Your eyes narrow, trained on the glow bathing the hallway in soft yellow. You take another step in, the soles of your boots no longer touching dusty floorboards but… clean laminate?

Nanami halts beside you. “...You have curtains.”

You don’t respond, just phase forward—silent, a flicker of motion.

The living room is...

Furnished.

There’s a couch. A coffee table. The floor is swept. Clean throw pillows like little marshmallow lies sit primly on the corners of the couch. There’s a TV mounted on the wall. The windows are dressed in blackout curtains, elegant and thick.

You phase again, into the kitchen.

The fridge hums—alive. The door opens and reveals fresh vegetables, cuts of meat, bottled water, beer—your favorite brand.

You slam it shut.

Nanami enters behind you, just as you teleport to the bedroom—your sanctuary of nothingness—and find—

Drawers. A wardrobe.

other clothes. Not just suits.

Just… soft things. Cotton. Sweaters. Even fucking pajamas. With clouds on them.

“Who broke into my house” you say flatly, appearing back in the kitchen with a thud of boots.

Nanami raises a brow. “I don’t think this qualifies as a break-in, exactly.”

You stare at him.

“Kento,” you say, voice low.

“Yes?”

“Tell me this wasn’t you.”

“You know I wouldn’t dare.”

You close your eyes and let out a sharp breath through your nose. “Then who—”

“I’ll make tea,” he interrupts, placing his coat over a new kitchen chair. A new chair. There was a stove. A dish set. “While you process the fact that your home no longer resembles a condemned shrine.”

You grunt but don’t stop him.

He moves with familiar ease, finding utensils like it’s instinct. You lean back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes flicking to him. His presence is steadying. Like always.

He opens a cabinet, finds mugs. “You remember the first place we rented in Sapporo?”

“Collapsed roof. No heat.”

“You dissolved the floor into a sinkhole because it was rotting.”

“...I warned the landlord,” you mutter.

Nanami huffs a quiet laugh.

You let him cook. Tea turns to dinner. You don’t even ask where he found rice, eggs. It just appears. And for a second, you forget to be mad.

You sit, both of you with plates, sipping, chewing, saying little—until the heat of old times loosens your tongue.

“You were always the one with taste,” you say, glancing at the apartment. “Guess I infected you.”

“You did,” he says, and his lips twitch. “You and your tragic sense of denial.”

You click your tongue.

The kitchen light buzzes softly above. Still too bright for your liking.

You stand near the counter, arms crossed, eyes cold as they scan your too-new kitchen like it’s a crime scene. Nanami’s beside you, calm as ever, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, wristwatch removed and placed neatly on the windowsill like he always did before cooking.

He’s already got water boiling. Something aromatic simmers in a pan—probably pork belly. Of course he remembered your favorites.

You lean against the fridge, silent. The hum of it is still unnatural.

Nanami turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder at you. “You’re quiet.”

You scoff. “Processing.”

He smirks faintly. “Processing that you now own a functioning stove?”

You roll your eyes. “And curtains. Don’t forget those.”

Nanami shakes his head. “They match the walls. You should be grateful.”

“I don’t want to be grateful. I want my pit back.”

Nanami doesn’t bother replying. He just stirs the pot gently. The aroma deepens.

A beat passes. You shift.

“...Need help?”

His brows lift—mildly surprised. “Since when do you offer?”

“I didn’t offer,” you say flatly, moving toward the counter. “I just asked if you needed it.”

He pauses, then steps aside slightly. “Prove you still remember how.”

You snort and pull the cot aside with your foot, dropping it against the wall. The coat comes off next, heavy and long, tossed unceremoniously over a chair. Beneath it, a black turtleneck hugs your form—simple, worn. You roll your sleeves up, the movement fluid, practiced.

“Please,” you mutter, cracking your knuckles. “My skills haven’t lagged.”

Nanami hands you a cutting board and knife with a quiet look. “I’ll believe that when I survive your seasoning again.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter, already slicing green onions with neat, aggressive speed.

“You almost poisoned Ino once.”

“He’s dramatic.”

“You mistook salt for sugar.”

“That was one time.”

“And you didn’t taste the difference?”

“I don’t taste while cooking,” you say, straightening. “I just know.”

He sighs deeply, as though the weight of knowing you has aged him ten years.

You begin working in sync. The oil sizzles, the kitchen fills with scent and steam. There’s a strange comfort to it—a rhythm older than either of you want to admit.

You flick oil from your knuckle. “This reminds you of something.”

Nanami glances at you sideways. “The apartment in Kyoto.”

You nod. “With the cracked ceiling.”

“And a mouse infestation.”

“You cooked every night.”

“You refused to shop for vegetables.”

“You refused to eat instant ramen.”

He shrugs. “I have standards.”

You smirk, just slightly. “You liked my miso soup.”

“...It was edible.”

“Bullshit.”

Nanami finally exhales a laugh, soft and deep. The smell of the past lingers between you—soy, broth, burnt onions, and time.

“You know,” he says slowly, as you wipe your hands, “you were reckless back then.”

Your brow twitches. “Don’t start.”

“You teleport mid-fight too often. You never rest. You haven’t reported half your injuries this month. If I have to remind you again—”

You slam the knife down gently.

“I survived, didn’t I?”

“That’s not enough,” he says, tone sharp now. His gaze pins you in place, no longer soft with nostalgia. “You’re not a student anymore. You’re not alone anymore. There are people who—”

“I know,” you cut in, flat.

But something in your voice slips.

He watches you for a beat longer, then returns to stirring.

You both work in silence after that. The meal finishes. Rice fluffs. The soup simmers low. You set out the bowls, the motion automatic. Almost... normal.

As you serve his plate, you mutter, “I didn’t forget how to cook.”

Nanami takes it with quiet reverence. “No. You didn’t.”

“Shut up and eat.”

He does.

The table is small, plain wood. Still new. Too clean for your liking. The chairs don’t creak like they should.

But the food’s hot. The scent of soy and garlic hangs in the air.

You both eat without speaking for a while. It's quiet—save for the hum of the fridge and the occasional clink of chopsticks against ceramic.

Nanami finishes his rice and sets his bowl down, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin that absolutely didn’t belong to you before yesterday. “Not bad.”

You raise a brow. “Not bad?”

He exhales slowly. “Fine. It’s better than I expected.”

“Hah.”

You sip from your bowl. Heat settles in your chest—probably the broth. Not the warmth from shared routine. Definitely not that.

Your eyes flick to him, thoughtful.

“…Kento.”

He glances up.

You hesitate. “Did you know?”

He frowns. “Know what?”

“That he… did all this.”

A pause. Then:

“No” he says. “But I suspected it the moment I saw the fridge.”

You sigh, pushing rice around your bowl. “So stupid.”

He leans back slightly, crossing one leg over the other. “You’ll never admit it, but you needed this.”

“I didn’t need anything. Especially not a renovation from a walking god complex.”

A faint smile plays at his lips. “He means well. You know that.”

You grunt. “Satoru’s… relentless.”

Nanami watches you carefully. You don’t meet his gaze.

“He’s been bothering you again?”

You don’t answer immediately. You stir your soup.

“Not bothering,” you mutter. “He just… talks too much. Touches too much. Shows up when he’s not wanted.”

Nanami raises his eyebrows, like he knows you've said something you didn't want to, and that you'd hit anyone else who'd say the same thing. “And yet, you never go away from him.”

Your eyes snap up, sharp. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

He nods. “Of course not.”

You hate that he says it like that. Like he knows.

Your voice drops. “He doesn’t get it.”

“What doesn’t he get?”

“That not everyone wants things. That not everyone needs to be surrounded all the time. That maybe I like being alone.”

Nanami raises a brow. “Do you?”

The question hangs there, heavy and precise like everything he says.

You look away.

“I don’t want to need him.”

Nanami nods slowly. “That’s different.”

You tense.

He sets his cup down gently, folding his hands in his lap. “You’ve never been good at needing anyone. Even back then, you only let people close when they were bleeding out or trying to leave.”

“Don’t psychologize me” you mutter.

“I’m not,” he says simply. “Just stating facts.”

Silence falls again. You chew slowly, jaw tight.

After a long moment, you speak.

“I don’t know what he wants from me.”

Nanami stares down into his tea. “Maybe nothing.”

Your brow furrows.

“Maybe,” he says, voice lower now, gentler, “he just wants to be where you are.”

You go still.

Your fingers tighten around your spoon.

Nanami, sensing the weight of your quiet, doesn’t push. 

Eventually, you rise without a word and collect the plates. He doesn’t stop you.

You don’t speak again until the sink water’s running and your back is to him.

“He makes things messy.”

Nanami exhales a soft breath through his nose. “Yes. But so do you.”

“Shut up.”

His smirk is audible.

“I’m just saying,” he says mildly. “You let him in.”

You glance back at him, eyes half-lidded. “Barely.”

“Still counts.”

You flick a droplet of water in his direction. “Keep talking and you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“He installed the couch,” he reminds.

“I’ll dissolve the couch.”

Nanami chuckles, slow and full in his chest.

You let the moment hang, let it fade into the clatter of dishes and the distant noise of your city—the one you patrol, protect, disappear into.

And even though Gojo isn’t here, it still feels like he’s in the room.

After sleepless nights and overthinking.

You weren’t ever really part of them.

Not in the stories they told around tables with cheap beer and broken bones. You were somewhere else. Always somewhere else. Just randomly close to Nanami and Haibara, until one died and one left, and came back again.

And that was by design.

It’s not like you were invisible—not yet—but you might as well have been. Some people are made to be seen, like Gojo Satoru. Others are made to be followed, like Suguru Geto. You? You were made to disappear. You liked it that way.

Most of the time.

The name they gave your technique is a mouthful— Phase Dissolution. Not very poetic. Not like Limitless. Not like Cursed Spirit Manipulation. Yours just made you unseeable. Forgettable. You learned to twist the technique until you could manipulate your own presence—erase your voice, your scent, your weight in the world. The closer someone got to you emotionally, the harder it was to disappear.

Which meant, mercifully, you were invisible almost always.

You never took normal missions. They stopped trying to assign you any after that third year, when Gojo and Geto started leveling small mountains and you just started wandering. When Haibara died, and Nanami left.

You loved Yu Haibara.

Not in the way girls write in journals about. Not in the way people expect—sweet and soft and glowing with crushes. You loved him like a little brother you didn’t deserve. Like a bright lantern in a dark temple.

He called you senpai, for fun, because you let him.

“Y/N senpai” he’d beam. “Did you eat yet? You look like a withering flower! Rice is life!”

You punched him for that. Lightly.

You remember his laugh. You remember how he glowed with sincerity, how he was one of the only ones who didn’t mind how quiet you were. He told you once, “I think your silence is peaceful, not scary.”

And then he died.

You stopped speaking for three weeks.

Kento Nanami was different. Not warm like Haibara, but dependable. Steady.

He used to train with you after class, not talking much. You both preferred it that way. Grunts. Nods. Sweating in silence.

After Haibara’s death, the school changed for you both.

You remember the day Nanami walked out. He didn’t say goodbye to anyone. Except you.

You’d been leaning against the back steps, pretending not to wait for him. He stood beside you for a few long seconds before muttering, “It’s not worth it anymore.”

You didn’t argue.

You just watched him go, your throat too dry to speak.

And you stayed.

Like a fool.

Years later, when Nanami walks back through the halls of Jujutsu Tech, it feels like seeing a ghost wearing a new suit.

You’re in the training yard when you spot him.

He pauses when he sees you—just a flicker of recognition—and gives you a nod.

It’s not a reunion. You don’t hug. You don’t speak for another week.

But when you sit beside him on a bench during a break in missions, you say, “I was angry at you.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Still am,” you mutter.

“I know,” he says.

And that was enough.

That was your job: to roam. Tokyo, Osaka, wherever. You found curses before they found others. If they were weak, you killed them. If they were stronger than you, you tagged the location and passed it off to the higher-ups. 

They turned it into a real mission. Your name never ended up on the reports. You were just the invisible smoke before the fire.

You haven’t slept in days. Again.

There’s a burning behind your eyes, the kind that presses behind the sockets and drips down your spine like rot. You’ve forgotten how to taste food. How to feel temperature. You move through the city like something in between — not alive, not dead, just moving.

Your abdomen hurts.

You’re walking home when you hear it.

It’s not the usual cursed energy flicker that makes you pause. It’s a voice. A quiet, ugly grunt. A breath that doesn’t belong on a child’s neck.

You round the alley’s edge and see it. Small body. Pants half-off. A man’s hand on the back of the boy’s neck. His other hand working at his zipper. The kid was crying.

“Please stop, please—please don’t—I didn’t say anything, I—!”

The man towers over him. Smiling.

“It’s not the first time,” he mutters, voice low and casual, like he's talking about the weather. “Stop whining. You know what to do.”

You’re too tired to think.

Too tired to breathe.

Too tired to speak, or scream, or question what’s happening, or why you’re here.

Your fingers are already inside your coat pocket.

A cursed object. A cheap black fountain pen used by a murderer in a high school hostage crisis. It killed six. Now it only kills when you want it to.

You’ve been walking among curses long enough to recognize when the ugliest one is human.

You just take it out the way you’d take out a cigarette or a key, walking over.

Your forearm hits his throat, and he stumbles back, crashing into the opposite wall with a winded grunt. The boy falls to his side with a whimper, scrambling back, and before you know it, you're standing between them.

The man coughs, glares at you, and spits. “What the fuck—?”

The boy looks up at you like you’re some kind of hallucination. That’s fine. You're used to being a waking dream for people like him.

You crouch and touch the top of his head gently. “Close your eyes.”

You the man down to the ground with force.

He crashes to the ground with a grunt, but not before his nails dig deep into your shoulders — dragging, tearing through fabric and skin as he resists, snarling like an animal cornered.

You take out your pen. He sees it too late.

“No—hey, don’t—wait—”

You plunge it into his eye.

Just a sound—a soft, wet crack, like a rotten peach under a boot.

He thrashes, nails tearing into your back again as his body convulses beneath you.

But you don’t stop.

You don’t scream. You don’t shake. You don’t cry.

You stab again. And again. And again.

Until his body stops twitching. Until you can’t hear anything but the sound of your own breath. Until blood coats your hands like gloves and the pen sticks, cracked halfway down the shaft, lodged in bone.

Your arms are heavy.

Your vision pulses dark at the edges.

You barely feel the blood running from your shoulder where his nails tore skin open. It drips down your side and soaks into your pants.

You stay there a second longer, kneeling on a corpse.

Just breathing.

The boy is behind you now.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t cry. He’s shaking — arms wrapped around his knees, head ducked down.

You turn, slowly, and peel your blazer off your shoulders — sticky with sweat, ripped at the seam, spotted with blood.

You crouch low. Hold it out.

He flinches.

But he reaches for it.

You wrap it around him carefully. Gently. A little like you're bandaging a wound.

Your hand finds your phone.

You dial without looking. You don’t trust your voice. You don’t trust your knees, either.

The call picks up fast.

“Hello?”

“...Nanami” you rasp. Your voice sounds like it’s underwater. “Pick up a kid. Alleyway by the old bookstore on 3rd and West. Don’t ask.”

A pause.

Then a simple, steady: “I’m on my way.”

You let the phone fall from your hand.

The boy’s little fingers are still clinging to the back of your shirt.

Your knees give first.

Then your chest.

You feel yourself fold, slowly, to the side. Like paper. Like cloth.

You hit the concrete with a soft thud.

And then everything goes black.

Nanami’s car screeches to a halt.

The alley’s empty.

At least, that’s how it looks.

The kid is there, huddled in your blazer, silent, still half-exposed, shoes soaked from standing in the runoff water. His face is pale and rigid. Frozen like stone.

And you?

You’re nowhere.

Nanami frowns and exhales through his nose. He asks the kid slowly, about a woman and the kid points to nothingness on the wall. 

There.

A disturbance in the current. An outline, faint but real, half-sunken against the wall.

She’s here.

She never turned it off, Nanami thinks grimly.

No wonder the kid’s confused. He’s not a sorcerer. He saw a woman kill a man and vanish into nothing. Even now, his eyes dart toward the dead body — the pen still buried in the man’s eye socket like a signature left behind.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nanami says, slowly.

The kid flinches.

He doesn't move.

Nanami approaches the body first. The man’s eye is split open around the cursed pen like spoiled fruit.

With a steady hand, Nanami wraps his fingers around the blood-slick pen, and with one clean pull, removes it.

Nanami slides it into a cloth-wrap and stows it carefully.

Your technique drops.

Not on purpose.

Your body simply can’t hold it anymore.

You re-materialize like a ghost coming back from fog, limbs limp, blood soaking your side and inner thighs, head tilted to the shoulder like a broken doll.

Nanami’s hands move fast, catching your body before it slumps completely.

She’s burning up, he realizes. Fever. Blood loss. Something else?

He lifts you — slow, careful. You’re light, all things considered. Lean muscle over bone. You’ve always been heavier than you look. 

The boy clings to your side the whole way to the car, refusing to sit anywhere but next to you in the backseat.

Nanami drives one-handed as he calls Shoko.

You’re unconscious when Shoko starts.

“Jesus, she’s bleeding like hell—” she mutters, snapping on gloves. “Shoulder’s ripped open, bruising at the ribs, hand trauma…she’s got injuries and she never got treated, wait—"

She checks again.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

She yanks open a drawer and pulls out extra gauze.

You’re menstruating. Heavy. Severe cramps, coupled with blood loss from the fight and god knows how many days without sleep. Your body’s on the edge of total shutdown.

And then—

You sit up.

No drama. No groan. You just lift your upper body like someone getting out of a cheap motel bed.

Shoko’s eyes narrow. “You're joking.”

You blink, sluggish, then look down at the blood on the sheet beneath you.

“…Guess that explains the stomach cramps,” you mutter hoarsely.

“You’re an idiot,” Shoko says flatly.

You don’t argue.

Instead, you glance toward the side and swipe the curtains to the side and your eyes dart to where the boy’s sitting with a juice box. His knees are hugged to his chest. His hair is still damp from sweat.

He sees you.

His face lights up.

And then — he rushes in.

Shoko opens her mouth to stop him, but you raise a hand. Just one.

The boy wraps his arms around you as best he can.

He doesn’t cry.

He just presses his forehead into your side.

“…Thank you” he whispers.

You rest your hand on his hair. You don’t smile. But you don’t pull away either.

Look, Suguru, this boy here is just as innocent as those girls.

Nanami stands in the doorway, arms folded, expression unreadable.

“I’ll take him” he says simply. The kid doesn’t want to leave.

But he glances at you — your torn shirt, the thick bandages around your ribs, the dried blood on your thigh where Shoko couldn’t quite clean everything — and he seems to realize he shouldn’t be here.

He nods.

Nanami lays a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder and guides him down the hall, slow and careful like he’s leading someone blind.

The door shuts softly, Shoko leaves as well, murmuring about how much of a jackass you are (again).

Then you fall asleep again. 

You wake up to the click of a lighter.

Your eyes snap open—only halfway, the kind of wakefulness that comes after too many nights on the edge. But the figure isn’t a threat. He’s too tall, too loud even when silent, sitting on the edge of your bed, with your lighter in hand, playing with it.

“Didn’t expect you to fall asleep,” he says, voice low. 

There’s a rare bite in his voice.

He rarely raises it. He’s always fun and games with you, until it’s about you.

You hadn't spoken to Gojo Satoru properly in your life, at least until eight years ago. He did enough talking for both of you. 

"You’re like a fridge," he told you once, years ago, chewing on a rice cracker. "Big, cold, and probably full of old stuff no one wants to touch."

You had stared at him. He waited. You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply.

Later, you’d realize that was the only thing he remembered about you for months.

He used to look through you, not past you — through you, like you were a pane of glass that hadn’t shattered yet.

Until Geto died.

Until his blood painted the pavement like a cracked koi pond, and the air went still for months afterward.

That changed the day he cornered you outside the morgue. The white hallway lights flickered. You'd just signed your name off on mission clearance and were trying to make it to the vending machine before throwing up.

“Did you know?” he asked, voice hoarse and drunk on loss.

You blinked. “Know what?”

“That he was going to do it.”

Your jaw tightened. “Do I look like I mattered enough to be told?”

He looked at you. You realized, maybe grief has its own kind of vision. Maybe it strips you naked.

He didn’t reply. Just stood there. His sunglasses hung low on his nose, and the bags under his eyes had turned him ghost-white. That scared you more than anything.

Now, you’ve all gotten so much closer like plants would get when stuffed into the same space.

You look at him properly now, — and what you see isn’t anger.

“I didn’t sleep,” you murmur.

“Right. Just… rested your eyes. Like an old man on a park bench.”

“Why are you here?”

He shrugs. “Wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. But okay.”

“You’ve been working too much,” he says after a long silence. “Even Nanami’s starting to get worried. That means the world is probably ending.”

“Don’t dramatize.”

“Oh, I live for the drama. But this isn’t that.” He shifts, finally looking at you. His sunglasses slide down his nose just enough to show his eyes. Too blue. Too much. “This is me… asking.”

You blink. “Asking what?”

“If you ever stop running long enough to sleep—do you dream?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

He shifts a bit closer.

Like he’s asking permission without saying it.

The silence between you stretches. You don’t say what you’re thinking. You don’t say that maybe, if he had asked you, you would’ve probably followed him.

Not out of agreement. But out of not knowing where else to go.

Instead, you shift your weight and wince again. Gojo notices, eyes trailing down to the cloth shoko put in between your legs near your knees.

“I talked to the higher-ups,” he says suddenly, like he’s trying to change the subject. “They’re not happy.”

You scoff.

“When are they ever.”

“They want a report. They think your actions were… impulsive. Undignified.”

Your jaw clenches. “He was raping that kid.”

“I know” he says sharply.

You both freeze.

His hand is clenched.

His voice, when he speaks again, is lower.

“I know” he repeats. “But they only see paperwork. Protocol. Headlines.”

You don’t need to ask what happens next. You already know how these things go.

Slaps on the wrist. Private lectures. Eyes that never look at the bloodstains.

“I’ll cover it,” Gojo says.

You blink. “…What?”

“I’ll file it. Under my name.”

You stare at him.

“Just so you know, I wouldn’t do it for anyone else” He says again.

“Why me?” you ask. “Why not someone else?”

“Because you don’t ask me if I’m okay,” he says.

You look at the ceiling. “Are you okay?”

“Bitch” he says, “what did I just say?”

You laugh. He laughs too. It was unexpected, for you too.

You want to live again. Not for long. But long enough to hear him make that sound again.

But his voice is serious.

“Because it’s the first time you’ve done something like this. And I’m sure  it won’t be the last. And if someone’s gonna take the fallout for your so-called recklessness…” he looks at you, dead-on, “…it might as well be me.”

The words land like a drop in water.

You don’t know what to say.

So you don’t.

You look at him, this man you barely spoke to in your school days — this man who was always loud, always shining, always orbiting around someone else.

And now here he is.

“Call me next time,” He says, jaws clenched, and leaves the room. You sigh and try to move, before Shoko bursts in again, making you flinch.

Shoko lets you go back after that evening.

[dojunie]

dojun wip update with snippets...!

→ swimming for dummies; ljn

current wc: 30k

est finished wc: possibly 40k… and… and i’m already working on a part 2…

info update: in my top 3 as far as writing priority goes, stuck in a mental block with the last scene before the ‘ending’ (also possible retitle incoming lol)

snippet ↓

→ misdial; ljn

current wc: 58k

est finished wc: 70k-75k

info update: again, very big writers block, i’m realizing that i don’t actually like the current trajectory of this plot so im struggling between rewriting it completely or trying to fandangle what i DO like about it into a something that makes more realistic sense

snippet ↓

→ misdial, the lake house; njm

current wc: 24k

est finished wc: 35K

info update: high prio! i’m having fun writing this so it’s coming to me easier. no current writers block, just a little hard to sit down and concentrate…

snippet ↓

→ courtside; ljn or njm (itwd retitle/rewrite)

current wc: 61k

est finished wc: 80k-90k

info update: still my pride and joy. this is not coming any time soon LOL, but i am actually having a lot of fun with this one too… struggling between maybe posting the first chapter and seeing how it does (but worrying about people getting bored waiting between updates…) or sucking it up and waiting to post it only until its completely finished (which will be in 2026 by this rate…)

snippet ↓

and, secretly, a new contender to the board…

→ overnight gamer; ldh

current wc: 31k

est finished wc: girl idk. rough ballpark, 50k, but that sounds like wishful thinking even to me

info update: not really an update bc i’ve never posted about this on here before but here is half the reason i’ve been so slow with working on everything else… hello, gamer haechan brainrot!

snippet ↓

authors note: so! hello my friends :D i've been mia for a little bit because every time i go away for a while i get nervous to come back LOL but... i've been writing! so i thought it might be nice to post a little update so you all don't think i've died or anything

[daughterwifed]

LONG POST AB PLAGIARISM!!! PLS DONT SKIP 😭 this is also 1/2 !!!

hi.. this has been plaguing me for a while if I am honest .. I am too nervous to speak up about plagiarism lately mostly bc I feel as if I am being oversensitive or a narc bc I used to overreact a lot on my old blog lol and I also used to get a lot of racism/hate there and it kind of made me hesitant to call it out. plagiarism is one of the reasons I have been so writers blocked and disheartened when it comes to writing lately

usually I dm the person if the fic is not too similar but clearly inspired and ask them to give me credit which i have done a lot lately literally about 3 times in the past few days! those people all complied and added credit and one even took the fic down which I didn’t ask her to do but she did it bc she was apologetic!

I approached @acynicalsweetheart with this too! DMs are below if u can bother reading them bc there’s a lot.

she is very sweet and apologised immediately explained herself and took my point of view into mind which I appreciate a lot!! i was ok with being credited as a framework at first bc I didn’t want to be too pushy or whatever but I had only skimmed a few of her fics as I have had anons before ab it being copying but never answered bc I don’t like to name and shame without reason and also was too nervous for it which sounds stupid but sometimes I’d rather just let something pass instead of getting rape threats and racism!

I was genuinely at first under the impression that it was only a few fics however I asked some of my friends n mutuals if I was overreacting but they said that this is def valid and most of all it’s upsetting to see mutuals, people who read my fics praise work that is legit my fics patched together.. like I know when someone hasn’t written a fic it’s hard for them to see the plagiarism but it hurts my feelings that a style I’ve been working on for so long could be emulated so easy.. I was ok with the credit but like then I read more and more and it became clear to me that the plagiarism is so.. like there’s so much you could mistake the fics as mine and I completely understand inspo but this is just straight up plagiarism and I wished I had called it out beforehand I feel like I have been kind by simply asking for credit or if she would make a post admitting to it bc I know that these huge callout posts only lead to hate and like blocks and it isn’t always fair but like this is just likes on fics that r reworkings of mine and my fics patched together

ok.. so there’s like sooo many screenshots like there’s so many past what I have added in this post! the most noticeable is of my fic Somebunny loves you and acynicalsweetheart’s fic bunny love! I do not mind inspo!!!

my fic starts with leon talking about hunnigan, he steps out of work and it’s raining. fraise’s fic starts like that too. the left is mine right is fraise… OFC it doesn’t seem too overly the same but like the mention of the vintage leather jacket being ruined by weather? 😭 what r the odds and it’s like a lot of this I wouldn’t note as overtly copying if the rest of their fics weren’t also taking on a similar pattern to mine

then it keeps going on and my fic is ab Leon feeling guilty ab fucking his bunny hybrid.. that’s what fraise’s is ab again.. nothing too insane like hybrids and guilt r common in fics LOL but like again.. copied from lovey dovey is just this section rewritten

and then there’s a part in my fic rotten luck where as Leon fucks reader he remembers the Latin prayer his mom taught him. And he remembers it slowly as he fucks reader and again it would be nothing of note but with the rest of the copied content ?? and btw tjis is just small snippets like if u read both fics side by side it’s insane how similar they are but fraise’s fic is just lovey dovey and Somebunny mixed together

^^ the first is fraise’s and the other 3 screenshots r from my fic

there’s also little things like Claire using terrasave to save hybrids that I made up in my fic that fraise also uses whixh again!! would genuinely be nothing of note but it’s as if my characterisation of Leon, how I see him interact with other characters has just been taken, Like I know it’s dumb but I loveee to build my own views on how Leon interacts w Claire ashley and hunnigan and whoever and to see it be taken .. almost word for word is like? I just don’t get how someone could even take headcanons and the way a fanfic author. Characterises rather than building their own views on the source material and it’s not like I mind any of this but it’s the plagiarism that gets me 😭 I don’t want this to be taken as me upset somebody is inspired by this work or whatnot im upset that it’s plagiarism ! this is a smaller one but it’s still? so similar .. the first is fraise and the second mine

and I also wanted to give the benefit of the doubt and be like theyre not doing this on purpose and they were genuinely inspired but a lot of this is just purposely taken from my fics and reworded to sound different and it would be ok if it was a couple lines but the whole fic?? and a lot of it is done cleverly enough that it looks like im reaching to find things to nitpick on but I do this a lot in fics.. I cycle through what Leon thinks characters are going to think of him for doing something awful I have done this in two parts of rotten luck.. I have done it in Somebunny loves you and lovey dovey and even just certain descriptions are taken from like parts of strictly business (chris sounding and looking constipated LOL) and carefully pieced together to create some Frankenstein of my fic instead of just writing ??? like surely that would be easier

the other fic which is very similar to my fic softer softest is fraise’s fic love is a losing game! mine is about curly coming home after a long trip and fraise’s is ab curly about to leave this the opening passages of both.. and again if u read the fics side by side u will so many more similarities rhese two fics r also fraise’s original ones where as the ones that are requests tend to differ from my writing? so it’s like your two original fics are just copies of mine but a little different 😭 The first two screenshots r mine the third is fraise’s fic

on my tumblr I actually made an upset post ab this and then legit 5 mins later I was credited so it’s not like they don’t understand what they have done and I do appreciate the credit ?? but 😭

and these..the first two r from my fics aita and a drabble I wrote for jimmy… I also write that line a lot and the third image which is fraise’s is just a combo of both those lines like 😭

there’s a next part.. so yah linked hereeee only bc there’s screenshots I couldn’t fit..

[definitelynotshouting]

fic writer interview!

shamelessly yoinking from @karliahs bc this looks fun as hell to do :]

How many works do you have on AO3?

32 fics total, between my main and rough draft pseud!! which feels like a really small amount, honestly-- i think my private WIPs list is MUCH higher 😂😂😂😂 if we're counting my very first (and very abandoned) ao3 acct too, then that number is bumped up to 35!!

What's your total AO3 word count?

163,211, and a good 65k of that was written this year somehow??? according to my statistics ._. lowkey crazy to think about

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

paid for it with all of my blood (BNHA | 8,452)

at times so self destructive (BNHA | 4,554)

lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart) (HC/LIFE | 3,618)

or we can just have conversation (MSA | 1,834)

the art of rawgabbitry (BNHA | 1,609)

if youve been following me since my bnha fics in 2018 you deserve a veteran's discount

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i used to answer every single comment i got, honestly, unless it came by years after i posted it-- the only reason i dont as much anymore is because it gets REALLY overwhelming for me to respond to everyone after the initial barrage 😅😅 the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak etc etc. but i do read every comment and appreciate them SO SO MUCH, and whenever i find one particularly moving or want to just reassure people im still working on something i'll respond to those :]

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

not counting the wips that just never got finished and left off before their main shit could resolve, id say at times so self destructive (BNHA)-- i mean i LITERALLY ended it with izuku potentially dying 😭😭😭😭

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

tbh i dont think i write happy endings so much as i write hopeful, bittersweet, or open-ended ones-- i tend to like catharsis more than fluff when it comes down to it. but out of my fluff fics i think honey it's starting to storm (HC) is one of the genuinely sweetest ive written. my runner-ups on that would probably be when the smoke does finally pass (TMA) and or we could just have conversation (MSA) :]

Do you write crossovers?

not typically, and ive never published any, but i am definitely not immune to them 😂😂😂😂 i think my most niche crossover ive actually written (never to see the light of day) was a Nine Lives of Chloe King and Supernatural fic that was the definition of self-indulgent rot. only a little less niche than that was a Mortal Instruments and Supernatural crossover (theres a running theme here lol) lying in snippets on an ancient google doc in my oldest gmail acct. reread that one recently and its shockingly coherent for being written in like. 2016. id even call it decent (though theres a lot id change up if i were writing it now)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

idk if it'd be considered hate but once i wrote a fic inspired by someone else's when i was very new to ao3, let them know (i didnt know about the "inspired by" option back then), and they got mad at me in my comments section because in their words, "its better than mine" 😭😭😭😭💥💥💥💥💥💥

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

YOU COULD SAY THAT

as for what kind, honestly whatever strikes my fancy-- usually character/relationship studies, or just a fun focus on character intimacy. love 2 be asexual<3 love 2 write asexual sex<3

i had a discussion with my qpp recently about how in all honesty the smut i write is pretty tame, its just the character emotions written behind it that makes it feel a bit deranged. smth smth scarian is a chemical explosion. u understand

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge!!!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeppers!! the art of rawgabbitry (BNHA) received a translation to Russian, which i always found a bit funny because rawgabbitry is. one of my least favorite works ive ever written, if only for the type of comments it tended to receive back in the day 😭😭😭😭

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

ive never managed it honestly-- i get a bit precious about my process, which can make it hard to collaborate on that level. but its something ive always wanted to grow enough as a writer to try :]

What's your all-time favorite ship?

not so much of a singular OTP type of guy as i have favorite pairings per fandom im in-- that being said rn its scarian :P

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

pretty much all of my dsmp wips honestly. i may surprise myself someday, but for now i just have zero urge to actually finish any of them

What are your writing strengths?

like my pal karliahs im gonna rip these from the comments ive received 😅😅😅 but id definitely say imagery is my strongest skill!! i have a very strong imagination, and tend to see fic scenes as movie scenes in my head which i then transcribe into written format. id like to say im also really skilled at characterization and realistic dialogue that captures character voices very well!! and frankly i just love emotional realism so much i cant NOT write it, its always leaking into everything i do

What are your writing weaknesses?

i tend to get a little too funky and abstract with my descriptions sometimes-- that can work for some scenes, but grounding everything so that it feels more real and makes actual sense to the reader is something i often have to do on the second, third, and final passes

also to every person who has to crack open a thesaurus to understand what i write, i am so fucking sorry😭💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

no thoughts beyond if its not a language you're proficient in you should probably get that checked over by a native speaker, just in case :P

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

fairy tail..... ff.net was a dark place

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

crying sobbing wailing as i desperately beg my brain to start writing that post-canon siffrin and odile relationship study. unfortunately i dont think i can have more than one longfic on my docket at a time so it shrimply must wait

What's your favorite fic you've written?

to the surprise of absolutely nobody, i'd have say lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart) (HC/LIFE) :]

No obligation, but im tagging: @raichett, @kayawolfhorse, @boonbeenblade, @sillyfairygarden, and @grimfey !!! And anyone else who wants to do this ofc :]]]❤️❤️❤️❤️

[the-s1lly-corner]

Shut In (Eyeless Jack x reader oneshot!)

Basic plot: its really cold outside, and you urge Jack to stay in your home with you... he decides to stay despite knowing full well that he will be fine out in the freezing temperatures. You both decide to do things to pass the time and stay warm! Turns out Jack can make a mean cup of hot coco, too

Extra notes: I dont usually write fanfics, and the last one I've written was a personal one from late August... so to say I'm rusty and underexperienced is an understatement! I feel this one ended up a little.. weirdly paced imo but I think I'm still happy with the end result! Dialogue I feel I could have done better on but I'm going to be nice to myself since I mostly write hc posts so this is way out of my comfort zone.. Drafted on Tumblr then sent through google docs to pick up on some mistakes I missed, briefly reread no proper proof reading imo... lets hope this isnt a train wreck + it copied back to tumblr okay!! LMAO

Brief joke about pregnancy/making a pregnancy but its like one small snippet but I know that can make people uncomfortable + implies at least one of the characters is AFAB

Word Count: 2915

Extra Admin's note: I want to say again that I am so so happy about this blog hitting 1k followers, when I first started this blog I was originally going to use it to burn time and have something to do on the side, as well as having a place to put out my cringe ideas and hcs. I never thought this many people would be interested in my dumb thoughts, but here we are! I intend to keep writing this year, and perhaps even make more non-celebratory one shots this year? Maybe? I don't know I guess we'll see the reception on this fic!

It was the middle of the night, around the middle of January. Your boyfriend and you were holed up inside your apartment, you having locked the man up with you after seeing that it was below freezing out, as well as raining. You had to practically beg your boyfriend to stay with you for the night.

Your boyfriend, who also just so happened to be a man eating demon with tar dripping out of his hollowed out eye sockets. Your boyfriend, who was currently sitting still and staring forward, the only sound in the apartment coming from the dripping of your faucet. You had asked him to come visit you, it'd been a while... and he would never ever let you go to his cabin when it's this cold out. So here you both were now.

You pat the palms of your hands on your knees, sucking in one of your cheeks and working the flesh through your jaws for a moment. You were both technically stuck in the apartment now; you didn't want Jack to go out and risk getting sick, and Jack more than likely wouldn't want you to step out for the same reasons. So, you were both confined to what you already had within the space. You were about to open your mouth to speak but Jack broke the silence first. "You're shivering, do you want me to get some blankets?", blunt and almost robotic. He was never that expressive. "Or would you like to go to your room?" He added after a brief pause, his fangs poking just over his lip before he readjusted his mouth. You were both in the living room, sitting together on the couch; the front door to your left and a view of the kitchen to the right. You thought for a minute as your eyes lingered on the kitchen for a moment. You'd already eaten, before your partner arrived... but..

"That's fine, I'm probably going to make some hot coco," You pulled yourself up, stretching up. "Powdered stuff ooor..?" Jack mimicked you. You only shook your head, earning a disapproving look from him. "What?" You questioned, but he only dismissed you. "Why don't you get some blankets, I'll handle it," and he turned on his heel to make his way to the kitchen. "Maybe put on a movie, too, your choice." He added as his voice carried off. "Are you saying I can't cook?" You called back, following after him. No answer as he tugged out a pot. "I'll have you know-" you started once more

"Do you have half and half?" He was already opening your pantry to grab things.

"No, I don't,"

"Heavy cream? Whipping cream? Whatever it's called..." He mumbled as he placed various ingredients on the counter. Cocoa powder, vanilla, salt and sugar. You only nodded, and as he was about to begin working he paused. "Do you want anything else in it? Cinnamon? Nutmeg?" He paused and through gritted teeth, "Coffee?"

It was almost midnight, of course he would be opposed to you having caffeine so late.

"Cinnamon is fine," You watched him get to work. He measured everything out; even mixing the heavy cream with some milk to make a substitute for half and half.... was that really all it was? You weren't sure what you expected it to be, if it weren't..

He pulled his head up and stared at you. It was then that you noticed he had actually taken his mask off and set it at the end of the counter and out of the way. The black ooze dripping from his eyes was slow and posed little threat to dripping into your drink. He had a fistful of napkins on standby to dap his face dry should the flow quicken. "Aren't you going to get the blankets?"

You pat your hands on your thighs, pausing... watching him. His body had a warm glow on him from the old light bulb in the ceiling; it flickered every now and then. Under the yellowed light he almost looked healthy and alive, though there was no glint where his eyes should have been. His sharp nail tapping on the counter brought you back to the moment, blinking a few times. "Yeah.." you mumbled, defeated at the chance of making a drink for yourself stolen from you. But was that so bad?

You backed out of the kitchen, dragging your feet across the floor. Your apartment was.. a little on the smaller side so within a few steps you were in front of your bedroom door. You didn't really pay much attention to your surroundings as you shuffled through the blankets on the bed.. eventually you settled on just grabbing an arm full and waddling back to the living room, dumping everything you had grabbed onto the couch.

The house smelled of cinnamon and chocolate.. with a hint of vanilla.

Turning your gaze to the tv, your eyes scanned across the DVDs you had stacked messily. Nothing sounded good. "Is there anything you want specifically?" You called out as you settled yourself down criss cross in front of the tv and pulling all the cases onto the floor next to you. "Movie wise," You added as you pulled the first case into your hands. The DVD collection for Child's Play.. you had gotten it a few weeks ago, finding it on sale at your local store. You still hadn't popped it in to watch..

"I have.. Chucky, uhm..." You shuffled for the next case. "All the movies by the way.. I have that and.. most of the Friday the 13th movies," You called out. No answer, the only sound coming from the kitchen was the noise of a whisk gently being stirred. "I don't have Jason goes to hell... But!" You pulled out a third case with the Nightmare on Elm Street DVDs. "I DO have Freddy vs Jason," You mumbled and spread the three disks on the floor in front of you. Most of the disks you had, you noticed, were mostly older slasher movies. Still, Jack hadn't answered you. You pull yourself to your feet and trudge back into the kitchen. His back was to you, too preoccupied with the stove... He hadn't noticed you, not yet. An idea blossomed in your head, a smirk pulling itself across your lips. You steeled yourself, trying to force yourself to stop shivering.. Jack was always paying attention to his surroundings, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

You take a step forward and he still doesn't notice your approach.

Another step.

And another.

Jack wasn't the tallest, in fact if you wanted to you could rest your chin on his shoulder... and that's what you ended up doing, while wrapping your arms around his thick waist. You could feel his body seize up just a little bit against you, before relaxing. "You didn't answer, what sounds good?" You pulled your eyes down to look at the pot. Your drink was nearly finished. You view rocked as your boyfriend shrugged, still silent but the twitching of his pointed ears let you know he was listening.

"Anything's fine," Another shrug as he cuts the heat. "You're the one cooking for me, you get to pick the movie," You insisted. He paused mid-whisk, letting out a soft huff. Suddenly he spun around, his face just a few inches from yours. In the dimmed light his eye sockets seemed deeper, it's black ooze lazily dripping down his cheeks. You noticed the smudges on his face, from wiping the streaks. You briefly wondered what it was like to sleep with them, but your thoughts were cut short as he pulled a blackened and clawed hand to your hair; tucking a lock behind your ear. "How does...." He paused, sucking in his teeth. He looked almost embarrassed. "Bride of Chucky sound?"

"What? Want to study the characters again so we can dress up again this year for Halloween?" You tease. You had convinced him a few months ago to dress up with you. With him as Chucky, and you as Tiffany... It had taken some begging and convincing but you ultimately got him to agree. Although you didn't go out to get candy, you were both fine with staying inside watching movies together in costume. It was also that night you got him to watch the movies..

His ears darkened, before he scoffed. "No... actually this year I was thinking of..." He took a long pause, visibly scraping his brain for names of characters, before seemingly giving up. "Look I don't watch many movies I don't know any.. characters.." He grimaced, before gently pushing you off of him so he could turn his attention back to the hot cocoa. "We've still got nine months, more than enough time to come up with something..." You shrugged, then smirked. "Not enough time to make a Glen... or Glenda," You teased before turning on your heel. You held back a snicker as you heard Jack splutter, finally processing what you had just said to him.

"W-"

"I'm gonna go ahead and put in the disc, I'll leave it paused for you," You cut him off, still grinning to yourself as you kneeled down to do as you had said.

Soon enough Jack walked into the room with a mug, as well as a platter of cookies. "You didn't have to," You mumbled as you eyed the treats, but he only waved you off as he placed the plate and mug onto the coffee table. "You don't have to eat them, but I figured you might want a snack while watching the movie," He mumbled. You took the mug, and swirled the drink inside of it. "I hope I didn't put in too much cinnamon," Jack added as he watched you. He leaned over and started the movie.

You took a sip, smiling a little as the warmness crept in. "You did good, probably the best hot cocoa I've ever had." You offered a grin to him. "That has got to be the fakest compliment I've ever heard," Jack shot back, though you could see the corners of his mouth turning up just slightly. "Oh, I'm sorry! I believe this is the most decadent and satisfying beverage I've had ever been graced with in my life, and-" You began, only for Jack to hush you. "I'd rather you throw it on me, don't... say words like that again," He grumbled as readjusted himself into the couch. You took a sip and shrugged, "It's just absolutely immaculate," and he lightly smacked you on the arm. "I'm never making anything for you again," He snorted, before turning his attention to the movie.

You weren't going to lie, you felt a little bad treating yourself to the cookies, knowing Jack was unable to eat them without upsetting his stomach. Being a man-eating monster must really be hard. You purse your lips, and shoot a look at him from the corner of your eye. He must have been doing the same, because he turned his head to look at you. "Do you want to do something else?" He asked lightly, his grin from a few minutes ago already faded. "Do you ever miss eating.. food?" You asked before you could stop yourself. He didn't bother pausing the movie, instead he just fell silent and stared down, into the space between the two of you on the couch.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up, I know it's a touchy subject for you," You mumbled and put the mug on the table. You sucked in the air between your teeth, flicking your eyes up to the movie, before bringing them back down to your lap. It stayed like that for a minute before Jack broke the silence. "I mean... yeah, I do. But at least I don't have to eat every day like you do, means I can have more time to do what I want," He said. Clearly, he was still bothered, tip-toeing around the big.. thing about him. The air was still tense and thick, all of the previous joking gone now. It was nearly unbearable. Nearly.

"You know," Jack began after a few more seconds of silence when you didn't reply. "I've never tried cinnamon in hot cocoa, I didn't know that was a thing people did," He was changing the subject. "You haven't?" You asked, raising a brow. He eyed your mug, but you both knew there was no way he was going to take a sip.

"It's really good," You mumbled, and took the drink, "The combo, I mean," You added. He hummed, patting his knees lightly. You swirled the drink again, watching the... what was it called? Those lighter swirls in the drink.. Did that have a name?

"You've had hot cocoa before, right?" You asked. He hummed again, nodding his head. "Well.. the cinnamon makes it warm. Taste wise.. It makes it.." You took a sip and thought for a minute. "Richer, I guess? It's hard to explain," You muttered, then looked back at him. You tore your eyes back down when you saw he was looking right at you, totally hooked onto your words. "I hear nutmeg goes good in it, too.. but I've only tried nutmeg and chocolate together in baked goods," You shrugged. "You did really good with this, you know... not too much cinnamon.. not spicy, at least." You smiled. He nodded, before turning back to the movie.

"Woody, I hear people describe cinnamon like that," He leaned back into the couch, a dull pop came from his back.

"Woody," You repeated, then took a large sip of the hot cocoa. You put the mug down onto the table, and leaned into your boyfriend as the warmth crept and settled into your bones. You weren't even paying attention to the movie, your mind was now occupied with how tired you were. Your eyes slipped up to the clock on the wall, It was nearly one in the morning. Had it only been an hour since Jack walked himself into the kitchen?

You lean deeper into Jack, not caring about his body's natural chill. His clothing still smelled a little like the cocoa from earlier.. "Gotta invest in some cologne, you smell nice like this," You mumbled into his arm. "The cinnamon?" He asked, not looking down at you. "No.. the cocoa, I mean cinnamon would be a nice touch... but you don't seem like a sweet smelling guy, do you?" You muttered. "Are you already getting tired?" Jack asked, and he leaned over you to grab the remote, pausing the movie. You muttered, the heat of the hot cocoa doing way more than you expected on the tiredness you didn't notice you had. "A little," You shrugged, "But we can still try to finish the movie," You offered, but he shook his head. Of course he would, as much of a hard ass or party pooper he came off as, he was going to make sure you were going to get your rest.

You put your hand in his, the one that had the remote.. you unpaused the movie. He paused it, and you unpaused it again. It kind of kept up like this before Jack conceited and kept it playing, although he did lower the volume.. The subtitles were already on, though. "I win," You smirked up at him, before crawling into his lap. You placed your head on his chest, pausing when you felt him stiffen before relaxing against you. His heart beat for a moment before settling to its barely there rhythm. For a minute you thought about asking about his heart, as far as you knew he explained himself like he was becoming a walking corpse... how does that work?

You decided against it, you already asked about him earlier.. and besides, your mind was already beginning to blank as Jack reached to the side of the couch, and turned the lamp off.. It was dark now. It was still raining, you could more clearly hear the drops outside now that the movie was turned down. Plus, Jack was running his fingers through your hair, lightly massaging your scalp. It wouldn't be long until you finally gave in and fell asleep.

"Are you going to still be here in the morning?" You asked, melting into his chest as he hummed in response. "Plan on it, I still need to clean up the kitchen," He added as he curled your hair around his hand. "It'll still be cold in the morning," He added, "I need to make sure you bundle up before you go out for work," He added. "I'm not that dumb," You muttered and lightly slapped his arm. You swear, if he still had his eyes he would have rolled them.

"How do you see? I know you're not.. a normal person, but," You blurted out, lifting your head. He pushed your face back down, shushing you. "Sleep," He ordered, before loosening his hold on you a bit so you could get comfortable. It wasn't an order but it may as well have been with how your body started to loosen into him within the next few minutes, quickly snuffling out your curiosity and questions.

He'd still be here in the morning, you could pester him then. After all, it's what he signed up for when the two of you started to date one another..

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Jan 25th

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1. I'm begging to know if you have this fic. Years back, I read a fic where Wei Ying is exiled from the Lan clan and in the process becomes mute kind of (?) by choice. Years-ish later the Lan clan would beg him back to teach the juniors dark arts, and after something he would comply. It's a lot of Lan Zhan trying to apologize and Wei Ying not taking it afterwards, but I do believe it has a good ending. Do you perhaps know what this fic is? I've been trying to dig out the name for a month or so now. @sunshines-child

FOUND? Wei Ying's Destroyed Heart by Belladonna01234 (Wattpad)

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2. hi!!! im looking for a genderbend fic( i think ?) where wwx is set to marry jin guangyao (theyre each others beards) and lwj is the florist, or maybe the other way around. i didnt read it, i only remember those specific things bc of the tags and the summary, but most definitely one of them is the florist at the other's wedding, and they meet and such is life. thank you so much!!!

FOUND! Widow's Weeds by travelingneuritis (E, 18k, wangxian, Modern Cultivation, Gardens & Gardening, Wedding Planning, wedding thwartin, grich people are terrible, Light-Hearted, Smut, Gender Changes, Getting Together, offscreen deaths played for laughs, this is meant to be silly don't worry about it, Scheming, Plotting, wwx and jgy are accidentally-on-purpose bearding each other but i keep it PG, wwx running laps around the entire jin sect)

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3. Hello! I am looking for a fic which I am 90% sure is a WWX/LWJ fic, but there is a 10% chance it might be Keith/Shiro from Voltron (oops, ehe, if so please disregard this ask!). It is a modern au where WWX looks like a rough guy, maybe from a motorcycle gang, and LWJ is a lovely put together businessman. The office where LWJ works begins to notice their boss (LWJ) meeting with tattooed WWX and they think WWX might be up to no good! But WWX is actually a cop or fireman, and he just looks a bit like a road rat. They eat pastries together on their lunch break. Does this ring a bell? I have been looking for ages! Thank you!!!

3 is definitely a Voltron fic if the other blades of Marmora are Keith's fellow cops.

~*~

4. Hi! For fic finder, there is a fic that i only read the summary and a snippet of the story. I didnt read that fic at first because it is not something i usually read, but now its haunting me. Its ice skating au. I think there are "madam yu bashing" In the tag (im not sure). And the snippet i read is NHS beat up WC in secluded place in revenge for WWX. There are no CCTV and NHS said to WC that no one will believe him that NHS beat him up. I know its short, but i really dont know the story. Thank you!

FOUND! enough, for me by doodlebutt (T, 1k, Modern AU) which takes place during chapter 7 of All the shine of a thousand spotlights (M, 60k, WangXian, Modern AU, figure skating, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Major Character Injury, Recovery, Getting Together, background relationships - chengqing; xuanli; xiyao, Background Pregnancy, the mortifying ordeal of Talking About Your Feelings, sexually tense pair skating, There Was Only One Bed)

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5. WWX and LZ are flabbergasted to see the other alive: WWX was burning paper money at LZ’s funeral as LZ died protecting him and LZ was attending WWX’s funeral as LZ failed to protect WWX during a nighthunt. The universe did some weird shit that merged the two timelines so now they’re both alive and with each other. I can’t find it anywhere @selena10180

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6. There was this fic, i don't remember, wwx was single and pregnant and his family (i think jiangs or wen? ) was with him? If u could find this fic and more like it?

FOUND? All I Want by Selenay (E, 47k, WangXian, Modern AU, No Powers, Mpreg, Post Holiday Romance, Consequences, Reunions, Idiots in Love, Teacher WWX, Rating earned in later chapters, Handwavey Biology)

FOUND? Nothing but your heart by airinshaw (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, First Time, Getting Together, Angst and Drama, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anal Sex, Whump, Breeding Kink) could also be this

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7. hi!! im looking for an unfinished (as of when i read it at least!!) accidental baby acquisition fic where wwx drops a baby (lsz i believe!) off at lwjs door in the middle of the night and disappears — i know thats vague but i dont remember a lot of details? it was a lot of introspection and confusion on lwjs part, kind of OH SHIT i have to look after this baby now n wwx is vanished n idk whats going on. n to my memory in the next chapter or so wwx comes back and is still rlly weird n mysterious n frustrating abt the babys origins n theres wx vibes but lwj is real confused. sorry i dont have more detail but i really hope i can find it!!!

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8. Hi! :D I really hope you can help me find this fic! I have been looking for weeks! it's driving me nuts!

I remember that WWX doesn't die and LXC help him live hidden in CR using the identity of a Lan that has died, WWX is taking care of LWJ/is LWJ's servant, there is a scene where they are in Lanling (I think) and WWX has befriended some of the servants there, him and one? of them are talking about WWX's feelings for LWJ/if LWJ love WWX/or something like that, and then LWJ is there, I'm pretty sure they go somewhere else and confess to e/o

FOUND! Unbreakable Heaven, Luminous Earth by carolyncaves (M, 96k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Secret Identity, almost to the point of uncomfortable identity theft, Sharing a Bed, Literal Sleeping Together, Mutual Pining, Getting Together, Suicidal Thoughts, that's for WWX after Nightless City and is not pervasive throughout the fic, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Caretaking, Sexual Content, Domestic Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Power Imbalance, mainly between WWX and JGY in an entirely nonsexual manner, this isn't really a kid fic but the kids are there, as are some yunmeng sibling feelings, JYL lives, Not Everyone Dies AU, some COVID parallels, this is not a quarantine fic, but thematically WWX deals w things like face-covering for safety and loss of control, also assume all canon warnings, this AU is gentler than canon but isn't a complete fix-it)

~*~

9. Hi hi! Thanks for your wonderful recommendations always! I’m looking for a wangxian fic where WWX has a breakdown in the lotus pier courtyard and the vibes are like “I’ve tried so hard for so long and for what; I can’t anymore; I’m so alone” and the Jiangs are like “… oh shit” and then treat him better after that and help him bear the burdens. (I can’t remember if WWX is a dragon also?) @vi-sky

#9 while the suggestion is great I don’t think this is the fix I was looking for. I don’t think the Jiangs find out about anything until WWX has the breakdown in the courtyard, and I think he kept it to himself for awhile as opposed to his breakdown being chapter 1 in the recommended.

NOT FOUND! 🧡 (Un)Hidden truth by Sarah_R (M, 198k, WIP, WangXian, Suicide attempt, Time Travel, Hurt/comfort, Angst, Self-Harm)

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10. Hello! I can't remember much details but I think lan zhan lands on an unfamiliar planet, there he meet wei ying. Wei ying appearance is different, his body i think is color pink? or blue or like galaxy (눈▽눈) I 'm not really sure but he is not human , also wei ying is shy at first and then warm up eventually. Wahh thank you in advance!

~*~

11. Hello! For fic finder: I am trying to find a fic I read recently (within the last 6 months or so) where Wei Wuxian cultivates a resentful energy core but it was held outside his body in the Yin Tiger Tally. Lan Wangji doesn’t know that, so he convinces Wei Wuxian to give up the Tiger Tally as a gesture of peace. Everyone gathers around to watch and are horrified when as Wei Wuxian crushes the Tiger Tally in his hand and the Tally crumbles to dust, Wei Wuxian keels over in terrible agony at losing his core a second time. I think Wangji rushes over to help but Wen Qing pushes him away. It wasn't Decay by antebunny (although that is a good fic!!). Any thoughts? Thank you!

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12. hi I just remembered a fic in modern verse where Wei Ying boarded a flight that disappeared mid air and landed after 10+ yrs and Lan Zhan comes to pick up from the airport once he gets the news. I can't seem to find it can you please help and thanks for your efforts its bought me across many amazing fanfics

FOUND! 看客散去唯你我不忘 | the world forgets but i still remember you by prettyxianxian (T, 11k, wangxian, Modern, Flashbacks, POV Multiple, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Lives AU, Insecurities à la WWX, manifest au, JC & WWX Reconciliation, Good Parent YZY, Good Parent JFM)

~*~

13. Hello!! I'm looking for a fic that I was sure i had reblogged but now I can't find it anywhere 😔 It was on tumblr not ao3. LWJ is sex-cursed and he has to be touched by the person he loves. It was during the burial mound days and WWX is isolated from the cultivation world, and also LWJ refuses to ask him for help for that, he'drather die. LXC finds out and takes an unconscious LWJ to the burial mounds and gives him a day to tell WWX on his own or LXC will do it, and LWJ only agrees because he intends to run away before WWX finds out why he's there @kokobabee

FOUND! Tumblr Fic by @jingyismom

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14. Hello! I badly need help. I've been looking for this fic. I think it was like 5+1 or something where other people learn that Sizhui is Hanguangjun's son and that one time that Wei Wuxian did. I remember some of the 5+1 was a scene with a vendor, another scene with Ouyang-zongzhu in a nighthunt and I'm not sure if Jiang Wanyin was also one of them. But yeah, I've tried all keywords I could think of but I just can't find it. I hope you can help me. Thank you so much for all your efforts.

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15. Hello I am looking for a fic where the world agrees to not kill Wei Ying if he marries and dual cultivates with someone and it's LWJ @calamityisalve

~*~

16. I am looking for a fic where wangxian invite the cultivation world to their wedding but wei wuxian and Lan shizui get badly hurt during the hunt before the wedding. The wedding is postponed and I think it had a scene where they fell down a waterfall? Please find it for me🙏

~*~

17. Hiiii!!!! I’m looking for a Twitter thread fic about a Warprize Lwj ABO Au where he became a consort to wen zhuliu? I think it was him, anyway, he gave birth a-yuan but a-yuan was actually Wwx son. I remember there was quote retweeted art of the thread fic where Wwx was standing over a-yuan’s cradle.

If you actually manage to find it a million thanks!!! @silent-taco

FOUND? Twitter thread by @cerbykerby, art by @hellinglaozu

FOUND? 🔒 Poison series by Cy_an_Blue, NiceElsa (E, 30k, wangxian, Gods & Goddesses, God WWX, God LY, A/B/O, Alpha WWX, Omega LY, Pre-Relationship wangxian, Implied/Referenced Forced Marriage, Implied/Referenced Bottom LWJ, Omega LWJ, Alpha LXC, Married WangXian with kids, Dark, War Prize LWJ, Forced Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Not by WangXian, Adultery, Cheating, Threats of Violence, Threats of Child Abuse/Murder, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gore, Smut, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Endgame Wangxian, Post Mpreg, post pregnancy, Protective LQR, Gūsū Lán Elders Bashing)

~*~

18. Hello! I hope you can help me find this one, because I’m not having much luck; Wei Ying agrees to do what the sects want in exchange for the Lan sect taking in the Wen. He is basically imprisoned in the Unclean Realm and can’t practice demonic cultivation, and over time Nie Huaisand and Nie Mingjue start to warm up to him.

I think the one scene I remember most is a scene where Lan Huan asks Wei Ying if he can play for Nie Mingjue but Wei Ying says he can’t and admits that he has no golden core after making Lan Huan promise to keep it a secret. Hope this helps?

FOUND? Always walked a very thin line by tucuxi (T, 22k, WangXian, NHS & WWX, JYL & WWX, Depression, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Self-Worth Issues, Slow Burn, Oblivious WWX, Golden Core Reveal, WWX Has No Golden Core, Chronic Pain, Chronic Illness)

~*~

19. 你好! I've been looking for a fic with mute wei ying? (mute by choice, I believe). I cannot remember much, but I do remember that Wei Ying is exiled by the Gusu Lan clan, led by Lan Zhan himself. He's later called back to teach the juniors lessons on Demonic cultivation, where they found out after many years of choosing not to talk, he's kind of lost his voice. I don't know if you could find this fic, but it's been plaguing my brain for awhile now.

~*~

20. Hi! Searching for a fic where omegaxian is the assistant physician of Wen Qing and then Emperor (not sure if emperor or just a prince) Alphaji want him immediately as his consort. Wen qing and other people protested and told alphaji that omegaxian is not available because he is only a physician.

I remember it being a threadfic in X (twitter)

Thank you so much

~*~

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Uh, hey, I dont know what the fuck possessed me to do this since usually I’m stupidly socially anxious and overthinky and oversharey to a severe degree about messages but hey, it’s fucking midnight and I just spent the last 30 minutes cleaning while listening to dopamine music so maybe I’m high (no I’m not, I’m joking to clarify) but whatever the hell, here I am I guess, I apologize if I come off as unhinged or strange or anything like that (like very much so; I think a good visual representation of how I’d feel if I unintentionally came off that way is a video of a Japanese apology Olympics. If you don’t know what that is, just search it up, it’s quite funny but also I am as sorry as those people are). Anyways,

First things first, just gotta say this, your stuff is fucking epic, drawings, presumably writings as well (I have yet to buckle down and make my adhd mind focus and read but I’ve read a few snippets and they’re epic. I think that’s the word, vocab is not a part of the midnight brain I guess), all of it is the absolute shit. Unrelated somewhat, I hope to also learn drawing (I have no clue if that’s necessary context AT ALL, but you draw cool and the whole “draw the freak shit you wanna see in the world” resonated with me lol)

Anyways, the actual reason is because of essentially just a story I experienced (dur) shortly after discovering your blog some time ago (I’m this person for context:https://www.tumblr.com/idkanonymystuff/764430703294300160/hey-hello-i-am-completely-new-here-but-i-just or @idkanonymystuff with the chainsaw dog pochita image; I’m clarifying because I can’t tell if I got my own name right lol) that I think is just kinda funny. It’s not really that long but (starting a new chunk for readability)

Basically, shortly after that post (for a timeframe), I went to an appointment and I don’t know what happened, I think I spaced out, but I was asked a question and without really thinking, I responded “vivisection”. I think the question had something to do with how my brain thinks things (it was awhile ago shut up) or some sort of “how does that make you feel” type question, I really don’t know, but the exact question that I answered, well, vivisection with made it essentially sound like I was saying I like doing that in my free mind time or something.

Like I swear it went like they asked the question and then this essentially:

*Question*

Me, absent-mindedly: Vivisection

Them: what?

My parent (who’s also present): What?

Me, after processing it: …wait-

Que ensuing confusion and then back to regular

I don’t think I explained it right or did it justice (it was very simple, just a misspoken word so I think it’s fine??), but god damn it was awkward but now I just think it’s funny that at that point my mind was still invested with those thoughts at the time (as in it was just rotating it on the back burner throughout the appointment if that makes any damn sense). Pretty sure it went right back to it after a minute or two after lol

But yeah, just thought I’d maybe share that little experience of when past me was so enamored/invested in reading stories about vivisection it scrounged from your blog and looking at other (granted, unrelated) whump art and just the general content of your blog that it just did that without thinking. And to me, that seems like a big compliment, having someone be the cause of work getting stuck in my head that much (?) so, uh yeah

Hope this isn’t strange, me sharing this, I just thought you’d maybe find it funny (and if not, feel free to dump this) and also, again, midnight impulse so yeah. I don’t know what I’m doing, don’t hold me responsible (joking)

ANYWAYS, I hope you have a good day/night, are taking care of yourself, staying hydrated, continuing to do whatever the fuck you do with undying passion, and that my little story wasn’t annoying or anything like that and that you have a happy new year when it comes (or whatever you celebrate. Apparently it’s also national hangover day but I don’t know if you drink so probably not that one) :)

-idk (this is just my tag. Probably not gonna see much of it though since, again, social anxiety and I am mostly a lurker. Not you, literally my brain sees social interaction as a tiger about to maul me with judgement lol. Speaking of which, probably overthinking this right now…okay shut up me-)

AHHHHHH thank you so much!! I'm glad you appreciate my work and that it resonates with you so strongly 🥰🥰

The vivisection thing is so funny and I personally enjoy how common of a term it is within this community and how absolutely wild it is to just about everyone else. I'm definitely right there with you rotating things in my brain in public skdhdjdk it makes waiting in lines and stuff easier 😂😂

It's great that you want to learn drawing! I'm self taught, so I know from experience it can be really daunting to get started and sometimes really frustrating as you figure out your own style and process, but it's so so worth it. Plus, as you said, it enables you to make the freak shit you wanna see in a whole new medium :D! It's very exciting and I wish you all the luck and motivation and inspiration

Thank you again and I hope you have a great day 🥰♥️

[nuclearregulatorycommission]

introduction

timothyfuckinrand -> councilhdmi -> nuclearregulatorycommission

hey gang old intro outdated so its time for a new one

what's up it's me biz or danny, i use he/she/boom/l'he pronouns plus 1000 others so whatever, and i'm 20. im in mental chicago dude

this is my main blog so i just reblog as i please and occasionally post art, og textposts, writing snippets, etc

(tags:

art #bizz art

random #bizz endeavors

writing #bizz write

secret 4th option #bizz fuckin whatever )

i love love love just roll with it right now so i am posting about that often, but i also like sanders sides, minecraft, mystreet and minecraft diaries, and THE DSMP... if youre a wilbur or dream fan please fuck off peace and love! i also <3 tally hall, will wood and saint motel, and some other general interests i have are writing, fish, and nuclear fallout

IF YOU GIVE ME JRWI SPOILERS I WILL EXPLODE YOU WITH MY MIND I HAVE ONLY FINISHED THE SUCKENING, BLOOD IN THE BAYOU & RIPTIDE.

uhhh i also really like politics and am passionate about that so warning in advance i may be talking about the 2024 US election. i usually tag it under #2024 election or #us politics

also adding on: just so you know i am 20; im not an nsfw account but i am an adult so i talk about adult things. i will not follow if youre below 16 and probably block you if you try to follow me. i too block freely so do as you please at your own discretion

also kindly dni if youre a discourse heavy blog i dont wanna see that shit (CURRENT WORLD EVENTS ARE NOT DISCOURSE SO EVERYONE IS AWARE...)

that's all. SEE YA

[fartemis-crock]

NAME: kat! exactly what's on the tin.

PRONOUNS: she/her, your honor

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S): this one bby im a boring ass bitch tbh I got one at a time

RP PET PEEVES: I can tell when people dont even bother to look at my pinned post :)))) drives me nuts to have to send the hey! this isn't yj artemis message over and over again. I am never irritated at the person but it gets annoying QUICK. also--- when someone clearly expect a specific dynamic and gets upset that I can't read their mind about it

EXPERIENCE/HOW MANY YEARS: idk too many. I've taken so many year long breaks that I dont even know at this point

FLUFF, ANGST, or SMUT: all of the above!!! I just kinda filter through moods of what I want to do tbh. Whatever the vibe gods take me to--- tho, I will just state for the class;; i write smut snippets/drabbles over actually rping smut. I only actively write smut with muns that I know ooc

LONG/SHORT REPLIES: ok so--- I like to ramble. long replies. BUT I DO LOVE WRITING SCRIPT TOO. I just like to over-explain RVERYTHING in the tags then

BEST WAY TO INTERACT: send me memes!!! Im an odd little duck, I love chatting ooc but i need something to launch the conversation with and I usually do that by chatting with someone about memes

THAT BEING SAID. my inbox is ungodly full and im overwhelmed by it so it might take awhile for me to get to stuff

BEST TIME TO WRITE: VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING OR RIGHT BEFORE SLEEP. im actually trying to cut tumblr out of my morning routine rn tho bc my lil addictive personality brain goes OO.

Tagged by: @threadpull thx <333

Tagging: idk who hasn't done it yet. So YOU 👊

[crazylittlejester]

my friend sent me this the other day and its a big mood. anyways i’m awake cuz i’m covering night shift this week. and i’m pretty sure we’re at least in /similar/ timezones so. bestie. darling. dearest and wonderful tumblr user.

y u wake.

/lh i hope you start feeling better soon. i had to set aside hyrule warriors cuz 1. carpal tunnel and 2. i am behind on school. but i promise to keep bothering you with my appreciations of it when i get back to it. (i did linkles first bit and omg i love her. and ALL THE CUCCOOS being the captains and soldiers i loved it. so so much)

🫶 sending good vibes of wellness and recovery

(OH PS Yyour little snippet of time and wars ate. as usual. god you always get me in the writing mood and im currently channeling that into this discussion post thankfully even tho the desire for fanfic is strong—— 😭)

ALSKDKLDDL THAT IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

i have a weird sleep schedule, and also i cannot fall asleep. but yeah its literally the middle of the night for me 🧍‍♂️

MAKE SURE YOU DONT HURT YOURSELF :( i dont have carpal tunnel i got other issues with my hand/wrist, but is there another way you could hold the controller to be like… less aggravating? if that makes sense????

IM GLAD YOU LIKED THE MINI FIC THAT MAKES ME HAPPY TO HEAR. I’m trying to get back to writing but I’ve been really struggling with motivation and it meant a lot to see so many people liked that :)

HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD REST OF YOUR NIGHT 🫶🫶🫶🫶

[strayruway]

hi! first time really posting anything i made! this is gonna be entirely self indulgent angst cuz id not been feeling so great the past couple days when i initially started this like a year agoo.... might add to it and make a part 2/ actually complete it if anyone asks/ if motivation for this specific snippet pops up again, but either heres some angst✨

cw: mentions of sh, su!c!dal thoughts, angst with comfort!! gn!reader

-

they found them.

kirishima has a guilty but deeply saddened and worried expression. bakugo cant even look at you hes so pissed, but the way he clenches his jaw and glares at the wall so intensely speaks volumes in his own way.

You were searching for your notebook, the one filled with loose-leaf thoughts and writings, most less pleasant than others. As you were about to give up searching your dorm, the door burst open and Kirishima was trying to hold a fuming Bakugo back, but to no avail. Bakugo stormed in anyway, holding your notebook. Your stomach dropped in time with the way he slammed the papers on your bed.

all you could do was watch as he glared at it with an expression youve never seen before. he stomped over to your desk, crossed his arms, and leaned back against it. kirishima was frantically trying to stop him, hushed, urgent whispers telling him to be nice, or how they should apologize, nervously glancing between you and bakugo as he pleaded and begged the blond to calm down. every time his eyes met yours, there was this look of desperation and sympathy. ‘my heart goes out to you. forgive us.’ the flickers of his red eyes meeting yours is only for a split second, guilt gnawing at him and eating him inside out to turn back to bakugo to try again with increasing urgency.

bakugoss eyes meet yours for a second. a fleeting moment of him searching your face, before turning to look back out the balcony window with a click of his tongue. and just like that, kirishima knows hes lost, which brings us to now.

there isnt a doubt in your mind they read your musings. each one worse and more concerning the last. theres a reason you didnt show them. you all have hero training. youre just being stupid and just need to get over yourself. you dont have time to feel sorry for yourself. so what, it bubbles over and stains your skin? so what your pages reek of ink and copper from bleeding your heart out on them? forget it. dont cause a scene. youre just being dramatic.

“the fuck is all that”, bakugo grunts softly. well, soft for his standards. its still rough and mean, but the bite his words usually carry is more of a nip. its not so much his voice, but rather the question itself that nearly makes you flinch. kirishima catches your reaction and tries to intervene.

“Kats-“ “shut the fuck up, shitty hair! Answer the damn question, mutt!”, Bakugo snarls, once at kirishima, swatting him away, and then at you, his rage finally surfacing.

‘helpless’ is the word that flashes in your head when you catch the look in his eyes. a blazing fury of fear. “what the hell do you take me for, hah?!”, he demands, voice threatening to crack, and fists trembling at his sides.

‘im supposed to be the one in charge and looking after you, or am i not your leader? if you have an issue, come to me. its my job to keep you safe. is it not my job? am i not enough? why didnt you reach out?’ is what that translates to. ‘i want to help.’

“the fuck is that shit talking about, huh?! ‘im not enough’? ‘useless’?? ‘worthless’?!”, he echoes your writings and you just wanna curl up and let the ground swallow you whole “no, you dont get to try and hide from me. i already read that shit and were fucking talking about it now”, he hisses, lip curled in a snarl when you try to shrink away, trying to hide how bad you wanna cry.

kirishima catches the way you bite your lip and eyes water, and he rushes to your side, pulling you into a tight hug “bakugo, be nice, dude. i mean it”, he says holding you close. with your head held to his chest, you can feel his heart pound, and how hes activated his quirk just enough to keep steady. the blond growls at him defiantly, but ultimately clicks his tongue and crosses his arms, leaning back against your desk, unable to look at you.

“he means well...”, kirishima tries to reassure you. the redhead holds you close, one arm around your shoulders, his other hand rubbing circles on your back. you can hear and feel him search for words to say, but what does one say to a person after having stumbled on a collection of suicide poem after suicide poem?

kirishimas heart clenches and he holds you tighter. “please know you’re not alone”, he murmurs into your hair after a moment. 

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

[c0rvidbones]

Pinned Post

because apparently thats a thing now. i promise im at least dimly aware of whats going on <3

- my art blog is @c0rvidbones-art pls check there for any writing or art you wish to see!

— call me corvid, obsidian, or observatory! its the general names for our online presence. this is a did system, but we tend to not talk about it because we prefer to keep much info about ourselves to close/irl friends only. we also dont often use we/us often, only when actively referring to the entire system. SOMETIMES we will allow questions and will answer them but that will usually be prompted by a very small handful of headmates. anything system related will be tagged with #observatory system. also! pronouns!

— i have like a metric ton of ocs that i will never shut up about if given the chance. if youd like to get to know them youre EXTREMELY welcome to send an ask, ill eventually be adding a link to a masterlist carrd to this post that gives a quick image, name, and snippet of info about them all. or at least all the ones that have art lmao. for now, heres my toyhou.se

— i dont actively participate in fandom things, but i do have a List of interests that will be added to as i think of them:

cult of the lamb

in stars and time

simon petrikov. i am gripping you by the shoulders.

dnd (taz, bg3, i also just Play Dnd)

greek mythology (actual mythology but also a long list of video games)

percy jackson (most of rick riordans series but im sorry kane chronicles sadie is too infuriating)

old gods of appalachia

cosmere / general brandon sanderson novels

cosplay crafting (current fixation: chainmail)

good omens

house md (i promise im normal about it)

ofmd

wwdits

loz (especially the latest two but ive loved the series as a whole for a long time)

this fucking post

trigun (98 and 23!)

dungeon meshi (everyone but mithrun is my fucking guy. so is fleki.)

— tags to find me under are #c0rvidspeaks, #c0rvidanimates, and #c0rviddraws for the occasional times i actually make an original post or share my art

— that being said i dont post my own stuff often, usually because i dont think i have anything interesting to say. im working through this so bear with me (and if you want to encourage me to talk on here then the #ask me about my ocs tag is exactly where you can start) (this is not me fishing i just tend to keep to myself) (but i like to ramble in the tags)

[dani-says-stuff]

✧ Blog Info ✧

❥ Back to the Control Center

General info, Requesting Rules, and Tag Navigation

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

__ General __

❥ I will only write x readers on this blog, and will post longer stories with original characters on my wattpad account (the exception, is my fic graveyard)

❥ Most of my stories at the moment are fem!readers because it's the default way I write, however I am trying to change this and start having more gn!reader fics available

❥ Each fic has an individual dialouge key at the beginning, and the rest of the fic's dialouge will be color coded to match the person or character indicated at the beginning (this is usually only for my youtube video based fics like the Nate Hardy ones so the fic doesnt end up being 12k words explaining who is saying what)

❥ I dont have the time or extensive knowlege of grammar to sit down and edit most of my fics... so if errors bother you, this may not be the best experience, or place, for you to spend your time

❥ If you wanna be moots just send in an ask or message me to lemme know! I love talking to y'all! This also applies if you just want to be an anon, I don't think I have a big enough audience yet to have emoji anons, but I'm not against having some :)

__ Request Rules __

Requests are open !

❥ I can't guaruntee I will take every request and I can't guaruntee the amount of time it will take. It depends on how good of an idea i get at the time

❥ Please don't spam my ask box with the same request over and over

❥ Include a detailed explanation of what you'd like, plot point's you'd like me to hit, quotes, prompts, etc in your request. I will not be taking any that only say "(insert person) please!" or "can you write ____ smut/fluff/angst". I need somewhere to go with the request.

❥ Please be reasonable with your requests. All I'm saying, is I will have differing rules on if a fic is for the HoTD/GoT fandom than if it is for any other fandom. I am willing to be more lineant on those because I am brain broken like the rest of the fandom, iykyk.

❥Tbh I'm willing to write pretty much anything if I get a good enough idea for it, just give me details or its a guarunteed ✨no✨

__ Tag Navigation __

aka my attempt at organizing my chaos

#rambles - The random thoughts I have in a day, including but not limited to: everyday random stuff, potential fic ideas, funny things that go down... basically just my diary tbh

#just dani complaining - Usually accompanied by the ramble tag, but on the ones that are, as implied, just me complaining

#updates - New info on wips, fics, and requests. (for example, update schedules, changes to a plot, etc.)

#my hyperfixations - Basically the things i'm promoting out of pure excitment, the "go check out ___ bc it changed my lifeee" type beat

#fic recs - Pretty obvious and self explanatory, but its just my favorites :P

#mutuals - Things my loves and besties who i got the courage to ask to be mutuals are doing , i'm too afraid to just randomly start adding all my mutuals so this one may be more unreliable

#fic graveyard - There's nothing in here yet, but its the fics I have like one or two really good chapters for that I've abandoned. Snippets, ideas, etc.

#control center - All nav posts will be under this tag

I believe everything else is pretty self explanatory (___ masterlist, reblogs, ___ x reader, asks & requsts, etc.)

[bassguitarinablackt-shirt]

Truth be told I don't think I've read anything from your writing, but based on the intro post, your wips sound super interesting and varied! I know it might be an odd way of saying it, but my least favorite is the Power Doesn't Guarantee Glory one, just not my vibe right now, but searching the meaning of what is to be human? Small town? Group of criminals going brr? Damn they sound cool! I'm not really someone who gets super invested in characters, I usually care about the motifs more, and damn do you have those down!

One random unsolicited advice? If you don't know what to do right now, just write a short story and relax, take a break from grandiose projects? Idk just random though

Take care, with tea,

-s

okay maybe i shouldn't have waited until after i took a break from my WIPs to answer this but uhhhh im a procrastinator i am truly so sorry it took me so long to answer this 😭

I dont usually share writing snippets on here mainly because i dont write much but uh yeah i should probably share more of my writing on here

pdgg is actually my oldest wip haha, had it in my brain for over a year but im a mess so its a mess and i understand how it really wouldn't be your vibe, honestly im still not used to people actually having opinions on my writing, it's hard to imagine people percieving me or anything i put out into the world. Im actually someone who gets really invested in characters, i pretty much view the plot of the fandoms im in and even my own writing from the lens of how it effects the characters, so motifs aren't actively on my mind alot of the time, also thanks!

again, took a while to answer this ask and i did actually decide to take that advice, will get back to you on whether it was a good idea or not!

[olivewhohatesolives]

some snippets from a convo with my friend earlier about why i’ve been so anxious and quiet lately, and explaining the mental process :,) any fucking waysss, anyone who has ever known me knows that i do not identify as a cisgender woman. i've always been.. frustrated with being perceived as a female. and i'm going to hit six months on testosterone, and i love my boy juice. but, some people are also super aware of how i was raised, who surrounded me, and what mindsets were around me. i have changed my legal name to ashton luke liam. and for society views, i am known to government by this and i love being seen as a male. it gives me joy. but, i have still, unfortunately, shoved myself into this really suffocating box where i have to be this really hard machismo kinda guy. like the ones around me. constantly being like "oh i dont care." but, truth is, i care. a shit ton. i care so damn much and i have shut myself off, A LOT. but i'm now healing all of that. and processing. it comes to my attention that people actually make fun of me for going by a different name. and thats cool. be transphobic for that. make a joke about how i'm weird or i dont know anything. i don't really care anymore. i'm making this post as a PSA. because i usually do when i feel its a broad topic that maybe other people can relate to. it is YOUR life babe, you arent in that burning house anymore. do what makes you happy. and fuck everyone and their damn opinions. i used to envy cisgender people, who didnt ever think about changing their name 20 times because they just.. dont feel okay with themselves. but, i mean.. i think there are way bigger issues, and way more for everyone to worry about, rather than me painting my nails, or growing my hair out again, or going by olive again, or using the pronouns he/they, or whether i have a partner (which i don't btw. so mind your business for once). anyways yeah. don't force yourself in a box just because its easier for people to perceive you. what matters is how you feel when you look in the mirror. and life is short. shit changes constantly. YOU change constantly. dont be mad at yourself for realizing that happiness for you has changed and looks differently.

[adhduck]

hellooooooooo 😍 for the "get to know your fic writer" meme: 27, 39, 46, 56, 64, 68 (I could ask like... a dozen of these 😂😂😂 I'm gonna add a wild-card here for you to answer one on the list you WANT to but that I didn't ask 👀)

oooooooh so many thank you for understanding i never wanna shut up

27. What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

Favorite part is either when I've been trying to tease out a scene for a while (especially one with lots of emotional complexity) and suddenly it all fits together Or when I write and somehow it all magically flows out of me with ease. Least favorite part is writing when it is Not magically flowing out of me and yet I am forced to keep going even though it feels bad lmao

39. Share a snippet from a WIP

First is Stede’s body, Ed soaping up a loofah and running it gently over all the dips and rolls and angles of the man he loves—the broad expanse of his chest, the dip in his navel, the crease between thigh and groin, the spot right below the arch of his foot where he’s ticklish as hell. Stede raises his arms obediently when Ed cleans his pits, looking at him with exhaustion and love in his eyes that Ed’s body hardly feels big enough to hold. When the worst of the general grime is running down the drain—not much, but Ed knows that doesn’t matter, can see how much weight has left Stede’s shoulders along with the dirt—Stede asks Ed to grab a washcloth and soap that up too, then takes a steadying breath. “Now my—my hands,” he says, lifting one for Ed to take. It’s shaking. “Please.”

46. How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)

Definitely character and emotion driven over action. In my heart what I want my style to be at least is "big feelings in simple moments." That feeling of having the hugest emotions that seem like they should be overwhelming everything and yet life continues on, good or bad. Idk I just enjoy exploring emotions and their complexity and working through them and shit

56. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I think when I write emotional scenes that have arguments or confessions or revelations or anything like that, it feels realistic without losing the intensity/spark you want out of scenes like that (are you seeing a pattern about what I focus on lmao)

64. Something you love to see in smut.

Laughter! Check-ins! Whimpering! The person giving being SO focused on the other person's needs and still possibly getting off from how good it feels to make them feel good!

68. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Reading definitely, but sometimes when I'm trying to figure out how to write a fic or scene and I'm stuck, I will literally go on a walk with my dog and just talk to myself on voice memos the whole time. I don't even listen to the voice memo again usually but it's important I be recorded for some reason and it really gets me out of a rut like 9 times out of 10

BONUS: 47. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

This is just me blatantly calling myself out that I edit........a lot before I post things. I secretly love editing more than I love writing sometimes lmao, and I will read through my shit SO MANY TIMES editing the tiniest little things (and then editing them back half the time). Whenever someone beta's for me it's like, they read it once or twice and I read it all like five times. (I do however want to soften up on this a liiiiittle bit so that I dont end up in silly editing spirals that aren't helpful.)

Ask me questions about fic