#i enjoy the natural line weight you can get as well as the very organic lines

[fidgetspringer]

Testing out the beautiful antique dip pen I was given for christmas with a hasty brain horse.

[grind-pantera]

anaya crumbs were super yummy, really flavorful 10/10, i licked the plate 🙏🙏 (i love youre writing, like i can physically feel the passion leaking through ur words its crazy) lov ur work 🙏🙏🙏🙏

I want to lick the plate actually i want to lick his entire body but that's beside the point here we got babey

Title: An Apple A Day. Fandom: ( Kingdom of the ) Planet of the Apes. Pairing: ( Very mild, I'm testing out the waters here ok ) Implied! Anaya x Human! Reader. Rating: T. ( Mentions of mating but otherwise IT IS FLUFFY BABY ) Words: 2.3K+ Summary: Anaya takes you to see his favorite Apple Tree.

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“Anaya! Noa and Soona are going to wonder where we went off to.”  You laughed quietly, feeling twigs crack under your weight as you were placing your feet in the exact spots of where the Ape in front of you did, knowing that he was walking on spots that were safe and not tripping hazards. It was a considerate thing for him to do, gaining knowledge once or twice from experiences with you that your eyesight was nothing compared to his and the dim lighting caused from the tree leaves causing shadows on the floor of the foliage left you squirting to see at times. 

And your balance? Well… You were clumsy, and Anaya knew it. In fact, he thought it rather endearing to see you stumble when you tried to keep up with his pace, and in a bid to get you flustered, he’d move faster just to enjoy the chase you’d give him. Why did you chase after him? The male Chimp hadn’t the slightest idea, but it was alluring all the same especially when you got too close… close, close enough for him to feel the heat radiating off your body onto his, evident even through the lining of the fur along his body. 

“Anaya close.” He uttered to you, letting his hazel green and golden eyes settle into your own for a second, your heart jumping into your throat as you realized that he was nearer to you than you had thought, really able to take in the detailing of his face. 

The sweeping wrinkles under his eyes, the softer ride of his brows that were always so indicative of his moods, the dabbling smile that you wished was exclusive to your eyes only and the coloring around his nose and lips, lighter than the rest of his face and all you wanted to do was trail the tips of your fingers along the delicate splattering there to see if your suspicion was right or wrong about their skin being rougher. Your eyes fell downwards to his slightly agape mouth. Sharp canines that could tear out every vital organ of your body just for fun. Swiping your teeth with your tongue, you wanted nothing more than to feel Anaya’s under your touch just to cure your morbid curiosities. 

Swallowing lightly, you nodded as if in agreement and let him lead you forward. Shoving aside the rapid heartbeat in your chest and the ever growing redness on your cheeks from having him look at you so intently, you began trailing closer behind him. As compared to Noa, Anaya was gentler in his step, almost floating in nature. But, that could have been from the fact that he appeared excited to show you something and he was unable to keep it in.

From the gait of his broadened shoulders, all your previous thoughts went out the window as you were catapulted into a hypnotic state at how the cross body satchel he had rubbed so deliciously against the fur of his shoulder, the friction inexplicable to you as you felt your fingers twitch at your sides. The sleekness of his fur glittered under the sun as it seeped in spottingly through the leaves of the trees above, and occasionally, it played against the taut muscles underneath. 

He was beckoning you forward with the wave of his arm before deciding that you were going too slow. Reaching forward, Anaya tucked his hand into your own, and without a moment's hesitation, he lifted you over a tree root that was jutting out of the ground that you had not seen before.

Gasping quietly at the sheet strength of him, something not explicitly noticed when he was around Noa due to Anaya being smaller, more tapering on the chest and waist, there was no doubt in your mind that he had the capability of tearing you apart limb by limb. That idea lingered deliciously in your mind as he smiled slightly at you when you were drawn to him, your hand placing itself softly onto his chest so you could leverage yourself before still holding your hand and leading forward once more. “I don’t want to get lost in the woods with you, I’d rather get lost with Noa.” 

“Is close, not too far… From Soona, Noa.” His tone was reassuring to you as he tugged on your arm. Forward, he said, keeping going. Drawing your bottom lip in, you pushed a few tree leaves away from your face before coming to a flattened landing, almost like it was carved, in the middle of the trees. Glancing around, you noticed that… Anaya wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Panic washed over you in small waves. You could just yell for Noa and Soona, right? It wasn’t like the Ape took you into the woods on your own and left you here, right?

Clenching your jaw tightly, a few leaves above fell onto your head, one onto your face and as you blew it away, a few apples began raining from the Heavens on your left side. Gasping at that, you were fast to jump away from them out of fear of being hit before Anaya hit the ground on all fours with a rather graceful ‘thud’. “See?” Smiling up at you, Anaya crouched down and grasped an apple. You placed a hand against your chest and told yourself to reel it in as you crouched beside him. “Favorite apple tree. Anaya knew we were close, and wanted to show Echo. Best apples here, they… grow very big.” 

The way he looked at the fruit was a wonder in and of itself. The way that his thick fingers caressed it made you wonder if he’d be that gentle with your skin if he knew you were just as fragile as th--- Your innocent train of thought completely derailed at the visual of Anaya’s canines, in all their speared glory hitting your gawk. He brought the apple to his mouth and with one swoop, he consumed half of it, juice dripping from his mouth and down to his chin and ultimately getting lost in the fur of his beard. Your mouth fell open at that, suddenly too dry to say anything of substance. Playing your fingers against each other, you turned your eyes away, afraid that he would notice you staring. 

“Do Echo’s…” He tilted his head, rolling a red apple towards your feet, “Not like them?” Sputtering softly, you reached down and grasped the apple that he had so graciously presented to you, “They’re… good. How---” You wanted to hear him talk more without Soona or Noa, knowing that they often left Anaya to his own devices at times, “How did you find this place? There’s gotta be like…A hundred Apple trees.” An exaggeration, but it garnered you a hooted and huffed laughter from Anaya. Glancing up, you looked at the trees above and were able now to see the spotted nature of the apples hanging happily on their branches. 

Anaya watched the movement with interest, how you craned your head back, how his eyes were able to see your heartbeat against your neck, hard and heavy as the blood pumped through your veins. Bringing the apple to his lips again, he bit into it and finished it off, tossing the core behind him to decompose back into the Earth.

Dragging his eyes upwards, he followed your gaze and looked at the apples above as his hand idly reached for another. Slowly, you traced the skin of the apple with your finger tips before dropping your stare to look at the Ape next to you, a motion that Anaya accepted and drew his eyes into your own as he took another bite out of a fresh apple, this one a bit smaller and proportionate so he didn't need to chew too much before answering. “Used to come here a lot. Would stop when Noa, Soona and Anaya went to Echo ruins. Long time ago.”  He explained softly, now urging with one hand for you to take a bite of the fruit you were dallying with between your fingers. 

Quickly, you were fast to raise it to your mouth and sink your teeth in, suddenly coming to grips that communal eating, even when it was shared amongst only two, was considered normal and a mild acceptance of whatever relationship was going to bud from the shared meal. 

Your bite in comparison to Anaya’s was tender and small, your teeth sinking in further than he had initially thought, but your rounded teeth did not help the case at all when it came to actually ripping the piece off and it came off in two pieces, one in your mouth and one hanging by a thread on the apple itself. At least, the blunted nature was what he noticed when you drew your lips back and he was able to see them in a clearer view and not have to captivate himself in an awkward stare when you talked or smiled. 

How weird, he thought to himself, placing the apple into his mouth and coming around you so he was face to face with you rather than sitting at your side. Watching with curiosity, Anaya narrowed his eyes and looked at your face. “Echo teeth,” He started and you drew your mouth closed so he was unable to see them anymore. “Ugly.” The way that your mouth flew open in contrast to you so shyly shutting your lips only seconds ago at Anaya’s words caused a rocketed huff of laughter to come from him, as he moved his head to the left side with an amused head tilt. You grappled that for a second - not taking it as offensive at all, you couldn’t blame him when he hadn’t seen or known any Echo outside of Mae personally, in fact, the blunt nature of Anaya’s words and opinions were often something you sought after, knowing you’d get the most brutal admission from him whereas Noa or Soona would try to be kind with their observations. 

“I know,” Bubbling out laughter, you covered your mouth with your hand, to which Anaya was quick to respond and grasped your wrist so you were unable to complete the action. Twisting your wrist in his grasp, it became abundantly clear that your ulna and radius were merely a jerk away from being broken by Anaya, but still, there was no fear in that as his touch was soft and aimable as he pulled your hand back downwards so he could see your teeth again. “They--- they’re nothing like yours, you can do a lot with your teeth.”

“Would… hurt if you bit someone?” Almost choking on a piece of the apple as you had taken another bite, you coughed a bit, staring at him with a widened gaze, “What?” “Would it… hurt if you bite?” You swallowed harder than intended, admittedly needing to chew the apple piece you had in your mouth a bit more but you staggered through it and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, “I--- Wouldn’t imagine it would do anything to an Ape, if that’s what you mean. Humans don’t have the jaw strength that… that you have.” Anaya hummed at that, gazing once more at your teeth in mild amusement. Other than use for eating, they served no purpose then. How strange. “Bite Anaya?”

You blinked, swearing to yourself that Anaya had moved forward a touch. Maybe a few inches as he peered straight into your mouth, either waiting for an answer or waiting for you to open your mouth again so he could see what was interesting to him in the moment. He looked between your mouth, your eyes and then back to your mouth as it dawned on you what he had just asked.

“I’m not going to b-bite you!” “Why… not?”

“Inappropriate.” You uttered, looking down at your half-munched apple. “Humans really only do that when…”

Gesturing broadly with your hands, you looked into his eyes and hoped that your human ideology was recognizable. Unfortunately, from the tilt of his head and the perplexity of the drawn in brow ridge, Anaya had no idea what you were implying as a heat of embarrassment rolled through your chest. “Humans only do that when they’re mating.”

Anaya got deathly quiet in front of you and now as compared to your gawking earlier, you wished he would look away from you, to focus on something else but he kept you drawn in as he looked between your eyes with his own, looking down at his apple before ripping off another large bite. From between said bites, he muttered to you, “Echo,” Chew, “Mating,” Another chew, “Sounds like Ape. Lot of biting. Noisy.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.” You groaned quietly to yourself and sat onto your butt, cross legged in mild defeat at the choice of conversation.

“Hard to sleep when others are mating. Keep the village up, Anaya gets mad.”  If your cheeks weren’t reddened before, you were positive you were the same color as the apples that scattered on the floor after being shaken off their homes as you drifted into the conversation.

Anaya refusing to relent control as he continued the topic, almost mindlessly as he took bites out of his apples around his introspection, not quite beating yourself up at the fact that the conversation turned out this way, but surely trying to keep yourself tame enough to not give him all the details that he was seeking, his mouth coming to prop one more question at you between his bites.

“Have heard Echo,” Chew, “Mating…” He chewed pensively this time, the words coming to him in deep thought, though admittedly, his question left you falling backwards to lay on your back as a refusal to actually answer, “Takes much energy. Is true?”

“Anaya.” You grumbled. “I’m not answering that.”

“Have you not… experienced?”

Groaning loudly, you shut your eyes and covered them with your arm as you fell to rest on your back, splattering yourself across the floor of the woods. Maybe, if you were lucky, something poisonous would bite you and you wouldn't have to respond.

“I’m not answering that.”

“Noa right,” Anaya grumbled in dissatisfaction, turning his body to grab another apple with a rather smug retort, “Echo keep Echo secrets.”

[mint-yooxgi]

Written in the Stars - Yandere!Idol!Yeosang X Tall!Chubby!Reader

Soft Yandere AU & Idol AU

Genre: Mature, Horror, Angst, Fluff, Slight Humor, Slow Burn

Pairing: Yeosang X Reader (ft. platonic Ateez ensemble)

Words: 11,875

Warnings: Slow burn. This story is going to be very self indulgent on my part, so please bear with the first few chapters. Jongho is an over excited fanboy. This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.

A/n: So, I decided to just say 'fuck it' and post it anyways! I got too excited and just had to share, so I really hope you all enjoy what I have planned. I have SO much already for this series, and like I said in the warning, it's definitely going to be quite self-indulgent on my part but it IS based off my own dream, so... anyways, as always feedback is greatly appreciated. Enjoy~

Also, gentle reminder that I don’t do tag lists.

Mini Masterlist

A low exhale escapes you through your nose as you stand in line waiting to board the plane. Absentmindedly, your thumb brushes over the front of your passport, your boarding pass tucked neatly inside. 

Shifting your weight onto your opposite foot, you adjust the straps of your backpack slung over your shoulders. Despite your best efforts to pack light, the heaviness weighs you down, feeling the corner of your laptop harshly digging into your shoulder blade. Perhaps you should have packed a few more of your books into your checked luggage after all. 

It’s not every day that you get to move to South Korea for approximately a year or more, depending on how well writing your next book goes. The decision had been meticulously planned out, seeing as your publisher has arranged a fairly large book signing in the heart of Seoul a few weeks from now. 

To say you were pleasantly surprised to learn how well your books are doing in South Korea is an understatement. You were more than happy to agree to it, especially when you have also been personally invited to perform a new piece of writing at one of the many award shows this season. It seems the organizers really appreciate your way with words, and want you to compose a short poem of sorts to encompass the emotions and influence different types of art has around the world.

It seems as if you’ve become a somewhat popular international author within the country, and you are more than happy to attend any and all events they ask you to. Subsequently, the offers were too good to refuse, and you’ve always wanted to move to Seoul for a few years. At least now you have a good reason to stay.

It has taken you years to get to where you are now, but being a well established international author has truly been everything you could have ever asked for. Writing has always been your passion, and you’re just glad that you can share it with the world. With a little extra on the side, of course.

Slowly, the line begins to move in front of you, and you blink to regain your focus. It looks as if they’re finally boarding for zone two, and you honestly just can’t wait to get settled in your seat and sleep. You’re hoping to at least catch a few hours before you attempt to work on a bit of your next book. The idea you’ve been mapping out is a big one, and you’re hoping the words flow just as easily for this one as all of the previous novels you’ve written.

The length of the flight has yet to be determined if it’s your enemy or ally.

Maybe you’ll just watch a few movies instead…

As more and more people advance, you can feel those familiar jitters of excitement coursing through your veins. Every time you visit another place, but especially when it relates to your writing, you cannot hide your eagerness. The adventures you can have are endless, and you honestly cannot wait to see a few of your friends again. Some, you’ll even be meeting for the first time. Well, if their schedules allow.

When you had arrived at the airport, getting through security after checking in had been a little heinous. 

First of all, you had a few too many bags, but since you’ll be moving to a completely new country, you need almost all of your things to take with you. Plus, you don’t want your new home to be too empty. You’re just grateful your mother will be sending along a few care packages with some of your bulkier items, like your favourite blankets and a few of your trinkets once you’ve gotten settled in.

Then, came security.

There seemed to be a rumour floating around that some celebrity or something was supposed to be on this same exact flight. A few overheard hushed whispers, and you determined the celebrities to be some Korean pop group. Though, you doubt that’s the case. Despite not really paying attention to the other passengers, you haven’t exactly seen any idols around.

Needless to say, security took longer with all the fans trying to sneak through.

At least you still made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. You even had some free moments to browse the airport bookstore, noticing a small display of your own books near the front table. The way the workers had stacked your newest release in a mini-pyramid of sorts still makes you smile. The fact that you signed a few of the copies had made the workers’ day, taking a few photos with one of the girls who happened to be a big fan of your work.

Looking back on it now, you cannot help but to grin to yourself as you begin to make your way onto the plane. The worker who scanned your ticket seemed to look on you in awe, brief understanding lighting up their eyes after handing you your passport back. They probably recognized your name, if anything. The fact that you nodded back to them in acknowledgment seemingly made their day.

Truly, this is a dream come true.

Stepping onto the plane, you’re quick to find your seat. You made sure to pick the window of the very last row in premium, as you’ve always enjoyed watching the scenery as you fly. Take off and landings are your favourite parts. Plus, with no one behind you, you can recline without worry or fear that you’re infringing on someone’s personal space.

Luckily, it doesn’t appear that your seat partner has arrived yet, and for that, you’re grateful. Honestly, you hope no one actually sits beside you just so you can have a bit more space to yourself. Plus, it’ll make you more comfortable if you decide to actually get some writing done on the plane. 

You’ve always had a sense of paranoia about writing around strangers, given how often people like to snoop. The last thing you want is to be writing some steamy scene, or something completely gruesome, and offend the person you’re sitting beside. Though, you mainly only get that feeling when writing on your laptop.

Sliding your overstuffed bag beneath the seat in front of you, you settle into your own. Your purse gets shoved to the side beside your feet as you unceremoniously kick your backpack as far beneath the seat as it will go.

The joys of premium economy: much needed leg room, and better seating. Though, you can just hear your publisher’s voice in the back of your head, chastising you for not buying business class.

You huff lightly to yourself as you click your seatbelt on. Like hell you’re going to pay something ridiculous, like four grand, in order to have your own private podlike seat. That’s way too much for a one way ticket, and besides, premium is just fine. You’ve been lucky enough to fly it before, anyways.

Settling fully into your seat, you pull out your phone. Unlocking the device, you shoot a quick text to your family letting them know that you’ve just boarded the plane and are waiting for take off.

Of course, they reply quickly, telling you to have a safe flight and that they’ll miss you greatly. Most of all, though, to have fun on your new adventures.

A soft smile paints your features as you tell them that you’ll message them once you land, and if there’s time, phone once you make it to your new apartment. As soon as you see their response in confirmation, you’re turning your phone on airplane mode and grabbing your headphones out of your purse.

Movement from your left catches your attention, and you see a few people settling into the seats near you. You take a moment to assess your new seat buddy before turning back to your phone, plugging in your earbuds without another thought.

Looks like you’ll be sitting next to a guy for the entire flight. Not that you mind, but the last guy you sat beside on a long flight like this tried to talk your ear off about politics and how ‘kids these days don’t have the same respect they used to.’

The worst part? The man didn’t look that much older than you.

Oh well, it could have been worse. It could have also been like that one time you sat beside a lady who told you everything wrong with your first book, and what she would have done to fix it and make it better.

Holding your earbuds in one hand, you scroll through your playlist, searching for a song you want to listen to before putting them in.

From beside you, you can hear some hushed whispering in Korean, each voice distinctly male. The words ‘writer’ and ‘newest book’ catch your attention in-between the bustle of the other passengers boarding the plane, and you nearly let out a sigh.

Just as you go to place your buds in your ears, you hear a gentle voice pull you out of your thoughts.

“Excuse me?” The words are low, cautious, as if he’s unsure of himself. Surprisingly, they’re in English.

Lifting your head, you shift your gaze to the side. The way your eyes blink in mild surprise, caught immediately off guard by who you see sitting beside you, is apparent. Ever so slightly, your breath hitches in your throat.

“Are you…” he trails off, brow furrowing as if he’s searching for the right word in English.

Out of the corner of your vision, you see a face peering out across the aisle from the row in front of you. His hands grip the seat firmly as he angles his body towards both you and the male beside you. Though, from the way his face keeps being blocked by more passengers boarding the plane, what he attempts to whisper to his friend goes unnoticed. At least, by the unsuspecting male. However, at the way you can hear the word ‘author’ lightly cut through the crowd, you grin softly.

“It’s alright, I can speak Korean.” You reply casually.

The way you see the male visibly freeze in his spot, body seemingly relaxing immediately after has you chuckling slightly.

“You do?” The surprise is clear on his features, but he’s quick to hide it in the next second.

“Not very well, but sufficiently enough.” You say. “My Japanese is better.”

You can see the way his brow twitches slightly in acknowledgement, that same look of surprise shining within his gaze.

“Anyways, my friend would like to know if you’re actually the author that wrote this book.” He says, lifting the object slightly in his hand.

An object of which you didn’t even notice before, too wrapped up in your own little world.

Sparing a glance at the book, a soft smile graces your features. For there, resting in his hands, resides a copy of your latest novel from the airport bookstore.

“I am.” You confirm with a small nod.

The male turns back to his left, seemingly having a silent conversation with his friend across the aisle. From his body language alone, you can tell that your seat buddy is slightly exasperated. Especially when his friend looks about ready to lunge across the aisle after the one sitting beside you asks him very lowly if he has to.

The announcement for final boarding call is heard over the speakers, the cabin crew now moving to secure the plane for take off.

You can only quirk a brow in amusement as your seat buddy heaves a tremendous sigh before turning back to face you.

That’s when you notice two more heads popping up over the seats in the middle section, one row in front of you. One sports bright, flaming red locks, while the other has a head full of black hair. They not so subtly peer over the back of their seats, looking in your direction as the one sitting right next to the aisle with bleached locks still has his eyes locked on you.

“I’m so sorry to do this to you; you probably get this a lot,” he sighs, and you can literally feel the death glare the male directly across the aisle from him is sending his way. “But do you think you could sign this for him?”

The plane begins to move. Briefly, you hear a flight attendant tell the three males in the row in front of you that they need to sit properly in order to prepare for take off.

Your brow quirks. “I thought I already did.”

This causes the male across the aisle to practically fall out of his seat as he reaches across to tear the book out of your seat buddy’s hands. You notice that he practically shreds through the front page in order to flip through to where your signature practically shines back up at him.

You notice a vibrant red beginning to creep up his neck as you chuckle lightly.

“I can still add a personalize message, if you’d like?” You lean forward slightly, looking directly past the male sitting beside you.

The way you visibly see the male perk up, practically throwing the book back at the one sitting beside you has a large grin pulling at your features. You can feel your own face heating from this interaction, heart pounding in your chest.

“Flight crew, prepare for take off.” The captains voice is heard over the intercom, and you realize you missed the entire safety demonstration. Not that you haven’t seen it all before.

“That would be great,” the male sitting beside you says, seeing as the other one seems too excited to speak for the moment. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” you smile, reaching down to grab a pen from your bag.

“Excuse me, Miss,” the soft voice of a flight attendant draws your attention to the aisle beside you. “Please remain in an upright position until the plane has left the tarmac.”

“Right, sorry,” you smile sheepishly, a nod to your head.

Turning back to the males beside you once the flight attendant walks away, you pat the cover lightly.

“I’ll sign this as soon as we’re in the air, okay?”Your voice is sweet, holding the book lightly in your lap.

“Thanks again,” the male beside you nods.

“Of course,” you repeat. “It’s not everyday an idol from one of your favourite groups asks you to sign something for them.”

Four heads whip in your direction: the male sitting beside you, the two directly across the aisle from you, and the one who had been turning around to face you one row up. The surprise is clear on their features, and you’d bet anything that the two you saw peeking over their seats earlier would be doing the exact same thing once again if they could.

“You know who we are?” The one from directly across the aisle sounds completely awestruck. “You know who I am?”

“Yes, I do,” you nod gently in his direction, a small grin tugging at your lips. “Choi Jongho from Ateez.”

You swear that this man is about to faint from how red his face goes.

“Right now, though, you’re all just some guys on a plane,” you say. “And we all just so happen to be heading to the same destination.”

A slight whine from the row in front of them draws your attention.

“Joong, tell Yunho to stop kicking the back of my seat!” With the familiar intonation, you can just tell that it’s Wooyoung.

“Well, then stop hopping around.” Said male turns briefly towards his opposite side before turning back to continue observing this interaction between you and the other members.

You huff out a laugh, feeling as the plane begins to accelerate for take off. A moment later, and that familiar sense of weightlessness takes over, signifying you’ve left the ground.

“So, you’re a fan, then.” A statement, rather than a question comes from the man sitting beside you.

“For my part,” you hum, a tender smile pulling at your lips. “I saw you guys in concert a few years ago when you came to my city. You’re all incredible performers.”

You notice all four of them that are still looking at you become a little bashful at your words. Mutters of gratitude escape their lips as they bow their heads in your direction, and you are once again reminded of just how humble this group is.

“Then, you know who all of us are.” Again, another statement leaves the male beside you as he observes you with curious eyes.

“I do indeed know who you are, Kang Yeosang of Ateez.” You repeat your little phrase from earlier. A moment later, you shrug. “It’s like I said, though, right now you’re just some guy.”

A ding sounds, indicating the seatbelt sign going off once you’ve reached altitude. As soon as you hear it, realization flashes across your features, and you lean forward to grab a pen out of your bag.

“So, did you want me to address this to you, or is there a specific nickname you’d like me to use?”You direct your question towards the youngest member sitting across the aisle from you.

“Uh…” Jongho blinks, shifting forward slightly as he undoes his seatbelt. “Nickname?”

“Yeah,” you confirm. “Sometimes people like me signing a term of endearment from one of my books in front of their name, or even instead of their name. I can do that, or something else. Just nothing weird, like ‘Daddy’, or anything like that.”

A head pops up over the seat in front of you. “Someone’s asked you to sign a book for them addressed to ‘Daddy’?”

“Oh, hello, Song Mingi from Ateez.” You blink in mild surprise.

“Hello.” A subtle nod and an immediate look of meekness crosses his features. Almost as if he couldn’t help but pop up and join in on this conversation with you.

“I thought we were all just some guys to you right now?” Yunho quirks a brow at you from down the row.

“Listen, this is the only way I know how to-“ you search for the right word, looking up at the ceiling of the cabin all the while. A slight tilt of your head in realization is the only sign they get that you’ve thought of the word, “dispel my excitement for the moment. I’m pretty sure my heart is about to burst from how furiously it’s racing right now.”

You see Seonghwa poke his head around the edge of his seat to look at you. Only, you see him flinch in the next second, slowly shifting so he’s now peering over the top of his seat just as Mingi does.

Looks like Hongjoong didn’t like the fact that his sight was being blocked.

“I think the feeling is mutual,” at the way you see Yeosang motion towards Jongho with his head, you crack a grin.

“So,” you catch the last dregs of the glare Jongho sends Yeosang’s way before the youngest is meeting your gaze once more. “Nickname?”

Knowing grins tug at a few of the male’s faces around you, Yunho nudging Jongho teasingly in his side.

Again, the youngest shoots a pointed look at the male on his opposite side before turning to look at you. Red begins to creep up his neck as he averts his gaze to the floor before continuously flicking it up to meet your own.

“I’ve always liked ‘Darling’,” he admits, and you notice how Yunho nudges him teasingly while more of the guys shoot him knowing grins.

This time, it’s your turn for your cheeks to heat as you hum. “How fitting.”

Flipping open to the page with your signature, you twirl the pen in your fingers once. A moment later, and you’re scribbling out a message.

To My Darling Jongho,

The stars look up to you. Keep shining!

Signing it off with a ‘Your Fan’, you’re quick to add your name. However, before you hand it back to him, you add a little note at the bottom.

P.S. You have a lovely voice.

Adding a small smiley face, you’re quick to cap your pen and shut the front cover.

The moment you hand the book to Yeosang to pass back to Jongho, you notice a few of the other members sliding back into their seats. The youngest eagerly snatches the book back from the elder, opening to the page with your signature on it without a second of hesitation. The way you see him visibly shake in excitement, a large smile stretching onto his features warms your heart.

There’s a part of you that really wants to ask him about his favourite characters, and what he’s thought about your books, but you hold off for now. You wouldn’t exactly start a conversation with him otherwise, and you don’t want to bother him too much. Besides, he seems far too content to pull out the Korean translation of your previous book from his bag shortly afterwards.

Figuring he wants to read, you turn back to face the seat in front of you. Leaning down, you go to put your pen away, kicking your bag lightly back beneath the seat.

“Yeosang,” you hear a harsh whisper from your left. “Switch seats with me.”

A moment of silence where you notice the aforementioned male shoot a disinterested look towards Jongho. 

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Jongho practically seethes, a frown tugging at his features. “I swear to god, Yeosang, I will split you in half like an apple.”

“Yes, I’m sure your favourite author would love to sit beside a man who just threatened to snap me like a twig.” Yeosang deadpans, reclining his seat back as far as it will go.

You’re about to make a comment on the situation, torn between jokingly saying that that’s actually kind of hot, or telling them that you don’t mind at all, when a voice draws your attention from in front of you.

“So,” it’s Seonghwa, peeking over the top of his seat once more. His hands grip the headrest, and you cannot see his mouth, but the way his wide eyes shine as they look towards you nearly makes you swoon. “Who’s your bias?”

You notice that this catches all of the member’s attention, and you suddenly sink back into the seat you’re in. That is, until you quirk your brow, a teasing grin causing the corners of your lips to twitch upwards.

“My ult?” You tilt your head. “I think I’m very explicit about it being Lee Taemin.”

You can visibly see the way his shoulders deflate at your words, and you briefly look around at all of the males that now seem to be peering at you from over their seats.

“No,” Seonghwa practically whines. “Of the group!”

“Which group?” The expression you wear is nothing short of amused as you see Seonghwa begin to pout before you.

If someone had told you that you’d be making the Park Seonghwa from Ateez pout because you wouldn’t tell him your bias from his group, you would have laughed in their face. Even more so when you notice Hongjoong staring at you with a mildly pointed look in your direction. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear that he’s almost daring you to say that it’s anyone else but him.

“Our group, of course!” He frowns, leaning the slightest bit forward to rest his chin on top of his hands as he watches you carefully.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice San lean into Wooyoung from a row ahead.

“Has she answered her bias yet?” The male not so subtly whispers to the younger.

“Shh, not yet.” Wooyoung hisses back. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“Who’s your bias in Ateez?” Mingi is the one to ask you this time, and you shift your attention to him for the moment.

Again, your cheeks flare with heat.

“Now, isn’t that the million dollar question?” You breathe, letting out a chuckle as you grab your phone in your hand once more. “Nah, sorry boys. If you want that answer out of me, you at least have to buy me a drink first.”

“Is your bias your lockscreen?” Jongho asks, an eager gleam in his eyes as the males closest to you now divert their gazes to your phone held in your hand.

“My lockscreen definitely takes priority,” you grin knowingly, and you watch them all eagerly lean in to catch a glimpse of the photo. “Since I won’t have wifi for such a long time, I always change it to a list of things I should probably get done on the plane."

Clicking the side button reveals said list on your screen.

A collective sigh of defeat is heard from the males around you as you chuckle. Only, in the next moment, your brow furrows.

“Wait, how do you know I usually keep one of my biases as my lockscreen?” You turn towards Jongho.

“Lucky guess?” He shrugs, another blush creeping up his neck.

“He started screaming about it during one of your lives once someone translated your remark.” Yeosang casually states, shifting slightly in his seat to get more comfortable as he settles in for a nap.

You swear that were it not for the way another passenger walks by to use the restroom, Jongho would have lunged at the male sitting beside you.

Still, you cannot help the way your eyes shine in awe. “You watch my lives?”

Jongho avoids your gaze, fumbling over his words for the moment. His hands nervously toy with the pages of the book in his lap, and you nearly coo at how bashful he suddenly looks.

“When he can.” Yunho supplies for him with a soft smile. “Sometimes Hongjoong and I watch, too. It helps when Joong can translate some of the things you say.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest at the implication, and you cannot keep the hopefulness out of your voice. “You guys have read my books, too?”

“Even if it weren’t for Jongho ranting and raving over your writing, our other friends are pretty persistent.” Hongjoong replies, a soft smile pulling at his features. “You’re very popular back home.”

“Yeah, Changbin told me that Felix recommended him this book, so he just had to tell me about it.” Wooyoung supplies.

“Members of Stray Kids have also read my novels?” You say, though with how lowly you whisper it, it’s more to yourself in awe.

“I know! I was surprised, since Bin will barely even look at books half the time,” Wooyoung laughs, eyes crinkling in joy.

“You’d be surprised by how many of us read your novels.” Yunho hums, settling back in his own seat for the moment.

“Wow,” you breathe. “Honestly, it’s something I always think about, but I still never expect it. The only idol I know for sure that reads my books is Mark Lee of NCT.”

“Oh, yeah, we didn’t hear the end of that for weeks,” San calls out over his chair, shooting a look towards Jongho.

“‘Why can’t we get personalized signed copies of her books?’” Wooyoung imitates the youngest, nearly getting shoved out of his chair in response.

“I’d send her a full on review along with our albums if she gave me a chance,” Hongjoong laughs, receiving a harsh kick from Jongho to the back of his seat.

“Remember the one time he said he’d serenade her?” Yunho supplies, a fond chuckle falling from his lips.

Jongho instantly wraps his one arm around Yunho’s throat, pulling the taller man into his side as the elder hunches over uncomfortably. “Want to die?”

You cannot help the way you laugh, eyes falling shut as you lean back in your seat. Your one hand rests over your chest as you catch your breath, blinking away your tears of joy shortly after. The scene is much too comical for you not to react, anyways.

The moment your vision clears, you notice Yeosang having turned to face you. He wears a somewhat neutral expression, but his eyes are soft, a hint of awe residing within.

You chalk it up to him just being tired.

“You really said you’d serenade me?” Your inquiry is tender, nothing but a sense of wonder pulling at your features as you lean forward to look his way.

Slowly, he releases the chokehold he has on Yunho, nodding lightly all the while.

“That’s honestly so sweet, oh my goodness,” your one hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you tilt your head to the side.

The way Jongho’s eyes begin to shine as he meets you gaze says it all.

A moment later, and your attention is being drawn to the male peering his head over his seat in front of you.

“You like anime, right?” Mingi has an eager look on his face, arms crossed over the back of his seat as he rests his chin on top of them.

“I do indeed!” You reply, an excited gleam sparking in your gaze.

“Uh-oh,” Hongjoong says. “This is going to take a while.”

“Shut up,” Mingi frowns, turning his suddenly harsh gaze towards Hongjoong for a moment before turning back to you with an eager grin. “Which one’s your favourite?”

“Definitely Jujutsu Kaisen, but Naruto will always hold a special place in my heart since I’ve loved it since childhood.” You reply. “Haikyuu will also forever be my comfort series.”

You see him nodding along to your every word.

“What about you?” You reply, blinking lightly up at him.

“I really love Demon Slayer,” he replies, a giddiness to his tone.

“Oh yeah, the animation for that series is beautiful,” you nod along to his words. “I also remember when Atiny’s went feral for your Rengoku hair. Now, that was a look.”

You swear the male nearly tumbles out of his seat as his lips part in awe. A subtle blush begins to tint his ears, as he smiles bashfully in your direction.

“Thank you,” his voice is soft. That is, until his sharp gaze is locking on the male sitting beside you. “Hey, Yeosang-“

Pointedly, the male turns away from you, pretending to be asleep.

“I don’t think any of us are going to get him to move any time soon,” Hongjoong chuckles. “Anyways, sorry for bothering you.”

“Not at all!” You shake your head, a kind smile tugging at your features. “Honestly, this has made my entire week.”

“Likewise,” Jongho breathes, and you turn your smile towards him.

“Oh, wait,” you lean forward, pulling out your backpack and riffling through it in the next minute. Once you have what you’re looking for in hand, your eyes are lighting up, pulling the item out of your bag quickly. “The translation isn’t due to drop for another month, but they sent me some early copies. I’d like you to have this one.”

Carefully, you reach over a somewhat asleep Yeosang to hand Jongho the book in your hands. You can see his own shaking as he grabs the novel from you, a look of complete awe on his features.

“Thank you,” he meets your gaze. “I’ve been waiting for this one to drop since you announced it. It’s why I bought the English version.”

“I do that, too, with a bunch of my manga. I think I have at least four copies of volume four of Jujutsu Kaisen just for the one panel alone.” You chuckle.

“Not the cover?” Mingi quirks a brow.

“Oh, god no.” Your face scrunches in distaste. “Kakashi two-point-oh is most definitely not a character I like. I’ll stick with the original, thank you very much.”

From beside you, you notice Yeosang’s shoulders start to shake with mild laughter.

“Anyways,” you chuckle. “That’s a topic for another day.”

The way you see Mingi visibly pout as he sinks back into his seat has the corner of your lips quirking upwards. A second later, and you’re turning your attention back to Jongho on your left.

“I hope you enjoy the book, it’s definitely darker than some of the other ones I’ve written.” You comment.

At this, you notice Hongjoong’s brow quirk. “Darker, you say?”

“Twisted, if you will.” You shrug a shoulder casually.

“Hey, Jongho, once you’re finished with that, let me borrow it.” Hongjoong turns to the aforementioned male who already seems to have begun reading your book.

Jongho’s eyes flash, protectively hugging the novel to his chest. “Get your own.”

The two males begin bickering over your book, and you notice how the other members have all settled back into their seats. You decide to get comfortable in your own, leaving the conversation at that for now as you put in your headphones. A moment later, and you’re putting on one of your softer playlists to help you fall asleep. It works, too, for in no time at all, you’re succumbing to the realm of dreams.

Of course, it doesn’t last too long, for the flight attendants come around offering drinks shortly after. The meals are served following that, and then finally, you’re able to sink back into the comfort of sleep once more.

A few hours later, you wake to more hushed whispers coming from your left. It sounds as if Jongho is attempting to convince Yeosang to switch seats with him once more, much to the elder’s annoyance.

“I said, ‘no’,” Yeosang grumbles, his arms crossed over his chest.

“But I want to ask her about her new novel,” Jongho whines.

“Ask her some other time,” Yeosang huffs out a breath. “She’s sleeping.”

Jongho leaves it at that, but when you crack open your eyes to assess the situation, you notice he’s already almost halfway through the book you’ve given him. A large pout rests on his features as he pointedly flips back to the page he had last been on, continuing to read without another word.

After about another hour where you fall in and out of sleep, you decide that you’re too restless for the moment to succumb to the land of dreams. Adjusting yourself in your seat, you make sure not to disturb the resting male beside you. Leaning forward, you shuffle a few things around as you grab a notebook and a pen from your bag.

Might as well get a little bit of writing done.

The lighting inside the plane is low, but you’ll make do. The last thing you want is to disturb the people around you, and besides, it’s not like you can’t see anything. It’s no different than all of those nights you used to spend when you were younger sitting in the dark staring at your laptop’s screen as you wrote until the first glimpses of the sun’s rays peeked through your windows.

Turning to a blank page, you let out a small sigh through your nose.

Now, where to begin?

Quirking a brow, you smirk to yourself, putting the pen to paper.

Before you know it, two hours have passed and you’ve written a fair amount for the opening of your new book. Sitting upright reveals just how stiff your neck has gotten, bringing a hand up to gently begin massaging at the muscles as you stretch it out lightly. A moment later, and a few satisfying pops can be heard as you crack it, and subsequently, your back.

The way you notice Yeosang spare a look at you out of the corner of his eyes has  you smiling sheepishly. “Sorry.”

You begin to close your notebook before a final idea strikes you, scribbling the little note to yourself for later. Once done, you tuck it away, pulling out your laptop shortly after.

A brief silence settles over you as you place your laptop onto the little tray you’re using. That is, until a soft voice from beside you draws your attention.

“You have nice handwriting.”

Your entire body freezes, turning to blink at the male in shock.

“Do you always write everything out before typing it?” Yeosang meets your gaze, a mild curiosity lingering in his tone.

Slowly, you shake your head. “Not usually. I just prefer writing things out like this when I’m in public. I always feel like my screen is a giant ‘Look Here’ sign when I use my laptop. That, and you were sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you with the light.”

“I thought I was ‘just some guy’ to you?” He quirks a brow, completely misinterpreting your words for the moment.

“You are.” You confirm. “I would extend the same curtesy towards anyone.”

“But not right now?” He quirks a brow, eyes briefly darting down to the way you open your laptop.

“You’re awake now, and I think I’ve earned myself a few episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen after actually getting some writing done.” You say. “Besides, my hand hurts from gripping the pen so tightly.”

“Oh?” The corner of his lips twitches upwards as he notices you stretching your writing hand out by curling and uncurling your fingers periodically.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice Jongho nearly at the end of your book. His body is angled towards you, gaze flitting above the top of the pages every so often to check if you’ll notice him or not. At the way you smile tenderly his way, he’s quick to hide his face behind the pages once more.

“It’s a bad habit I have,” you shrug, setting up your screen with the first episode. “It’s one of the reasons I prefer typing. That, and both spellcheck, and the fact that I can type faster than I can handwrite.”

“I see.” He hums.

You blink, a subtle heat rising to your cheeks. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Not at all.” He smiles politely. “I asked, anyways. Think of it as the mere curiosities of a stranger.”

“Well then, stranger,” you grin slightly, a playful gleam to your eyes as you properly introduce yourself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

An amused grin tugs at the corner of his lips as he introduces himself to you, following along with your antics for the moment. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“There,” you nod once, quite firmly at that, too, “Now we’re not strangers.”

“No,” he hums, “I suppose not.”

Turning back to your screen, you are more than content to leave the conversation at that. A moment later, and the familiar sight of the first episode of Jujutsu Kaisen pops up on your laptop, allowing yourself to connect your headphones before pressing play. You get about five minutes into the episode before you begin to feel eyes on you.

Shifting your gaze, you notice Yeosang glancing towards you, and then your screen every few seconds. Carefully, you shift your laptop in his direction so he can see the screen better, and you notice him stiffen slightly in his spot.

You chuckle lightly, silently offering him one of your earbuds.

You don’t even have to look at him to see the way he glances from that small item held in your hand, to your face and back a few times before accepting the offer wordlessly. A press of a few buttons and Korean subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen.

You can see the shock clear on his face as he places the bud in his ear.

“What?” You laugh. “Expecting English?”

He blinks. “Yeah, actually.”

“I think I mentioned my Japanese being better than my Korean,” you hum.

“Your Korean sounds fine to me.” He comments.

A warmth blooms on your cheeks as you divert your gaze to the screen.

“Thank you,” nothing more than a mumble escapes you.

“Why? Do you think you’re not speaking well?” He asks, the anime playing on in the background.

“I used to be friends with a girl who always harped on me for my pronunciation, so it made speaking all the more difficult for me.” You admit softly. “Which is really ironic, when she always complained about people correcting her when she was younger.”

“Harped?” His brow furrows. “How so?”

“She would always make fun of the way I would say stuff,” your nose scrunches in distaste as you recall the memories. “I would learn something new, and the first words out of her mouth would be something like, ‘you really think it’s pronounced like that? You sound like a Koreaboo.’”

His eyebrows raise significantly, “Koreaboo?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, turning your head to meet his gaze only to realize just how close he is to you due to the fact that you’re sharing headphones. A warmth blooms once more on your cheeks. “Ironic, since she wasn’t even Korean to begin with, yet she was correcting my pronunciation.”

“Was she a language teacher?” His brow furrows.

“Not even,” you sigh, shaking your head lightly.

“She sounds like a bitch,” he comments, shifting his gaze to your screen.

You spare a glance at him out of the corner of your eyes. “She was.”

“Well, I think your pronunciation is really good,” he says, somewhat nonchalantly.

You wish you could prevent the way your eyes light up. “Really?”

A soft smile graces his features. “Really.”

“Thank you.” Shyly, you avert your gaze back to your laptop, shifting slightly in your seat.

He smiles kindly at you in response, turning back to the show as well.

About two minutes go by before he’s breaking it again.

“So, how come you have Korean subtitles to a Japanese anime?” He inquires, a hint of curiosity leaking through in his voice.

“Well, back to the language conversation,” you begin, “I had always wanted to learn more than one, but every time I went to study, my mind just wouldn’t retain the information. Except for Japanese. So, originally, I wanted to learn Korean first, but it just wasn’t working out well for me. Another fact she harped on me for: my memory. Anyways, I realized I could remember things better in Japanese, so once I learned that, I learnt Korean from Japanese.”

Yeosang hums, clearly impressed. “I see.”

“It was easier to pick up phrases and stuff with Korean subtitles to my favourite shows, so I made the switch,” you go on to say, tapping the edge of your laptop with your finger lightly. “I still use English subtitles if my brain gets too tired, though.”

“Makes sense,” he nods. “Do you watch dramas?”

“On occasion,” your tone is light, a small hum to your words. “I’m really bad at finishing a series though. I tend to start one, and then not touch it for years before going back to it. I still think I have a few episodes of Goblin left. Which is really ironic considering I referenced the reaper in one of my first published series.”

“You did?” He sounds quite surprised, but curious, nonetheless.

“I did.” You confirm with a chuckle. “I make reference to a lot of things I like in my stories. Music, movies, shows, characters, you name it.”

“What’s the thing you reference the most?” He asks, resting his elbow on the arm of his seat in order to lean his head in his hand.

“Probably The Lord of the Rings,” you chuckle. “I love that series.”

“I don’t think I’ve properly seen it.” He admits.

“Really?” You look at him skeptically. “Forgetting that you’re just some guy for a moment, but you literally have a song called The Ring where you make reference to it in the final lines.”

The somewhat sheepish shrug he gives you makes you laugh.

“Alright, fair enough,” you grin. “If you ever get a chance, you should watch it. The extended editions, though. There’s no other way to properly watch those films in my opinion. You get so much more out of them that way.”

“Oh, really?” He hums, amusement dancing in his eyes as he quirks a brow.

“Literal cinematic masterpieces.” You continue. “There’s so many cool behind the scenes facts and tidbits I could tell you, but I don’t want to subject you to that right now.”

“Why not?” His question clearly catches you by surprise.

“I don’t know if you’d be interested,” you shrug, blinking in the next second. “I do also have the movies saved on my laptop, but again, I won’t subject you to that. They’re long as hell, especially if you’ve never seen them before.”

“Ah, so binging them all at once isn’t a good idea.” He nods in understanding.

“Oh, no, you could totally do that, but it’s like, thirteen hours or so.” You say. “Definitely worth it if you make a day out of it, though, Watching them back to back really immerses you in the story.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, then.” He smiles. “They’re based on books, aren’t they?”

The way your eyes instantly light up does not go unnoticed by him.

“They are!” You reply enthusiastically. “They’re honestly one of my favourite series both in film and on paper, but I wouldn’t go around recommending people the book series.”

“Why’s that?” He inquires, tilting his head slightly in curiosity.

“They’re dry as fuck,” you say, and you notice his eyebrows raising in amusement at your description. “Listen, they’re not for everybody. Even I usually take years to get through the first book when I read the series. It’s a very tedious journey, but if you enjoy fantasy, they’re a key staple to read. In any language. At least, in my opinion.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he smiles softly, and again, you can feel your whole body heating in embarrassment.

“Sorry, I tend to ramble about the things I really like.” You avert your gaze, fingers suddenly toying with one another in your lap.

“I don’t mind at all.” He’s quick to assure you, eyes crinkling gently in the corners.

A soft smile pulls at your lips as you keep your gaze fixed on your hands for the moment. You can still feel him looking at you for a few seconds longer before he diverts his gaze back to the screen.

The both of you sit in silence for a few minutes as the anime continues to play. By now, the second episode has started, and the corner of your lips quirks upwards as you watch the familiar interactions between the characters. You could probably recite both the original Japanese lines, and the English subtitles by now given how many times you’ve watched it.

A loud gasp from across the aisle draws your attention.

“Holy fuck!” It’s Jongho.

“What? What is it?” The somewhat panicked voice of Hongjoong reaches your ears as you see both him and Seonghwa leaning towards the youngest from the row ahead.

The younger male turns to you, his eyes wide and his lips parted in shock.

“You-“ he blinks, “I-“ he tightens his hold on the now completed book in his hands, “the twist!”

You grin. “I told you it was dark.”

“I just knew it. The way he was acting when he got back to the room was too suspicious.” Jongho mumbles, flipping through some of the pages to quickly reread certain lines. “It was there all along!”

“Some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten about writing is that plot twists shouldn’t catch you suddenly off guard. The best ones are hinted at throughout, and if the reader can pick up on them, you’re doing a good job of laying out the clues.” You chuckle fondly at how eager he listens to you. Even the others look on you in mild awe. “Granted, you don’t want it to be too obvious.”

“It definitely wasn’t,” Jongho shakes his head, as if to reassure you. “It was all paced perfectly.”

“Thank you,” a brilliant, albeit bashful smile takes over your features, and again, you feel Yeosang looking at you out of the corner of his eyes. “I’m glad to hear you liked it.”

“Liked it?” Jongho looks about ready to vibrate out of his seat from his excitement. “I loved it!”

Once more, you thank him lowly, that smile never leaving your features. A warmth blooms in your chest from his words, and the fact that you can see him immediately opening the book back to the first page to begin rereading it has a happiness unlike any other building within. The way Hongjoong starts to pester Jongho about letting him borrow the book has you wiggling your toes to expel some of your giddiness.

You’re just about to offer the leader of Ateez his own copy when a voice from your immediate left draws your attention.

“Who’s your favourite character?” Yeosang blinks once before turning his attention to you from the screen.

“Huh?” You blink back at him, clearly caught off guard by his inquiry. For a moment, you think he’s asking you about your favourite character from your new book.

“Of the show,” he jerks his chin in the direction of your laptop where you see episode two finishing up for the time being.

“Oh,” you tilt your head in acknowledgement, noticing a familiar male peering over the top of the seat in front of you once more. Your cheeks flare with heat. “Probably Sukuna, but Toji is a close second.”

At the way Yeosang quirks his brow at you, you’re quick to continue.

“Look, my taste in fictional men is questionable at best,” you comment, shifting slightly in your seat. “Don’t ask me why I have a thing for the psychopaths, but I do. Bonus points if they have red hair.”

You notice Hongjoong quirk a brow out in your direction of the corner of your eye, only for him to quickly turn to the male sitting to his left. A moment later, and he returns to his previous position, Wooyoung popping his head over the seat to grin smugly in your direction. You simply raise both eyebrows curiously.

“So, you like red hair?” The smug grin Wooyoung wears says it all.

“I enjoy the colour, yes, but it’s not my favourite.” You confirm, noticing how the male wiggles his brows suggestively at you. “The colour suits you very well, yes.”

“Good thing he’s not a psychopath,” Seonghwa mumbles.

“Debatable,” Hongjoong sighs, and you nearly laugh.

“Then, what are your favourite colours?” Yeosang inquires, blinking at you innocently.

“Hair wise?” At the nod you receive, you hum, thinking it over for a moment before answering. “For some reason, I definitely have an affinity towards bleached hair. I love the look of blond locks. Bonus points if it’s long and the roots are starting to grow in slightly. My absolute favourite is lavender, though. As much as I love Taemin’s blond hair, his lavender hair gets me every time. Jeonghan from Seventeen also had really nice lavender locks, and they were long, too. Oh, and special shout out to skunk dyes.”

The way they all stare at you has you immediately shrinking into your seat. Even more so when you see Wooyoung grinning at you like a maniac from a little ways away.

“Sorry, I’m rambling again.” You chuckle nervously. “Here I am talking to literal idols about this stuff when we’re not even friends.”

The boys all share a brief look with one another.

“We could be.” It’s Hongjoong that offers, the others nodding along softly in agreement.

To say his words catch you off guard would be an understatement, and you have just enough time to compose yourself so that you’re no longer staring at him, dumbfounded. 

A blink, and a soft smile pulls onto your features. “I’d like that very much.”

A phone is nearly flung at your face, were it not for the way Yeosang quickly catches it midair.

“Jongho, calm down!” Yeosang harshly whispers to the younger beside him, gaze sharp as he shoots a pointed glare towards the male.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Jongho looks absolutely mortified when you turn to look at him.

“It’s alright,” you chuckle. “Honestly, not the worst thing that has been thrown at me before.”

The way they all look at you in confusion at you has shrugging a shoulder casually.

“When I worked at a bookstore on the operations team, I can’t count the amount of things that either got thrown at me by accident, or fell on me.” You say casually. “Books are also much heavier than phones.”

“I would imagine,” Hongjoong chuckles along with you. “Do you have kaotalk?”

“I do,” you nod in confirmation. “Though, we might have to wait until we land to exchange information. No wifi and all.”

“Ah, right,” you see his head tilt in acknowledgement.

A small pout pulls onto Jongho’s features as Yeosang hands the youngest his phone back.

“Then, we’ll exchange information once we land.” Mingi grins widely, practically shaking in excitement in his seat.

“Sounds good to me.” You grin right back, heart racing inside of your chest.

If someone would have told you that you’d not only be on the same flight as Ateez, but befriending them on said flight, you would have told them to stop fantasizing. However, truly being in this situation feels so unreal, even as you watch them all settle back into their seats with smiles on their faces.

“Thanks,” you mumble.

Yeosang quirks a brow.

“For catching that.”

“No problem.” The corner of his lips twitches upwards.

“So,” you shoot a look at him out of the corner of your eyes, noticing how the anime has been continuing to play in the background this whole time. “Who’s your favourite character?”

“In this?” He motions to your screen with a jerk of his chin.

“Yeah.” You nod.

“Don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.” He replies casually, and your eyes nearly bulge right out of your head.

“You’ve never seen it before?” Your voice is full of disbelief as you look towards him once more. At the shake of his head, you’re quick to restart the third episode, muttering to yourself about talking over the show this whole time.

“It’s okay,” Yeosang chuckles. “I’m used to the chaos.”

You quirk a brow. “Are you, now?”

“Yes.” he deadpans, turning his head to shoot you a pained smile with a thumbs up in the next second. “I thrive in it."

You cannot help yourself. A loud, boisterous laugh escapes you, your eyes crinkling in joy. A fact which is only emphasized when Yeosang begins to chuckle along with you, only to steel his face and nod solemnly every time he notices you peering over at him.

The way he grins right along with you as you finally calm yourself down from laughing so hard says it all. Not even the way you can see Jongho flicking his gaze towards you from over his book, a clear pout on his features can pull you out of this moment right now.

For the rest of the plane ride, you either watch more episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen with Yeosang, or talk lowly with him. The conversations are somewhat short, but calm nonetheless. They mainly consist of one of you asking the other a simple question, and going from there. Truly, two strangers just passing the time and enjoying the other’s company, rather than sitting in silence.

At one point, you manage to fall asleep again, only to be woken up by the announcement that the plane is now beginning its decent into Seoul. The way you notice your laptop has gently been closed, your headphone wrapped up and sitting neatly on top of it makes you smile softly.

Stretching as much as you can, you move to put your laptop away. You keep your headphones out, just in case you want to listen to music for the last little bit of your journey. Then, once you’ve settled back into your seat, you turn your head to the side. 

Gazing out of the window, nothing but pure excitement shines within your eyes. It’s finally time, and as soon as you land, you feel as if everything will truly fall into place.

You can feel someone’s gaze on you every now and then. You figure it’s either Jongho watching you out of the corner of his eyes like you’ve noticed he likes to do, or Yeosang looking out of the window with you. Thus, you opt to sit back as far in your seat as you can, giving the male the perfect view to observe the ground getting closer and closer with each passing second. He’s probably missed his home more than you could ever imagine.

The moment the plane touches the ground, you cannot help the way your breath hitches in your throat. The small bounce of the wheels hitting the tarmac only serves to solidify to you that this is real. You’ve truly moved to Seoul for a year, and you have many adventures planned already to come. Starting with that award’s show, of course.

Turning your phone back on cellular for the moment, you’re quick to shoot a text to your family letting them know you’ve landed and arrived safely. It’s now early morning for them, so you’re not expecting a message back for at least another few hours. You also need to get a new data plan for the year you’ll be living in Seoul, so you add that to the mental list of things you need to do already forming in your head.

Five minutes later, and you’ve been taxied to the gate, the other passengers beginning to disembark. Honestly, you can’t wait to get off of this plane and stretch your legs. Your few trips to the bathroom did nothing to help. Besides, you can’t wait to get to your place and shower.

Holding your bags in your lap, you watch as Yeosang steps out into the aisle. Only, he pauses, motioning for you to go ahead of him.

“Ladies first.”

You smile politely, thanking him lowly as you step out of the row and begin to disembark the plane. You get about two steps onto the gate when Jongho steps in beside you, as if he was eager to follow you out.

“Holy shit, you are tall.” His awestruck voice reaches your ears.

An amused glance is sent his way out of the corner of your eyes.

“And the most common phrase said by males I meet goes to…” you huff out a laugh, seeing as he continues to scan you from head to toe, noticing how you stand a few inches taller than him.

A red hue begins to creep up his neck and onto the tips of his ears. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“No, no,” you wave him off with another laugh. “It’s just funny when no one believes you are the height you say you are. Used to happen all the time when I tried dating apps.”

“What do you mean?” Yunho steps in on your other side, and you notice Yeosang walking beside him. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say the shorter male looks slightly irritated. Though, from the way you notice him loop around to begin chasing Jongho, you know that the younger must have done something before exiting the plane.

“Well, where I come from, it’s really common for guys to add their heights to their profile. Which is really funny, when they are usually the ones that lie about it.” You explain, heading towards customs with the crowd from the flight for the moment. “So, I always found it funny when I would tell the people I matched with my height, or when they would ask about it, only to not believe me. Then, whenever we would meet, I would be significantly taller than Jeremy who proclaimed himself to be ‘six-foot three’.”

You see Yunho nod beside you, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Got even more prominent when I started doing signings and people would stand near me.” You comment. “Not to mention the guys that would need to ‘prove’ how tall I was whenever they would bring their books up to be signed. On the other hand, though, it’s really cute to see so many people get flustered by it. Female presenting people and non-binary people especially. Though, I will never forget the fans who always ask me to cosplay Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Eight.”

“You’ve cosplayed Lady Dimitrescu?” Mingi attempts to hide his excitement with a clearing of his throat as he steps into the space once occupied by Jongho.

“I’ve thought about it,” you hum, stepping into the line to get through customs with him, Yunho, Yeosang, and Jongho right behind you. Looks like the others are a little ways ahead already. “Maybe one day I will.”

“I fully support whatever decision you choose to make.” Jongho nods, enthusiastically.

“Just say you want her to step on you and be done with it,” Yeosang sighs, crossing his arms over his chest.

The way the younger lunges for the elder has a laugh escaping you, especially when the two males start bickering and slapping each other’s sides.

“If you want me to step on you that badly, I have one condition,” you joke, stepping up to the front seeing as you’re the next person in line. At the way you seem to now have all four of their undivided attention on you now, you grin, feeling your cheeks beginning to heat. “Suffocate me with your thighs, first.”

Each male doesn’t even have time to respond before you’re being called over to the customs officer, but you definitely catch their stunned reactions. The way you see Jongho nearly fall over, his face turning bright red and looking like he might spontaneously combust has your shoulders shaking in laughter.

The other three aren’t fairing much better. Yeosang’s eyes look about ready to pop out of his head with how wide they’ve gone. Additionally, both Mingi’s and Yunho’s mouths part, subtle blushes of their own creeping to their cheeks before the eldest is clearing his throat. They don’t have much time to dwell on your comment, for they each get called up to their own customs officer to get through to baggage claim soon after.

Getting through customs doesn’t take too long, and before you know it, you’re standing in front of the terminal waiting for your bags to come through. You didn’t necessarily spot any of the other guys, but you haven’t really been looking out for them, either. That is, until you see a blur of red approaching you from the side.

Wooyoung hops right up beside you, stopping short as a look of complete shock crosses his features. “Woah.”

Sparing a glance out of the corner of your eyes, you notice his gaze scan your figure. He begins looking around the ground at your feet, as if to spot whatever it is you must be standing on to make you that much taller than he is. Once he finds none, his awestruck gaze is back on your face.

“Wooyoung, I thought I told you to wait for us,” Hongjoong’s exasperated voice reaches your ears.

Turning your head, you see all of the guys now walking towards you, a few of their staff in tow.

“I’m so sorry, has he been pestering you?” A male, whom you’re assuming is their manager, addresses you.

“Not at all,” you shake your head, a slight grin tugging at your features. “I think I might have broken him, though.”

At your words, all heads turn towards a stunned Wooyoung, his mouth gaping like a fish. He blinks a few times, a dopey grin tugging onto his features soon after as his face begins to turn as red as his hair.

“Wooyo, are you okay?” It’s San who asks, coming up to stand beside the male still blinking at you.

A second later and Wooyoung starts giggling like a maniac, “tall lady. Pretty, tall lady. Pretty and tall lady.”

“Okay, I think someone needs more sleep.” Yunho gently guides the muttering male away from you with the help of San.

“Sorry about him,” Hongjoong chuckles, stepping in beside you.

You notice Yeosang standing on your opposite side, not saying a word. Though, you can feel the way he glances towards you out of the corner of his eyes every now and then.

The terminal begins moving, signifying the start of baggage claim for your flight.

“Anyways, should we exchange Kaotalk’s now?” Hongjoong asks, his phone already held in his hand.

“Sure!” You reply, shifting to grab your phone out of your pocket. A few moments later and you’re holding your screen to him with your Kaotalk code on full display. “Here you go.”

The way his eyes light up has you smiling, and you notice the others all pulling out their own phones to add you as well.

“Feel free to message me anytime,” you smile, already feeling your phone vibrate in your hand with a new message.

However, before you can even check who has messaged you, a voice from your left catches your attention.

“Don’t forget about me.” Yeosang blinks up at you as you turn to face him.

You smile softly. “I could never forget about you.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d say you’ve just made him blush. The way he averts his gaze, focussing so intently on your phone to make sure he’s added you correctly only confirms your suspicion.

A piece of luggage on the conveyor belt catches your eye. Just as you move to place your phone into your back pocket and grab your bag, you notice Yeosang stop you.

“Which one is it?” He takes a few steps towards the terminal, not even waiting for you to respond.

“The silver one, but I can grab it-“ by the time the words have left your lips, he’s already hoisted your bag from the belt and placed it gently beside you. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

He smiles lightly. “I wanted to.”

You smile back. “I appreciate it.”

“Do you have any more?” He asks, eyes already scanning the moving luggage for similar ones to the bag he’s already grabbed for you.

“I have three, but I don’t expect you to-“

“Is this another?” He points to a larger silver hardshell case coming your way.

“Yes, but-“ again, before you can tell him not to worry about it, he’s lifting your luggage off of the conveyor and placing it gently beside your other one.

“Are the other two the same?” He asks, shifting his gaze towards you from over his shoulder.

“Same style, but red.” You blink, figuring you’re fighting a losing battle at this point if you keep telling him not to worry about it.

“Believe me, if I didn’t help you first, Jongho would have leapt across the room and done it himself,” Yeosang comments, pulling the first of your red bags off of the line for you.

The moment he wheels it over to you, you double check all of the labels, making sure these are indeed your bags.

“What about your bags?” You ask, noticing how he lifts your final bag off of the line in the next second.

“The staff usually handles them.” He shrugs, helping you wheel your bags over to a cart to help you start loading them onto it.

“Ah, so you wanted something to do.” You nod your understanding.

“Had to make sure all my muscles still work after a long flight like that.” He deadpans, the subtlest of quirks to his lips.

“Are you sure you didn’t just want to show off?” You quirk a brow teasingly.

“Depends,” he hums, shooting you a look out of the corner of his eyes as you both head towards the exit. “Were you impressed?”

You laugh, fake swooning in the next second. “My hero.”

Yeosang quirks a grin in response. “Fine then. Your bags were super heavy to lift, and I demand compensation.”

“I never forced you to lift them!” Your mouth falls open, a scandalized look crossing your features.

“I could have lifted them for you.” Jongho cuts in, seeing as they’ve all now caught up to you for the moment. “I would have been more than happy to.”

You chuckle, but you cannot help the way that you notice Yeosang fall silent as the younger inserts himself in between the both of you.

“It’s quite alright,” you smile softly. “Yeosang helped me just fine.”

“Do you have a ride to your accommodation?” It’s Seonghwa who asks, blinking at you with wide eyes.

“I do, thank you.” You nod. “My publisher sent some people to pick me up.”

You see a few of them nod back in understanding just as you reach the exit gate.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye for now.” Hongjoong turns to face you, stopping just off to the side to ensure they’re not blocking anyone’s path.

“You guys be careful out there,” you say, looking over all of them briefly. “I’ve seen some wild videos of how certain people can act towards all of you at the airport.”

“You, too.” Mingi sends a firm nod in your direction.

“Well, hopefully we’ll see you around!” Wooyoung grins, practically vibrating in his spot in excitement.

“Not to be ominous, but I have a feeling you will.” You smile knowingly. “Like I said, feel free to message me any time. Keep in touch if you can, and don’t be strangers.”

“We will,” Hongjoong smiles back, the corner of his own lips quirking knowingly as Jongho begins to pout beside him.

“I’ll see you guys around,” with a final wave, you’re grabbing your two luggage carts and steering them out of the exit.

You don’t even have to turn around to know that they follow you out a moment later. Given the way half of the crowd begins to bustle, practically swarming the opposite ramp as Ateez exits the terminal, you have a definitive answer. However, what you don’t expect is for a few people to be there for you.

“Miss, would you be willing to sign this for me? And could I possibly get a picture, too?” A girl asks, holding a copy of your first published book out to you.

“Of course,” you grin, having already given your luggage to the people you were supposed to be meeting at the airport that your publisher sent. Once you take the book and pen from her hands, you turn to face her. “Who should I make it out to?”

You’re so caught up in your own little world, completely awestruck by the fact that a small crowd had come to greet you at the airport, that you completely miss the feeling of eyes glancing back at you from across the way.

The last thing Yeosang sees before being ushered out to a waiting car is you signing some books and taking pictures with a few fans, a radiant smile lighting up your face.

[therobotmonster]

So I tried out Fallout: Frost

And I got to level 70.

I finally quit because the game was taking a literal hour to load save files. Fallout 4 takes forever to load saves anyhow, but you can get around it with the quick save/quick load, and it isn't nearly as bad, but some combination of my graphics card, Frost and Mod Organizer 2 (which is very clunky compared to Vortex) made it just drag.

I don't have a lot of screencaps, so forgive their random nature.

The game is punishing, and that's part of the point. Early in there's some excitement about how hard the survival mechanics are, but the mod philosophy is solid anti-fun, and after awhile, that just grows old.

Set six years after the war, the game jettisons as much of the wilder stuff as it can manage. Super Mutants and wilder mutated monsters aren't lore-friendly at that stage, so its mostly animals, people, and ghouls, who are constantly bolstered by the radioactive air and thus follow zombie-headshot rules.

Where the anti-fun aspect falls into place is the mod is obsessed with keeping you from getting any of the coolest gear because "it has to be there" for the main game story, despite it being super easy to do stuff that would throw the main game off kilter.

So most major locations are blocked off internally.

I see it for things like the power armor suit near Sanctuary, which is frozen solid in a clever solution to the problem, but I can't dig into ArcJet to get the Rock-It launcher? Seriously?

It gets extra obnoxious with the Nuka-World section, because huge chunks are blocked off, and both exclusive power armors are non-available. The entire marketplace in Nuka-Town is gone, just inoperable doors.

And the mod relies far too much on journal entries to tell what story it is. The journal entries come in basically two flavors: 1) tales of sorrow and death that are so common that you quickly get bored of them and 2) ramblings by now mad cultists, of which there are many. The main barrier to forward advancement is familiar places being blocked off with locked doors, the keys of which are at random locations you just have to stumble across.

You can't just go to Parsons' Asylum and find a way in. No, none of the many Maldenman guards outside have the key to the door. Nor is it at the end of the Malden subway line where I stomped the mutant thing they worshiped into the ground. It's apparently at the end of the "military storyline", a thing that (to be fair) I did not bother with because dealing with the conversational options with the few NPCs who will talk is a confounding mess of non-sequitor responses, because half the characters use randomly clipped together dialog from the main game and none of it is translated well.

It's not without its charms. For the first forty levels or so you're likely to enjoy it if you're really into hardcore survival experiences, and while most of the coolest gear was rendered nonexistent, a few things, like the syringer, were majorly improved. The boat fast-travel mechanic was neat but crafting fuel was stupidly inefficient.

I strongly recommend new players get the syringer-centered perk that replaced VANS the moment you can. Syringes are the only ammo with no weight, and for most of the game you'll want to keep a pack of venom and bleed-out syringes. One shot from either will take down a human or smaller sized living enemy (ghouls included) and the venom syringes are guaranteed kills on Deathclaws and Bears if you can keep out of reach long enough for them to succumb.

Don't really have much else to say. Just a little ramble.

[gaviicreates]

Experiments with Mohair + FO: Friends Ear Warmer

Good Morning, Crafters! In my fiber crafts learning journey this week, I made my first finished object using a merino wool, held together with mohair. It seems that crafters are either a fan of mohair or dislike mohair, and I haven't seen anyone in between. So I figured it was time to figure out where I stood in this equation.

A couple of months ago I picked up some colorways in the relatively new Hobbii "Friends" Collection, the idea behind this product line being that you can mix and match the exact colorways across multiple fibers and weights. I think this is an excellent idea to create a line with varied, but reliable colors, and very well has the potential to be a staple when wanting to use a base of solids. There's cottons, kid silk, wool, a cotton and acrylic blend, and extra fine merino for all your fiber fun needs.

As I mentioned, I chose the extra fine merino and kid silk (79) - it will be the same across all fibers, which is also a nice feature and makes my organized brain all happy - also known as "Open Sea." Find the yarn here: Kid Silk, Extra Fine Merino Find the Friends Collection Here. With kid silk, I am getting not the pure experience of mohair, as it actually is a blend with 72% Mohair, 25% Silk, 3% Wool. I don't have a comparison, but I can tell you the silk probably gives it a bit of shimmer and possibly softens the yarn. But merino and mohair from what I've read both tend to be considered soft wools, and are not the experience one might think of. If you are thinking of the scratchy stuff, these are not it. I can attest they feel like clouds, so I think they would be good for those with sensitive skin. As long as you are not allergic to the fiber, which can happen too. With my yarns delivered, I first wanted to go about exploring the difference in the color. There's always bound to be some variety based on the way the fibers are able to hold the dye (I am sure there is a scientific word for that), but I was surprised to see that not only was the color as I expected based on the colors on my computer screen, but also that they did match each other even closer than I expected. I also ordered a pink in the kid silk and cotton (37) or "Rosewood."

It was then time to start working up my skeins to see how they worked together, and to determine where I stood with these materials.

Since softness was key, I figured I should test it on a pattern close to the skin. I chose a headband pattern from Hobbii, that was designed for their Universe line, but is an easy one to adjust for different yarn weights and desired width. This is a crochet pattern, and will create a gorgeous texture with alternating post stitches. You can find the FREE pattern here.

The first thing I realized - the mohair creates a GORGEOUS natural halo. And that I think is the first thing to recognize about your own aesthetic when deciding whether to give mohair a try. Halo is those errant strands of fiber around your work - sometimes occurring overtime with use - and in this case, added intentionally because it will change the look of your fabric, but also provide extra warmth and softness. I think an ear warmer was the perfect choice of project for these yarns, and in my case, I really enjoyed the slight nuance of the new fabric I was creating - the kid silk adding just a bit of light to the matte of the merino.

There's a downside - this was not a froggable project. When I was first beginning the headband, I wasn't happy initially with the width and wanted to pull everything back to make it smaller. When I went to frog, I only felt comfortable going back a row, worrying that I would break the strands if I tugged it harder. Since I only had the one skein each, I chose to keep going forward. I am glad I did, because the end result is just right with the twist sewn in. You know - perfect - just as we are about to go into the warmth of Spring.

I'll keep it for winter. <3

In the end Mohair - would try again! I feel like there could be a definitely appeal to expand into more adventurous color combinations now that I've seen how the strands and colors work together. I can definitely see that rosewood color way with a different yarn that could completely transform the look. I get it, I definitely do. **I am new to this fiber journey**

[nsfwflint]

Lesson Planning

A/N: So after months of teasing, Professor Jihyo is finally here. Hope you enjoy! I was originally going to schedule this to drop at midnight after seeing @ggidolsmuts posted something morning. But fuck it.

“All right that’s it for today. Make sure to study, and don’t forget you all have an essay due next week.” The cheery feminine voice at the front of the class says as the electronic bell chimes.

“Yes, Professor Jihyo.” The entire class replies in a unified voice.

The bell echoes throughout the building as the sound of shuffling papers and moving chairs fills the room. Various chatter and conversations increase in volume as students pour out of the classroom. You barely hear the PA system page for Professor Eppes overhead. As you organize the papers on your desk for the next class, you hear soft footsteps approach you. Scooching your chair out and turning to the side, you look over to see Professor Jihyo standing in front of you. Your eyes slowly trace their way up her body. The way her purple skirt clings to her voluptuous curves as her white button-up snugly cradles her massive breasts fills you with indecent thoughts. A sympathetic smile appears when your eyes finally reach her face.

“What’s going on? You haven’t been focusing that well during lectures today. If you’re going to be my TA, I need you to be better than this.” Jihyo says, her large eyes filled with concern.

“Sorry, just been distracted,” You answer, nervously rubbing the back of your neck. “I guess I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll try to get it under control.”

“No, that isn’t it. I’ve seen you when you’re sleep deprived and this isn’t what that looks like.”

Your jaw drops slightly as you’re shocked that she’s been paying that much attention to you. Having only been her TA for a few months now, you weren’t expecting her to know you so well. Jihyo slowly kneels down in front of you. With her amazing figure hovering so close to your crotch, you feel your pants start to constrict around your growing erection. You shift slightly in your chair as you try not to stare at her body.

“I just want you to know that if you want to talk about whatever is bothering you, I’m here for you.” Jihyo gives you a compassionate smile as she softly places her hand on your thigh.

“Oh really? Thanks Professor, but I’m probably just coming down with something then, I’ll see a doctor after work.” You nervously avoid her eyes.

“Hm, you don’t look sick. Let me check if you have a fever.”

Like a cliché drama, Jihyo leans in and softly touches her forehead against yours. With her eyes closed; you can’t help but be in awe of her beauty. Shoulder length black hair perfectly frames the beautiful face you’ve spent hours staring at. Your eyes lustfully gaze over her incredible S-line before focusing on her soft lips. A mixture of thoughts race through your head as you contemplate your next move. Doing anything here is risky, any sort of action can easily backfire and end your life as you know it. The voice of reason in your head frantically tries to convince you to not do anything. Even in a normal situation, you wouldn’t have the confidence to try anything anyway.

But as you stare at the delicate features of a beautiful face you've longed for since you first saw it, your lust overpowers everything else. A surge of baseless confidence comes out of nowhere as you boldly decide to tell her the truth.

“I haven’t been able to focus because I’ve been far too distracted by that amazing body of yours Professor. The way your outfit flaunts your amazing tits, how can you possibly expect me to focus?” You stare into her eyes, trying not to show the immediate regret you feel after finishing that sentence.

Your heart pounds so hard that you can hear it in your ears as Jihyo doesn’t say anything. Two seconds of silence. Then three. Finally, she scratches the back of her head and releases a deep breath. From the apparent disappointment, reality comes crashing down around you. You can feel your life as you know it disappearing before your very eyes. Jihyo looks in your eyes as you gulp nervously.

“Well, you’re definitely not the first student to tell me that. Not even the first TA. But I don’t think I have to tell you how wildly inappropriate that is.”

It feels like an anchor is on top of your chest. Your limbs feel like lead weights as panic starts taking over your mind. How could you be so stupid? What on earth made you think that there was any way this ended well for you? Every breath becomes harder and harder to get out. As you quickly descend into a panic attack, Jihyo's calm voice reaches your ears. Her sweet voice soothes every fiber of your body.

"But I can't say I don't feel the same." Jihyo says, a whisper so soft and gentle you aren't entirely sure you heard it.

"What?" You ask, no doubt looking stupid with astonishment.

"I've noticed you staring several times now." Jihyo whispers as she leans closer to your face.

You can feel a warmth radiating across your face, but you're not sure which of you it's coming from. With her curvaceous figure so close to you, your dick stiffens in your pants again.

"You always think you can hide it. But there's no hiding that massive erection when your pants bulge so much. Even now." Jihyo whispers seductively as her hand grabs your crotch through your pants.

A surprised groan forces its way out of you. While it might be through your pants, the fact that the brunette beauty in front of you is touching your dick at all is enough to make you feel pleasure. Her hand vigorously gropes and massages your dick. Staring into your eyes, Jihyo leans in and pushes her lips back against yours. Melodies of soft moans merge as she slips her tongue past your lips.

Your tongues lustfully swirl around each other as you gently place your hands on her shoulders. The two of you fall deeper into the kiss, a cascade of moans pouring out of your mouths. As her tongue aggressively rubs and circles around your own, Jihyo wastes no time; her delicate fingers nimbly unbuckling your belt. She slowly pulls away from the kiss, giving you another seductive smile before looking down and unbuttoning your jeans.

Unzipping your pants, Jihyo releases a small gasp as your stiff cock practically jumps out of your pants. After a half second of surprise, she quickly wraps her soft fingers around your shaft. It doesn't take long for your small grunts to start up again as she begins briskly stroking up and down your cock. Suddenly, Jihyo takes her hand off your dick and looks into your eyes. With a lustful gaze, she gives her palm a long, slow lick before grasping your shaft again. Her eyes lock with yours, glowing with an intense sexual passion the entire time. Your cock throbs in her hand as her strokes gradually grow faster and harder. Knowing that you're now firmly under her control, Jihyo gives you a seductive smirk.

"I want to see your tits." You say, trying to hide your desperation for her body.

With another smirk, Jihyo pulls apart her button-up and reveals her giant pillowy breasts as the shirt slowly falls off her shoulders. Held snugly in a purple bra to match her skirt, she tucks the large cups underneath her tits. You lick your lips as you stare at her deliciously silky skin. Before you can move in and devour her stiff pink nipples, Jihyo leans in and darts her tongue back into your mouth.

Your small moans mingle as her tongue lustfully rubs against yours. Grabbing your hands, Jihyo roughly presses your hands against her chest. As soon as your palms feel the sensation of her smooth skin, you need no further instruction on what to do. Her stiff nipples press into your palms as you aggressively squeeze her tits. The soft elasticity of her perfect breasts drives your lust through the roof. Your fingers squeeze and grab all they can, glorious mounds of heavenly flesh oozing through the cracks of your fingers.

Jihyo's moans merge with your own as her tongue playfully dances inside your mouth. She reaches down and begins furiously stroking your dick again. With her palm still wet from her saliva, her hand glides up and down your shaft with ease. The friction of her brutally fast strokes combined with the natural softness of her hand makes you worry about how long you'll last. You continue fondling and groping her pillowy breasts, savoring every moment of her supple skin against your fingertips. Your tongues playfully swirl around each other as your moans blend together.

Although you could spend forever kissing Jihyo and squeezing her tits as she jerks you off; you regretfully peel your lips away from hers.

"Lord knows I don't ever want to stop this, but students will be coming in soon." You pant.

Jihyo frowns, but she knows you're right. Suddenly, her eyes light up and she gives you a devious smile. She kneels down and sits underneath the desk in front of you.

"You teach the class instead. You can say I had a personal emergency or something. It's got a closed front, so no one will see. It'll be great." She says as she pulls your chair in so you're bottom half is hidden under the desk.

Before you can firm any sort of rebuttal, Jihyo leans in and practically inhales your cock. Her warm tongue eagerly wraps around your dick. The soft caverns of her mouth drive you crazy with ecstasy. You are quickly learning that Park Jihyo has no clue what the word restraint means as she begins rapidly bobbing her head up and down on your cock. Her quiet moans and slurps are barely audible when the classroom door opens. Your heart pounds furiously in your chest as students begin slowly pouring into the room. Thankfully this is a smaller class, but it’s still 30 students that you’ll somehow have to teach while enduring the best blow job of your life.

“Professor Jihyo had to leave early today, so I’ll be taking over this class. Everything seems to be fine, but because of the suddenness of the situation, I don’t have a lot of material. So let’s take it easy today, huh?” You tell the students with a smile.

The students squirm excitedly in their seats, eager to have an easy class. Meanwhile you’re desperately trying not to show any signs of the intense pleasure you’re experiencing as Jihyo continues to suck your dick. Her soft tongue grips the underside of your shaft, making it slick with her saliva as she rapidly bobs her head up and down. The ecstasy of the most beautiful woman you know devouring your cock blurs your mind. You shuffle around papers lying on the desk, looking for something you can use as a loose lesson plan.

"So, we're supposed to be studying game theory today according to this brief lesson plan.” You say, resting your elbow on the desk.

A collective groan is exhaled from the lungs of 30 students. You smile as you know that feeling all too well. The smile also partially stems from your busty professor's soft tongue rubbing your shaft. Jihyo's warm spit slickens your dick as her tender lips glide up and down. You flinch slightly as she aggressively swirls her tongue around your tip.

"You know what. This workload will be so light that it doesn't matter much. And Professor Park will probably take the next lesson to go over it again anyway. So let’s just relax instead. As students, it's important that we get some relaxation every now and then. There's been several studies showing that play is just as important as work." You give the students a friendly smile, sitting up straighter as Jihyo starts cupping your balls.

“So what are we going to do today then?” A student in the back of the class speaks up.

“Why don’t we all just talk about stuff? You don’t have to if you want, but let’s just chat.” You reply.

“About what?”

“Whatever. Plans for the weekend, tv shows, life dreams. Whatever you guys want, I’m pretty easy.”

As soon as you finish the sentence, you immediately regret the last part. Your students all grow a mischievous twinkle in their eyes. To make matters even worse, of course this is the moment Jihyo decides to wrap her tits around your cock. You desperately try to keep your face calm as your shaft drowns in the softest heat you’ve ever experienced. As Jihyo slowly starts stroking your dick with her breasts; it doesn’t take that long for the first hyena to strike, quickly pouncing on your poor choice of words.

“So for practicality, if you were to commit a heist, would you prefer boxers or briefs?” A voice from the back shouts.

You blink in confusion, taking a few seconds to think about the absurdity and randomness of the question.

“That’s an extremely odd question. Let’s just say some things are better left to the imagination though.” You chuckle with a friendly wink.

Apparently unhappy with your answer, Jihyo intensifies her titfuck. Pushing her arms together around her chest, she squeezes her tits even tighter together. Her soft pillowy breasts completely engulf your cock. Even though you can’t see it, you can feel Jihyo looking up at you; her big eyes boring through the desk as she aggressively strokes your shaft with her tits. Not having any mercy towards your situation, Jihyo gets harder and faster with every stroke. Worried about the noise, you lightly tap her knee with your foot as a warning.

“What do you do in your free time?” Another student asks, bringing you back to the reality of the situation.

“Hm. Nothing exciting really. Outside of work and my own classes, I don’t get a lot of free time. What little I do get, I usually spend watching tv shows.”

“Do you know if Professor Pierce is dating anyone?” Another voice shouts.

“He’s uh. In a different department so I don’t know too much about him. But to my knowledge he’s got his own thing going on.” You answer with an awkward smile.

As you continue to answer the various questions from students, Jihyo gives the tip of your dick a long sensual lick. Your cock thoroughly and pleasurably sandwiched between her heavenly tits, Jihyo slowly drizzles her drool onto your tip. Her warm spit slowly pools in her soft cleavage.You give the class a friendly smile, desperately trying to control your facial expression as your dick twitches in their professor’s pillowy chest. Your elbow propped on the desk, you rest your head on your hand. Just as you’re feeling the full intensity of Jihyo’s assault on your cock, the question you’ve been dreading is finally asked.

“I have a question.” An attractive student in the front row declares.

“And what might that be Miss Park Sooyoung?” You say with a forced smile.

Sooyoung gives you a smile as she leans forward on her desk. Her red hair sensually drapes over one shoulder. You struggle to maintain eye contact as the way she’s leaning gives you a straight view directly to her cleavage. While nowhere near as stacked as Jihyo, Sooyoung's breasts are decently sized in their own right.

"If you're as easy as you say you are, are you seeing anybody right now?" Sooyoung asks with a devilish smile.

As you briefly consider how to respond, Jihyo takes your tip into her mouth. Between your cock being buried in her pillowy breasts and the warm saliva drowning your tip, you clench your jaw; desperately trying not to let a single ounce of this pleasure show on your face. Jihyo quickly swirls her tongue around your tip, rubbing and massaging all around it.

"No I am not currently seeing anyone." You respond with a friendly smile.

The combination of Jihyo's pillowy breasts surrounding your shaft and her tongue's brutal attack on your tip, you know that it won't be too much longer until you reach your limit. You try to stifle a groan as her soft tongue swirls messily around your tip. This is without a doubt the sloppiest, most amazing blowjob you've received in your life, and it's absolutely killing you that you can't react to it. Her soft tits rapidly stroke up and down your shaft as she silently slurps on your cock. You're honestly impressed with how little noise Jihyo is making while giving you such intense pleasure.

"Would you like to be?" Sooyoung asks, not bothering to hide the seduction in her voice from the classroom full of students.

Hushed whispers fill the room, sixty pairs of eyes all eagerly waiting for your reaction. You feign a smile, something done quite easily as Jihyo continues her violently lustful attack on your dick. Taking a breath, you release a small chuckle as you look over the class.

"As flattering as that is, Ms. Sooyoung, I'm your TA. That's extremely inappropriate." You say with a stern voice.

"That wasn't a no~." You hear another student mutter teasingly.

A plethora of excited murmurs echo throughout the room. As you decide to nip this discussion in the bud, Jihyo decides to intensify her assault on your dick. You clench your toes as Jihyo's warm drool drips and oozes all over your tip. The silken skin of her breasts tightly pushes against your cock. Your entire body tenses as your cock drowns in the erotic pleasure of her saliva and her heavenly tits.

"Actually, that was a no. Sorry.”

“I see. Well if you ever change your mind, just let me know. I’m just as easy as you are.” Sooyoung teases, her voice containing a hint of disappointment.

Seemingly jealous at Sooyoung's flirtation, Jihyo amps up her blowjob even more. Your toes clench even more as her warm tongue rapidly swirls and rubs around every part of your tip. Suddenly, Jihyo sucks so hard she practically inhales your dick, the moist chasm of her mouth violently constricting around your cock. The aggressive pleasure catches you off guard and your elbow slips off the edge of the desk; your entire body suddenly slumping with it. As a classroom full of young eyes looks at you with concern, you let out an embarrassed laugh.

"Sorry. I'm not feeling well but I thought I could force myself to get through this class." You chuckle nervously.

"Are you okay?" A student asks worriedly.

"Yes I'm fine. Just a small cold is all. But on the bright side for you guys, I'll be ending class early. Make sure to study and do the assigned work for next class."

The class continues to look at you anxiously.

"I promise, I'm fine. Now go on, get out of here. I'll be leaving shortly after. Go have a fun rest of your day." You say as you give the class a reassuring smile.

Although still uneasy, the students slowly stand up and begin to leave. You wave goodbye as the classroom gradually empties out. The last one to leave, Sooyoung lingers around the doorway. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but after a few seconds she turns around and leaves without a word.

You wait silently to make sure that nobody else is coming back into the classroom. After three eternal seconds, you quickly pull Jihyo back out from under the desk.

"Jesus, Jihyo. That was close. They could have caught us at any moment." You exclaim in a hushed voice.

"Yeah. But it felt really good, right?" Jihyo teases.

"Oh, that’s an understatement. It felt amazing."

Jihyo gives you a smug smirk as she stands in front of you. Admiring Jihyo's body, you find yourself impressed. Somehow while being cramped under the desk, she was able to strip down completely. She quickly straddles your waist, barely hovering just over your dick. Your tip twitches as it lightly brushes against the moist lips of her pussy.

Jihyo grabs your hands, forcefully pushing them onto her hips before she grabs your shoulders. Slowly caressing your hands up her sides, you can't help but be in awe at Jihyo's body. Despite the awkwardness of it, you're thankful that Sooyoung's flirting apparently triggered Jihyo's aggression in the current situation. However you're not sure why she's jealous. Because while Sooyoung is attractive, she's a girl. But Jihyo. Jihyo is a woman. A woman you can't wait to fill to the brim with your cum. As if reading your mind, Jihyo gives you a small smirk before plunging onto your cock. The searing heat of her tight cunt pulsates along your shaft, her womb excitedly meeting the tip of your dick.

"Fuck. You feel even bigger inside me." Jihyo moans as her fingernails dig into your shoulders.

Her velvety walls tightly grip your shaft and your fingers sink into her silken flesh as you squeeze her sides. Soft groans make their way out of you as you try to adjust to her lustful snatch. Your breathing slowly quickens as you still can't believe this is actually happening. That you're finally able to delight in the body you've been hungering for for months.

"We don't have forever here. The next class will start eventually. So hurry up and suck my tits while you fuck the shit out of me." Jihyo says, her blunt words snapping you out of your idle thoughts.

As if driving her point home, Jihyo starts eagerly bouncing on your cock before you can respond. The heat of her velvety cunt hungrily grips your shaft as you begin to meet her thrusts with your own. Your hands quickly travel to her breasts, the large mounds of silken flesh melting into your palms. The sensation of her pillowy chest rippling and jiggling against your fingertips quickly kicks your lust into high gear. You can’t take your eyes off her breasts as they bounce hypnotically with every slam on your cock. It doesn’t take long before your slams grow frantic, both of you desperately chasing the ecstasies of each other’s bodies.

“Oh fuck yes. That’s it baby just like this.” Jihyo moans as she aggressively bounces on your dick.

Both of you thrust into each with an animalistic lust, violently slamming yourselves against each other. Her moist cunt hungrily devours your cock, the hot walls gripping and pulling your shaft. You continue to watch in awe as Jihyo’s sizable tits heave wildly in your hands. Pleasured groans quickly find their way out of you. While you’re worried about the sound, there’s no way you can suppress the ecstasy as her soft cavern continues to eagerly constrict your dick and her milky thighs crash against your own. Apparently sick of waiting, Jihyo grabs the back of your head and forces you into her pillowy chest.

“Come on, I said suck my tits. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know that’s all you’ve ever wanted to do to them. Now hurry up, I want to feel your mouth on my nipples.” Jihyo groans.

Not wanting to risk a failing grade, you immediately comply; quickly taking the stiff tan nub into your mouth. The sweet taste of her nipple filles your mouth as you rapidly swirl your tongue around her nipple, followed by a slight hint of saltiness from her sweat. While your tongue lustfully massages and teases her nipple, your fingers quickly go to work on the other. You roll the stiff nipple in your fingertips, pinching and pulling it as you gently take the other one between your teeth.

"Fuck, just like that. You're so good at this babe." Jihyo moans, running her slim fingers through your hair as she rolls her hips on your cock.

"Well I would hope so, with how many times I've imagined doing this." You groan, your voice muffled by the nipple still in your mouth.

Jihyo pushes your face into her chest even more, her silken skin smothering your face. Your fingers sinking into her heavenly flesh as you fondle and squeeze her tits. Her velvety walls tug your shaft as her body crashes against yours, both of you reaching a fast mounting ecstasy. You continue to loudly slurp and suck on her pillowy breasts, your teeth and your fingers both pulling and teasing her stiff nipples. The sweet taste of her tits continues to coat your tongue as it rapidly swirls and flicks her fleshy nubs.

As you continue to devour her tits like you’ve always dreamed of, you glance up at Jihyo to see her biting her lip; desperately trying to hold in her erotic moans. Seeing Jihyo try so hard only makes you want to make her moan more. You speed up your thrusts, your cock violently slamming in and out of her tight cunt. Her massive breasts heave wildly, the soft skin rippling against your lips as you violently squeeze them. Your aggressive thrusts continue to pierce into Jihyo’s depths. The more you lose yourself in your lust, the more you hope this isn’t a dream you’re about to wake up from.

Realizing you’ve been neglecting her other nipple, you push both of Jihyo’s pillowy tits together and lustfully force both of her nipples into your mouth. Your tongue darts across both of them, flicking and swirling around them as much as you can. Taking them between your teeth, you alternate between pulling on them and pushing your head back into them. You accelerate your slams even more, your tip pounding away at the entrance of her womb. Her tits jiggle violently against your face, your fingers aggressively squeezing and kneading every inch of her soft mounds.

You end up finding Jihyo’s spot, a high pitched squeal forcing itself past her lips as you slam your dick into her depths. Armed with your new knowledge, you decide to take full advantage of it; using this opportunity to make her yours and yours alone. With relentless thrusts, you continue to attack the spot from before, your tip slamming and scraping against her velvety walls. Jihyo grips your shoulders, her fingernails digging into your skin almost to the point of drawing blood. Pleasured squeaks continue to pour out of her mouth as you aggressively piston in and out of her cunt. After several minutes of your violent thrusts, Jihyo pushes you back against the chair; her tits falling out of your mouth with an audible pop.

“Fuck, baby you’re so amazing. But you have to stop hitting that spot. I won’t be able to control myself and someone might catch us.” Jihyo moans, her voice a mix between pleasure and worry.

“I don’t fucking care.” You growl.

Without any warning, you quickly stand up; slipping your cock out of Jihyo and flipping her over so she’s now bent over the desk. You don’t waste any time, immediately slamming yourself back inside of her tight cavern. Her supple ass ripples against your body as you bury your cock all the way to the hilt. Quickly resuming your animalistic thrusts, you rapidly pound away as her hot walls devour your dick. A loud moan escapes from Jihyo as you give her ass a hard smack. The soft skin jiggles against your waist as you aggressively pierce into the deepest part of her cunt. You bend over and whisper in her ear as you roughly slap her ass again.

“You like that? You like being my little whore like this?” You groan, your hands grabbing a fistful of her heavenly ass.

“I do. I love being your little whore. Please, keep fucking me just like this.” Jihyo moans.

Listening to her lustful begging, you’re more than happy to oblige with Jihyo’s wishes. Your fingers sink into her ass, the soft skin jiggling against your fingertips as you give both cheeks an aggressive squeeze. Her velvety cunt grips your shaft, the tight walls rapidly tugging on your tip as you violently pound away inside her. As you slam your cock against her womb, you squeeze her ass so hard that your fingers leave imprints on her heavenly flesh. A shrieking moan explodes out of Jihyo’s mouth as you pry into her depths.

Without thinking, you quickly muffle her mouth with your hand. Jihyo’s moans vibrate against your fingers as you continue drilling your cock inside, piercing deeper and deeper into her heavenly cunt. Her moans deafened by your palm, the only sounds filling the classroom are your pleasured grunts and the sound of your bodies crashing against each other wildly. You give her ass one more rough slap before moving your other hand back up to her tits.

“Mmmf. Mmm, mmm mm.” Jihyo moans against your hand as she looks back at you.

“You’re the one worried about getting caught.” You hiss.

Your fingers go back to where they were before, aggressively squeezing and kneading Jihyo’s pillowy breast. Leaning over her back, you pound her cunt, violently slamming against her depths again and again. Her giant tits heave wildly, her entire body rippling and jiggling against yours. The soft flesh of her breast pours out of your fingers, her massive chest too big for your hand to handle. Deciding to do her own teasing, Jihyo licks your palm; her tongue sensually and erotically travelling all over your fingers as she takes them inside her mouth.

Every thrust sends you tumbling further and further into the depths of your ecstasy as your tip continues to breach Jihyo’s depths. Her tit continues to ripple against your hand as her sizable ass jiggles against your waist with every violent crash of your bodies. Jihyo’s warm saliva slowly trickles over your fingers as her cunt tightens around your shaft. As her hot walls clamp around your cock, you can tell she’s almost there

“Oh fuck baby. Get on your back. I want to see you as you cum on my cock.” You growl as you withdraw your throbbing dick from her cunt.

Jihyo wordlessly obeys you, quickly rolling over so she’s lying on top of the desk. With your cock slickened with her juices, you have no trouble slamming yourself back inside her. You plant your hands on the desk above her shoulders. The soft chasm of her cunt greedily grips your shaft as she wraps her legs around your waist. You lecherously admire Jihyo’s body as it crashes and ripples against you; her pillowy breasts bouncing wildly as you pound away at her cunt. Mesmerized by her massive tits jiggling from your violent slams, your balls tighten as you approach your end.

“Fuck. I’m going to cum Jihyo.” You groan.

“Go ahead. I’m. I’m almost there too. Just. Let. Just let everything out.” Jihyo manages to get out between her erotic moans.

The mounting ecstasy finally reaches its climax as Jihyo’s hot walls constrict your shaft. You pray nobody else can hear her lustful moans bounce off the walls as she grabs your wrists. Looking down, you can't help but stare as her gentle face is now contorted with lust; unable to hide her unbridled joy from being filled with your cock. Unable to get out any actual words in her moans, Jihyo meets your gaze, her eyes silently pleading for you to drown her womb with your cum.

With one last resounding slam, your tip aggressively pierces into Jihyo’s depths. A cacophony of moans fills the lecture hall. Staring at Jihyo’s face, you relish her expression; her lips quivering in pleasure as her eyes portray the overwhelming pleasure you’re both succumbing to. Her petite body trembles, her cunt hungrily constricting your shaft as you pour what feels like an unending amount of cum directly into her womb. Both of you shudder violently as one last ropey blast of semen plasters her velvety walls.

Both of you stare into each other’s eyes as your mutual orgasm slowly fades. You smile at each other as you pant and attempt to regain your breath. As you lean down, Jihyo leans up, meeting you halfway for a gentle kiss. Your lips melt together for what feels like an eternity before you both pull away. The two of you smile at each other as you both giggle softly.

“I FUCKING KNEW IT.” A voice shouts from the doorway.

Your head turns to the classroom door so fast it gives you whiplash. The two of you stare at the figure in the doorway in shock. Looking down at yours and Jihyo’s naked bodies still connected and back up at the surprise visitor, you feel the world crashing down around you. Jihyo meets your eyes and you both gulp nervously. Standing in the doorway staring at you with her arms crossed and a scowl is Park Sooyoung.

A/N: As I was writing this I felt like the smut was a little shorter than maybe I would have liked, but I hope you guys still enjoyed it. Also while writing, I realized that I wrote Joy as a student despite the fact that she's actually older than Jihyo. But it's fiction, so fuck it, whatever lol. Hope you guys enjoyed it!

[keilemlucent]

pretty eyes & starshine: i

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i   ||   part ii   ||   part iii

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @keiqos​ (thank you!! 💞)

word count: ~9.4k

Keigo surrenders to losing himself in the blank-walled, temporary home he inhabits. He finds familiarity in the routine of aches, pains and pills. 

You’re his only solace. 

warnings: bodily trauma, medical trauma, PTSD, dissociation, suicidal ideation, alcohol as a coping mechanism and graphic description of sustained injury

a/n: oh wow so here it is, big sad fic :’^) part one!! it’s canon divergent from manga chapter 296 onwards.

this one has been a long time coming. please mind the warnings!! this fic deals a lot with trauma and mental illness in tandem. the warnings are going to change with the coming parts, so please be mindful. i don’t wanna get too sappy, but this piece has been my Baby for the past few months, and i’m excited to finally share. that being said, enjoy loves 💞

Everyone is fucked up after the War.

There is no kindness in an aftermath like this one, not so soon, and certainly not with dried blood of old comrades and mud still caking under its metaphorical fingernails. The world was in shambles, and every hero is along with it.

There is something horrifying about being at the center of it all, Hawks, no, Keigo thinks solemnly, all too often. 

He’s used to the attention he’s getting, touches and poking and prodding by near strangers. Except, he was used to exclamations of how great and powerful and remarkable he was. Now, all the attention he receives is followed by little sighs and sad, broken eyes.

He’s sure he looks equally as sad; Keigo had been nothing but an empty shell since the War had ended and he’d been carted off to his hospital room. Numb despite all of his burns. 

It’s the shock, he tells himself, he’ll snap out of it any day.

Any day.

...

And it is any day.

He wakes up to screaming from the next room over, agonized wails that pierce the air as his morning nurse enters. She’s over-worked and haggard while checking his vitals with a forced smile. They don’t make conversation with him much anymore, and Keigo doesn’t have the energy to try and force it. There isn’t enough in him to pretend that he’s okay enough to banter with folks. 

If he still had his wings, he would’ve wrapped himself up tight in the plumage and let himself rot away in some corner. He’d let the dissociated numbness fade, however long it took, and then succumb to whatever psychological wounds revealed themselves. 

Waste away, all alone.

But he doesn't have that luxury. He is in an overcrowded hospital with swarms of civilians and heroes, all stuffed in one place because the world doesn’t have the time to differentiate between the wounded, nor the space or resources to give different resources. Though, Keigo is a special case, hence why he’s had healers coming to him for the past three weeks since the War trying to coax his body into genesizing a new pair of wings. 

The Commission’s hospital has all the bells-and-whistles that a medical professional could need, but Keigo, and so many others, are facing problems that don’t have good and easy roads to healing. 

That’s assuming healing was even possible.

Keigo is convinced, has been convinced, that there is no way to come back from the War, nor the absence on his back, nor the shouts and cries of pain that echo around the hospital like a new genre of music that Keigo so desperately wants to scrub from his brain.

Things change, it’s inevitable. Everyone falls eventually, and he was just used to flying.

It’s a harder descent. 

...

Keigo doesn’t meet you on any day, he meets you on a lonely night.

The evenings and early mornings were the most peaceful at the hospital. Most folks, three weeks after the end of it all, had serious enough injuries that they had to be somewhat sedated to sleep, either for physical or mental pain keeping them from sleep.

It’s morose, Keigo thinks, quietly and privately, but he craves those hours. All he hears then is the hum of air vents and beeps of his own medical machinery. None of the audible agony of the folks he was sworn to protect.

He’s slept most of the day, not lucid enough to do much else, and the nurses haven’t been giving him sedatives unless he asked (though he always did.) Without forced quiet, he’s antsy, fingers twitching and flaring the new (and growing) pains rooted in his (empty, isn’t that horrifying—) back.

He rouses himself, adjusting his scratching hospital garb (thin sweats and a cheap crew neck with the back almost entirely cut away). With his IV pole at his side, he resolves to take a few laps and quiet himself, hopefully.

(Keigo would need sedatives, he always did, but it was nice to play pretend that he didn’t. It made things easier for a precious hour or two.)

His laps are usually quick, despite how much his body aches when he walks. So much new, burnt tissue that needed to learn how to move, how to live again, kept him throbbing and gritting his teeth.

Masochism be damned, he keeps at it during his sleepless nights. Physical therapy wasn’t an option when the world was caving in with him at the epicenter.

There’s a common room at the end of the foyer of identical (filled) hospital rooms, just a collection of stuffy, uncomfortable couches that face an aged TV and a wide bay of windows. It’s rarely used, just a formality for when the space of the hospital had regularly hurt victims and heroes. When it wasn’t bearing so much weight. 

Sometimes, he would stop to idly regard the mostly barren world around the hospital. Far from the cities, a little hideaway for heroes and their loved ones to heal in privacy. Other than sheer distance, there is a thick, organic shield around the complex.  It’s a towering forest, man-planted with identical types of trees in perfect rows. 

It’s grim in its predictability. 

(When did he get so fucking pensive?)

(Oh yeah, too much time locked in his goddamn skull.)

He hadn’t been planning to have any inner musings that night.

But, that night, he notes that he is not alone. 

On one of the hard couches, you sit, with your own IV-pole companion and injuries, an arm carried in a monochromatic sling and set in a hard cast.

You turn to him, blinking wide eyes at him.

There’s a single lamp on, and the light dances in your eyes with its own unexpected rhythm.

Something compels Keigo to smile, cocky, like he used to, and greet you with a little wave, and a finger to his lips.

Your expressions melts, a hand going over your mouth to stifle a giggle.

It’s like you’re pulling him after that, he finds himself resting across from you.

You must look like a pair, he realizes. You’re greasy, he’s greasy. He’s got a fine layer of built-up stubble that shouldn’t be called anything other than impressive peach fuzz (not that Keigo’s seen it, he’s felt it. The idea of looking in a mirror makes him sick to his stomach. Though you don’t have any pseudo-beard, you’ve got your own unkempt look and feel that makes you two kindred without sharing a word.

It feels comfortable, warm.

“Hi,” you speak first, voice soft and gentle. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nah, who can?” Keigo replies, shaking his head. “But what about you? Midnight oil doesn’t burn without a cause, you know.” 

Your expression is also painful in the way it’s so open, yet worn (most everyone had locked up by now, the ones in the hospital and Keigo imagined the ones outside of it too.) 

“I like the sky— the stars are pretty.” You sigh, wistful. “I watch for shooting stars.”

The thought, the significance of that obvious wanting, makes something pang deep in his chest. Childlike hope in a place like this, foolish as well as frail.

“Trying to get a wish?” Keigo clicked his tongue. “Smart.”

“No, no— wishing doesn’t... suit me, right now.” You snorted, shaking your head, the light in your eyes dancing, “I just think they’re pretty.”

Keigo blinks, unable to stop the way his eyes widen.

Your posture reads nothing but earnestness and vulnerability, so freely given (so undeserved) without a hint of pullback.

“What do you want to be called?”

“... Excuse me?” Keigo is not used to his thoughts being interrupted in the blanket of dark that he feels most comfortable in. Your words shock him enough with their meaning, let alone the way you’re so brazen. 

“I, uh,” You stumble on your words. “I know who you are, but I also saw that whole broadcast, which I’m going to easily assume you don’t want to talk about. But, I don’t know how much you want to be called ‘Hawks’ at this point either.”

His mouth is dry.

“So, I ask instead,” You lean forward, your IV line pulling the slightest bit and you wince. His discomfort must be very fucking apparent, because you backtrack in moments. “... Or, neither. I can call you something else, too.”

“... A nickname, for someone you don’t even know?” Keigo, Hawks, whoever he is now struggles with words. There’s too many, and they’re all too fast, and he doesn’t have his wings to catch up to them or outrun them— 

“Yeah, why not?” You shrug with a lazy smile. “I’ll call you... pretty eyes. How about that?”

Keigo does have pretty eyes. They’re gold, light and glittering amber in the lowlight. Before he, ya’ know, lost them, and when things were good, but awful, but normal, he darkened the organic marks around his canthi with liquid eyeliner. He liked makeup, prettied himself up and accentuated all the good he had. Preening.

None of that is left, just what organically was on his skin, and he hasn’t seen it in its raw state in years, and like fuck if he was going to look in a mirror just to figure out if his natural eyeliner was half as good as that by his own hand. 

“Sure, that works,” He relaxes, mirroring your expression like the practiced... pro he is. “What do I call you, starshine?”

You roll your eyes, but nothing about you fades as you tell him your name, something that calms and fills him, “But, you can call me starshine if you want. Sounds nice.”

It’s sweet.

So, Keigo greets you.

“Nice to meet you, starshine.”

...

That’s the first time you kept each other’s company. Most of it is quiet, you truly do just want to watch the stars. Keigo did with you, tracing the shadows of clouds and moonlight with his eyes.

(Occasionally, his gaze shifts to you, regarding your figure with the same care for only a moment before returning to the sky you both miss.)

Eventually, the quiet heat of it puts him half to sleep, and he bids you goodnight.

You wave goodbye, rising as he away.

The light isn’t in your eyes anymore, and your warmth feels a little too far away.

...

The next days are long.

He slips into that shell-state again, where he’s a husk that stares emptily at the ceiling as the Commission tries to piece him together to a fraction of what he once was. 

They fail, each time, because no healer they’ve brought can regenerate quirk-formed appendages, but he commends their efforts all the same. It’s out of desperation, sure, but he’s heard whispers of the new generation. In recalling his own sidekicks, he isn’t as scared for the future. 

(Everyone else’s future. He’s so terrified of his own that he turns extra numb if he thinks about it.) 

Selfishly, he just wants his wings for himself. They’d keep him plenty company. If he ever did get them back, he’d fly somewhere, faraway and alone to live out his days under his feathers and feel as empty as he wanted. 

They fuss over him all day, not knowing those desires. They are private, and he only puts on his old, self-confident bravado so they don’t lock him up somewhere to have his brain picked and to fill the new holes with pill-shaped gauze. 

As established, Keigo was content to rot.

(He can’t fully parse all of his feelings and they consume him.)

The healers for the week all failed, doing nothing but making his back bow and burn. It’s painful. Obviously, trying to stitch a body back together, or rather making a body make when it was so tired of creating—

(Feather after feather after feather, for how long?)

He’s glad his sessions are in a different room, a spare, horrifyingly metallic exam room across the hospital. It reeks like iron and isopropyl alcohol, but Keigo doesn’t mind. The filmy paper that rolls from the exam table gets soaked with his sweat as opposed to his familiar bed dressings. 

Not to mention, it’s nice, not having to hear his neighbor’s screams and pleadings to God, any god, for reprieve. Calming. 

(He feels less guilty. Less like it was his own hand that scarred up their bodies. If he can’t hear them, he only thinks of his own agony under ‘helping’ hands.)

His body is exhausted at the end of each day, and even his restlessness fades with the necessities of his body.

He doesn’t see you, and practically forgets about you.

It’s a week or so later when he takes one of his strolls, and finds you tucked away into your nook, dimly lit and with a blanket over your lap.

Keigo feels it as he nears you, that comfort that your expression bleeds into his very soul. Even as he watches your healthy hand nervously toy with the thin knit in your lap, it doesn’t dim you.

The lamplight dances in your eyes as you nod to him, “Fancy seeing you here, pretty eyes.” 

“You’d never know it, but I live just down the hallway— me,” He touches his chest proudly, surprised by his own jest. 

You gave a fake gasp, mirroring him easily, “Never knew I had such a well-known soul in my neighborhood. Forgive my transgression.”

Bending at the waist, as much as you can with your right leg extended, straight, you choke on laughter.

Keigo follows you in it, giggling, genuinely giggling, high and light and girlish like he’d never heard from himself before.

He snapped his mouth shut, thickly swallowing and shaking his head.

“No need to be shy,” You assured him with an affectionate turn of the head. “You have a lovely laugh.”

“Now you’re just flirting with me, cute.”

Your head tilted farther, confused, “I’m simply being kind to you.”

Why didn’t he have the snark to reply to that? Probably because he was half-dead and on painkillers for nearly a month. He’d beat himself up about it later, maybe.

There wasn’t an ounce of malice in your tone, just earnestness that tugged at his own insecurities.

You backpedaled. “How was your day?”

Keigo takes a few moments to respond, shaking his head without mind to the way his too-long hair flops in his face. 

The banter isn’t forced, but it’s not welcomed yet.

As comfortable as you feel to him, Keigo isn’t comfortable.

“Same old, same old,” Living hell. “Boring, mostly. Painful, but dull. It’s crazy how much hell smells like cheap disinfectant, huh?” 

You agree, quietly, “I’m pretty sure there’s many hells in this place.”

Keigo doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. 

You both regard the stars again with growing reverence. Specks of light dance back in your eyes as you both settle into the hard cushions like they were made of goose down and Sherpa. 

...

Your conversations are... disjointed, to say the least. 

There’s an inability for words and phrases to flow between you. There’s starts and stops, stalls like an engine that putters on tarry oil without ever truly firing. There are good feelings, still, safety in silence before words as you stargaze together through the comfort of a window.

It should feel disarming, to be so far from the sky yet have no way to reach it. And it is, but Keigo can swallow the reality these days. It’s easier when there’s someone on the mend close by, sharing in the discomfort of a rawed mind and the comfort of a yellow-toned fluorescent bulb.

It’s unspoken kinship. Keigo never had time for it in the past, but now it was all he had. There had to be some cruel irony in it (as if there wasn’t enough in his life), but he couldn’t make himself mind. 

Everything he’d once excelled at, everything he had was gone. He was barren and stripped (don’t think about it—), exposed to the elements in all the worst ways. At least the hospital was clean and safe, relatively. 

It feels safest with you near.

Sure, your conversations were clearly that of two horribly broken people, but that wasn’t new or surprising. It simply was.

“Do you know constellations?” You ask one night, a colder one, where you’ve got two blankets over your lap. 

Keigo thought for a moment, “A handful, but I never took to stargazing, you know?”

You don’t relate, just chew your lip, the light of the dim lamp dancing across your irises.

“Can I show you some?” 

“...Constellations?”

“What else?” You crack a smile. “Come on, pretty eyes.”

Whatever you’d like, he’d do. 

He can’t refuse, he’s already getting weak for you. 

Shifting, Keigo joins you on your typical couch for the first time. Your IV poles, thrumming and humming their own rhymes harmonize, quietly and mostly imperceptible. 

You regard him even more warmly, so close, a little smile playing on your lips.

“What’s your sign?”

Keigo deadpans, “What?”

“Like... astrology. What’s your sign?”

You wiggle your eyebrows, knowing the double-meaning of your words. 

Flirting again.

Since when had he been so bad at it?

“Capricorn,” He huffs back. He keeps his back off the stone-like cushions of the couch— his scarring had been itchy the whole day prior— so itchy— 

You tap the plastic-y fabric gap between the two of you, grabbing his attention, “Hey, pretty eyes. Stick with me, let me show you where that one is.”

So, you do.

Your light-filled eyes trace the sky’s nighttime freckles, searching until you find what you’re looking for.

“There,” Your finger raises, tracing the patterns in the air. “That’s Capricorn, can you see?”

Not really, the stars are just a meaningless smatter. If there’s some sort of pattern he’s supposed to find, he comes up with none. 

“Not in the slightest,” Keigo rolls his eyes. “Show me again?”

You don’t reply, but rather scoot a bit closer, mirror his hunch and pose with precision and tiny adjustments. 

He doesn’t dare to breathe as you carefully grab his arm, extending it. You lay your cheek over his bicep, watching from the closest view to his own that you could. 

“Do you see now?” 

The only starlight he sees is right in front of him, soft cheek pressed against atrophying muscles. Sharing your heat so graciously as you would so easily come to, you chatter about the stories that are written in the stars, by all cultures, for so long.

Keigo hears, but he’s far more focused on how he wishes you were even closer.

...

After that night, you always share the same couch. 

You face forward, right leg always extended and stiff-looking. Keigo doesn’t mind, hardly notices. He faces you, fragile back bandaged and kept away from the unforgiving grit of the uncomfortable couch. It looks a bit uncomfortable, the posing of it all, but with the words flowing easier, neither of you mind.

You keep showing him stars, the constellations you can remember and see in the night sky. 

Keigo makes fun and crafts his own, connecting new dots and winding stories about them.

“See those three there?” He guides your hand, close enough to share your breath. “That’s the comb of the chicken. Star comb, if you will.”

You snort, rolling your eyes and pulling your hand from his grip, “There’s no cock in the stars, pretty eyes. Chickens can’t fly anyways.”

You both freeze.

Keigo’s mouth goes dry—

Chicken can’t fly.

As much as you’re both learning to be human again, there isn’t talk of your injuries. Maybe, there’s mutual curiosity (you’ve been here two months. just for a broken arm, why?), but like fuck Keigo wants to broach the subject.

“S-sorry,” you stumble over your words, physically retreating. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

It is a fact, chickens can’t fly, but Keigo isn’t a chicken. He’s a debauched, defamed hero whose home is the same set of a milky white, hospital ward walls. Once, a real hero, before the war, before selling his morals just for a chance at rest, before blue flame— burning— 

“Pretty eyes,” Your voice trembles, shaking and lonesome. “Come back here, now. Come on.”

You’re holding his cheeks, unkempt nails pressing (blessedly) a bit too hard into his cheeks. The heat of you is so close, almost scalding him, but he wants more of it, more of the heat that doesn’t burn—

“You’re okay, pretty eyes, s-see?” You hold yourself together, jerking your head to the wide window and glittering stars. “We’re just stargazing.” 

Keigo’s has tears leaking down his face, but neither of you acknowledge them. You release him, quietly spinning another tale about a hero hung in the cosmos. He thanks you for it silently by tugging you into his side. 

(It was the first night you really touched him.)

(The light in your eyes was so close, he wanted it all for himself.)

...

They’re running out of healers to try.

From the weakest to the strongest quirk, no one could revive his dead wings. There was no root to push from the scar tissue, nor resolve left in Keigo to try and make new pins and feathers sprout.

His back isn’t fertile. It’s just as poisoned as the rest of him.

...

He wonders where you disappear to during the day. He takes his strolls then, too. Waves to nurses these days, not charming, just friendly, trying to make a little brightness. 

There’s one day where he asks one of the nurses he knows best for a pair of scissors.

She looks at him, worried, “Don’t tell me we need to put you on psych watch.”

“What? No,” Keigo shakes his head, shaggy hair quivering around the frame of his face. “I just need a bit of a haircut.” 

“... We can ask the Commission to bring someone in—”

“I can do it myself.”

She doesn’t argue with the firmness of his voice, rather, she hands him a pair of safety scissors with bright purple handles. They’re for a child, but Keigo’s fine with that. They’d do. 

When he was younger, and in a pinch (and so poor he tried to eat grass and lick scraps from metallic packaging of discarded junk food wrappers) he’d cut his hair with his own feathers.

Safety scissors would be even easier.

It did mean that he had to confront his own visage, which he had gotten too good at avoiding.

The bathroom in his room is small, it would’ve been claustrophobic if he was still carrying a twenty-five-foot wingspan. 

But, he isn’t. It was just him and the scars on his back that he definitely wasn’t ready to see. 

He’s caught glimpses of himself over the past weeks, but nothing substantial. No view that would’ve given himself time to scrutinize over his imperfection. 

The dull hospital mirror reveals too much about him. It feels too vulnerable, makes his chest tighten, as he stares himself in his ‘pretty eyes’.

Purple stamps below his eyes, probably not from sleeplessness itself, just the sheer exhaustion of living. The one under his left is an odd maroon color, mixing with the scar that is burned into that half of his face.

The skin was once soft, plump cheeks always tended too and well taken care of by expensive skincare products. Now, it’s charred and gaunt. Healing, but still obviously scarred heavy and deep.  The weak beard he’s been growing (accidently) is patchy around the thickened tissue. 

It bothers him— 

It doesn’t look like him in the mirror. 

It helps to take care of himself for the first time in a long while. 

He shaves with the cheap foam and single blade razor they’d given him in the toiletries pack the first days he was there, while he was still numbed out and half-dead. The metal glides over his skin, stripping away the numbness just a little. The stubble and cream slide down the drain and away.

His hair is different. The waves had for so long been pushed back and held that way with the winds of his flights. The longer, feathery patches now hang around his face, dangling down and mingling with the too-long sections that curl over his ears and down his neck.

Wetting his hair, he cuts away what he can. 

It’s blunt, messy, and not elegant. 

All the same, the trim feels good. 

Though, his mood goes sour when the screaming starts for the day.

The far wall of the bathroom was shared by him and his shrieking neighbor, and he took great care to never shower when they were singing their awful chorus. It grates on his ears; he should’ve been a bit empathetic to their suffering, but he didn’t care that much. It was so regular, that the screaming that might’ve once sent each one of his feathers (don’t think about, don’t fucking think about it) sharp as the razor in his hand, didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Just a poke at his temple, a jab and a drop of water that irks him more than anything else.

It is a... somewhat pleasant distraction. He can focus more on his fellow patient than his own haggard appearance, the scar, the lack of red at his back— 

It’s all okay, ‘okay’, until the patient starts babbling.

“M-make it stop!” 

Keigo stills.

A scream tears through the drywall. Even without his wings, it makes him thrum, far-too sensitive.

“Help!” The voice yelps. “HELP!” 

There’s a thud and thump from the other room.

“Please, please!”

Keigo’s heart stutters in his chest, and the razor falls from his hand, clattering into the sink.

“MAKE IT STOP!”

It’s you.

It’s your screaming and shrieking that’s burrowed in his ears. It’s your voice that’s trembling in desperation that has him running out of his room, nearly pulling out his IVs as the pole teeters and follows behind him. 

Why are you screaming?

Why have you always been screaming?

A nurse is trying to stop him, urging him to settle but he can’t. There's an urgency in his chest he hasn’t felt since back before and he has to heed it. He needs to.

He pulls his forearm from the nurse’s grasp, hissing in his own pain, muscles pulling and aching with disuse but he doesn’t care.

The nurses drag him back from your door, and they almost have him, almost have him on the ground.

And then he smells burning—

Cloth.

Flesh.

And something in him snaps.

He clocks the nearest nurse with a tight fist, ignoring his atrophied muscles and kicking with everything he could muster.

They release him, probably out of shock. (He’d been such a model patient, so complacent and quiet until then.) 

Then, he stumbles into your room, and sees you, and wants to die.

...

There’s plenty of times in his life where Keigo felt like an animal. When the Commission first got their hands on him, they took to studying and picking his quirk about to figure out the most efficient way to rebuild it to their needs and uses. Now then, he felt very much like an experiment, only half-human. He was too young to really ‘get’ it, but the feeling persisted.

Sometimes, he felt similarly when he played celebrity. The talk shows, the modeling and media felt hoops he had to jump through just to get a decent night’s sleep. It was an additional job aside from heroics, one he excelled at and entertained him. But that didn’t mean each flash of a camera didn’t suck him dry of a bit of his dignity. 

He was sure you had to be feeling similarly.

You’re writhing and arching in your bed, curls of smoke rising from your papery hospital gown. Every machine in your room is screaming with you, bloody and loud and angry—

And scared. Keigo recognized well, and it drove pins into his heart to realize it was you.

It’s even worse when he realizes some part of you is burning. 

At your bedside, he freezes.

Nylon straps wrap around your wrist, around your cast, and keep you held tight to the bed. You’re tied down, held to the plastic bed frame as you wretch and scream.

You don’t even notice him.

The smoke rises from your burning hospital gown. He rips it away, tears the burning section away with his shaking hand. It’s crass, and Keigo sees a bit too much.  The gauze wrapping your leg below is burning as well, in little veins of char that burns black and smoldering. 

Keigo tears it all away, he tears and tears—

And then he sees the wound.

He was trained, once, to see this type of horror and not bat an eye. That training was gone, and all that remained was his starshine with a writhing, molten wound.

Keigo is numb as the nurses drag him back to his room, trying to decide if he prefers the apathy and numbness to injury that his old heroism gave him, or the blinding pain of empathy when someone you... care about is hurt.

He can’t decide which he’d rather suffer with. 

...

You appear in the common room a few nights later.

Keigo still takes his walks in the late evening, even if you aren’t there. If anything, he needs them more. He’s restless, always listening for the screams or howls from the next room over. His annoyance towards them was gone, and all that remained was a concern that knotted in the pit of his stomach. 

There’s a sigh of relief on his lips when he finds you, nestled into a pile of blankets with your IV pole, watching the stars with sad eyes.

He joins you on your couch, cracking a decent joke that you don’t respond to.

Then, there’s silence.

It’s as loud as the stars are bright. The expanse of sound is filled by the hum of the cold air and distant beeping.

“I’m sorry,” Your voice shakes. “You shouldn’t have seen me like that. It’s not... Easy to look at. Or, I imagine it’s not.”

Keigo wants to rip the apology from your tongue and burn it.

“No, please, it’s alright,” He’s begging too much. “I get it.”

As much as he can, anyways.

You’re quiet again, biting your lip so hard it must be close to breaking skin.

“Can we... talk about things?” You ask, softer. “I can’t keep pretending.”

“...’Pretending’?” Keigo knows, but he selfishly wants to hear you say it.

“Well, you didn’t think I’ve been here for two months for my bum arm, right?” You laugh weakly. “And I’m well-aware that you don’t have wings.”

We just don’t talk about it. 

“It’s nicer to look at the stars and pretend everything’s fine,” Keigo lays the statement down and regrets it.

Your fist tightens, jaw clenching.

And there’s more silence.

It’s deafening to Keigo, he wants to speak, scream, but you’re quiet next to him. He can fill voids with his voice so, so easily, yet he turns in on himself.

“I know, it’s all hard,” Tears drip down from your words, though your cheeks remain dry. “I know, but there was a War two months ago, and we’re still holed up in a place like this, and we never talk about why.”

You turn to him, light dancing slowly in your eyes. Your lips part to speak, but no sound comes out.

“... I didn’t want to ask.” Keigo speaks, gaze shifting down to your leg. He questioned why a broken arm would keep you here, but you can’t just ask that. “It’s bad form to ask a stranger about their injuries unnecessarily when they’re traumatized.”

“But we’re not strangers, not anymore.”

Keigo can’t disagree. 

...

You had been in a conbini when Gigantomakia tore through your little suburb. It was a few miles away, but the ground shook as if the goliath was just outside the automatic doors.

Your demon was near, though.

It was a man from the PLF who tore into you so badly. Just some random, emboldened civilian who ascribed to Destro’s ideology hard enough to think about taking out his frustrations on ‘weaker-quirked’ individuals.

That meant the young couple getting slushies in the corner, the old man behind the cash register, and you.

(You’d told your roommate you’d be home quick to help her study—)

(Your roommate is dead, under several tons of rubble.)

“The old man died before the heroes even started trying to rescue anyone. The couple was begging each other to hold on, but only one of them lasted. He died within a few weeks of being taken here.”

There was just you.

You’d hardly been touched by the man, the fucking villain, who’d set his mark on you. But it was more than enough to leave a writhing scar.

Keigo asks to see it, and quietly, you oblige him.

You’re in a gown, you always have been. The hem of it is pulled up by your visibility shaking fingers, and slowly reveals the scar in the lowlight of the ever-present lamp. He’d seen it once, but that didn’t change how startling it was. 

It’s molten.

The skin is gnarled, twisting and scarred worse than anything Keigo’s ever seen. It was like the gore of a torn flesh was frozen over your right side, from your calf, to your thighs to your pretty hips—

“It goes higher, but that’s not exactly couth to show you,” you joke, but neither of you laugh. 

“... It’s not moving anymore?”

“Oh, yeah. It calms down, when it’s dark. Nighttime and all. It stops being so ornery.” 

Keigo has a laundry list of questions, but with the expression on your face that just bleeds exhaustion into the air, and the fresh burns from the restraints on your wrists, he keeps quiet. 

Maybe, three months ago, he’d jabber on about the injury, try to gode some information out on the villain, profile him, track him and beat the tar out of him for touching you—

But this is the present, and Keigo is a wingless soul. All he has is a prescription for painkillers on a rigid schedule, and the awareness that you both appreciate each other.

Keigo scoots to your uninjured side, lifting his arm up and around your shoulder. It hurts, it fucking hurts, but he doesn’t mind.

You tense for a moment, turning to him with wide eyes, scared like he’s never seen.

Then, you melt into him.

...

Keigo’s busy with healers the week, though none speak his language, literally. They’re international, foreign aid that’s been flown in to try to pick up the disaster of a society that’s been left in the wake of the War and the dissolution of Tartarus.

None of them make progress. 

As much as it burns (haha) him to his core, he’s accepting the reality, slowly but surely. 

...

Endeavor visits him.

It’s the morning after a particularly sweet night with you. You still sit together in the starlight, though you’ve run out of constellations to show him. It’s less quiet than it used to be, just little banter that flows between the two of you. It feels more genuine than his old bluntness, welcome after so much odd tension when you first started enjoying the heat of each other’s presence and the far-off stars.

You’d taken to spending time together during the day as well... As much as you could. Strapping you to your bed was for your own safety. Your broken arm had snapped the first few days at the hospital because of the severity of your spasms and flares. The nurses keep you wrapped up, but Keigo drags a chair close to your bed and talks to you as much as he can.

It helps you relax.

Though the days fill with tension as you try to negate the inevitability of your molten scar coming to life, nights remain calm.

And so, so sweet.

You’ve taken to tucking into his side, telling him little treasured facts about the cosmos. It’s easier to guide his eyes like that, as your cheek rests over his collarbone. 

It lingers with him, the feeling of your casual touch, so tentatively offered and so graciously received.

He traces his own constellations over your gown, mindful of the flesh beneath that heats beneath his palm when he gets too close.

After one of those wonderful, early nights, Enji Todoroki enters his room with all of the gusto one would expect. Which is not very much, but the sheer presence of him is enough to make Keigo quake.

 Just like the little boy from Kyushu, Keigo regards him with stars in his eyes. 

The hero, not a speck of flame on him (thank god) pulls up a chair near his bed. Keigo sits cross-legged and cocks his head to the side.

“What brings you to my neck of the woods, number one?” Keigo smiles.

“Number fifteen.”

“... What?”

“Since my injuries, I’m mostly on bedrest,” Enji replied, folding his hands on his chin. “I’m number fifteen now, and that number will more than likely just drop. I’m not much of a hero with only one lung. I’m planning to officially retire at the end of the month.”

Keigo’s chest goes tight and it feels like he’s joking. He tosses on a tight smile. 

“This is hardly time for a pillar—“

“I’m no pillar. I never was,” Enji sighs, running a hand over his scarred cheek. “The kids can handle this.”

Keigo breaks so easily these days.

“That’s not fair—” He had been tossed into this all too early and god it fucked him up— 

“Hawks,” Enji sighed. “There’s hardly anyone left to fight. They’re either dead, missing part of themselves, or gone.”

“So, you’re giving up?”

“If I didn’t, I’d die.”

Coward.

No, just honest and smart. 

“Since when are you this selfish?” Keigo’s own words surprise him, but he doesn’t back down. “And this wordy, number one? You’ve changed.”

He spits the last phrase like an insult. He hates himself for it and would hate himself even more for it later. 

Enji’s face remains solid and unwavering. The twitch in his brow is the only indication that Keigo’s words were even heard. 

“Since we lost, Keigo. Things have changed.”

Keigo knew, of course, but it didn’t stop the anger from rolling his belly.

“Oh, like I don’t fucking know,” If Keigo still had his wings, they would’ve been extended and fluffed, angry as the pinched skin of his forehead. 

This was his hero, he couldn’t be giving up too— 

“Rest, Hawks,” Enji stand up, “You deserve it.”

Seems Endeavor really died. Enji’s face is worn, his expression neutral and jaw slack. He looks hollowed out and empty, not an ounce or morsel of fight left in him, even for a flightless bird in need of some encouragement. 

There’s more to be said, but Keigo’s too angry to listen and Enji doesn’t have the energy to try. 

Whatever news the old hero had come to bring was left undelivered. 

...

You settle together the next few nights, both so damn tired, even though you’ve done nothing other than lay around a hospital for so-many weeks. 

The air always vibrates between the two of you, that comfortable warmth shared between mingling breath and senses. Light dances in your eyes, twisting and bouncing like something otherworldly.

(Maybe it is.)

Your fingers lace together, held in Keigo’s lap. You trace the others hand in relaxing little lines and shapes, trying to soothe each other’s wounds, always.

“One of the doctors said the scar might start shrinking,” You break the tender silence, nosing into his jaw in the same way an affectionate cat would. “They’re not entirely sure, but it’s been stable for a few days.”

Keigo’s feathery (don’t think about it) eyebrows shot up, “That’s amazing, and there’s only a few spasms this week, too.”

(He kept good tabs on you, he had to.)

You hummed in agreement, a sad smile playing on your lips as it so often did.

With a quick blink, the light bouncing in your eyes faded, and the world felt a bit colder.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get out of here,” You pressed closer to him. “There’s shelters, and some cities are taking refugees, but I don’t—”

Your jaw clicks shut, brow furrowed and mood soured.

(Keigo, mind you, is still focusing on the lack of light in your eyes and the chill of the air in the room.) 

Something stirs, deep in his gut, but he doesn’t say anything. How Keigo used to have such a mouth, he didn’t know. These days, all he can is act, like somehow the loss of his wings came with the loss of his tongue.

Tugging you by the waist, mindful of the tender scar, he pulls you close, internally resolving.

...

She, the main Suit, visits him.

(It’s his last visitor at the hospital.)

There are no trumpeters, guards, or the like. It’s just the haggard president, matching Keigo with his dark circles and creased with new wrinkles and far-more grey sections in her slicked back hair.

The air stands still as she pulls up a chair, burying her head in her hands.

She, the Main Suit, has never been one to inquire as to how he is. Many of the others at the Commission were sweet, kind to him in youth, but she was all business. 

Some things never change.

She breaks the silence of the room, “... do you want to be done, Hawks?”

The cords in his chest tighten, gaze going sharper.

He doesn’t answer.

They meet each other’s gazes; twenty years of fucked-up emotion being shared between the pair of them.

“We’ve done everything. Every healer, every quirk, every treatment, conventional or otherwise,” she’s too soft. “There’s nothing left to try.”

He knew that, he had to know that, right?

His throat feels sticky as he swallows down bile, the scars on his back burning anew. It’s somatic, it has to be, but his flesh crawls and writhes just like yours. His starshine. He hates the way his mind is racing, just as fast as it always has, but his body lacks the ability to keep up.

He grounds himself in the thought of you, his starshine. Your body. Your heat. 

His narrow pupils refocus on the light tremble in her shoulders. 

“I’m being honest, so I’ll ask again,” She meets his gaze, grey eyes as soulless and full as ever. “Do you want to be done?”

“Well, obviously I can't fight—” 

“I mean it. All of it, Hawks. Maybe a few media appearances, but all this... shit. You’ve done enough.”

You’ve done enough. 

The words bounce around in his skull.

“Do you want to be done?”

Done with being a hero.

That’s all he’d ever been, right? That is him, he is Hawks, for fuck’s sake, no one other than Dabi (may he rot and die and immolate in hell) even called him his actual name in years.

Keigo is Hawks.

His mouth is dry, and he tries to ignore the tears pricking his eyes. He’s not sure why he’s beginning to cry, and definitely not sure why tension is draining from his shoulders as he sighs out an answer.

“I’ll be done.”

You’ve done enough.

...

Hospital beds are a hot commodity, and now that Keigo had thrown in the towel (along with everyone else) to stop trying with his wings, he was to be discharged within a few days.

(“Just a few more days to adjust your body to your new medications—”)

He’d stopped listening after that.

...

Your last night together is so bittersweet, you taste it on each other’s tongues.

You have an episode early in the day. Your screaming wakes the floor, the burning smell of flesh cementing that it was you.

Keigo’s only half-lucid when he shoves into your room, holding your hands while nurses desperately try to administer pain medication.

It’s too much for you, the crawling edges of the scar once again consuming you in the molten, glowing amber veins of heat that tore through you so terribly.

You sleep the day away. Keigo stays with you for much of it, stroking the bones in the back of your hands. 

...

He fucks you for the first time, that night. 

His own IVs have been removed, he’s to be discharged first thing in the morning—

And he wants one more night of stargazing, please, please—

(Why’s he clutching at you so dearly?) 

But you’re not in the common room. 

Rather, you’re under a few thin blankets, eyes tired and lightless. Your arm is out of its cast, laying over the bed clothes. It scares him shitless at first as he tentatively enters. It’s you though, and the moment you see him, it’s like a flame, a good one, heats the room full and wide. A few specks of light dance in between your irises as your skin crinkles in a gentle smile.

You both know he’s leaving tomorrow.

The knowledge settles in the room like a weight that neither of you can move. So, Keigo takes to it and does what he can.

As opposed to his normal perch next to his bed, he sits beside you, removing the restraints on your wrists and helping you to sit up.

Keigo fishes around in his pocket, pulling out a folded square of paper and placing it at your bedside. It’s his phone number, an odd detail. Relationships usually shared far-earlier.

But there is nothing linear or normal about the two of you, or the situation you both sit and stewed in.

You both are making peace with it at your own pace.

The bed creaks as you move to sit beside him, legs dangling from the bed. There’s gooseflesh beneath your gown, the boring pattern obscured by the darkness of the room, but the molten lines of the scar ever-visible.

“I’m glad you’re getting out of here.”

But I wish that you weren’t leaving.

His hand finds your waist, careful like he always is, but so giving in the same breath. 

“I am too. It’ll be nice to be.”

But I’m going to miss you.

It’s inherent, and has been forever. Since the moment you both stargazed in the common room and watched the worlds high above twist and shine without regard to your own hells, you’ve been ensnared in the other and neither of you have a want or need to let go.

Even with the inevitably of progress.

Keigo drowns in these thoughts, and has been since Endeavor visited and he was reminded of the harsh reality just outside of their tree-ringed prison. The reality he has to return to—

He presses his lips to yours, more desperate and needy than he had before.

Keigo had taken his share of you before, little pecks and the rub of the bridge of his nose over your jaw and cheeks. He had been a bit greedier with his hands, uncaring of the eyes of the night nurses when he’d touched you in the common room.

But he’s insatiable that last night.

The sheets of the plastic bed are too scratchy, they’re too harsh for you, and it burns Keigo to his core as he lowers you down. He cradles what he can, as your fingers latch onto his clothes (real clothes) and tug him as close as you can get.

The machines in your room cry, but they’re forgotten. 

You nip at his bottom lip, dragging yours across his clean-shaven jaw before laying into his neck with kiss after kiss. His muscles shake, holding him over you, both of you atrophied but uncaring.

You suck a deep, throbbing bruise on the fragile skin of his neck. It’s something dark that won’t fade for a week. The thought stirs something in his chest, a white-hot feeling that wants to crack his ribs and consume him. He doesn’t give in, he can’t—

“Stay with me, pretty eyes,” you whisper, so sweet and gentle as you push floppy strands of hair from his face. “Stay here, just for a little while longer.”

The reminder jolts him back, back to you, and the way your body (so tired, but unwavering) jumps and rolls under his touch. He’s a glutton for attention, always has been, but your particular brand and sounds keep pulse hot and hard. 

Shaky fingers pull his shirt over his head, sweaty palms push the gown over your hips. By the starlight, you’re both seeing too much of each other, but this is a goodbye, there’s no time to dwell on the discomfort.

Keigo tries to be careful as he adjusts your legs, tries to be mindful of the raw skin and flesh that makes you whine and half-writhe. You clutch at him, still trying to pull him closer despite the proximity and heat, like you need him as opposed to just wanting him. 

There’s no fanfare in it, just more rushed kisses and the swirling of fingertips over covered clit. You catch each other’s gasps in the mingling of breaths you share. It’s choking, suffocating, yet entirely not enough. You beg, quietly, for more. Your fingers latch onto his wrist and urge him to help pull your panties off and away.

More, more, more. 

By the time he slides into you, you're still tense, but so is he, and in a pile of tension and fear and wishful-thinking, you both come undone, and undone, and undone— 

...

Keigo leaves the next morning. 

The press is there, flash bulbs blinding him after so long with just fluorescents and starlight. He manages an easy wave or two, no autographs or gleaming smiles, just business and numbness that he needed to hold onto, so he didn’t fucking break.

He slips into the Commission’s car and leaves behind the hospital, you, and its wall of man-laid greenery and prays to forget it all quickly. He has enough to mourn. 

...

Keigo wants to off himself when he arrives back at his penthouse. 

How can he not?

His ‘home’ (if he couldn’t even call it that) is a dusty, time capsule of everything before. Before he got fucked up with the League, before the PLF, before the war, before Jin—

Every untouched bit of his life from when it was a few, precious fractions better stands unturned. A discarded jacket, wing slits visible and frayed. Scattered dead feathers that make his skin crawl. Memorabilia too, old merchandise that he never cared much about, but he definitely didn’t need to be seeing it now that ‘Hawks’ had burned up and died. 

All disgusting reminders. 

Something burning fills the base of his skull when his gaze fixates on one of the old plumes. He reaches out to touch the spine of it, instinctually expecting a little jolt of feeling from it, like he always had. 

But there’s nothing. It’s dead, decaying, and so is he. 

The reality of it breaks him, quick, hard and hot. He burns alive a second time. 

He clears the liquor cabinet while blaring music from his over-priced stereo system loud enough to make his ears ache and throb. The music isn’t drowning anything out, but it’s better to pretend.

He finds a bottle of old pills and downs them with a few swigs of expensive whiskey and lets go.

...

When he comes to, he’s staring into a smashed mirror, with his own nails crusted in blood from thin welts in the skin of the scar on his face.

Much to his chagrin, he hasn’t forgotten anything. The memories of blue flames, red feathers, and the smell of your skin mixed with isopropyl alcohol feel brighter than ever. He grounds on them as he sobers up, latching onto the pain of his scar tissue and the solace you gave. 

And won’t ever give him again.

Something in him wilts as he defeatedly goes to his phone, arranging any number of things to get him the fuck out.

...

The penthouse is sold, his more important belongings gathered in bland boxes. 

And he leaves. There’s no sentiment holding him there, not anymore.  

Fukuoka is gone and some distant memory as he drives (yes, he forgot that he had that skill) him and his things to his new home.

His penthouse had been immaculate. Crisp interior design, new shapes and colors that were on trend. He was hardly home to appreciate the modern beauty of it, but he’d received enough compliments from random hookups to know that it landed aesthetically.

But honestly?

Who the fuck cared?

His penthouse had been sold to the highest bidder and far behind as he arrives at his new, high home in the sleekness of his far-too fancy, disused car.

...

...

He gets a call from an unknown number, another one, on some snowy day, deep in winter. 

Keigo debates answering it. He almost lets it slip to voicemail. The only calls worth answering are the handful from the Commission that he has to heed, or the odd one from Rumi, Fuyumi, and on occasion, Endeavor.

Not random numbers, he has no patience for it. 

Yet, he answers it lazily.

“Washed up hero, how can I help you?”

“P-Pretty eyes?”

His heart stutters in his chest, he swears— 

“Starshine?” He sounds breathless, the air leached from his chest as he white-knuckles his thighs.

He’d given up on you contacting him, yet there you were, or at least your voice, mechanical and high bouncing around preciously in the walls of the cabin

There’s a moment of silence, nearly, just your light breathing that receiver picks up.

Your voice trembles when you break it, “Y-yeah, it’s me, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call—”

You don’t need to be sorry; he would wait for you forever, and then some. 

“I d-don’t actually have a phone? Mine got trashed, uh, back then. I’m on the hospital’s line.”

Keigo hadn’t really considered that, he’s slipped the paper with his number on your bedside without a thought. 

How much had you lost?

“No worries, chickadee,” Keigo is sure his smile is audible. “Why call now? Miss me too much?”

He had no idea.

You laugh, though it soured as you spoke, “I get discharged tomorrow.”

Keigo’s heart seizes again and he’s sure he’s going to go into cardiac arrest.

“The guy who gave me the scar and all? He fucked up a few other people, word eventually got here. Once the scar stops... glowing, it rests. If you make it until then, you’re good.”

And alive.

“The whole injury is stable, has been for a week now,” Surprisingly, there’s no relief in your voice. “They need my bed, so they’re releasing me.”

No, no, no.

Where will you go?

Keigo doesn’t say it, but the question hangs in the air and is quickly answered.

“They got me a spot in one of the shelters close by... It’s only a couple hours by train!” You try to sound happy, but it’s so hollow and unnatural; it makes Keigo physically sit up.

No, no, no.

That won’t do.

“... What won’t do?” 

Keigo hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud.

Something is buried in his chest, something warm and molten, like the old veins of your scar, just kinder and better. It’s full of urges, so seldom used, selectively as needed throughout his career as a hero.

The need to keep something precious safe. 

The thing hasn’t thrashed in months.

Yet now? It’s practically screaming.

“Pretty eyes?” You sound scared through the phone. “A-Are you alright? I can call back—”

“No, don’t, do not.” Keigo lets the flame fill his chest, welcoming it. “You’re not going to that shelter.”

He has something to protect.

“I don’t have another choice—”

Someone.

“You do.” Keigo keeps his voice even, the muscles in his back writhing. If he still had his wings, they’d be puffed out and large. Impassioned with feeling he finally let breath between his ribs. “I’ll come get you, tomorrow.”

“... P-Pardon?”

He doesn’t hesitate, and for a moment, he starts to feel like his old self. 

“Come home with me, starshine.”

++++++

thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!! 💗

look out for parts 2 and 3!!!💞

ko-fi

[ckret2]

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

[ohheyitsokay]

strike

part 3 of the ‘hey batter batter’ series

pairing: Francisco Morales (Frankie, Catfish) x reader

wordcount: 2k

warnings: extremely mild mentions of sex, unwanted advances that don’t get far (not by Frankie)

summary: it’s a Triple Frontier baseball au - trust me, you don’t need to know anything about baseball.

In this chapter, we learn that a ‘strike’ is when a batter misses the ball when he swings, even though he shouldn’t have. And some strikes don’t just happen during baseball.

>>

“Jimbo, I'm here!” You called as you kicked the door closed behind you, arms heavy with grocery bags. Your grandfather would be in the living room, no doubt impatiently waiting for you to unload so you could watch the baseball game together. It was a few states away, which meant the two of you could enjoy evening on the couch with affordable snacks and air conditioning. Games in person were more exciting, but climbing all those stairs wasn’t great for his knees, and it was nice to chat with him without the roar of the crowds.

There was a faint squeak to his favorite rocker, and you unloaded half the bags onto the coffee table – his favorite treats – before tossing the rest haphazardly into their places in his little kitchen. You raced the commercials, listening to the final advertisements with one ear as you hurried to get yourself settled, even though he was always happy to chat with you during the game. For these times with him, you hated to miss even a moment. The chair to the left of his was yours, newer and softer and it would have been the perfect evening, eating and catching up with your favorite man.

Except this was the first real opportunity for him to grill you about your unexpected lunch with his heroes. 

There had been laughter in his voice when you had tried to call him afterwards, and he had told you he would wait to hear the story. To him, even over the phone you couldn’t hide how flustered you were, just moments after Francesco’s eyes had been in yours. All things considered, he had been more than patient, so as you fidgeted and you kept your eyes on the screen, you told him what had happened as casually as you could.

It was the top of the first inning – the very beginning of the game, and his boys were mostly crowded into the dugout. Their fingers were grabbing fistfuls of sunflower seeds or pulling on batting gloves or hanging on the wire, watching as Will walked up to bat. There was a fun country song playing, and it was surreal, thinking it had just been a few days since he had tossed a chunk of fried food into the air and his brother had caught it in his mouth. James thoroughly enjoyed you story, laughing and for once not lecturing you about leaving them alone to live their lives. He seemed approving, proud of you for taking a change, and proud that the boys from his favorite team did his favorite granddaughter well. You answered this questions and indulged his excitement over the little things, trying not to reveal too much of your own daydream fodder. Thinking of Francisco’s eyes as he laughed at the Miller boys, you grabbed a pillow to give your hands something to hold onto, to ground yourself.

The camera panned over to Tom adjusting his cap and without thinking you winced. When you realized that James had caught the movement, you winced again.

You had to explain, then, the biggest detail that you had glossed over – the only one that would disappoint your grandfather. The outfielder had looked at you with confidence and hunger in his eyes. His fingers on your hand left cool, invisible lines, slimy like residue of the stadium cup holders.

James listened with sad eyes, before he was reaching over, gently squeezing your hand, and asking about Will’s family in town to find out if he knew a relative. It was kindness - changing the topic, rewarming the memory as he coaxed out more details of their interactions with you and each other, making you blush and laugh and smile.

The discomfort that had been lodged in your heart regarding the athlete  lessened as you remembered that they were all human. It had been clear the other players respected him, maybe even looked up to him, and that had to be good for something. Even though it had just been a lunch, a single moment in time, the assessments of a group of open hearted baseball players already held weight on your opinion.

As you began to tell James about a joke Santiagio had told, you noticed that Tom’s turn had come and gone, and he had struck out.

-

Every professional sports group had a second team, full of people who pushed papers and cleaned locker rooms and handled press conferences. One of these people was a woman who was in charge of sorting through and organizing special fan appearances.

Flipping through applications and mail, she would have hardly noticed the broad shoulders and hazel eyes of the man who entered, had he not kissed her breathless the night before.

For all they were on and off and she knew he was a player in all senses of the word, she couldn’t help but stand, and let his hands find her hips as he pressed into her.

“Hi, Tom,” she whispered, already dazed and adoring as his beard scraped at her neck, warm and insistent.

“Hey, babe,” he returned, absentmindedly, squeezing her hips before pulling away. There was something about his eyes, the way he held his head, like his shoulders were comfortable bearing the weight of others, like he’d prefer it that way, that made him seem like a natural born leader.

She knew him better. He had the crowds and the rookies and the managers and even his brothers on the team wrapped around his fingers - the perfect mentorship allusion, but she knew. There was another side to him, a darker side, filled to the brim with pride and arrogance and power. Of all the men who flashed smiles as they shook hands and carried kids on their shoulders for photos – he was the one who preened the most. There was a hunger in his eyes, even greater than when he’d love her, when a chance came for him to do an extra interview, put some senior input in, or take a newbie to his first after party.

Still, she loved him. Too much, maybe, but her mind whispered not enough, and she hungrily took what ever he would give her. There were always flowers and jewelry and coveted high-status sex in his apologies, anyway, and she knew he’d always come back to her, eventually. She knew better than to guess.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, star stuck in spite of it all, but knowing there must be something. His “cousin” had stocks in the team, or a certain string needed to be pulled. There was always something. 

When he asked for the number of a girl from a few weeks ago, there was an all-too-familiar twist in her gut.

“Tom, you know that information is confidential,” she whined, masking her fear, turning back towards her desk. It was infuriating how disarming, intoxicating, and how solid he felt behind her, how smooth his words felt on the shell of her ear.

“It’s for Benny, babe, he’s got it bad for her,” it was a lie, but she didn’t know it, and the knot in her stomach loosened a little. His hand slipped under her blouse and it came undone, submitting entirely to the façade.

“Let me help the little guy out.” For all his charisma, she wanted desperately to believe he was sincere, so she did. Her hands started steady as she opened a thick binder and began flipping through the glossy dividers. She moved as slow as she could, hopelessly savoring his touch, knowing when it was gone, the unpleasant feelings would be just as strong.

But it didn’t take long to find you number and hand it over, and exchange more heated kisses and half promises before he slipped out.

The woman settled in her chair again, fingers tracing the letters of your name, the knot reforming below her breastbone. She reached for her phone, telling herself it was a courtesy, to give you a heads up.

-

When a player was about to steal second base, you always wondered if Santiago Garcia could tell, without even looking. If he could feel it in his bones, or if the hairs on the back his neck rose, against his sweat.

If he could, that was exactly how you would feel now, walking into the bar to see only Tom Davis waiting for you. The building was dim, strategically chosen by Will, allegedly, so they could drink in peace. As before however, there was no hiding the silhouette of a man like him, not when he was oozing confidence like sap from a tree.  

When he had called you, it had been so shocking you had agreed without thinking. It was surreal, but like following a trail of candy through a forest, not at all like the knights in shining armor of before.

He swung his arm around, cocky smile across his face, and you shook his hand.

There could not have been a more awkward boundary made, but he laughed it off as you considered turning tail and running. It was ridiculous, but you couldn’t help how guarded you felt alone with him, so you turned to the polished woof of the bar and ordered a lemonade. It would buy you time, anyway, to reassess. 

You had always thought of baseball players as beer guys, but he had a short glass of something gold and expensive, as if he were trying to prove a point. Slipping onto the stool next to him, you set your bag in between you like a wall. He was broad and he pulled close, making you almost press against his side, giving you the opportunity to realize his skin almost cold. Slow sips reminded you that there was no basis for your feelings, and you were the one being strange. 

It wasn’t bad, talking to him. You chided yourself internally, thinking you made unfair assumptions. Really, he was a nice guy. He talked highly of his friends, even defending their lateness, taking the blame for the mix-up. It felt like one of those interviews your grandfather would watch sometimes, the way he could go on about himself and somehow tell you nothing at all. Fighting your instincts to give short, guarded answers, you found yourself sharing about your life more than you expected. Not a lot, but not nothing either.

It was awkward and nice, not unlike a first date and when his large hand covered yours, it didn’t feel half as slimy as before.

A spider’s web was feather-light, so subtle it was almost impossible to feel until it was too late.

His eyes were sharp and deep and certain as he shifted closer, and you felt dazed, despite all the alcohol you hadn’t consumed.

When he leaned in, though, a thought struck you. With his deep hazel eyes, the perfect beard, and tanned skin, he looked like a prince. Not our prince, though, it was just someone else’s fairytale.

Clarity and your own confidence warmed you like a jacket one rainy day, and you touched Tom’s cheek, holding his face at enough of a distance. You shed the web before it stuck and something flickered in his eyes – doubt, maybe, or something like fear, as you spoke the most prominent thought on your mind. 

“What about Molly?”

-

When he heard you, again speaking words that weren't meant for his ears, warm pride shot through his chest.

That’s my girl.

Of course you weren’t, but it felt like you were.

You turned to him like you knew he was there, hand leaving Tom’s stunned face to wave at the grinning catcher.

Frankie had been at war with himself across the bar as he looked towards the two of you, heart wrenching. He had seen from the far side the room first how close you were to the other man. It was unreasonably terrifying to see that you weren't immune, to see you consider his friend. Then he saw how non responsive you’d become to Redfly, how politely you regarded him as he lathered on the charm. By the time he reached the two of you, he found you fully awake, handling it yourself.

When the woman had called you, her voice had betrayed something. It was formal conversation, just admitting she had shared your contact information, and disclosing that it was Tom, and he’d made it clear you guys were friends. Her tone, however, told you she was territorial and jealous, but also desperate, longing. It felt right to get out of the way – that’s what you and she wanted and you sort of thought that’s actually what he wanted, too. He was moving away from you, still processing, trying to play off the moment, and even more than pity, you felt a touch sad for them.

Still, you were impressed you were able to manage yourself. It was the same confidence that had filled you when you stood up for James, a confidence that came from a feeling that whispered something good was coming, something well worth the boldness.

When you felt a warm presence at your side, you felt even more sure. It felt wonderful, the way Francisco was looking at you. It was too early to read into it, but you were sure you wanted him to look at you like that again - like you were capable of telling mountains to move.

You smiled up at him, relieved, and he couldn’t help but beam back, wanting to hug you. He wasn’t feeling quite brave enough yet, but there was a resolve settling in his heart. There was no way he was going to leave your side tonight. 

The other guys came quickly. Each of them was excited to see you again, and you pretended not to notice them shooting confused glances at Redfly when he slipped outside to spit on the ground and stare at the sky. 

It didn’t take long for him to rejoin you, anyway, and his shoulders seemed lighter, his eyes just a little more thoughtful. 

The group as a whole accepted you into their fold like they needed you, like each one of them had missed you when you were gone, like you missed them, like you belonged there from the start.

You had no idea how long the daydream would last, but in that moment it didn’t feel like it mattered at all. Collecting stories for James even faded as a priority as you just enjoyed the feeling of the glass in your hands, the laughter in the air, and teasing the men like they were just boys. Even after the last half hour, it was easy to trust Will’s sincere tone, and Ben’s eager blue eyes. The others were grounded at your side, steady and comforting - you felt yourself open like a flower to the sun. 

There was something about the shape of the catcher at your side, safe and warm, like his presence was reaching for yours, aching with yours. Through the stories and the jokes you relished it, and his eyes made it clear that you weren’t alone. And even though the universe made it abundantly clear that you had no idea what would happen next, you didn’t feel any need to hurry. Fate seemed to know what she was doing.

In the darkness of the bar, only Santiago’s eyes saw Frankie’s hand find the small of your back.

<<

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hey batter batter taglist:

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[leafsbabe]

how Joel Farabee is like as a boyfriend

- Joel is nothing but sweet and chill

- he’s very much a go with the flow guy and he just instantly had a good connection with you

- at first he’s a bit unsure on how to talk to you but in the end he just goes in with a good old fashioned pickup line

- he says it wrong but he’s just so charming you can’t help but laugh

- which caused him to laugh too

- and damn does he have a pretty laugh

- Joel is a great texter but he does it very sporadically

- usually texts a lot when he’s on the road and not so much when he’s close to you

- sometimes he’s super active wooing and charming you beyond compare in a single afternoon only to stop texting for a week and then make a comeback at 3am with a link to a song

- so many memes

- whenever he sees something he thinks you’ll like he’ll take a picture and sends it to you

- i feel like sometimes when he’s close to falling asleep he’ll send you mumbled voice messages because he doesn’t want to open his eyes to type but he wants to keep talking to you

- stays up late to talk to you even when he’s on the road but when he gets home too

- Joel loves spending time with you

- you don’t even have to go do exciting stuff even just hanging out at home is awesome for him

- he likes having you close but you don’t need to be on top of each other 

- maybe he can play some games with the boys while you do your own thing on the other side of the couch

- or take a pregame nap while you chill in the living room

- it’s like quality time you know

- and hanging out at home is the best because you can just wear comfy clothes and chill

- loves it when you wear his clothes

- not just stuff with his number but actually his clothes

- especially when his hoodies smell like you afterwards

- he likes to take them on the road with him because it makes him miss you a little bit less

- he likes going out with the guys just fine or being outdoorsy when he’s home but most of the time he’d rather just chill

- with you

- unless you want to go out and have an adventure because you just need to mention that to Joel and he’ll come up with a cool play

- like you tell him you’d like a date in nature and he like organizes a scavenger hunt in a park

- and like a picnic with just snacks he bought

- because he lowkey can’t cook but still wantes to have a nice day with you

- makes a mean cereal though

- loves napping together and having you run your fingers through his hair

- especially when you tug on it a little

- maybe scratch his back a bit

- he’ll just lay down on top of you

- be your own personal weighted blanket

- very innocently

- or very not innocently

- when you’re sleeping together and cuddling he definitely loves being the little spoon

- Joel just really appreciates being held

- he’s always so fucking vocal

- might ramble a bit but he loves talking to you and with you and telling you how much he loves you

- the weirdest fucking nicknames

- definitely brags about you all the time 

- makes you playlists

- all the time

- he even tries to make it music you’ll enjoy and not just music he likes that he thinks you should listen to

- would definitely move really fast like you start dating and he’ll ask you to move in with him like a month later

- just because you just vibe so well

- and you really do vibe really well

[valdomarx]

Inseparably Entwined

Stargate Atlantis, McKay/Sheppard, bound together, 2k, rated M

-

Elizabeth pinches the bridge of her nose. "What did you two do now?"

"We. Uhh. We found another Ancient device."

"And, instead of cataloguing it for a hazmat team to investigate, as per protocol, you decided to play with it?"

“To investigate it,” Rodney corrects. “Like the competent professionals we are.” John punches him in the arm.

Elizabeth's lips purse into a thin line. "And then you accidentally activated it?"

John winces. "And then we accidentally activated it."

"Of course you did. And its effects are…?"

"Non lethal," Rodney says, a bit too quickly. 

Elizabeth mumbles something that might be don't bet on it under her breath. "Non lethal, but…?"

John shifts his weight and stares at a point behind her head. "McKay and I have to stay within ten feet of each other at all times or we both pass out."

For a moment there is stunned silence. Then the sound of Elizabeth's bark of laughter fills the office and spills out into the gate room.

-

Carson waves a hand. “You’re both going to be fine. It looks like the bond is only temporary.”

Rodney fidgets. “How temporary?”

“I couldn’t say. A few days, maybe a few weeks?”

“Weeks?” John chokes out. “Listen, doc, we need you to fix this -”

Carson cuts him off. “I’m sorry, son, but I’ve got more important things on my plate right now.” He looks pointedly around the infirmary which is admittedly full of marines being treated for combat injuries, Athosians coming in for checkups, and troops of medical staff organizing vaccinations for off-world groups.

John deflates. “So we’re stuck with each other?”

Carson pats him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

Rodney looks up at that. “Hey!”

-

“Absolutely not.” John recoils in horror. “We are not sleeping in your room.”

“But all my stuff is in there.”

“Your room is disgusting. If you think I’m sleeping on the floor among half-finished bags of cheetos and bits of drones, you are sorely mistaken. It’s a wonder you haven’t attracted the Lantean equivalent of rats.”

“I’ll have you know the bags of cheetos are almost entirely finished.”

“Rodney -”

“Alright! We’ll sleep in your oh-so-tidy quarters. Military spick and span, no snacks or useful bits of machinery in sight.” Rodney rounds on him, waving a finger in his face. “But if I get an inspired idea in the middle of the night and can’t find a circuit board to test it on, know that it’s your stubbornness that is robbing humanity of another of my great concepts.”

John hides a smile. “I’ll have to find a way to live with myself.”

-

When the doors to John’s quarters slide open, Rodney’s jaw drops.

“Hey! How come you have a bigger bed than me?”

John shoots him a smug look. “I upgraded after the last attack. Benefits of command.” It was one of the very few benefits of command he was willing to take advantage of.

“Oh, that’s how it is, hmm? We’re living in a military dictatorship here, with all the best perks and boons given to the highest ranking officers? Never mind that it’s the scientists who do all the actual work, who discover new technology and solve the problems, oh no, let’s give out the biggest and comfiest beds to the military guys, as if that’s fair -”

“McKay!” he interrupts. Rodney looks like he’s having fun, gearing up for a good rant, but John honestly can’t take it right now. “Go to sleep, I’m begging you.”

Rodney huffs, clearly saving that rant away for another time. “Fine.”

-

John is woken up for the third time that night by Rodney fidgeting on the floor and sighing dramatically. 

“What is it, McKay?” His voice is testy. He doesn’t love having his sleep interrupted.

“I can’t get comfortable. A sleeping bag on the floor is bad for my back.”

John stares at the ceiling and counts to ten. He looks at the ample space next to him and calculates his best odds of getting some sleep tonight. “Come here and share the bed with me then.”

Rodney eyes his mattress dubiously. “I’ll have you know I require a very firm mattress, for spinal support, not that I’d expect you to understand -”

“For god’s sake, get in the bed. It has to be better than the floor.”

A moment’s pause. “Yeah, alright.”

It’s been a long time since John slept next to someone. His rare hookups have mostly involved sneaking out in the middle of the night, and even when he was married they slept in separate beds most of the time. 

Sleeping next to Rodney is, surprisingly, not awful though. Sure, he steals all the covers and moves around all the time and, of course, he snores, but John finds that he strangely doesn’t mind. 

-

John has seen Rodney under fire, seen him at his best, seen him happy and sad and angry and bored. But he’s never seen him first thing in the morning before.

“Whazzat?” Rodney’s eyes barely open. His expression is one of overriding confusion. “Whzz going on?”

John stifles a smile at his resident genius. He’s been up for an hour already, showered, done his laundry, and cleaned his space. He’s also decided to play nice and share his secret.

“Here,” he says, and hands a mug of freshly brewed coffee to Rodney. “Just don’t tell anyone I snuck coffee and a kettle into my personal effects, or the scientists will raid us in the middle of the night.”

“Coffee!” Rodney is still radiating confusion, but he hones in on the cup of coffee like a laser. A blissful smile passes over his face. “You brought me coffee.”

“I did.”

“You’re wonderful.” Rodney takes the coffee and cradles it like something precious and rare.

-

After a day and a half doing paperwork in the lab because they can't go off-world, John has reached the end of his rope. 

"I'm going to the gym," he snaps. "You can either come with me or we'll both end up in the infirmary when I try to go there alone."

Rodney glares and is clearly about to start arguing when Zelenka elbows him. He sighs dramatically but agrees that they can take an hour away. 

While they're both in the gym and John needs a sparring partner, he figures he might as well teach Rodney some self defense. The idea of Rodney needing to defend himself makes something unpleasant twist in his gut, but he pushes that away and argues they should make the most of this time and do something productive. To his surprise, Rodney agrees, and they run through some basic drills and defensive maneuvers. 

Rodney is bad at this, frankly. He's all elbows and poor coordination, but he's trying. 

John is feeling magnanimous, and he knows the value of a bit of positive reinforcement. So when Rodney steps forward and attempts a clumsy hip throw, he leans in and lets himself be thrown. 

Rodney looks astonished that actually worked, before delightedly pouncing on John and pinning him to the floor.

"Got you," he says, face pink and grinning wickedly. 

John's heart picks up, somehow distracted by Rodney's heavy weight on him and the sharp brightness of his smile. He swallows thickly. 

"I guess you do."

-

“Geez, Sheppard, how long does it take to have a shower?” Rodney’s voice carries through the bathroom door. “I want to run some simulations on the city’s power systems with Zelenka.”

John’s cheeks flush and he tries to tune Rodney out. “Just give me a minute, will you?”

“What are you doing in there anyway, jerking off?”

John goes very, very still.

“Oh my god, you are!”

“Shut up, McKay.”

“No, no, don’t let me stop you. You go ahead and enjoy yourself.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m not judging. It’s perfectly natural. And hey, maybe it’ll help you chill the fuck out for once.”

John scowls, gives up, and shoves his dick back in his pants. “I will kill you in your sleep.”

-

John is used to having to drag McKay around after him on missions, so in some ways their new situation isn’t entirely unfamiliar. 

Tac vests are useful for that; full of hand holds he can grab when he needs McKay to get down under cover or to stop him from wandering off to look at some shiny piece of technology. When Rodney is in uniform, he can grab the collar of his shirt, though Rodney complains that it creases the fabric horribly.

So John finds a compromise. When he has stuff to do and Rodney is dawdling, he grabs his hand and steers him in the right direction. After a while it becomes second nature - whenever there’s danger or something important is happening, he takes Rodney’s hand and they set off to deal with it together.

If any of the marines find it funny to see their commander holding hands with the head of science during a crisis, none of them dares to mention it.

-

John is carefully, carefully tending to his hair. Just the right amount of product, to spike it just the right amount to look effortless. He tweaks and ruffles, tugs and shapes. This is an art form which requires judicious maintenance. 

“Oh, for the love of -” Rodney grabs the tub of hair wax out of his hands. “We’ll be here all day. Let me.”

He steps forward and slides his hands into John’s hair, ruffling it vigorously. His fingers are firm on John’s scalp and he tugs just on the right side of too hard.

Rodney steps back and surveys his work. “That’ll do.”

John glances in the mirror and sees a chaotic, wild mess. He looks like he’s run a marathon, with his pink cheeks and mussed hair, or like he’s rolled out of bed after a night of passion.

“Rodney! I can’t go out like this.”

“Oh, shut up. You look smoking hot, like you always do.”

That’s… What? What does that mean? Why the hell would Rodney say that?

“Come on,” Rodney is saying, already on his way out the door. John has to run after him, cheeks still flushed.

-

They find a rhythm.

John gets up first and puts the coffee on while he showers. He’s given up on trying to tidy Rodney’s side of the room, so he lets the piles of circuit boards and screwdrivers sprout up where they will. Once Rodney is up they get breakfast at the mess, then he spends the morning doing paperwork and writing reports in the science lab while Rodney works. They meet Teyla and Ronon for lunch, then he spends the afternoon drilling the marines while Rodney taps away at a laptop. Evenings, they bicker over which movies to watch in their quarters and throw popcorn at each other.

Elizabeth even agrees to let them travel to the mainland, and then to go on low-stakes reconnaissance missions. 

It’s… comfortable, he realizes. It works.

That thought makes something twist in his chest, and he doesn’t know why.

-

“Morning, sunshine.” John pours Rodney a cup of coffee.

“Mmm.” Rodney is still sleep-rumpled, but he struggles upright and smiles softly. “Morning.”

As he hands over the coffee, Rodney catches his wrist and holds him there. He looks down at the mug, then back up at John. John notices in an abstract way that his eyes are very, very blue.

“Thanks,” Rodney says, and pecks him on the lips.

Right. Okay. That’s a thing. That’s a thing they’re doing now.

John is still processing as Rodney gets up and heads for the shower. “I’ve got a meeting with Miko this morning,” he says over his shoulder, normal as ever, “so we might have to push our gym session back by half an hour -”

He keeps chattering away while John sits on the bed and has a minor crisis. Did they… do they… but that would mean…

By the time Rodney is out of the shower, John has made a decision. 

He doesn’t allow himself to overthink it, he just takes Rodney’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply. Rodney’s arms tighten around his waist and his tongue slips into his mouth and oh. Oh yes. That’s good.

John’s a little breathless, a little dizzy. “Are we really doing this?” he asks.

Rodney’s face scrunches up in amusement. “I think we’ve been doing this for weeks.”

Yeah. Okay. That’s a fair point.

The tense feeling that’s been winding around his chest uncoils, and in its place is nothing but blooming warmth.

“I guess we have.”

-

EPILOGUE

“Carson.” Elizabeth looks up from where she’s frowning at a tablet and gives him a polite nod. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Any time,” Carson says, and means it. “What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping to get an update on the situation with John and Rodney. We really do need them to get back on full duty soon.”

“Ahh.” He’s been carefully avoiding that topic. He takes a breath. “To be honest with you, the bond between them wore off days ago. They could go their separate ways now and be none the worse for it.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows fly upward toward her hairline. “And you haven’t told them yet?”

“See, at first they were in the infirmary every day asking for an update. But they haven’t been in for over a week and -”

“And?”

“They seem…” he pauses, contemplating his choice of words, “... happy.”

Elizabeth’s mouth twitches into a quickly suppressed smile. “That may be, but you have a professional responsibility.”

“Aye, you’re right. I’ll go and tell them the effects of the device have run their course.”

“Well…” Elizabeth looks thoughtful. “You have a professional responsibility to give them accurate medical information when they ask for it.”

Carson sees where she’s going with this. “And until then?”

Elizabeth shrugs and gives him a sly look. “They do seem happy.”

[asscandles]

Hello !!! I really liked ur writing (also the fandoms you do are chef's kiss) and i wanted to request for Mondo, Togami and Fuyuhiko (separately of course) with a very touchy (short 👀 I'm like 5'0") reader, who likes to squish their cheeks, hug them and give lil smoochies, sit or have the boys sit on her lap and other stuff like that? (It'd be cute if it were a mutual crush situation but I don't mind platonic either) Thank you sm in advance if you write it !!

ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ!! ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴀ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴄᴜᴛᴇ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴇᴅ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ ɪᴛ. ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴠᴇꜱ ᴜᴘ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ!

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ + ꜱᴜɢɢᴇꜱᴛɪᴠᴇ

Mondo Owada

Honestly, he never thought he would ever be in this position.

Him? The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader? Receiving a constant supply of affection?

Ridiculous. Improbable. Impossible.

Oh, but don’t get me wrong. It’s not like he doesn’t enjoy the attention. But after he accidentally shouted at you in embarrassment when you complimented his eyes, reflexively crushed a pencil and consequently showered you with the splintered wood when you ambushed him with a hug, and fled from the premises after you innocuously offered to massage his shoulders… the idea of you sticking around in his life seemed unfeasible.

But here you are.

It doesn’t take him long to grow accustomed to the attentiveness and devotion you always treat him with.

“So, we should close off this area and tighten our control around this neighborhood. Oh, and maybe--”

“Uh, sir? What’s… um… What’s..?” One of his men tentatively pointed to where you were clinging to Mondo’s back, legs constricted around his waist and arms looped around his neck, blinking blankly at the man standing before you.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mondo didn’t even flinch. “Anyway, as I was saying--”

Mondo really doesn’t mind when you cling to him in public. In fact, he appreciates the warmth of your body and the unexpected sense of security that holding your hand gives him.

But, he starts to draw the line when you stand in front of him while he’s sitting, smiling sweetly as you squish his cheeks and giggle about how adorable he is. He always flushes a florid shade and averts his eyes from yours. He would never tell you, but whenever you do that, he feels so defenseless, something that the rest of his crew should never know about.

That’s why he tells you to keep such intimate actions private. When you two are alone, you can squish his cheeks and pepper his face with kisses as often as you want. You understand this, and you’re always ecstatic whenever you walk in on him somewhere he’s alone.

You’re so short he loves it omg.

He thinks that watching you struggle to reach his face with your lips is so funny. He will often poke fun at you by either pretending to not see you or lifting his chin even higher. When you finally give up and try to storm away with a huff, he captures you in his arms and lifts you off the ground while you grumble indignantly.

Okay, but when you press yourself against him and wrap yourself in the loose fabric of his jacket so that it covers both of you? BITCHHH he melts.

Due to your short stature, you often find yourself seated upon his shoulders. At first, Mondo was taunted by his friends for quote-on-quote “having his head buried between your thighs,” but Mondo easily dismissed their teasing. He knew that your intentions were nothing less than pure…

Even if he initially was nervous and sweaty at the idea of being so… so close to you.

Mondo always treated you as if you were made of glass. Since you’re so small and he’s so muscular and tall, he always feared that a single bump or scratch would absolutely eviscerate your bones and pulverize your internal organs. For a while, he had been worried that he would forget about his own strength and accidentally hurt you. So, it did take him a little longer to reciprocate your affectionate.

That being said, he nearly flipped his shit when you nonchalantly asked him to try sitting in your lap. His brain was pumping out ideas at ninety miles an hour, but his lips could only communicate half of them, leaving him stuttering and nearly choking on his saliva. He was certain that he would crush your body beyond recognition if he tried.

No way. No. No. Absolutely not.

He’s cool with having you seated on his lap, though. In fact, he even encourages it. Having such a stunning gem to show off to his men during meetings stokes the flames of confidence within him, often resulting in a shit-eating grin and a protective hand on your shoulder or around your waist.

You get unlimited access to Mondo with his hair down, you lucky bitch.

You’re absolutely bewitched with how soft his hair is as it slips through your fingers like rivulets of water, the opposite of how it feels when it’s gelled into his usual hairstyle. You spend a lot of time combing your fingers through his hair and lightly scratching his scalp. Mondo finds it extremely relaxing, and he often comes to you whenever he has a headache or needs an extra push that will lull him to sleep.

Byakuya Togami

Before you appeared in his life, he had never been subjected to genuine love and sentiment. In his world, it was either surpass or be surpassed. Mercy was not an option, and competition was all he knew. As a result, he views everyone around him as inferior and lesser creatures.

When you first started to show kindness to him, he thought that you were merely pitying him because he spent so much time by himself. This led to him holding you at an icy distance and shooting scathing remarks in your direction.

However, you were steadfast in your determination to make Byakuya a part of your life. It took some time, but soon enough, you had earned a place in his heart.

He wished that he didn’t know how it was possible for you to have become such an essential part of his life, but he did. No matter how many times he told you that you were annoying, a distraction, or disgusting, it was clear that you were absolutely unaffected by it. You knew that his dislike of you wasn’t personal. Your tenacity is what caused his harsh words to dissipate in his throat and him to surrender to the prospect of developing a relationship with you. 

You were strong, and he understood that now.

It definitely takes him a long time to accept your clingy nature, and even then, he sometimes feels suffocated by the surplus of affection.

It doesn’t mean that he completely brushes you off. It just means that you have to be more sparing with your ministrations.

He sees nothing wrong with allowing you a quick hug or to hold his hand in public. If anyone says anything about it, he will deadass act like nothing is happening. He knows that if he acknowledges it, the chances of him becoming openly flustered will skyrocket.

He would never be able to live it down.

Anything else you would like to do to him, he prefers to keep it private.

Wow, that sounds suggestive.

Whatever, let’s proceed.

He’ll gripe and complain about you being heavy, but he never pushes you off or directly tells you to get off when you burrow your way beneath his arm and curl into his side while he reads. He’ll just sigh and settle his arm around you with the tiniest, most discreet smile.

He can’t help but chuckle to himself when you remove his glasses so that you can wear them instead. His chuckle flourishes into a genuine laugh when you promptly yank them off, your stomach churning in protest of your warped vision.

When you hold his hand in private, you pay a lot of attention to his fingers. You toy with them, marveling at how strong they are despite their slender appearance.

So, kisses are a thing.

“What was that?”

“Uh, a kiss.”

“Revolting… Do it again.”

A common thing, actually.

You plant kisses everywhere that you can: his fingertips, his cheeks, his shoulders, the back of his hand, his nose. He never fails to blush red as a rose, often pulling away and pressing the back of his hand to his mouth.

If you want him to complain in mock disgust, press a sloppy, prolonged kiss right in the center of his forehead.

If you want him to squirm, brush the softest kiss you can manage to either his collarbone or the shell of his ear. Biiiitchhhh…

ANYWAY, THAT’S NOT THE POINT--

Surprise, surprise. He loves poking fun at your height. How shocking. How absolutely unbelievable.

Like Mondo, he finds amusement in watching you balance on your tiptoes as you try to kiss him. You, however, combat his devious snickering by seizing his crossover tie and yanking him down to your height, catching him off guard. Then, all he can do is inwardly grumble about his blunder while you press a kiss to the corner of his lips

He once actually sat on you to trap you after you tried (and failed) to tickle him. He wasn’t expecting you to laugh gleefully and wrap your arms around his waist to anchor him to you. Since you were enjoying what he deemed a punishment, it was no longer pleasurable for him. He finds it embarrassing to voluntarily sit on anyone’s lap--let alone the lap of someone remarkably smaller than him. He sees it as a role of submission. Need I explain more?

He won’t complain if you sit on his, though. Well, I lied. This bitch complains about everything. It’s more like… he won’t reject you if you end up on his lap.

But about a half hour into whatever the hell this “cuddling” thing is, Byakuya discovers that the combination of your weight and body heat is an interesting catalyst for the onslaught of fatigue that he’s been procrastinating for the longest time.

You happen to doze off first. But upon awakening, you notice that Byakuya’s head is resting against yours, his arms loosely wrapped around your waist. His book is closed beside him.

Ngl, you thought he was actually going to rock your shit the first time you squished his cheeks. His frosty glare was enough to make you draw back in shock, but it soon disappeared, accompanied by a sigh from him.

“You have one more opportunity to do that. Don’t waste it.”

Oh, you definitely don’t.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

Someone is???? Smaller than him???

!!!!

That one inch of height makes him feel so powerful omfg.

Because of his job, he would rather keep any kind of affection hidden behind closed doors. The only people who he would let PDA slide around are those in his immediate circle, like his family, Peko, and whoever else serves directly under him.

He just wants to keep you safe, and he feels that the best way to do that is to not make it known that he has a soft spot for you.

You smile at the way his aloof, callous demeanor switches to a gentler, more amicable one when he sees you waiting for him to finish whatever job he’s been tasked with. His perpetual scowl melts away, the wrinkles of irritation blemishing his forehead smooth, and his distrusting, narrowed eyes round with an almost childlike, innocent delight.

You enjoy the latter side of him so much that it isn’t uncommon for you to cling to his waist and drop like dead weight, forcing him to drag you with him across the floor if he wants to return to work.

“Hiko… You can’t leave..!” You whine. “I’ll miss you..!”

“I’m sorry…” He huffs, taking another step while you’re dragged behind him like some ragdoll. “But I have things I need to take care of!”

You eventually sink into a heap on the floor when he reaches the door, making a half-hearted attempt to hold on to his ankles.

He chuckles and squats down in front of you. “I’ll be back later.” You sit up and sharply turn your head away with a pout. He gently yet firmly seizes your chin between his thumb and forefinger, directing you to look at him. “Promise.” His eyes are gentle, but you know he’s serious. You reluctantly release him.

“Okay,” you mumble. “Please, be safe.”

You know the, “When I was your age…” thing?

Yeah, Fuyuhiko does that shit. But, he does, “When I was your height…” instead.

A fucki.ng pO w  e R trip.

He really likes the feeling of having you on his lap. It makes him feel like he’s actually capable of offering security to someone. Bonus points if you straddle his lap and hug him close in return, resting your chin on his shoulder.

Back-hugs? Back-hugs.

The first time you snuck up on him and embraced him from behind, he almost knocked you tf out. But over time, he’s gotten used to it. That doesn’t mean you don’t manage to catch him off guard from time to time. Feeling him jolt and hearing him yelp in shock when you wrap your arms around his waist never fails to make you laugh. One time, you laughed so hard that your legs gave out and you tumbled to the ground, accidentally dragging him with you.

Whenever he’s stressed, kisses always seem to be the cure. Sprinkled across his cheeks, tracing the edge of his jaw, following the shell of his ear, pressed to his fingertips--you name it. Whatever you have to offer, he’s more than happy to let you have your way and shower him with love.

You pay special attention to his freckles. Whenever he’s had a taxing day, you vow to kiss each and every freckle on his face. When you’re lulling him to sleep with his head in your lap, you smooth a feather-light fingertip over his cheeks, playing connect-the-dots with his freckles.

But there are just some days where he needs to be the baby, y’know? On those days, he likes laying with his face pressed into your stomach and his body curled into your embrace. You watch over him lovingly, tracing the designs shaved into his hair with a curious finger and slowly massaging his scalp.

He needs reassurance every now and then, verbal or otherwise. You are always more than willing to oblige, filling whatever role he needs at the moment.

He always takes necessary precautions, such as locking the doors and drawing the curtains, before he allows himself to strip his soul bare and lay all of his impurities before you. This is a side of him that no one else must know about. Otherwise, his reputation would take a massive blow.

Speaking of “baby,” it’s no secret that Fuyuhiko positively despises his baby face. You, however, adore it. You like to squish his cheeks and coo about how cute he is. He never resists you, and will even play along by puckering his lips at you if he’s in a good mood. It doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t like his face, but if you seem to be fond of it, then maybe it’s not all that bad.

But if anyone else even thinks about touching him in such a manner, then that’s it.

Their ass is grass.

[dreamylyfe-x]

you know i'm rewatching the gallavich wedding planning and i can't help but feel like i don't know who this is, but it ain't mickey! them writing him to be all specific about colors and sh*t, like where's the real mickey from s4 who was annoyed with that guy listing beer types? i get they wanted to do that dumb gag but they should've used someone else for it. i mean ian's the one who was always meticulous about details, they showed that from the beginning. i don't know i just found it so weird

Aw, yeah. I get that reaction -- I think it’s pretty widely shared. And I suspect that storyline did come from someone pitching “it’d be funny if Mickey was a groomzilla.” Which is an idea I find annoying. Because I find the whole bridezilla thing annoying. 

But... I kinda love it, to be honest. 

I really like the idea that Mickey has an aesthetic and some artistic tendencies. We know he draws. I think there’s some indication in canon that Mickey is creative -- both in problem solving and in, let’s say, his sartorial choices. Mickey seems to act on things a lot. He’s not buying those hoodies without sleeves. He is creating hoodies without sleeves.  

Ian IS meticulous... or at least, he’s organized. He’s also given to executing a plan that isn’t necessarily of his own devising. He is drawn to uniforms and he seeks out knowledge he can apply to systems and processes. He seems to have an appreciation for creativity and art, but he isn’t particularly creative himself. 

So of the two of them, I think Mickey is actually much more likely to observe the details and to have opinions about them. That’s still a long way away from having a meltdown about gold chiavari chairs with white cushions. I do realize this. And I remember how that scene came out as a sneak peek the week before and I was... concerned. But when I saw it in context, I honestly liked it. Not so much the scene itself, but the story of that episode. It’s pretty much the only ep that season where Mickey’s concerns are foregrounded over Ian’s and, though (as always) I would have liked MORE of it, I like that we got this one episode about what the wedding mean to Mickey. 

So here are the top reasons why I like and buy this story. 

1. Right off the top, I don’t think Mickey objecting to being given a list of beers indicates he’s not going to care about what chairs are at his wedding. Putting aside that he’s lived an additional five or so years since then, Mickey doesn’t get annoyed in that scene because he thinks it’s dumb to know a lot about beer -- He’s annoyed that Ryan has asked him a question he can’t answer. I’ve always thought of that as a class issue -- He has never been in much of a position to CARE about what he drinks, and he drinks mass-produced pilsners because that’s what everyone in Southside drinks, because it’s cheap. He might love a winter wheat. He has no goddamn idea, because he isn’t living a life where you get to concern yourself with whether or not you’re into IPAs or lagers. Mickey DOES like beer. I was surprised and delighted when he recently ordered a stout at The Alibi, because it does indicate that his life has changed enough that he gets to know a bit more about beer. That at some point, he had the time and inclination to alter his tastes. He might have a different answer for Ryan now.

2. That Mickey wants things. Just... I don’t know. Mickey wanting anything other than food, shelter and Ian gets me so much. Mickey attending to his hierarchy of needs legitimately makes me teary. For people who grow up like Mickey -- asking for things can be a very big deal. So the fact that he just decides he’s going to make a wedding happen -- and a wedding with nice flowers and chairs that will reflect the light (because, we find out, that’s why he wants the gold) and a singer who will perform Livin’ on a Prayer -- is a big deal. And as many have cited before me, it makes sense that Mickey wants a better wedding with Ian than the one he had with Svetlana. But what we also find out, when we get the moment with the vows, is that Mickey takes the whole thing very seriously. He delivers those vows with complete commitment and deep sincerity. So I understand why he wants that space to carry the weight of what is happening. 

3. Mickey doesn’t break the chair because it’s not gold. He breaks the chair because every single person he’s encountered that day is a fucking dick. And they’re being a dick about his wedding. Something he’s happy about, and something he wants to celebrate. And, honestly, he’s not asking for much. He’d be annoyed, but most likely not violent, if his father hadn’t aimed a gun his face and some random old lady hadn’t refused him as a client because he’s gay. Brooks -- who tries to gaslight and act like the chairs are the chairs that were asked for when he knows damn well they are not -- is taking the wrath for a number of other people. But to me, the most important line in that scene is “why does everything always have to suck?”

4. Another thing about this is... back when Mickey responds to Ryan’s multiple choice beer question with “how ‘bout beer?” Ryan covers the awkward moment by making a joke about his own sexuality. The implication being that relating to beer with the kind of detail traditionally reserved for wine, is not masculine. And the thing is, Ryan is making a joke at his own expense, but he’s also acknowledging something that has always been true for Mickey. That Mickey has to make sure he never, ever displays any of these qualities Ryan so casually exhibits. Whether it’s natural for him or not, Mickey has to avoid anything that can be read to be a stereotype. He has to be hyper masculine, both because he’s from House that Toxic Masculinity built, but also because HE knows, even when he won’t acknowledge it, that he’s gay. So when we see Mickey openly talking about what flowers and chairs he wants at the wedding, he’s letting out something that could very well have always been there, but that he never, ever would have expressed back in seasons 1 through 4. Mickey doesn’t kiss Ian for two whole seasons because he’s so messed up about his sexuality. I 100% buy that, at that same time, he isn’t acknowledging having opinions about home decor. 

5. I like it when Mickey defies our expectations. I’m find with him discovering or revealing new facets or abilities or interests -- what I don’t like is when they have him do something that seems more like a regression. The show lampshades that this is something of a surprise, for Mickey to want a wedding, by having Ian be absolutely baffled by it for most of the episode. But they also participate in the end. There’s an indication that Mickey and Ian plan the eventual wedding together, though I imagine Mickey’s stronger opinions took the day in most cases. And the gesture at the end of that episode -- a romantic gesture just as surprising from Ian as anything Mickey does in that episode, really -- validates Mickey in a way I think is pretty beautiful. Like... he gets to be a guy who wants someone to sing Livin’ on a Prayer to him while he holds his boyfriend’s fiancé’s hand. He wasn't allowed to be that guy for years. I like that he gets there. 

So. We might not agree on this, but I really like that you drew a parallel between that scene and the party scene at Ryan’s because I hadn’t though of that before and I think it’s a very interesting one. I also enjoyed thinking so much about this on the day that we mark their one year anniversary! Because holy fuck. Gallavich is married! 

[mimik-u]

Gloves, Ch. 1

Summary: There's a reason that Yellow Diamond doesn't take off her gloves.

A/N: The other day, as a part of my 100-word drabble word series for SU, I fulfilled this prompt, which required me to question what might be beneath Yellow Diamond's gloves. The headcanon I came up with intrigued me, and inspiration to write a seven pt. fic was thus born. Between school and other creative projects, I'm not entirely sure that this one will get updated regularly, but I do have a fairly firm outline in mind, so I hope the wait between chapters won't be too long! Enjoy!

AO3 Link

“Blue?”

“... yes, Pink?”

Though the other Diamond barely looks up from her screen, Pink Diamond can tell that she’s listening from the way that her long chin slightly inclines in her direction.

Good.

Because she has an important question to ask.

Attention is hard won from the likes of Blue and Yellow Diamond, so even half-victories are still victories that have to be capitalized upon with immediacy. Pink lightly hops upwards from her own throne to the arm of Blue’s, floating downwards into an expectant sitting position, happily ignoring the fact that her elder flicks away her screen with a sigh that filters visibly through her nostrils. If Blue was really annoyed, then she’d just have her Pearl usher her to her chambers... but tellingly, the imperial command never quite comes.

Pink takes courage from this implicit sign and forges ahead in a rush of breathless words.

“Why does Yellow wear her gloves all the time?”

It’s an observation that has increasingly captured her attention as the years have marched on with seemingly zero deviation in pattern.

Yellow Diamond never removes her gloves.

Pink wears gloves, too, but they’re nothing like Yellow’s—so stiff and armor-like, as inflexible as their wearer. Plus, she pulls hers off from time to time so she can feel flowers on her fingertips… their soft, delicate petals... those spiny, fragile leaves. Yellow, in stark contrast, never goes anywhere without hers—even when she joins the Diamonds in the pool on extraction cycles, even when she retires to her chambers at the end of a long day. Exceptionless in most things, so intransigent and firm, it’s no great surprise that the elder Diamond adheres to her own chosen mold, but still…

Even Blue Diamond lowers her hooded veil.

Even White Diamond occasionally unpins her cape.

Blue frowns thoughtfully, subtle lines striking themselves beneath her eyes as she peers downwards at Pink. There’s a look of calculation in her gaze, a sense of measurement, as though she’s already weighing how much she can get away with not saying.

“Have you ever asked Yellow about them directly?”

Pink briefly considers lying, but then thinks better of it. While she might get away with an occasional white lie to Yellow, Blue and White are far more discerning in their judgment—White especially.

(Sometimes, she swears that the matriarch can read her mind.)

“... not really,” she bites her lip. “I just assumed it would be rude to ask a Gem about her appearance modifiers...”

“And so you settled upon asking another Gem about someone else’s appearance modifiers,” Blue observes, a certain wryness in the slight tilt of her lips.

“Something like that,” Pink confirms, not entirely abashed. “I just figured that you would know, and that would save me the trouble from having to pester Yellow about them.”

But Blue’s expression recoils to its former solemnity again as she immediately shakes her head, her hair shifting heavily with the movement.”

“Yes... please do not do that, Pink... not unless she brings it up... Yellow—“

But now it’s Blue’s turn to be hesitant; she doesn’t blush, not in the way that Pink blushes—so furiously, all of her emotions scribbled across her face—but her cheeks aren’t as coolly colored as before, taking on a tinge less like her hair and more like the facets of her gem.

“Yellow what?” Pink asks insistently, pressing her momentary advantage. As subtly as she can, she leans forward a little bit on her blue perch, like an organic avian preparing for flight. “Please, pretty please tell me, Blue. I won’t tell Yellow that you told.”

(Probably.)

(Likely.)

(It’s a tossup of probability, really.)

“You’re being facetious, Pink,” Blue admonishes quietly, glancing away. “This is a serious matter that deserves the utmost respect.”

And though Blue is almost always serious, Pink instinctively intuits that Blue has rarely been more serious than in this conversation, which had begun so innocently, with errant curiosity. When she faces Pink again, her expression has returned to its usual placid coolness, but her fingers are interlocked in her lap, woven into a rigid temple that bespeaks far more about her feelings on the situation than the studious coldness of her eyes.

Pink cowers beneath the weight of this silent gesture, leaning backwards on her makeshift seat.

“Sorry, Blue,” she mumbles shamefacedly and hopes that the apology is sufficient. She doesn’t want to go to her chambers for the rest of the cycle. It’s so rare that Blue allows her to accompany her for the day.

Thankfully, though, the other Diamond seems to accept her contrition as sincere, nodding slowly, the ice melting from her eyes in degrees.

Pink can’t help but wonder at these microscopic exchanges, so subtle but undoubtedly there—who knew that gloves could wring such excess of emotion in the nigh emotionless Blue Diamond?

“Yes, well,” she says, each word doled out carefully, with all the air of internal constraint, “I can give you the basics... but as for the rest, you’ll have to wait until Yellow is ready to tell you—if and when that ever is. She doesn’t like to dwell upon the matter... even with me... perhaps even especially with me...”

Blue trails off, an aching concern seemingly troubling her brow. Pink think she’s know why.  Of the four Diamonds, Blue and Yellow emerged from the same supernova some hundreds of thousand years ago, sharing atoms and stardust and precious intimacy in a way that has always made Pink feel a little lonely. They’re bound to each other by far more than simple affinity, tangled, intertwined, and enmeshed.

Naturally, any breach between them doesn’t settle right in Blue Diamond’s gem.

Pink forces herself to be patient, to allow the other Diamond to find her words again.

“But that is no matter,” she finally says—rather unconvincingly. “I know enough… I know how it began.”

“And how is that exactly?” 

Blue’s arctic gaze settles upon the younger Diamond again, and there’s sadness in her eyes, ancient and unfathomable depth. 

It strikes her suddenly, with all the force of blow, how much older than Pink that she is.

That they all are.

White and Yellow and Blue and all the very stars which surround Homeworld in their bright and intangible embrace.

“It begins as we Diamonds all do,” Blue whispers, reaching upwards to glance her fingers across her gem. “As entities with nearly infinite power, inexplicably constrained within the boundaries and volatilities of our emotions…”

Pink’s immediate confusion must show in her face because the other Diamond immediately clarifies, frowning softly.

“Which is to say, think about your own powers, Pink—how, at the height of your emotions, they can inadvertently manifest in strange ways…”

“Like, a few cycles ago”—Pink can’t help but smile—“when I accidentally made those pebbles come to life.”

She’d cried on a few decorative rocks—upset that she couldn’t accompany Yellow to her Jungle Moon colony—and within mere seconds, they were animated with life, growing arms and legs and expressive faces, clumsily moving around on her vanity, knocking things over. 

Now, they live in her chambers, parroting the words she says.

“Yes, precisely,” Blue nods approvingly, in that way she only does when Pink manages to get something right. “The general theory—according to White—is that when we Diamonds feel any strong degree of emotion, we generate those emotions into tangible consequences, whether we intend to or otherwise…”

Pink tilts her head curiously. It’s hard to imagine any of her three elders showing a “strong degree of emotion.” In their own ways, each of them—White, Yellow, and Blue—are so meticulous in their chosen facades, bearing their regality on their faces with a modicum of control that they often scold their most junior Diamond for lacking.

But Blue is perceptive in this front, too, her frown slowly shifting into the slightest, most incremental of smiles. 

“Constraining yourself, learning to manage your emotions, will come with time and age,” she promises gently. “But it is essential that you learn this lesson sooner rather than later because, well, there are some consequences of our feelings that we can rationally accept, and others…”

“Not so much?” Pink guesses astutely, beginning to have a burgeoning idea of what this entire story must be about.

“Aye,” Blue Diamond affirms with a measured nod of her head. “Aye… Yellow Diamond’s powers are electric, you know. When we were younger Diamonds… when we didn’t have all that much possession over ourselves and our emotions and everything in-between … she couldn’t touch anything without hurting it.”

The finality of the statement bruises the entirety of the throne room with its magnitude. Pink stares upwards at the other Diamond with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“What?”

“You must understand, Pink,” Blue returns emphatically, her voice strained beneath its own quiet urgency. “Yellow then was very much like she is now—stoic, temperamental, quick to action and reaction—but all of these qualities were amplified by her youth and relative impulsivity—and so she was nigh constantly creating her own energy. It pooled in her fingertips. It sparked in her eyes. It electrified her entire body. When she was frustrated, she could barely touch a screen without short-circuiting it. When she was furious, she could destabilize an entire court of innocent gems. Even when she was happy, joyous after conquest or battle or victory… she couldn’t even touch—“

But Blue Diamond stops short, her breath hitching.

It only takes her seconds to recover, to regain at least the semblance of composure across the smooth facets of her face, but Pink isn’t entirely naïve. 

She knows that the completion to that self-interrupted sentence must have been me.

“After one especially harrowing incident,” Blue continues, closing her eyes against what appears to be a painful memory, “she tasked a group of Bismuths to forge special gloves for her that would insulate her powers more efficiently. The gloves helped. Absolutely. She could lean her hand against a pillar and not char it to dust… and since then, of course, she has become more… practiced in tempering her emotions, so much so that I have a sneaking suspicion that the gloves are less functional than they are habitual… but still, she wears them…”

Blue doesn’t say anymore, but the implicit completion to her speech needs no articulation to be known.

And she’ll continue to wear them.

Forever.

For time immemorial.

Pink Diamond scarcely knows what to say, how to process this terrible truth, how to feel.

Silence presses upon the cavernous throne room like the weight of a palm sinking downwards and downwards still, and she can’t help but stare downwards at her own gloved hands, wondering if they, too, have the capacity for engendering such violence.

She hopes not.

Stars, how she prays.

“What was the turning point?” She dares to ask when the quietude gets to be too much, the invisible hand too oppressive.

And yet, her own voice is quiet.

Solemn.

Terribly afraid and equally curious.

The oxymoron twists the gem in her stomach. She half-wants to know and half-dreads the answer.

Thankfully, though—(disappointingly?)—Blue Diamond shakes her head firmly, her brow lowered sternly over her eyes.

“That is not my story to tell.”

[fictionbyafangirl]

Tundric Heart

//Hi, all! After becoming absolutely *obsessed* with the new Mortal Kombat movie, as well as being a fan since the games began, and being a fan of JoTa since I saw The Raid: Redemption when it first came out and since then, I decided my flagship fic shall involve Bi-Han/Sub-Zero. This takes place prior to the film, having nine tournaments been fought. This is a POV-shifter and involves our favorite chilly boi with an original character. Naturally, I own no rights to the franchised character and only write out of my own fun.  I hope you enjoy!\\

Nothing phased him anymore. Bi-Han had lived many centuries, each reinforcing his growing lack of humanity toward the world, whether it be Earthrealm or Outworld. Due to his “gifts”, Bi-Han had become a favorite champion for Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat tournaments, successful in more than not and ultimately becoming an attack dog at the sorcerer's will. Despite Bi-Han wanting the Lin Keui to be free-agents once again, himself, primarily, he obliged, knowing he owed Shang Tsung his fealty for the many favors he performed for him in the past. The Lin Keui had been an elite group of assassins for those who could afford them. Either born into the organization or kidnapped as a youngling for the cause, its numbers were always plentiful. Bi-Han and his brother, Kuai Liang, had served the clan well, rising through the ranks. Bi-Han, though, had become the face of the group. The fierce fighter had gained notoriety for defeating the one and only Hanzo Hasashi, as well as the Shirai Ryu, a noble competitor clan in their world of crime. Over four hundred years had passed, yet a looming whisper of a threat still hung in the air from the very fatality that put Bi-Han on the map. Ever the paranoid ruler, Tsung tasked Bi-Han with finding the last remaining Hasashi blood heir and executing them. To the cryomancer, there was simply no point in doing so. He had ended the lineage himself many lifetimes ago. The Hasashi family fell to his hand, and he knew it, first-hand. Still, the soul-eater feared the prophecy of the uprising of Earthrealm defenders to thwart the imminent takeover, if the last tournament should be victoriously won by the mortals with an arcana gift. Nine circuits had been finished in the favor of Tsung, only needing two more to claim supremacy over the mortals. Begrudgingly, Bi-Han found himself in his home-realm on a reconnaissance mission to find out if the myth was true. One thing the warrior loathed was to be undermined, especially by Tsung. His employer had a knack for sending in the reinforcements if the smallest of setbacks occurred. Bi-Han was more than confident in his skill and ability to successfully fulfill his duties. To send in those that were inferior to him was simply a slap in the face. Not a day went by that the assassin didn’t think of a world where he no longer served Tsung.

The man was ageless as he sat across from a run-down diner, concealed in darkness. Darkness had always been his friend, even in the glory days of the Lin Kuei and the chaos they inflicted on their world. Darkness cloaked him in secrecy. Darkness gave him advantage against his opponents. Darkness felt almost as familiar and second nature to him as the cold. It had been a rainy evening, the spray of dingy gutter water spraying up from beneath the tires of those driving muddled the sidewalk. Bi-Han, looking not a single day older than he had when he terminated Hasashi, watched the neon sign that indicated that the diner was “open” flicker against the night. Dressed in black athletic jogger pants, a black zipped-up windbreaker jacket and a black hat with the bill curved and pulled down low to conceal his other-worldly eyes, the man watched from outside an abandoned building that sat adjacent to the diner. Arguably, the only physical trait that had changed about him was the hue of his eyes, shifting from a deep brown to a starkly bright  blue so pale that it nearly looked like ice had formed in his irises. These were the attributes of a cryomancer, and bastard Edenians, alike. Those of Edenian nature aged much slower than humans, living so long that tens of thousands of years was still considered to be in one’s youth. His hair remained raven in color though his skin did grow more pallid as though encrusted in frost, but not. The cryomancers had been banished from Edenia long before Bi-Han’s birth, but the genes that descended from the gods still carried on through himself and his brother, Kuai. Down the block, a group of young men were approaching the corner door of the diner, rowdy and raucous as they walked before ducking into the establishment. Taped hands rose from Bi-Han’s sides to bring the hood of his skim jacket up and over the top of his head, further obscuring his identity. He waited a few minutes to allow them to settle into their normal places to not rouse suspicion before crossing the slick city street. In all of the years of Bi-Han’s life, he had tuned his tracking abilities to be imperceptible.

His intel told him that a group of men, one that bore the mark of the dragon, frequented the very location nightly, as though a ritual amongst the friends. Bi-Han’s head never lifted as the bell on the handle of the door jingled to alert a new customer, and luckily, neither did theirs. His gaze remained to the lower-half of the room to not allow his face to be seen. The fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling in panels glared harshly in contrast against the natural darkness of the night he had waited in. Slipping into a corner table, the plastic-covered stuffing of the seat gave out a subtle hissed as it depressed beneath his weight. The group of men continued their merry occasion, joking and talking with elevated volume. The more attention they brought to themselves and detracted from himself, the better. It didn't take long for the waitress on shift to approach them, seemingly having a report with them as she used their names, engaging in banter with them as they shamelessly flirted with her. Her kind and clever rebuffs and deflection to their order inquiries showed that this was an occasional thing they did. She clearly wasn’t in the business of seeing any of them casually, yet they pushed the envelope with hope. Their nonchalance toward her left little disgust in Bi-Han’s mouth, but still, he surveyed. The fighter spared a moment to take in the new environment. The faded color scheme and furniture showed that the restaurant had not updated in some time, clearly struggling financially to keep afloat to bother with aesthetics. The tables were uneven as they stood and the seating creaked under pressure. The artwork that laid scarcely among the walls were drab and unappealing. Virtually everything that had been a polished metal before now rusted with weak infrastructure. The location was dying out, most likely kept in business by the nightly patronage of the subjects he followed in. 

Bi-Han focused all of his senses on the men, discreetly, as to not be noticed. He eavesdropped on their conversations, watched as they removed their outer-layers for any sign of the marking. He even committed bits of things they said to memory in the off-chance that it would aid him in his mission. His focus was solely on the group and everything they did. His gaze, though hidden beneath the bill of a hat, was fixated without any breaks, that is, until the image of an apron filled with pens and order tablets slid into his view. Bi-Han held his breath as the tell-tale spiel was about to be given to him. 

“Hi, there! I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. My name’s Jill and I’ll be your waitress on duty tonight. What can I get you?” No matter where you went, every restaurant had the same, generic greeting. 

Holding his breath for a moment to consider his response, Bi-Han decided to play it cool, not wanting to garner any awareness of his existence. The woman was polite enough for him to not care about the disruption. While she had been tending to the object of his assignment he had been able to get a good look over on her. She was attractive with cream-like skin and smoky hazel eyes and hair the color of maple that sat in delicate, loose curls that cascaded down the sides of her face. She dressed semi-comfortably in a baggy button-up flannel shirt that she tucked into the waistband of her tapered jeans that clung to her ankles and simple shoes with her apron and a name badge in place. She kept her makeup natural and modest, which was a pleasant thing to come across with women. With an errant hand, Bi-Han, without tipping his face at all, flipped the menu on the table over to quickly peruse the refreshments section. Quickly, his eyes settled on his selection before speaking it aloud to her, though in a low, hushed tone.

“Green tea. Iced.” His tone was short and cold, as per usual with him, and he offered no opportunity to continue the conversation. He was there for a reason, after all.

With a curt nod, Jill fished a dense book of ordering tickets from her apron and a pen to scribble down the table number and order to keep her tabs in-line. Bi-Han could hear the sound of the ball-point pen against the paper, attuning himself to his surrounding once more.

“Iced green tea, coming right up. What’s uh… a name I can put on this order?” The waitress inquired with an arched brow as her teeth found the corner of her lips, nibbling gently in a nervous gesture. Bi-Han took another moment to contemplate his response. His true, given name was something that was well-known. Instead, he improvised.

“Brian.” He was blunt again, cutting to the chase without any inflection to invite casual conversation.

“Right. Iced green tea for Brian, coming right up.” Jill relayed before bouncing away from the table to fulfill his request. She caught on to his tone quickly and read it loud and clear.

Naturally his order was the first one to be completed. Jill returned with his drink in-hand, along with a wrapped straw and a saucer of potential add-ins for the beverage. Bi-Han offered a small nod to thank her, fixating his senses back on the group of men across the room. Absently, he unwrapped the straw and slipped it within the glass, taking absent sips through it to not reveal his face. The preparation in the States certainly didn’t do the authentic drink justice as it did in his native China, but still he managed to swallow it down as he kept his eyes on them. Although the drink had ice in it, it didn’t suit him. His hand reached around the cylinder, his fingers releasing their icy powers to chill it even further, finally making it satisfactory to his liking. Bi-Han sat with his back pressed against the glass window that separated himself from the outside world. The rain continued to fall, pelting against the window pane. He could just as easily end the waiting and watching. He could turn every plunging bead of water into a lethal bullet to litter all of the men in holes, taking care of every lead. Still, he blended into the foreground, motionless and silent.  He wasn’t sure how long the men would lounge in the diner but he would be observing for as long as they would be. Someone was bound to slip and reveal themselves, reveal their arcana… something. If Bi-Han was anything, he was patient.

[bluegarners]

Oooh for the bingo card can I pick survivors guilt with dick feeling guilty cause he ran away from home just like Jason but he lived while Jason died 😢

ahhh sorry this took awhile to get to!! i hope you enjoy this though~ requested for my Bad Things Happen Bingo ; it is also on ao3

Survivor's Guilt

The days bleed into one another to the point where it’s almost offensive, how indistinct and indiscriminate each sunrise and subsequent sunset is. A little boy died and the world carries on like nothing happened. Like his life was nothing less than the lawn being mowed or a tree being cut down. Is there an analogy Dick’s forgetting about, comparing dead children to nature? He’s not sure, he’s just tired, and the days continue to bleed into one another.

Monday is actually Thursday and Dick looks in the mirror and traces the bruise on his face. There’s a line in the fading purple blob that’s just the slightest bit darker. Knuckle indents. He saw it coming but he didn’t do anything. It was… just a punch. He applies some ointment and looks away. A little boy died and he’s still taking care of a tiny little injury, hardly an injury, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, because-

It’s four in the evening and Dick just woke up. It’s not a good habit to fall into, to sleep so late, do so little, think about dead little boys and missed funerals, but Dick can’t help it. Sometimes, he loses time within the bleeding days, just sits down for a moment and then an alarm goes off to remind him that it’s morning now and that he should be getting up to do… something. Go somewhere. Take care of things. But what? But what? Dick only just sat down, it doesn’t seem fair for the world to demand he be pulled this way and that when it already took a child, already took someone that never graduated tenth grade.

What do people learn in tenth grade? They’re just children, and Dick can’t remember much from his Gotham Academy days, so he really hopes they aren’t put under too much pressure. They’re all just so young, tenth graders, so young and youthful and there’s really no reason for them to be bogged down with work or stress from education. Life was infinitely more important than some late homework and Dick wonders if the school requires missing assignments from dead children. Wonders what they do with that extra, empty desk or the absent name on the roster. Wonders if they just shove another kid into their place, cross out the name for attendance, and carry on like the rest of the world seems to have.

What’s more, what do the friends of the dead child do? Do they mourn? Mourning seems so sad for the young, it's got no place in their view, and yet Dick remembers mourning, grieving when he was just nine but it was all so wrong. Dick hopes that the friends of the dead child are okay. Dead child. Dead little boy. Dead tenth grader.

He heard the funeral was nice. Heard that the school hosted a vigil. Of course, he wasn’t able to attend. Wasn’t extended the invitation to attend, but it’s not about him. It’s about the dead boy.

Dick has never been comfortable with children. Not in the sense that he finds them strange or annoying or that he can’t stand youth. He’s just not comfortable with the sheer light, with people who possess so much of it that it literally oozes out in all the things they do. Leaks out from their innocent smiles, their troubled and off-handed questions, their zest for adventure, yearning for dreams so much larger than themselves, their endless compassion for others, their infinite amount of crushes, their worry about deadlines and asking someone out on a date, their constant need to keep up with trends of the day; so many light things that Dick hasn’t touched in so long. So many things he feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to touch.

You were lucky.

Was he? Dick doesn’t think he was, but then again, he’s not a dead little boy with a specially made coffin to fit his small, under-developed, never got the chance to reach a growth-spurt, body. Being Batman’’s partner was terrifying. He remembers it being scary, not knowing if he was going to live through the night or if Batman was going to go off on another rampage because Dick screwed up. Not knowing if screwing up as Batman’s partner meant no longer being welcomed as Bruce’s ward.

How many times has it been now? Twice? Three times?

A key is gone from his chain now and its missing weight burns holes in all of Dick’s clothes. It’s a finality that feels just as permanent as the dead little boy’s gravestone.

A size six and a half pair of sandals sit on the edges of Dick’s tiny balcony. He has a no shoe policy in his apartment, hardly cleaner than the streets below, but it was the principle that counted right? No muddy boots, no dirty sneakers, no rain logged socks, none of that. So Dick keeps a pair of size six and a half sandals on his balcony in case a size six and a half wearer decides to waltz in.

Dick wears a size eleven.

He’ll have to get rid of them at some point. There’s no reason for them to stay there, collecting dust or peeling away whenever it rains. They weren’t even that good of a pair, just some knock off brand he found at a convenience store once, so keeping them for their worth isn’t that important. He spent the entirety of seven dollars on them, so really, he’s not strapped for cash and he can’t wear them himself and he’s sure that some homeless kid or anyone really would be happy to have them. He could just donate them, throw them in a box and leave it outside for the trash to pick up. He could. He could.

He can’t.

They aren’t his. They belonged to someone, someone very important, and he can’t just throw them away. You don’t throw away a dead little boy’s shoes just because they can’t wear them anymore. His parents always taught him to respect the dead, respect their belongings, and those sandals aren’t his so he’s got no say in what to do with them. It’s fine if the dead child’s shoes stay out on Dick’s balcony. It’s fine. He doesn’t go out there much anyway. The shoes are so tiny, only a size six and a half, and Dick can hardly get half of his foot in a size so small and they belong to a dead boy anyway so he shouldn’t touch them. Shouldn’t touch the dead child’s shoes.

He’s distancing himself on purpose. It’s a lot easier to say a dead little boy, a dead child, than it is to admit a name belongs to such a ghastly title. There are so many other words, so many other titles infinitely more fitting for a child than dead, and yet it’s the only one that describes him in this moment. Dead. Gone. Passed.

There used to be a box shoved away in the back corners of his closet. A cramped and banged up cardboard box containing every memory he had from being Robin. There used to be a picture of his parents in there, a cracked glass frame and a stained photo all he had left from Haly’s; there was his old costume from the circus, the same one he wore on the night where the sawdust turned black and he learned what sounds a body makes when it hits the ground; there was a small photo album in there too, pictures Alfred took of Dick’s time at the Manor, of his time as Bruce’s ward. Sometimes he’ll flip through its pages and feel that sting in his eyes, feeling the ghostly fingers of longing cradle his head through each memory every pristine photo contained.

And, most importantly, in that old, worn out, and beat up cardboard box, was Robin. Red, green, and yellow. Shorts and a velcro cape. Boots he doesn’t know how he ever fit into. A vest that would be impossible to get around his shoulders now. The crest, the emblem. Robin.

It was supposed to stay in that box. Remain there for the rest of his days, leave behind a child soldier and trade it out for a freelancer looking for a new war to fight. A new landscape to reshape and hone as his own. But then another little boy, taller than when Dick started out, appears in the night and leaps and frolics and laughs by Batman’s side. Stands over Gotham and gloats and jeers and grasps Robin almost perfectly.

And for the first time, Dick understands the horror that plowed into every other superhero out there when he first debuted as Robin. Understands the numbing terror of the thought of a child, someone who probably didn’t know how to do calculus or read Shakespeare or tie their shoes correctly, out there fighting the dirtiest and darkest sides of the world. That someone with a shoe size of six and a half was out there punching rapists, getting up close with drug lords and traffickers, witnessing and investigating crime scenes and analyzing gore and blood spatters.

Just a child. Just a little boy.

It feels wrong. So, so wrong, to give his blessing to someone who’s just barely hit puberty. Who’s still struggling to perfect a Robin cackle or speak without his voice cracking and pitching wildly. It’d make him a hypocrite not to though. He was younger, so much younger, when he started out as Robin, so who is he to stop an almost teenager from being Robin?

Well, actually, Dick is an adult. His frontal lobe is completely developed, he can pay taxes, drink, vote, organize his own affairs, drive, buy cigarettes, make his own decisions. Help others make decisions. Jas- the dead boy was just that. A boy. He had no idea how to do any of those things, much less think about them for the next few years, so how can he just allow a child to decide if they want to traumatize themselves, bleed themselves dry, for a city that doesn’t love them and devote themselves to a man’s mission that hasn’t changed in over a decade?

But even if he hadn’t given his blessing, the boy would have been Robin anyway. Remember? Dick has no say in anything to do with Robin. Anything to do with Gotham. No, all that was taken away the moment he stepped out of line, stepped out of the conformity and obedience Batman demanded. The blessing… it was just a formality for something Dick had never wanted to continue. Robin was supposed to disappear with him, die with him leaving Gotham, and yet…

Robin died anyhow.

There’s a dead little boy that used to be named Robin buried in a cemetery with a beautifully carved gravestone that just wanted the child to rest in peace, sleep well, and dream of a better life. And Dick gave his blessing for him to die as Robin.

The days still bleed into each other, melting and drifting over and mixing until the sunrises and sets in the same minute. Dick keeps losing time and people keep calling him but he just forgets to pick up the phone to answer. He can’t help but stare at his balcony, can’t help but stare at the empty space in the box, can’t help but listen to his own heartbeat and watch the way his chest expands as his lungs do.

He is alive. Alive when he probably shouldn’t be.

Robin was not meant to last. Dick has told himself that over and over again, the clear and simple fact that Robin was not meant to carry on. Born through the same circumstances as Batman, Robin was supposed to be nothing more than a temporary outlet but Dick got addicted and now he can’t stop. Now his thoughts loop around and around and all he can think about is a dead child wearing his Robin uniform and running out in the night with his blessing.

You were lucky.

Bruce was right. He was lucky. Lucky beyond belief that he survived being Robin. Lucky he stuck around long enough to learn what he needed to and then some under Batman’s tutelage, only to be fired and leave a gaping hole behind that was just calling for a replacement. Screaming for someone to fill the void, beckoning the ears of the young and naive to answer its call. Of course a child would answer. Of course someone eager and looking for love and praise and meaning would find their way there.

And perhaps Dick used up all the luck, all the magic, Robin gave. Used it all up and without a care in the world for who would be next to wear the cape, parade the emblem, because now there’s a dead little boy in the ground and his blood stains Dick’s hands.

Maybe if he had died as Robin instead, died in those early days where he was nine and filled with moxy undeserved, it would have served as warning enough to stay away from Batman. Stay away from Robin. Stay away from the beckon of being a child soldier. And, really, it wouldn’t have been all that bad if he had died so young. If he had died after Zucco was found because then he would have been with his parents, would have been reunited with his family again.

Dick isn’t sure he believes in the after life, if there are places like Heaven and Hell, but sometimes he hopes there is because there is a dead little boy in his arms and he is desperate for the hope that he has a good place to go to. To move on to.

But Dick’s not dead, still very much alive and breathing through working lungs with blood pumping through his veins, and now he’s not only outlived his time as Robin, but the next as well. He has outlived a child.

How do you outlive your own legacy?

He can’t call the dead child his brother. They’re not, legally, and Dick didn’t bond with him like brothers should. He tried, tried to after the initial shock and horror, bought size six and a half sandals, helped with homework, lent an ear to vent to, but it wasn’t enough.

Somehow, a dead little brother is so much worse than a child and Dick can’t give him another title to cling to. Can’t assign another name and still…

Jason is dead. Dick missed his funeral, missed it all, and his name is Jason Todd and he was only fifteen when he died and god, Dick wishes he had been a better brother. Wishes so badly he had never given his blessing, never lived through being Robin, because that would mean Jason would have never had to die and he would be in Dick’s place, simply breathing and alive and that’s… that’s all he can ask for.

The days continue to bleed into each other and the bruise slowly fades away into his skin.

The sandals remain on the balcony.