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inbarfink · 1 year

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I’ve heard some DHMIS fans say the TV Show/Season 2 feels more optimistic and hopeful than the Web Show/Season 1. Like that the trio is more independent and offers a bit more resistance against the teachers. So it makes them more hopeful they can break out/fight against this Horrible Situation.

And I mean, I do see where this interpretation is coming from. The three do have a lot more agency in the TV Show, a lot more control over the narrative. While in the Webshow they spend nearly the whole duration episode just sort of going along and following a Teacher’s lead. Plus they are a lot more likely to talk back to a teacher -

Try and go against the teacher -

Just annoy the shit out of a Teacher -

AND THEY’RE EVEN CAPABLE OF CAUSING THE DEATH OF A TEACHER!

Plus, the Teachers themselves are often less explicitly sinister and/or antagonistic. Especially when you consider reappearances of Web-Show Teachers consistently show them as being on more amicable terms with the trio. Like Tony mostly just chilling there -

And Colin being extremely friendly with them.

And like, yeah, all of these things are true. But still, for me, the helplessness and hopelessness of the trio situation is a lot more palatable on the TV Show. Their whole situation feels a lot more dire.

Cause the thing is, yes, the teachers are less obviously sinister and the characters talk back to them more in the TV Episodes - but they are also more likely to totally buy into their bullshit and vehemently agree with them and even argue about it with the others. (See: Red Guy in "Jobs" and "Family", Yellow Guy and Duck in "Transport)

It’s especially notable when you compare Red Guy’s behavior between the two versions of DHMIS. Since in the Web Show he was the first one to ‘break away’ from their world (or at least try). While in the web-continuity, he was pretty consistently disinterested in the Teacher’s lessons - generally only reacting to express his annoyance or befuddlement at them -

The TV Show puts a lot more emphasis on his personal foibles, and how despite his detached and apathetic attitude - he is just as likely to fall into the bullshit of some ‘Teachers’ in the right situation.

And while the TV Show also emphasizes Duck’s ability to Defy the Narrative - it also emphasizes how much this independence is based less on his intelligence -

And more on his ego.

I want to be in a family, I want to be the dad!

So with every character’s ‘resistance’ to the Teacher really depending on their personal behavior and flaws, we don’t really get moments like that thing in ‘Time’ where they all together started questioning Tony’s lesson.

And that’s also a thing that is less prevalent about the TV Continuity in general, the trio are less in harmony with each other. Obviously, it is a requirement of the format. The show has more emphasis on the puppets’ personalities and therefore gives more focus to their interpersonal conflicts. While in the Webshow they were seen more-or-less as a single Unit, with each their own personal quirks, but generally being Together and having pretty much the same goals - in the TV Show they are a lot more separate and distinctive. But that can also mean they can turn on each other and hurt each other.

The fact they have more Agency in the story also means they can cause damage and hurt like the Teachers can.

With the bigger focus on character comes a much bigger focus on the long-term effects of their ‘Format’ over their lives and thoughts. They don’t just sort-of ‘go along’ with whatever bizarre object has bursted into their house, but they have actually internalized the core concept behind all of those lessons, they internalized all sorts of ideas of how they’re supposed to act and what they’re supposed to do and what they are capable of doing. And they will reinforce it amongst themselves, no Teacher needed.

We don't have the Transport Man, it's just us three! We can't just... do stuff, just us three, can we?

While the last episode of the Web Show has both surviving members of the trio apart and separated, they've both come to the conclusion that their life is Wrong from their own perspective.

(And Duck figured it out just before he died)

The TV Show’s final episode shows how the Trio themselves (and especially Red and Duck’s sense of superiority over Yellow) is much more effective at keeping them in line then just a Teacher. The Insurance Safe was easily discouraged by Yellow’s intelligence and knowledge, but Red’s unease and Duck’s hostility is what actually made him feel bad.

And before Yellow Guy, Red Guy was the one trying to get them all free the episode before that - the Teacher was pretty helpless to stop them - but his friends were the ones constantly urging him to go back home.

And at the end of episode 6, they all doom each other, and themselves.

And while the ending to the Web Show is ambiguous, and can be read in a very negative light, there is at least some element of change and disruption in it. Red at least tried to pull the plug. And even if it is all doomed to repeat again and again, some things, no matter how small, have been shifted.

The TV Show’s ending is a lot more direct, but also a lot more directly hopeless. Yellow Guy’s attempt to break free has failed. There has been no real change or shift, or disruption - the house is back to normal, this loop has probably happened thousands of times before. They are just as trapped as they were before, and they are all willfully oblivious to it.

One interpretation for the ending of the Web Series is that it demonstrates how the trauma of the ‘Lessons’ will remain with the characters forever, or that the indoctrination they suffered still lingers or that they might be doomed to repeat these patterns in themselves or with others. If this is true, then the TV Show’s greater focus on character really helps to demonstrate how this trauma and indoctrination affects them. Even if they were to break out of it, they will bring something of it with themselves wherever they go, they might even drag each other straight back into it - because it’s all they know.

The show also puts a much bigger emphasis on this fact, that this strange situation they are trapped in is all that they know. Just watching the Webshow on its own, you can’t really tell how long this has been going on - it could just be one very weird day. And you could kinda separate the Trio’s lives and the teachers intruding on them. Before the TV Show, it was easy to imagine a version of their lives where they are not constantly hounded by Singing Living Objects, and that it wasn't that different and it wasn't that long ago. Like, it wasn’t a surefire thing or the authorial intent - but it was at least a valid interpretation of the text.

The TV Show makes it clear that yes, the house and their entire living situation is part of that terrible surreal experience. It’s not just about their occasional edutainment misadventures, it is really everything about their world that is wrong and confining and nightmarish. Their rooms and their own house, and the world outside their window is all part of this Actual Nightmare. And it really is all they know. As far as they can tell, their life has always been defined by being trapped inside a nonsense house and being hounded by living objects. I mean, in retrospect that was probably also true for the Web Show but, again, the TV Show is a lot more explicit about that.

And the ‘outside’/‘real’ world is… okay, we have no way to be sure whatever either the Red Guy World seen in the end of “Health” and the beginning of “Dreams'', or the Junkyard seen in “Transport” is actually real or just like, another layer of illusions but still… The ‘world outside’ seen on the web show looks drab and soul-crushingly boring but it’s still fairly livable. If the only real problem is that it’s dull and too grown-up, then it’s easy to assume that if Red Guy could save Yellow Guy and Duck and get them out - then it wouldn’t be that bad. They could give color to that gray world themselves.

Meanwhile… The glimpses of the ‘Real World’ in ‘Transport’ just looked like a junkyard. But considering how the puppets were wandering from daytime to nighttime without finding any way out or any other signs of life, and considering Duck’s Visual Inventory included stuff like “one skull” and “one bag of meat” - I think this is less of an ordinary junkyard and more of a post apocalyptic wasteland.

So, even if the trio could ever break free of their surreal felt world - it’s unclear whether or not they could survive outside of it. Even if their world is a nightmare, that might be better than waking up.

And while the teachers are nicer, or at least less actively malevolent, their presence and influence is constantly felt. Like, even when there isn’t a Lesson ‘actively’ going on - there’s often some googly-eyed motherfucker just… watching them.

Yeah, maybe the fact Tony doesn’t do anything but tell the Time Child they’re absent shows that he’s a nicer guy in this continuity. But… even if the teachers are generally kinder, they’re still prone to overriding their ‘Students’ wills and opinions, often disrespectful and/or manipulative, and generally care more about being smarter than their students than actually being right. Even Electracey, probably the most straight-up benevolent and competent teacher we’ve ever seen on the show -

Seems to have issues understanding the mortality of organic beings.

So there’s still a lot to be weary of the fact these guys are constantly watching our main characters. Even if they’re not quite as sinister as they were before. Besides, even if the Teachers were just the nicest folks ever - it is still rather sad and concerning that the Trio are constantly watched like that in general. Like, they basically have no privacy. Even disregarding Lesley and maybe even us the audience. Someone is always watching.

And they can’t do anything about it.

And the thing that I’m thinking about most… it’s something specifically with Colin the Computer. Like, it seems like he’s the most unambiguous and straightforward example of how much nicer Teachers are on the TV Show. Compared to the data-harvesting control freak he was on the Webshow, he has become such a sweetie! So polite and complimentary and friendly to the trio! But the thing is… it’s very easy to be nice and sweet to people who are already doing what you want.

In the Webshow, the trio were at least somewhat in conflict with Colin because they wanted different things. The trio were having a quiet board game night at home and maybe wanted to learn about the World, and Colin was determined to pull them into his computer world. As Red Guy pointed out, they already had a computer. So they didn’t really need him or his ‘lesson’ about computers. They were totally independent of him. It was easy to see Colin’s pushy and over-controlling tendencies in that situation.

But that sort of conflict is simply not present in the TV version of Colin. It’s hard to tell if TV!Colin would have acted better if the trio were not as interested in using him because he is simply never put in that situation. That’s the part that always sticks to me; unlike in the Webshow - Colin is the only computer they have. He is actually their only connection to the digital world, the internet. They can’t wait to use him because he only comes around once a year. He joins in on the trio’s insults towards Warren because they would all just like to go back to focusing on Colin.

The things that do maybe make Colin come across as genuinely kinder on the TV Show are the facts he offers to help with Yellow Guy’s situation (and doesn’t interrupt or distract them after the solution extends beyond looking it up on Colin) and gives them that ‘Glass Spherical Computer’ In the end - ensuring that they won’t be that dependent on him after all. I mean, I think you can argue about whether the ‘replacement’ computer being made of very fragile glass is such an unlucky coincidence or not… but even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he legit wanted to make them less dependent on him…

The fact that was the situation in the first place, that they could only go online one day in a year, and had to be constantly monitored by Some Guy (who was also acting as their computer)- no matter how well-intentioned he is - is still deeply fucked up!

I think that at the end of the day, me and the folks who see TVDHMIS in a more optimistic light aren’t really in disagreement. At least not about the actual contents of the web and TV shows. It’s more that we have different priorities about what’s the most disturbing elements of the trio’s Actual Nightmare. Because yes, it is true they are put in the care of less Actively Malevolent Teachers this time around. And it is true they are less actively suffering, and they have a bit more agency now.

But for me, the bigger emphasis on the constant surveillance they live under, the focus on how much this situation affects their lives and relationships and psyche, and the trio’s tendency to hurt each other and doom themselves - makes the world of the show feel more hopeless and bleak to me.

#don't hug me i'm scared #don't hug me #i'm scared #dont hug me im scared #dhmis tv show #dhmis #dhmis tv series #dhmis analysis #dhmis web series #colin the computer #dhmis colin #dhmis computer

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physalian · 8 months

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Writing Tone in Fiction (Or, Pacing your Story, Part 2)

See this post all about pacing and as the two go hand-in-hand. If you read that, I may repeat myself a little here. Tone, and how abruptly you change it, how radically you change it, and how you break it whether on purpose or on accident says a lot about your experience as a writer, and how well you planned out your plot.

**Trigger warning for mentions of mature themes**

What is Tone?

“Tone” is the maturity of the work, signaling whether or not your characters have to censor themselves for young readers. It’s also restricted by the genre, whether this is a comedy and what kind – slapstick or gross-out humor – or a scary movie about ghosts, but not graphic body horror. It sets expectations about the amount and degree of romance readers can expect, if the scene will fade to black before anything happens or if you’re in for a raunchy sex scene, or somewhere in the middle. It also helps audiences gauge whether or not characters can die in this universe, and how graphically if they do beyond Disney’s tried and true “villain falling ambiguously from a tall height” deaths.

OSP recently did a piece on Tone Armor, a device similar to but less obvious than Plot Armor where the established tone means that, no matter how dire the circumstances, your hero won’t actually die, the world won’t actually end, and a happily ever after is on the horizon. Red also discussed what happens when you break your established tone with the shocking death or mistreatment of a character, but more on that later.

How to Decide Your Tone

Depending on your genre and intended audience, content for younger readers demand quite a bit of censorship (though can get away with many, many things worse than death). In the US at least, movies go through the MPAA rating system to determine what’s permitted by the rating given – how many swear words, whether you can show blood, topless women, graphic assault, graphic violence, if and how characters can be killed or how gummy and resistant to damage their bodies are.

If you’re writing for children, you both have less freedom to write violent carnage, and more freedom to get really creative within the limits of your tone box. I can expect the kid protagonists of my fantasy adventure to murder countless monsters that dissolve into gold dust, not bloody carcasses. I can expect the villain to perhaps die from a stab wound, but probably not get decapitated, disemboweled, or drawn and quartered, at least, not ‘on screen’.

If you’re writing for adults, adults do still expect a warning for how graphic anything can be, whether that’s sex scenes, fight scenes, murders, assaults, bloody battles, garish injuries, dead pets, dead children, etc.

Unless you’re already planning to break your tone, you need to know fairly early on whereabouts you want to set those expectations. If none of the characters even allude to sex and you write in a graphic assault, your audience is going to be pissed, and horrified. If none of your characters even allude to sex, and you hint that one was assaulted off-screen, you will still upset your audience if you don’t give them time to prepare for the possibility.

You can soften the violence and graphic content you’ve previously established and few might complain about it not being gritty enough, but going the other direction puts you in a very precarious position. Choosing more mature themes will inevitably alienate younger readers, those with triggers, and those that just want to have a lighthearted good time. The trade off? You’ll invite readers with a work that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Establishing a Tone

I’m writing this post today because I finally sat down to watch Game of Thrones. One can’t avoid spoilers for a series as massive as that, so I was prepared for the graphic violence, all the gratuitous sex, the infamous Red Wedding, murdered kids, horribly bloody battles, and the like. GoT, the TV adaptation at least as I can’t speak to the books, establishes exactly what to expect in the very first scene: Three people happen upon the site of a graphic mass murder, limbs and body parts strewn everywhere, kids among them, who come back to life as ice zombies to kill them.

That episode continues with a beheading, incest, more incest, attempted child murder via defenestration, a brother selling his little sister into marriage, rampant nudity, and… I’m sure I missed something.

**Spoiler Alert for Season 4**

What I was not at all prepared for was the graphic death of Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal). It’s quick, it’s violent, it’s graphic and gruesome and incredibly well-acted… it was also far more horrifying than the Red Wedding, at least to me. Murder is murder but the way this character went out almost had me quit watching right then and there. Google at your leisure.

It wasn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility, but most everyone else died via stabbing, arrows, beheading, burning, falling, eaten by wolves, crushed, etc. This was deeply unsettling, particularly because it’s live action, not a cartoon like Invincible.

It did its job, and it’s the only moment to feature in nightmares and make me lose my appetite, so… well done? In the following Previouslies (correct me on the actual word) they don’t even show it, cutting around the actual moment because it’s just that horrible.

This was four seasons into an eight season show and nothing like it had happened before. In a tone already as dark and explicit as TV can get, poor Oberyn pushed it over the edge entirely. It broke the established tone.

Amazon’s The Boys treads the same very thin line, only these people have superpowers for a whole new level of deeply disturbed body horror.

So, when you’re establishing a tone in the realm of “less graphic than Game of Thrones but still terrible,” you can go one of two ways: Horrify your audience straight out of the gate, or slowly creep up to it with allusions and hints until they’re fully prepared for it when it hits.

If your characters have free reign of every swear in the dictionary, start with the “f*cks” and “sh*ts” as quickly as you can as part of their vocabulary, whether you intend to use the words sparingly or after every other word in their dialogue.

If you’re writing a multi-series work that intends to ramp up the rating as it goes, you don’t have to cold open with a murder, but establishing that characters do at least die in this world is a start. Establish that assault happens in the background, that killing happens, or animal cruelty. Your readers with triggers will thank you for it and read something else.

Unless you intend to shatter the tone and shock your audience with it later.

Breaking Tone via Killing Characters

The most effective tonal breakage I can think of that wasn’t even graphic, just dark and incredibly well done: Disney’s animated Mulan. The movie had been your standard Disney musical complete with grand animation for its sing-along song. Soldiers singing, dancing, laughing as they march off to war, all for a girl worth fighting—

The singing stops. The score stops. Their smiles drop. Cut to the scene before them that has murdered this Disney musical in cold blood and it’s a decimated battlefield, the snow-covered and burned bodies of their far better trained and more competent fellow soldiers, and the love interest’s father.

Mulan only briefly reprises one track in the climax, but otherwise, this happy-go-lucky sing-along has rudely and horrifyingly become a war movie. It’s still Disney, so it doesn’t get violent or graphic, but they shattered the tone in glorious fashion.

Breaking tone happens all the time, for minor events and major character deaths. It doesn’t become an issue of “you just alienated your audience” unless the tonal breakage is the aforementioned sudden graphic assault or other sensitive triggers.

Major character deaths are a whole separate monster to tackle and I’d like to, but for today’s purposes I’m talking about killing major characters when the possibility of any of our heroes dying was never established.

For anyone who never read Lord of the Rings and didn’t know the curse of anyone played by Sean Bean, losing Gandalf to another ambiguous high fall was one thing, but Boromir straight up dies in battle. Sure the story is surrounded by death and darkness but you expect heroes in a world like this to have some pretty hefty plot armor – and Boromir had so much room left to grow. In the grand scheme of the story, though, Boromir’s death was as far from shock value fodder as possible.

Sirius Black is another heartbreaking loss, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility – killing off Ron or Hermione would have been. Any mentor figure is automatically doomed with rare exception, especially ones in fatherly roles.

Bianca di Angelo is a different matter. She’s not the first death mentioned in Percy Jackson but she’s a brand new character and despite all the dangers the heroes have already been through and the warnings from the prophecy, actually killing her off for good broke the tone. Suddenly this war was real and there were lasting consequences.

Game of Thrones’ “Red Wedding” didn’t just shock audiences because a bunch of people died, it was which people that died. Robb Stark, eldest son and heir to Sean Bean (so of course he’s dead) and one of the siblings of the “hero” family had been leading a war effort to rescue and then avenge his father. He gets betrayed and murdered, along with his mother and a fair chunk of his army, caught by surprise at a wedding, because he broke an oath and married for love instead.

I knew of the scene and knew that Catelyn Stark was there just from the one time I’d seen the clip years ago, and as it got closer I worried it was Robb’s wedding, but I still wasn’t prepared for the death of the hero of the show. Jon’s off in the north doing his own thing and so is Danaerys. This was the bright-eyed usurper, the avenger, the never-lost-a-battle upstart. No author would ever kill that hero.

They’d established that anyone can die, similar to the Walking Dead in some ways, but this was a whole new level of boldness, killing off Robb. At the time of this post, I haven’t seen past season 4, but I know more deaths are coming.

Deciding to murder your hero, in any other story, would not go over well with your audience. Killing any major character is a decision that should be made with a deep understanding of the consequences or else you end up like Walking Dead after they killed Carl for shock value and never recovered their audience viewership.

—

It’s not just dead protagonists, it can be worldly tragedies, the heroes actually losing a battle, or the war, a uniquely horrifying monster or cryptid or villainous act. Or it can be a character beginning to contemplate self-harm and possibly attempting to end their own lives. It can be the reveal of an abusive relative, or an incestuous relationship. It can be mental health problems, sudden and un-curable disease and disability.

It can be less-dire things too, but I’m not much for writing comedy.

Tone, like pacing, doesn’t have to remain consistent throughout the entire story. If it’s a lighthearted comedy, let it stay a lighthearted comedy if you want to. You can change tone progressively, with hints and near-misses, or drop a bomb on your audience with a big reveal. What you do and how you implement it is entirely dependant on the story you’re writing.

Most audiences expect a book that isn’t written for elementary schoolers to mature over time and most genres come with set understandings. But hey, I hear Animorphs can get incredibly dark with a bunch of mature themes.

In general, killing a character just for shock value is rarely worth it in the long run. In general, writing in triggering subjects without warning to an audience that wasn’t prepared for it also isn’t worth it in the long run — save it for a different book.

If fanfiction authors leave author’s notes everywhere warning about the subject matter ahead, published authors can do the same, in my opinion. Content warnings should be a thing and it doesn’t have to spoil the surprise. Include it as a forward to your book, letting potential readers know that such and such work they’re considering spending real money on contains mentions of, or explicit depictions of, any and all mature and sensitive themes. You never know who’s out there picking up your book expecting a good time. Do right by them and give a little heads up and you might gain a fan you wouldn’t have otherwise.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools

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got-your-back-always-will · 7 months

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Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action remake verdict: Honestly not that bad. Would watch another season if they make another one.

The good: Fire Nation machinations, shenanigans and backstories.

The bad: Some gawdawful, clunky and needlessly expositional dialogue.

Feels like the first season of a TV show that hasn't ironed out its rough edges.

I don't know if it's a case of the creatives really favoring Fire Nation characters or the fact that they could hire more experienced actors for the Fire Nation roles so they could throw more at them but the material for them just felt better. There's a lot of trauma being explored but the material for the Fire Nation characters has felt less clunky than it has for Katara and Aang.

As for the dialogue... there is this thing where even renowned shows have some pretty dire dialogue but they get away with it because they have some great actors who can hide it better, drown it with dramatic background music, put some sort of action onscreen that pulls more of the viewer's attention, or the words are spoken in some sort of British accent and somehow that's enough to distract the viewer from how much the the dialogue actually sucks.

I didn't look over all the screenwriting credits but I wonder if they were a bunch of different people and they were all told to hammer certain points of exposition in and nobody thought, "Hey, we said/showed this is that episode so we don't need to do that again here."

And there's things where you kind of forgive them for concentrating so much material on Omashu because set design production is so expensive that they have to make use of that as much as possible. The cost also goes into why Momo and Appa feel like props more than characters.

(Gotta say it's a little jarring to watch Ozai scenes but your brain is still processing it as Hiroshi Sato's voice. Also kind of amusing that a guy known for playing an "Appa" is playing Iroh here.)

When projects are rebooted or remade I like to ask why it exists. Is it just a cynical cash-grab? Is it a bunch of people who want to cosplay in a fictional world that they love? Is there a specific storytelling reason why it's being made? Is it a take from a different point of view? I appreciate this remake existing but I don't really see a creative reason for it.

#netflix's avatar: the last airbender live-action remake #still very unsure how to feel about all the death and violence #netflix's avatar: the last airbender

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resurrection-of-soul · 7 months

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Flashback | PSYCHOBREAK 1

Writer: Akira (日日日)

Characters: Rei, Adonis, Kaoru, Koga

Koga: Huh? Heh, hehe, it's animal instinct! I'm a noble wolf, after all~♪ Kaoru: It's, like, kinda adorable when Koga-kun fails to realize he's being teased.

[ For the best viewing experience, please read directly on my blog! ♪ ]

Time: 10 days after the start of the AIIE Experiment.

Location: ES Building, Rhythm Link Office.

Rei: We find ourselves in circumstances most dire.

Adonis: That line gives me the strangest sense of deja vu.

Rei: Indeed. We shared a similar exchange ere consenting to participate in the experiment. However, the circumstances now are far graver than they were then.

Kaoru: My head hurts. Figuratively and literally.

Koga: Ugggh… Dunno whether it's cause of the sleepin' pills or cause we had to keep goin' right back to sleep as soon as we woke up, but my mind's a mess. Everythin' feels kinda unreal now, or—

Kaoru: Haha, want me to give you a pinch to check if it's real?

Koga: Shut up, don't go touchin' me all willy-nilly! I've got a headache, damn it!

Adonis: I feel the same way, Oogami. Maybe it's because I spent at least half of every day asleep over the course of that week-long experiment, but… There's this strange sensation hanging over me, as if the line between dreams and reality has become blurred.

Rei: Alas, if only this were but a dream. Let us cut to the chase. While we were isolated from the outside world, something unfathomable has occurred. We spent our time at the AIIE Experimental Facility merely going between sleeping and waking, occasionally playing cards in between, unable to engage in any idol activities… Yet inexplicably, here in the outside world UNDEAD saw a meteoric rise in popularity, and was widely praised for achieving a breakthrough with the unit's new direction.

Kaoru: Seriously, what's going on? I know I've already said this before, but it really feels like I've fallen under a kitsune's spell.

Koga: Isn't he just sayin' some fakes showed up? That's what I took it to mean, at least. Some assholes took the opportunity while we were gone to pretend to be us n' ran wild, right?

Rei: Indeed, that interpretation is more or less correct. Whilst thou may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, thy ability to intuitively grasp the situation is as impressive as ever, Koga ♪

Koga: Huh? Heh, hehe, it's animal instinct! I'm a noble wolf, after all~♪

Kaoru: It's, like, kinda adorable when Koga-kun fails to realize he's being teased.

Adonis: Agreed. …But, back on topic, who are these fakes?

Rei: 'Tis unclear at the moment. They go by the name HELLSING and seem to be actively engaging with the radical and immoral image which we once pursued. To be precise, they avoid appearing in lighthearted variety shows and, as a matter of fact, refrain entirely from gaining exposure through TV programs, focusing solely on performing on stage.

Kaoru: That gives off a totally nostalgic vibe, huh?

Adonis: That kind of thing was common in Yumenosaki, after all.

Rei: Indeed. They emulate our melodies flawlessly whilst infusing them with their own flair, bestowing a more potent rock essence. Ever more radical, ever more immoral— In a sense, you might say they embody the ideal which the world once envisioned for UNDEAD.

Rei: One could quite logically regard HELLSING as the final evolution of the original UNDEAD, which we ourselves were unable to attain.

Koga: Tch, even though they're the fakes, they seem realer than the real deal. We also shoulda gone all in like that, instead a' changin' course.

Adonis: It's easy to say that now. This might just sound like an excuse, but I firmly believe that choosing to expand the scope of our activities was the "correct answer" when ES was established.

Rei: Let us not repeat this old song and dance. What we ought to discuss now is how to handle the imposters who have surfaced in our midst—HELLSING.

Koga: Aahn? Ain't it enough to just sue 'em and be done with it? Those guys, HELLSING or whatever, are usin' our songs without permission, yeah?

Adonis: I see, if we approach it from the copyright infringement angle, we should be able to win.

Kaoru: Didn't we have a conversation like this before? About AI art, or something— Wait, I just had a totally wild thought…

Rei: I suspect that thought is one we share. Speak thy thoughts without reserve, Kaoru-kun.

Kaoru: Well, we've been participating in a strange experiment lately, right? And that experiment's goal is to realize some sci-fi sounding dream about creating artificial idols. To make that dream a reality, they were collecting our brain data and stuff—

Adonis: Wait a moment. I think I understand what you're trying to say, but… Is that even possible?

Kaoru: If it isn't, they wouldn't bother with an "experiment," y'know? ES poured a bunch of funds into it because there was a chance of making it happen, right?

Koga: Hey, hold on, the hell're you guys goin' on about…? What I'm thinkin's impossible, so—

Rei: I doth fear thy "impossible" thought is exactly right. Though this be mere speculation… 'Tis quite likely that these imposters of ours, HELLSING, are artificial idols born from the AIIE experiment.

[ ☆ ]

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#ensemble stars #enstars translation #undead #flashback #rei sakuma #adonis otogari #koga oogami #kaoru hakaze #psychobreak

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sundaysundaes · 3 years

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Started With A Kiss

Lee Donghyuck/Haechan X Reader | Actor AU, Smut, Fluff, Humor | NC-17 | 10K

Summary: Rookie actor, Lee Haechan, desperately wants to get the lead role in the highly anticipated upcoming TV drama. He’s sure he has what it takes to fill the part. Acting as a hero? No problem. Pretending to overcome his traumatic experience? Consider it done. A bed scene? Easy—wait, no. That might be a problem. But he should be fine as long as he gets to rehearse, right?

Warnings: protected sex, oral sex, crude humor, swearing, literally 10k of sex with very little plot, a lot of playful banters between sassy!hyuck and equally sassy!Y/N

Wrote this for my love Kira @flopim who’s been having a tough time lately. I hope this will cheer you up bb! ❤️

“I want you to make love to me.”

Standing there, still dressed in your bright pink pajamas with your hair resembling a bird’s nest, you can only blink once, twice, and several times more because surely, your ears are playing tricks on you. There’s no way that your best friend, the cutely annoying and annoyingly cute, Lee Haechan—the one who’s been practically glued to your skin like a conjoined twin of yours for the last two years—is asking you to make love to him.

Surely, this is not what you’d expected to see when you opened the door to your apartment, ready to bark at whoever it was who dared to disturb your beauty sleep (since it is seven in the morning on a Sunday), only to see him standing in his blue ripped jeans and black Michael Jackson shirt with his cheeks flushed, his bag hanging loosely on his shoulder, brown eyes desperately begging for your attention.

And you’re most definitely sure that he’s not asking you to sleep with him when you still have drool on the corner of your mouth and a terrible morning breath (in your defense, you have brushed your teeth but that was, like, six hours ago).

But when seconds have passed and Haechan still looks like he badly needs to hear an answer, you have very little options but to ask, “You want me to do what to who now?”

Catching a sniff of your mighty dragon’s breath, he promptly takes a step back, scrunching his nose while frantically covering half of his face with the script he’s been holding. “Eew, God, what is that smell?” Ignoring your glare, he repeats his words, voice muffled by the papers. “I said, I want you to make love to me.”

“What—”

“Damn it, woman, just brush your teeth and let me in!”

When he’s stomping his feet while whining that loudly—loud enough for your fucking landlord to hear, along with everybody else in the building (including your cute neighbor, Jaehyun, oh dear God, no), he doesn’t give you any other choice but to invite him in, does he?

You step away from the door, flatly muttering, “Please, come in, why don’t you.” Haechan doesn’t waste any second waiting, making sure to run and stay as far away as possible from you so he won’t inhale the poisonous air that’s tainted with your breath again.

You roll your eyes. Dramatic little shit. But just to be on the safe side, you make your way to the bathroom.

***

The scalding hot shower you just took was comforting but not enough to wash your entire drowsiness away. You’re in dire need of your caffeine intake. “Would you like some coffee, my king?” You ask between a yawn, hands finding their way to the coffee jar on your kitchen counter.

Haechan throws his bag to the floor, body sinking into the comfort of your couch. “With milk, please.”

"I’m kidding.”

“Well, I’m not.” He throws one of those cheeky grins that you adore—no, wait, you hate—as he settles his legs on your coffee table. “Less sugar but more milk. I’m still growing.”

“Growing what, your balls?” You pour him a cup of coffee as requested, yes, because to balance his demonic behavior, you have to act like the perfect angel that you are. “Since you don’t have any?”

“You mean, like your boyfriend?” Haechan retorts before he gasps dramatically, his palm going to his mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

You hover above him from behind the couch, bringing two mugs filled with sizzling hot coffee. “Want to repeat that?” You tip your mug just a little bit until it nearly spills on his forehead.

Haechan winces, attempting to grin. “I’m sorry, I love you, please don’t ruin my face. It’s the only thing that’s good about me.”

“It surely is.”

“Yah, what does that mean?”

“Take it as a compliment.”

Sitting next to him, you sip your coffee and curse silently when the liquid burns your tongue. “Okay, so what about this ‘make love to me’ thing you said earlier? Please tell me it’s just a figure of speech or something.”

“I wish.” He drags his legs away from the table so he can lay his cup down because apparently, he means business. “Okay, I know you’re gonna kill me after you hear—”

“After? I’m about to kill you now, actually.” You scoff. “Don’t you remember what we’ve agreed on? You cannot bother me when I’m still too sleepy to smack you in the head, Haechannie.”

“When did we ever—” He stops. “Why are you going to smack me in the head?”

“‘Cause you’ll say something stupid.”

“Who says I’m gonna say something stupid?”

“You always say something stupid. You’re saying something stupid now!”

“It’s not stupid.” He sighs exasperatedly but when your flat, degrading stare comes into view, it morphs into a groan. “Well, not that stupid. I’ve thought about this—really thought about it—and I can’t find anyone else to do this but you since you’re the only girl I’m friends with. I mean, I can pick random girls, I suppose—you know how popular I am. They just can’t stop talking about me. My hair, my eyes—”

“—your tiny dick.”

“But I don’t want to break any girl’s heart by doing something that’s gonna make them feel like I’m just using them to get a job, you know? I know I’m hot but these good looks aren’t meant to trample people’s hearts.”

“And you don’t care how I’m gonna feel?”

He has the decency to act like he’s thinking about it, but then, “No, not really.”

“Thanks.”

“Look, I really need your help.” He takes it as further as holding your hand between his, puckering his pouty lips, and blinking his eyes in a way that’s cute enough to leave you in daze so you pretend like you’re about to vomit your insides to cover it up.

Okay, so there’s one thing—one little thing that nobody knows—that you’re too ashamed to admit and that is the fact that you have a massive crush on this boy who sits in front of you with his socks unmatched. Well, no, not massive. It used to be massive during the first few weeks you knew him. How could you not? Haechan was so cute, you wanted to turn him into a doll so you could carry him around in your backpack and squish his cheeks whenever you feel like it. Sure, he’s not all jawlines and dimples like that neighbor of yours (Jung Jaehyun was probably sculpted by God himself ), but Haechan has his own charms. His devilish smirk, his loud, contagious laughter, his naughty eyebrow raise, and his lips—God, his beautiful plump lips, the way they look so pouty and soft. Honestly, you can write a whole essay about his attractive features (not that you haven’t already).

You knew you were crazy for him when the antics he did annoyed the hell out of his friends but to you, he was just plain adorable. And you realized you were pretty much fucked-up when Jeno said, “Fucking Lee Donghyuck said he forgot his wallet and robbed me this morning. Who the fuck orders a freakin’ wagyu steak for breakfast?!” and the only thing you could think of was how nice it was to go on a date with him and how your first kiss with him was going to be like (poor Jeno, though).

It’s not that you love him or anything. It’s mostly physical, nothing more—at least for now anyway. It’s not your fault that he’s so fucking pretty that he ends up showing every now and then in your fantasy, doing indescribable naughty things that will definitely make Mark splash some holy water on your face if he knew what was going on in your head.

Fortunately, now that you’ve been friends with him for two years, that massive crush you had has turned into something normal, something you can easily hide. And can be forgotten even, whenever another cute guy—like Na Jaemin, for example—takes you out on a date or two. It’s easier to breathe these days.

“Hello? Are you there?” Haechan snaps his fingers, waking you up from your reverie. “What’s your answer? Do you want to make love to me or not?”

‘It’s easier to breathe these days?’ More like fucking kill me.

“Can you stop saying that?” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “You’re giving me headaches.” Or a heart attack, more accurately. “Assume I said yes. Don’t you think it’s gonna get a little weird between us?”

“What is so weird about it?” He throws his hands in the air, exhausted and impatient. “It’s just gonna be two friends, pretending to be in love with each other, hugging, kissing, touching, and having sweet, tender sex.” Realization falls upon him and you resist the urge to exhale loudly. “Yeah, okay, so it is a little weird, but it should be fine, right? It’s just acting. It’s not like you have any feelings for me, do you?”

If by feelings you mean picturing you naked in my head with your mouth sucking on my neck, then yeah, I do have feelings for you. Plenty of that. But on the outside, you say, “Eew, God, no.”

Haechan squints his eyes at your response. “Can’t say I’m not hurt with the way you said it, but eew, God, no to you too. Well, if that’s the case then I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he says, sipping his coffee, and retracts his mouth as soon as the flavor hits his tongue. “What the hell is this?! Did you spit on my coffee or something?”

You didn’t but for your amusement, you throw him a sly grin. “A little.” It’s satisfying to see him looking like he’s about to pass out. “I’m still worried how it’s gonna affect our friendship later on though.”

He simply shrugs. “Meh. We’re not really that close to begin with anyway.” He takes another sip of his coffee by accident and nearly vomits for real. “Fucking hell—take this shit out of my face.”

“I'm still not sure about this, Haechannie.”

“Look, I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to you, we’re just going to pretend! Acting!” He exclaims as if that was the most normal thing a friend could ask another friend. “And you’re gonna be acting out a love scene with someone as hot as me. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Consider yourself dead.”

“Damn it, my audition is in two days and I really want to get this role!” He’s whining, tugging at your hand like a baby as he practically throws himself at your feet, graveling for your mercy. “You’re the only one who can help me with this. How can I act properly if I don’t have enough experience to perform a freaking bed scene?!”

“I don’t think actors who have to play dead have enough experience of, you know, being dead.”

“Excellent point.” Haechan stares at you blankly, unimpressed. “Do you hear yourself when you talk?”

“Do you?”

A few seconds passed by in silence with the two of you exchanging sinister glares until he finally surrenders with a prominent pout on his face. “Fine, if you don’t want to.” Haechan exhales dramatically, his shoulders sagging and when you don’t respond, he sighs again only louder this time. “I guess, I have to force Mark to make out with me. Again.” He sneaks a glance to see your reaction. “And have my face slapped with a Bible. Again.”

You wince at the thought. “How did you force him, exactly?”

“Just…” He timidly scratches his nose. “Kinda attacked him in his sleep.”

You nod in understanding even when it’s the most idiotic thing you’ve ever heard. “Well, maybe he would’ve been fine with it if you had taken him out for a nice dinner before that.”

Haechan smiles a little at your words, and even a little glimpse of it is contagious enough to make your own spread wider on your face. Small chuckles resonate through the air and he playfully bumps his shoulder against yours, his palm resting on your knuckles.

“On a more serious note,” Haechan says, “I know that asking you to rehearse a bed scene with me is too much and way out of line. But I swear, I’m not gonna touch you if you’re so uncomfortable with it. Won’t even hold your hand, I promise.” Then he notices he’s still holding your hand from earlier. He drops it immediately, clearing his throat. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” It’s more than fine. His hand seems to fit yours in a way that nobody ever does but there’s no way you’re gonna tell him that. “So, we’re just gonna be practicing lines?”

“Exactly.” He rubs his nape, suddenly a bit bashful. “Well, I was hoping to at least kiss you—just to, you know, know how it’d feel like.”

“You’ve never kissed before?”

“I have, obviously.” He rolls his eyes, disgusted at your question. “I’m not a fucking virgin if that’s what you’re assuming.”

“Chill, don’t get your panties in a twist. Nah, I know you’re not a virgin from how many times you’ve had sex with yourself.”

“Hey!”

“But then, why do you need to practice? Can’t you just go straight to your castmates, and kiss the bejeezus out of them?”

Donghyuck runs a hand through his face. “It’s… I’ve never done it for a role,” he professes, faint blush blooming on his cheeks, “And the scene is supposed to be intimate and I’ve never… You know…”

You gesture at him to clarify more with your hands. “You’ve never…?”

“You know…” The color on his face turns brighter. “T-the thing.”

“What thing? Never made-out in public? Never had sex outdoor?” You act clueless just because you’re liking his reaction. “Never had a finger stuck in your ass? What? Please do enlighten me.”

“I’ve never been in love, you witch!” Haechan is adorable when he’s fuming. Nostrils blaring, eyebrows knitting together in an angry frown, scarlet cheeks all puffed out. He looks like a terribly pissed Pomeranian.

Man, if I could just take a picture. “Oh, okay. So have you had your finger stuck in your ass?”

“I swear to God—”

“Kidding. I know you have.” But even when Haechan is nearly ripping your cheeks apart from your face, your giggles are never-ending. “So, you’re nervous?” You snort, raising an eyebrow. “You, the obnoxious, desperate-for-attention Lee Haechan, are nervous?”

“Will you help me out or not?!”

You pretend like you’re contemplating about it when truth is, every part of your body and mind is just screaming what the heck are you waiting for? He’s asking you to rehearse a bed scene—a. bed. scene! And he said he wanted to kiss you, for God’s sake! So, really, what else is there to say but “Okay.”

Haechan widens his eyes. “Okay?”

“Okay.” You try your best to appear nonchalant. “But you’ll owe me a favor. A huge one.”

“Anything,” he instantly agrees, “As long as I’m not dead, you have my words.”

You’re not yet sure what you’re planning to ask him but seeing his enthusiasm, you know it’s going to be good. “Great. So, umm, do you want to do it now or…?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Here?”

“Wherever you want.”

“Man, you’re giving me too much power. I should’ve agreed to this way sooner.” You can practically feel your face splitting in half from how wide you’re grinning. “My room, then? I mean, a bed scene requires… a bed, right?”

Haechan laughs and even after two years, it still sounds like your most favorite thing in the world. “No, it doesn’t necessarily require a bed but sure.” He jumps out from the couch, taking you by the hand, and only by that, you can already feel your heart thumping a tad faster. But the second he walks into your room, he makes a face. “Why does it smell like something died in here?”

“Because something did die. Your dignity.”

The tickling fight doesn’t occur very often between you and Lee Haechan but once it starts, it means war.

***

“Okay, so…” Haechan hands you the script, already opened to show you a page filled with dialogues and short narratives. He scoots closer on the bed, his knee a few inches away from grazing yours as they dangle from the edge. “Just from the top of the page, here.” He points with his finger and you do a quick scan, trying to get a picture of the intimate scene you’re going to do. “So, a quick summary. Your character, Aeri, has been in love with my character, Donghyun. In the earlier scene, you’ve confessed your love to me but I rejected you because we’ve been friends for so long and I didn’t want to ruin what we have. But then, later on, some things happened and I ended up catching feelings for you and this is the part where I’m gonna be telling you how I really feel and then we start kissing and—”

“Then we have sex,” you utter in dismay, but butterflies are erupting from your stomach due to the anticipation.

“No,” Haechan corrects you, “We make love.”

“Is there any difference?”

“There are more feelings involved, not just out of sheer passion. It’s slower. Tender. Intimate.” And when he notices you raising a questioning brow at him, he sighs. “That thing you did with Jaemin? Fucking like bunnies? The opposite of that.”

You mock him by imitating his sigh exaggeratedly and receiving a flick on the nose in return. “Is it just me or is the script pretty lousy?”

He nods. “But they’ll pay you good money for this.”

“I thought the reason you became an actor was to create art not money.”

“When I’m rich, maybe. Right now, I gotta pay for my rent. And apparently, Jeno keeps chasing my ass, forcing me to pay him back. It was just a wagyu steak for fuck’s sake.” He grumbles to himself, momentarily distracted. “Anyway,” he cracks his neck, “I’ve memorized my lines. Wanna give it a go?”

“Okay, let’s try. I guess I’ll be fine if it’s just kissing. Even if it’s with you.” When in reality you’re only agreeing to this because it’s with him.

Haechan’s eyes gleam brighter, ears practically perking up like an excited puppy. “Really?”

“You’re that excited at the thought of kissing me?” You play smug but you could practically hear your heartbeat blasting through your ears. “What else have you been thinking about me?”

“I’m not excited at the thought of kissing you, dumbass,” he spits back, the spark in his eyes vanishes in an instant. “I’m excited that finally I can practice kissing scenes with someone who’s actually willing to do it, and not, you know, like with the back of my hand or something.”

“You…” Failing to hold back a grin, you burst out laughing. “You made out with your hand?”

It’s funny that even when his skin is golden as if it was kissed by the sun, it still shows vividly on his face whenever he blushes. “I didn’t mean it literally—”

“I can’t believe you made out with your hand.”

“Would you just—” He nearly suffocates you with your pillow but you quickly retaliate by kicking him in the stomach.

Tears are prickling at the corner of your eyes. “Man, that mental image of yours making out with your hand will live in my mind rent-free for as long as I live.” When you still can’t stop laughing, Haechan is practically baring his teeth. “Okay, I’m sorry. Let’s get this going. If it gets too uncomfortable for me, I’ll stop.”

“Of course.”

“At any time I want.”

“Your call.” He nods in agreement with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen him do; it almost doesn’t seem like him.

“Good,” you say. “Now, I’ve never acted once in my life so if you laugh at me, I will sneak into your room at night and pour hot coffee on your computer.”

There’s fear fleeting through his eyes but he gives another nod. “Deal.”

“All right…” You take a deep breath, willing your heart to stop hammering against your ribcages, and for once, focus more on the script instead of the shape of his pretty, pretty mouth. “What are you doing here?” You follow the script, voice a little bit shaky as you’re still embarrassed with everything you’re doing. Haechan closes his eyes and you’re about to throw a joke to tease him about actor Haechan coming alive but when he opens them and gazes at you, you sit still, frozen.

“I wanted to see you,” he says, voice so delicate, it startles you. He’s so serious about this that you don’t find the strength within you to tease him like how you usually do. Somehow, the little gestures he makes, the changes in his expression alter the air along with the tension in the room. Suddenly, it feels like you’re standing next to him under the spotlight, hundreds of pairs of eyes following your every movement.

“It’s—” You swallow your breath, tongue lays heavy in your mouth. “It's pouring outside, why are you—”

“I love you,” he vocalizes, his eyes gentle and heartbroken. His voice suddenly sounds a pitch lower, reverberating through the air until it sends goosebumps to the tiny hairs on your nape. He waits for your reply and you have to blink twice to slap yourself back to reality.

“W-what?”

“I’m sorry it took me this long to realize, but I do. I’m in love with you, hopelessly so.” He reaches out to cup your cheek, his thumb caressing your cheekbone. Though he has pretty hands, his fingertips are not as soft as you had imagined them to be, but they feel better, feel real. His warmth is unfamiliar to your skin but it feels more pleasant than anything that ever touches you. “Maybe you’re unaware of this, but it kills me to know that I’ve hurt you because I simply couldn’t be brave enough to accept my feelings. The reason why I didn’t want us to be together was because I didn’t want to ruin what we have, not knowing that we could be something more.”

Haechan’s lines fit your situation so much that you wish he wasn’t acting. It’s amazing how he’s changing into an entirely different persona and yet, it feels so natural as if he has been that person all along. Your breathing gets heavier as you take a brief look at the script, searching for your lines. “This feels unreal…”

“Do you still love me?” Haechan lifts your face by the chin, his touch is paper-thin.

You wet your lips, head swirling. “But Donghyun—”

“Do you still love me?” He repeats, emphasizing with his tone. His eyes are peering into yours and you wonder maybe the quote eyes deeper than the sea refers to his gaze. “Or is it too late for me?” His thumb drifts to your lip, caressing your bottom one, your lip balm sticking to his skin.

“I do,” you reply. He’s so pretty. You’ve never taken a glance longer than a few seconds at his close-up face, but now that you’re in this close proximity, you can finally witness the two tiny moles on his cheek, the beautiful shape of his dark eyes, the delicate curve of his lips… “I do love you, Donghyuck.”

A few seconds of silence hangs in the air when Haechan stops, his eyebrows furrowing. “Umm—it’s Donghyun, actually.”

Fuck! “Right!” You nearly leap out of your bed, face aflame. “Donghyun! Of course! I don’t know why I said that. Donghyuck is your name, I know that—” Fuck, fuck, fuck, just fucking kill me. “Sorry, umm—nervous.”

Fortunately for you, Haechan buys your bluff. “Rookie mistake,” he chuckles and you exaggeratedly roll your eyes to play along. “Okay, let’s start over. Do you still love me?”

“I do,” you respond too rigidly, making him glance away so he won’t break into laughter. “I do love you, Donghyun. Dong-Hyun.”

“Good,” he improvises, as it’s not written in the script. He has a tiny smile on his face and you like to think that it’s just him doing a terrible job at hiding his amusement. But when he swats your bangs out of your eyes, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, he seems like he’s seeing the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his whole life. The adoration in his eyes, his loving gaze—they are so vivid, they nearly consume you. “Because I don’t think I can resist this any longer…”

You’re lost in his eyes, lost in his touch, lost in his warmth. It’s until Haechan nudges his head slightly, indicating you to wake up, you’ve got a line to say, that you jolt, eyes hurriedly going down to the script, seeking your lines. “Umm—“ You flinch. You sound so jittery, it’s terrible. “R-resist what…?”

But Haechan doesn’t pay a mind that you just stuttered from saying two words. He doesn’t ask you to start over. Instead, he presses his forehead against yours, his breath mingling in the air and you can taste the scent of sandalwood and summer. Combined with his soft breathing, you’re almost stuck in a haze, just reeling in the feeling of how this man is now closer to you than he has ever been in the past two years and it’s better than anything you’ve ever imagined.

“Resist this,” he whispers and before you can look down to check whether you have more lines to say, Haechan dips his head, his lips brushing against yours, ever so faintly at first but when you gasp, he presses harder, framing your cheeks with both hands before he moves one down to your waist. Unlike his fingertips, his lips are soft—softer than silk or the cotton candy he once bought you. But it’s not the way they feel or the way he tastes that distract you the most. It’s the way he moves them, parting his lips slightly so he can blend with yours, your lower lip fits perfectly between his plump ones. It’s the way he sighs, so contentedly, as if kissing you was everything he ever wanted.

You close your eyes, hands reaching up to his collar, wanting to feel him more, wanting to touch him—

Haechan breaks away, placing both hands on your shoulders. “How was it?”

You’ve never had someone splash cold water on your face but you figure it might feel something like this. Your voice grows hoarse when you speak. “How was what?”

“The kiss!” Haechan’s eyes are filled with concern, analyzing your expression. “Was it romantic enough? Tender enough? Did it properly convey the desperation and longing my character feels for yours?”

You knew this was a bad idea. You fucking knew it. So, why are you still hurt when he acts like he feels exactly nothing by that kiss? This is just an acting lesson for him. You should have been prepared.

“It’s good,” you answer, averting your gaze and hiding your eyes behind your bangs. Your heart is still running a thousand miles an hour but somehow, it doesn’t feel as pleasant as before. “So, next scene—”

“Wait, are you okay?” Haechan asks, bending slightly to catch a glimpse of your face. “Was it too much? Do you want to stop?”

Truth is, you’re conflicted. You’re going to catch feelings—you most likely already are. But Haechan only treats you as a friend and nothing more, and this is the only chance you have to be this close to him. The temptation of continuing the kiss, to just hold him close for one more time, stands stronger than anything else so you say, “No. I promised you I’d help.”

He’s still unsure, eyes glinting in concern. “It’s okay if you want to stop, I—”

“Let’s just do the damn scene, Donghyuck.”

Haechan freezes on his seat, eyes searching yours as you now have the bravery to look at his face. Knowing you came on too strong, you try to ease it off with a smile. “I’m fine, don’t worry. It’s just my first time doing this—acting, I mean. Can we try again?”

He spends another few seconds trying to decipher the true meaning behind your smile but eventually nods his head at your command. He drags his finger back to the script. “Then, umm… Let’s start from here?”

You don’t even look at the page when you give affirmation. “Go.”

Haechan takes a moment to prepare himself and when your eyes meet each other again, he’s a different person once more. “The reason why I didn’t want us to be together was because I didn’t want to ruin what we have, not knowing that we could be something more.” His voice is so soothing, you almost forget that deep down you’re immensely upset knowing that the kiss didn’t have the same effects on him.

This time, when he frames your face with his palm, you lean into his touch, eyes never leaving his. “This feels unreal,” you say and for a second—just for a split second—you notice Haechan breaking out of character, surprised by the gentle expression on your face. Because you’re not acting out his script, you’re acting out on your feelings. It’s your only chance to be honest with him without forcing him to respond. So you pour all these feelings you have for him out in the open—ones that started from a mere physical attraction to something more as his presence grew bigger in your life, you’re acting out each and every one of them.

“Do…” He inhales sharply, trying to focus. “Do you still love me?” He’s doing the same thing as before, placing his thumb and index finger on your chin but before he can say his lines, you see how his eyes fall on your lips.

And you kiss him. You kiss him with everything you have, hands going to his face, fingers slipping between his strands, and Haechan gasps against your mouth, his fingers curling around your wrist. You know he’s about to push you away so you quickly murmur, “I do,” against his lips, breath stuttering, “I do love you.”

When you take his bottom lip between yours, teeth grazing against his supple skin, Haechan lets out an involuntary moan at the back of his throat. The butterflies in your stomach come alive, pumping a rush of adrenaline through your veins and suddenly, you’re brave enough to glide your tongue across his lip. His hold tightens around your wrist but instead of pushing you away, he tugs you closer and you fall into his chest, hands breaking free from his grip to wind around his neck. Your fingertips are scraping against his nape before they move upward to yank at the roots of his hair. “Fuck,” he breathes out, almost inaudibly, as if he didn’t mean to let the word slip from his mouth and it makes your heart jumps straight out of your chest. The second he responds properly, Haechan kisses like fire, all passion and urgency, and you really don’t mind being consumed by his flames.

His hands are on your waist, pulling you closer and closer until you’re almost sitting on his lap before he jolts awake, pushing you away so abruptly, you almost fall from the bed.

“I’m—We—” he stammers, looking everywhere but your eyes. His cheeks are flushed, his lips bruised and red from your kisses. “I think we should—I gotta go—“

He stands up from the bed like the sheets are catching on fire, picking his script from the floor and gathering all his belongings at once before he runs toward the door. He turns on his heels, wanting to say something to fix the goddamn situation, but when his eyes land on yours, his words vanish without a trace.

“I—I’ll call you later,” he finally says and doesn’t wait for your response. The front door closes with a thud.

And then silence comes to answer.

What just happened?

Your heart is thundering inside your chest, you’re starting to feel nauseous. What have I done? You keep asking over and over. You thought everything was going to be fine. He responded to your kiss earlier, didn’t he? You were sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing. But now he’s gone and you’re not sure whether he’s gonna come back as the same Haechan—the old, bratty but caring Lee Haechan. The one who snickers loudly when you fall face-first on the ground but always steals secret glances at you to make sure you're not hurt. The one who makes jokes about your love life but never forgets to show up at your apartment with a thoughtful gift right at the minute you turn a year older.

Things are not just gonna get awkward, they’re ruined.

When nearly half an hour has passed by and you’re still left alone in your apartment with no signs of him coming back, you’re about to go insane. You can’t stay still, walking back and forth your living room with the tip of your thumb between your teeth.

Should I chase after him and explain that it was just me trying to improvise? You hesitate with your hand lingering on the doorknob. But with your knees nearly giving up under your weight, you decide to stay put. It will probably just gonna make it worse. He’ll see through my lies, he always does.

You’re straying away to the kitchen, hands placed on the counter. You can feel your head spinning, stomach somersaulting. Damn it, why did I have to do that?! Why couldn’t I just—

The front door slams opened and Haechan barges in with his hair messy, ruffled by the wind, and his bangs sticking to his temple. Stunned, you stand still on your ground. Your heart is the only one that’s moving beyond control. His eyes scan your apartment until they land on yours and for an instant, everything seems to fade away.

“Fuck it,” he says, dropping his bag to the ground and making his way towards you in such a hurry, he nearly trips over his feet. “You’re not that good of an actor to be faking it.” Before you have the chance to even take a breath, Haechan’s lips are smashing against yours.

“Hae—” Haechan’s kiss is insane. So forceful that you can barely keep up, taking every bit of air directly from your lungs. He has you backed against the kitchen counter, the marbled edge digging into your skin. His hands frame your face, sliding against your cheek until they cup the backsides of your neck, his thumbs resting against your ears. You curl your fingers around his wrist, gasping, “Wait—”

He pulls away, lifting your face so you can’t bring your gaze anywhere else. “You like me?” His eyes are just as intense, begging for answers. “Please tell me I’m not imagining this.”

But behind that passion, his confidence is wavering. You can tell by his quivering breath, the little tremble running through his fingertips, and at that, you’re drowning in relief. You don’t think he’s that good of an actor to be faking this too.

“I do,” you admit, heart pounding so loudly that you can barely hear your own voice. “I like—”

His mouth is on yours again and it feels like he’s kissing you in a hundred different places at once. “Jesus Christ, why have you kept quiet about this for so long?” he says, tasting your breath and skin at the same time. “Two fucking years. We wasted two fucking years.”

The words this isn’t happening endlessly run through your head but all your senses scream that Haechan is really here, in your arms, his nails clawing against your shirt and there’s nothing left you want from this world.

When you reciprocate to him properly, your palms sliding up his chest, over his shoulder, until your arms circle his neck, Haechan sighs in content. His kisses grow slower—more relaxed—but deeper, his tongue peeking out shyly at first but not for long. He still tastes faintly like the coffee you made and something else entirely different. Something pleasant that’s just exactly how you’ve fantasized him to be, if not more.

He pulls away to catch his breath with his eyes still focusing on your lips, thumb rubbing your lower one. “Does this feel weird to you?” He whispers, his temple pressing against yours.

You’re intoxicated by his sweet scent though you’re not sure whether it’s the smell of his shampoo, his cologne, or just him altogether. “No,” and as soon as the word comes out, his lips are chasing after yours once more.

“Good, ‘cause I don’t think I can stop.” He’s breathing heavily against your mouth as you are against his. With his fingers twisted in your hair, making a messy ponytail out of it, Haechan peppers open-mouthed kisses on your neck, tongue pressing against your pulsating vein and a whimper escapes your mouth.

Your dreams, your fantasies—they all fall pale in comparison to reality. When you vocalize his name, it almost sounds like a plead and Haechan slants his mouth back on yours again, giving you another taste as he is not satisfied with yours just yet. “Your lips taste amazing,” he breathes out and it’s so quiet, it seems like he’s intending to say the words in his head and not with his mouth. But as his words fall on your ears, they send tingles down your spine.

“So do yours,” you reply, attempting to make him blush in return but if he does, he doesn’t show much. “Never pegged you as a man who wears lip balm.”

You can feel his smirk directly with your skin. “I’m not wearing any.”

“You’re not?” You lightly giggle, swiping your tongue across his lower lip. “Then your lips do taste amazing.”

Haechan’s hand is slipping underneath your shirt, fingers hovering above your bra. “Guess there are still a lot of things you don’t know about me, huh?”

“I’ve got a hunch you’re about to teach me?”

“Only if you’re eager to learn.”

The kiss becomes heavier that you’re lost for words, entirely consumed by his passion, until he breaks away, muttering, “Off, off, off, off, off,” as he struggles to tear the fabric away from your body. You titter at his desperation, raising both hands to help him out of his misery. The second it’s off, he lifts you by the waist and places you down on the counter.

“I’m amazed you could lift me,” you coo, admiring the sight of his lean stomach as he pulls his shirt over his head. His silver necklace hangs loosely around his neck and you hook a finger around it to yank him back to you.

He doesn’t seem to be able to detach his lips from yours for too long, especially when you keep sneaking glances at his. So when he speaks again, his every word is painted directly to your skin. “It wasn’t easy.” He settles between your thighs, mouth latching against your collarbone. “You weigh a ton.”

“Yeah?” You bite your lip, holding back a moan as he sucks bruises on your neck, the edge of his fingers trailing over the seam of your bra. “Then you must be so strong.”

“I am, haven’t you noticed?” Haechan pulls away just to showcase a mischievous grin. “I work out, you know.”

You blurt out laughing. It’s not solely because of the mental image of Lee Haechan—a full-time gamer, Lee Haechan—doing push-ups seems so funny to you. It’s more about the way he wiggles his eyebrow, trying to be sexy about it when you know he’s the weakest one in your group. Flustered at your reaction, he flicks your nose. “What is so funny?”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize though it doesn’t seem that much sincere with the way you’re still giggling at him. “It’s just that an hour ago we were two friends making fun of each other and now we’re here, in this position. I don’t know, it just feels surreal to me.”

An adorable pout blooms on his face. “I thought you said this didn’t feel weird.”

“No, it’s perfect. I want this.” You wrap the end of his necklace twice around your index finger. “I want you. It’s just… I’ve been imagining this to happen for such a long time and now that it’s happening, I’m feeling a lot of things at once.” You place a reassuring kiss on his temple. “I’m nervous.” This time landing one on his cheek. “I’m relieved.” When your lips hover above his, you notice him parting his own slightly in anticipation. “And it feels so good, I don’t ever want to stop. Even if that means we can’t go back to being friends.”

Haechan can’t form a response as you don’t let him, your mouth swallowing the tiny moans he emits. “We’ll talk about that later,” he hastily replies, “I still haven’t had enough of you yet.”

Without warning, he lifts you off the counter, making you yelp and wrap your legs around his waist for support. “Haechannie!” With you holding onto him, he takes a step forward, ignoring your call. “Where are you taking me—"

“Wait, no, back pain, back pain.” Both of you nearly tumble down to the ground from how he’s harshly placing you back to your feet, wincing at the ache erupting from the strained muscles in his spine. He’s groaning in pain, massaging his back with both hands. “Fuck, you’re really heavy!”

“That’s no way to talk to a lady.” You throw your slipper at him, missing his head just a few inches, laughing all the way. “What exactly were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to move us to the couch.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

“I was trying to be sexy.” He juts out his lower lip, and it takes all control of your body to not squeeze his cheeks from how adorable he looks.

“Honey, you are sexy, believe me, but you’re also weak as fuck. Consider hitting the gym for real next time and then carry me.”

“Shut up,” he sighs, holding out a hand for you to take. “To the couch, please? And maybe a massage after this ‘cause my back is killing me.”

Shaking your head in amusement, you take his hand, intertwining your fingers with his and drag him over to the couch. He’s in the middle of asking, “Do you want me to be on top or—” when you push him down and straddle his lap without warning, legs tangling around his hips. “Oh, okay.”

You run a hand through his hair, pushing them back so you can witness the glow in his eyes. “You look sexier with your hair pushed back.” You love the way he stares at you, eyes half-lidded painted with lust and desire. And combined with your commentary, he now has his cheek tinted with red. “Do you have a problem with me being on top?”

His eyes quickly run down to the place where your denim shorts are riding up your thighs, your zipper pressing against his groin. With a noticeable gulp, he stutters out, “N-no.”

You smile, patting his cheek. “Good.”

The kiss starts slow as you focus more on moving your hands down his body. Haechan shivers a little when your palm is pressing against his bare chest, sliding down to his navel. When you pull back, raising a questioning brow at his reaction, he bashfully says, “Your hand’s cold,” looking like a nervous little boy who’s a stark contrast to how he usually behaves.

He’s so cute.

“Well, I know a way to warm you up.” You smirk, almost cringing when you hear your own words but Haechan seems to like it.

“Oooh,” he coos, grinning against your lips. “Are you offering what I think you’re offering?”

“I don’t know.” You kiss your way down from his jawline to his chest, pushing yourself off his lap so you can kneel on the floor, your fingers unbuckling his belt. “What do you think I’m offering?”

Haechan’s eyes are glowing with anticipation. He curves his fingers around the edge of his seat, wetting his lip nervously when you pull his zipper down. You release him from his boxer, stroking him to life and he sinks his nails further into the couch. A train of expletives breaks free from his mouth but he’s so quiet, you can only hear his ragged breathing.

But by the time you run your thumb over his slit, your hot breath hitting his sensitive skin, Haechan melts into a whimpering mess. “Please don’t tease,” he begs.

“I haven’t even started, Haechannie.” And he looks like he’s about to say something but it only turns into a mewl when you press a kiss to his tip. “You’re so cute,” you comment, and he shivers when the vibration of your voice meets his skin.

Haechan tries to act composed. “Of course I’m cute, it’s—”

You cut his line short by darting out your tongue, giving kitten licks at the side, smiling satisfyingly when his eyes meet yours. As you give him a little suck around his tip, he throws his head back, his lower lip between his teeth. “I—I said don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing you.” But you are. How can you not? He looks so fucking cute. You’ve never really enjoyed giving head before, especially when your opponent gets rough and ends up pushing too deep until you gag. But with Haechan, you feel like you can do this for hours. He’s so nervous and shy, doesn’t even dare to place his hand on your hair, and his reaction to every bit of your action is honest even when his words aren’t.

“Here.” You take one of his hands, moving it to your head. “You can use me as much as you want.”

“Use—” he crumbles at your choice of words. When you suddenly envelop him with your mouth, moving from the tip to the base in one quick motion, Haechan instinctively grabs a handful of your hair, flinching. “Goddamn, why are you so fucking hot?”

You giggle, sliding his cock out of your mouth with an obscene pop. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean your mouth. It’s so fucking warm.”

“So, you’re saying,” you dip your tongue into his slit, eyes seductively peering into his. “I’m not hot?”

“You’re—Fuck, fuck—” Haechan seethes, hips buckling when you bob your head down again, tongue pressing against his veins. Shivers run through his fingertips when he slips them between your locks, pushing your fringe back to have a good look at your face. You catch a glimpse of him, his lips unconsciously moving to form words that you can’t hear. So pretty, he seems to say, and the thought of it makes your stomach lurch in delight. Taking him completely in your mouth, you hollow your cheeks, swallowing around him. He tightens his hold around your hair, cheeks flushed and you expect him to hold you in place so he can thrust against your mouth but what he does is pull you away. “Stop, stop, stop, stop.”

Wiping a string of saliva away with the back of your hand, you ask with a frown. “Something’s wrong?”

Haechan hides his reddening face behind his fingers, quietly answering, “I was about to come.”

You hold back a grin. With a nonchalant hum, you dip your head down again, this time engulfing him until he hits the back of your throat.

“Jesus Christ.” His sanity is deteriorating, he can feel it.

“Don’t bring Lord’s name when I have your dick in my mouth, Haechannie. Mark would kill you if he knew.”

“Fuck Mark. Come here.” He rushes forward, forcibly pulling you up with both hands clamping your arms. When you follow his order, settling back down on top of his lap, he confesses with his lips grazing against the shell of your ear. “I really won’t last long if you keep doing that.”

Despite your previous teasing and confidence, you squirm inside his arms, feeling warmth spreading from your chest to your cheek. “So I have these effects on you?”

He’s almost growling when he retorts, “You don’t even know.” Haechan pushes your bra strap until it falls off your shoulder, teeth marking your supple skin until you hiss in both pain and pleasure. He presses a softer kiss to soothe away the bruise. “Sorry, I… You’re gonna need to cover it up tomorrow.”

“It’s fine.” You stroke his cheek, tracing the tiny mole on his jawline. “Seems like you have a biting kink.”

He sheepishly chuckles, “I don’t know. But if you let me, I’d love to do that again.”

Something about him saying it in the most sincere way possible, almost too formal even, makes you crave more for him and everything he does. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want with me, Lee Donghyuck.”

Haechan swallows hard, barely has the bravery to look at you in the face after hearing your words and his real name tumbling out of your mouth. His fingers are now on the hem of your shorts, trembling a little bit. “Umm—may I?”

Helping him further, you stand on your knees, unclasping your bra first to his surprise and pulling your denim shorts and panties down to your thighs. Haechan watches with his eyes wide open, mouth parted in awe as he commits every bit of your curve and movement into memory. It feels so thrilling to be this wanted, to be ravished by his eyes, until you begin to struggle to push your clothing away from your legs.

“Need some help?” He asks, lips pursing as he tries to hide a grin.

You exhale loudly, detaching yourself from him. “Let me just—” You jump off his lap, standing back with your feet on the ground, and kicking the clothing away with annoyance—why in the world did you have to wear shorts this tight—and slap him in the chest when he’s chuckling at the sight.

“Maybe you should stop trying to be sexy too,” Haechan snickers.

“Shut up.” You crawl back into his lap. “Go back to staring dumbly at me like before. I’m naked.”

“I wasn’t staring like tha—oh,” he inhales sharply as you grind your heat against his cock, amazed at how warm you are despite your cold palms. The sensation of skin meeting skin feels much more different. There’s really no going back this time. Somehow, it feels dangerous, as if you’re doing something forbidden and it makes your skin crawl with excitement.

And by the look on his face, seems like he feels the same way.

“Lost for words?” You taunt him with a smirk, hands on his chest. “That’s new.” His glare is menacing but it falters away the second you rub your arousal against his.

His head falls to his shoulder, eyes tightly shut. “God, baby…”

There it is again. The funny feeling in your stomach. “Baby?” You simper though your heart is palpitating like crazy. “We’re moving on to giving each other pet names now?”

If he can blush any harder than this, he probably might but with the way you’re grinding shamelessly on his cock, letting him get a glimpse of how wet and warm you are, he’s all maxed-out.

His earlobe lays between your teeth when you whisper, “Shall we put it in?”

Haechan’s nails are sinking into the skin of your hips, both to hold you in place so you’ll stop torturing him and to press you down harder on his crotch. “I…” He’s so distracted, he can’t even think. The way the side of his length is pressing against your folds is pushing every little bit of self-control he has to the back of his head.

“Haechannie?” You giggle, moving your hips. “I kinda asked you a question here.”

“Yes, fuck, yes, please.” Haechan tries his very best to not sound that desperate for your touch but he is that desperate. “Wait—aren’t we—shouldn’t I wear a condom first?”

You blink, halting your movement. “You brought a condom with you?”

He nods as he leans forward, fingers searching frantically at the pocket of his jeans that hang low on his knees. “Here.”

“Why do you have a condom with you?”

“‘Cause I bought it downstairs just now.”

Your jaw grows slack at the realization. “Is that the reason why your hair was so messy and you were sweating when you barged in here? ‘Cause you ran downstairs, trying to find a condom?”

“I’m sorry, are you really complaining about this now?”

At the feeling of his member twitching underneath you, you sigh. “You’re right. Let’s discuss that later.”

It feels a bit awkward when you stand on your knees, giving him some space and wait until he finishes wrapping the rubber around himself. The silence that hangs between you is almost deafening that by the time he’s done and you fall back to his lap, sitting on his thighs, it feels like you have to start over again.

You diffidently smile. “Hey.”

Haechan is equally as embarrassed, mirroring your gesture. “Hi.”

“I guess we’re gonna have sex.”

“Guess so.”

Another few seconds pass by where you can only meet each other’s eyes, feeling your heartbeat racing louder and louder. It feels like you’re about to burst, honestly, but fortunately for you, Haechan leans in, his fingers tentatively caressing your cheek. “Can I kiss you?” He questions.

You melt under his gaze, his gentle touch, his honey-like voice. “Yes, please.”

Your lips start the connection and the rest of your body follows, fitting every curve of his perfectly like you were made for him. The way Haechan sighs against your mouth sends sparks of electricity all the way down to your toes and you don’t waste any more time. With his mouth latching on your breast, tongue flicking against your nipple, you lower yourself on him.

Haechan’s hold your waist tighter, eyebrows adjoined in the middle at the sensation, his moans muffled. He presses his spine back against the couch, admiring the sight of his member disappearing inch by inch into you. His eyes begin to droop when he’s completely sheathed inside, his bruised lips parted. He cups your cheek, kissing you softly on the corner of your mouth, making you shiver at the sudden tenderness. “I guess we are having sex,” he murmurs with a bashful smile.

You can’t help but laugh a little. “I guess so.”

It starts slow, with you placing both hands on his chest and him swallowing his breath at the sight of you moving up and down his length. You hiss slightly at the friction, adjusting to his size.

“Does it hurt?” He asks, tucking a few loose strands behind your ear.

“A little.” You reassure him with a grin. “Relax, you’re not gonna break me.”

You expect him to send back a snarky remark but what he does is press his forehead against yours. “You’re so warm,” he whispers, tasting the skin that connects your shoulder to your neck. Something about his words, his sensual kiss and his tender touch makes you squeeze your walls around him and he clutches harder around you. He glides his hands lower to your hips, silently urging you to pick up the pace and you follow.

Breathing heavily, Haechan has his thumb grazing your lower lip. “You have such a pretty mouth,” he professes as if he was in a trance.

You seductively bite his thumb, still working your hips. “You’re saying that ‘cause I just sucked your dick.”

“Yes, that too, but really.” It’s as if he’s staring at a work of art, eyes twinkling with admiration. Sometimes, when you’re hitting the right spot and quiver around him, a small moan escapes his lips and you feel him twitching inside you. “It’s—ah—It probably doesn’t sound sincere when I’m saying this now, but I’ve always thought you had a pretty mouth. And lips. I’ve thought about your lips a lot.”

“Yeah?” You mouth against the sensitive skin below his ear, sinking harder on his length. “What else do you like about me?”

“Y-your voice—” You can actually feel him shivering. “You have such a—fuck—I just—I really love your moans.”

You’re not sure whether he’s saying that because he’s so distracted with the way you’re breathing in his ear or he genuinely loves it. Either way, it’s a pleasure to know how much you’re affecting him with your actions. With a chuckle, you say, “You’re rambling, baby.”

“And your hair,” he adds, probably losing every bit of his self-control by this point. “I love your hair. Looks so soft.” Haechan cards his fingers through your strands. “Feels so soft.”

You hum in response, hoping that your flushed face doesn’t look as apparent as you think. “Anything else?”

“Your—” He shudders when you paint a mark under his collarbone. “Your ass.”

You stop, pulling away to give him a look and he whines at the loss. “My ass?”

“What—” The tips of his ears are turning red, steam practically coming out of them. “Why are you staring at me like that—you have a great ass!”

Teasing him is such a joy to you. “Then, let’s do it this way.” You part away from him, landing back on the carpeted floor so you can turn around, giving him the chance to ogle at your behind, before you ease yourself down onto his lap once more.

“Fuck—” Haechan’s hisses, his hands going down to your hips again. The new position doesn’t allow you to meet his eyes but with the way he’s whimpering behind you, fingers trailing over the curve of your ass, the sensation increases.

“You okay back there?” You taunt smugly, chuckling a bit because Haechan sounds like he’s losing it. His nails are sinking into your skin and you just know that’s gonna leave a nasty bruise tomorrow. “You seem like you’re enjoying this way too—“ You’re interrupted by your own moans when he suddenly has one hand massaging your breast and another one sliding down your stomach to find your clit. “W-wait, Haechannie—”

“You’re such a tease,” he breathily whispers into your ear, his chest pressing against your spine as he leans forward, pulling you into his embrace. “Isn’t that supposed to be my job?”

His fingers are rubbing you in circles, making your thighs tremble. “You’re right.” You move your hips harder, going out of rhythm with how fast you’re going and Haechan sinks his teeth to your shoulder again.

At the sound of his name departing your lips in the most sinful moan he’s ever heard, Haechan curses. “Shit, you’re not gonna let me enjoy this longer, are you?”

“There’s always a second round, Haechannie.” You smirk, raising your hips all the way up in intention to slam it back down again but Haechan catches you and pushes you forward until you land on the coffee table, stomach pressing flat against the wooden surface. “What—"

“There’s always a second round, right?” His lips are brushing against your ear as he positions himself behind you. “Then I’m going all out.”

When he slams his hips in one swift motion, hard and deep, he knocks all the air out of your lungs. “Wait—” You choke out, can barely keep up with his pace. “Oh God—”

“Now, now,” he coos, his hand finding its way to your throat, fingers pressing against your veins. He raises your face, his chest completing the dip of your spine. “Don’t bring God’s name when I’m fucking you like this, baby.”

You can’t even find the strength to retort, eyes shutting tightly until you see stars behind your eyelids. It almost feels unreal how fast he can go from being awkward and tentative about all of this to raw and wild within a few minutes but Haechan has always been fast adapting to new situations and you have been teasing him way too much. It’s about time that he snaps.

Haechan moves you down to the floor, forcing you to stand on all fours and you’re so glad you follow his lead. “Spread your knees. Bring your head down,” he instructs and you do as you’re told, extending your arms in front of you. Haechan has his hand on the dip of your shoulder blades, holding you still until you have no choice but to press your cheek against the carpeted floor, ass in the air. “Good girl,” he praises, kneeling behind you and rubbing his tip along your folds. “Ready, baby?”

He doesn’t wait for your answer.

With only a few minutes in, you know you’re getting close, you can feel it. He has switched from giving deep, hard thrusts to quick, shallow ones and it’s driving you insane. “H-Haechannie, I—” you whimper, “I’m close—”

And he knows it too, of course he does. He can tell by the way you’re clenching around him. But instead of going harder and driving you completely over the edge, Haechan suddenly laces his fingers with yours, his lips painting soft kisses from your nape down to your spine, his hips hitting another angle that feels just as amazing even when he slows down the pace. The intimacy surprises you as you don’t expect him to be this tender. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like you’re doing this out of sheer passion. With his palm covering the back of your hand, fingers slipping between yours, somehow, everything feels more sentimental, stronger, crossing the lines.

With a moan of your name, Haechan flips you to your back, fingers framing your face, lips meeting lips as he thrusts back in, gasping against your mouth. “I want to see your face,” he says when he pulls away, his half-lidded eyes boring into yours, thumb slipping between your lips. “Not sure if I’ve told you this before but…” He snaps his hips, and you tangle your legs around them in response, fingernails digging into his upper arms. “You’re so beautiful.”

The knot in your stomach untangles without warning and your orgasm hits you so hard, you nearly sob at the sensation. With the way you’re quivering and squeezing around him, Haechan follows right after, his face sinking into the crook of your neck, hips stuttering as he rides out his own orgasm.

***

With his jeans back on and his used condom thrown away to the nearest trash bin, Haechan joins you back on the carpeted floor as you still haven’t found the strength to get up and get dressed after that. He shamelessly lays his body down on top of yours, his cheek pressing against the valley of your breasts. “I’m spent,” he mumbles, feeling drowsy.

“Haechannie?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re heavy.”

“I know.” But he doesn’t get up, only moving his head slightly to press a tiny kiss to your bare chest before he lies his head down over your heart again. You give up with a smile, wrapping your arms around him, fingertips stroking his hair. Haechan sighs contentedly under your touch. “Man, that was…”

“That was?”

“Amazing.” He props himself up on his elbows so he can meet your eyes. “You’re amazing.”

Your heart jolts at the sincerity in his words but you cooly smile back. “I know.”

“And I’m amazing too, I’m sure?”

“Meh,” you shrug. “Could be a little better but I’ll let you practice on me for free.”

“Jesus Christ.” He shakes his head, his strands tickling your nose. “I don’t even have the strength to join your banter. You know, I’ve always wondered since you’re pretty much shit at everything, there must be something you’re good at. But I never thought that something would turn out to be sex. I can’t even believe I’m saying this but you’re really, really amazing at it. I feel like I should give you a medal or something.”

“Thanks,” you flatly mutter. “Not sure if you’re praising me, though.”

“Oh, I am praising you, believe me. And you know me, I rarely praise.”

“Stop it,” you use your robotic voice. “You’re making me feel so special, I’m about to cry.”

Haechan playfully nips at your nose, forcing you to break off your act and laugh directly into his mouth. “Seriously,” he says, breaking off the kiss. “If I were to pay you for sex, I would give you everything I own. Even the clothes I’m wearing. Hell, I’d even sell my grandma but don’t tell her that.”

Your laughter has reduced into small giggles. “That’s comforting.”

“So…” The way Haechan is caressing your hair is so soft, almost like a mother to her sleeping child. “What should we do about this?” When you raise an eyebrow, he tensely adds, “Do you, umm… I mean, do you want to, like—”

“You’re rambling.”

“I know, God, I’m so nervous! I may look like a naughty, sexy bad boy—”

“No one is saying that—“

“But I actually suck at this—as in, I don’t really know how to date a girl.”

“You don’t even know how to talk to a girl, based on the conversations we’ve had,” you comment and you know it’s not helping but it’s worth seeing his adorable pout. “Then don’t date me. If it’s hard for you to date, then let’s just keep being friends—"

“But I want to continue this!” He says it so fast and firmly that you don’t even have time to feel hurt about your offer.

It’s not like you crave a relationship with him—you haven’t thought about it that far—even just holding him like this is enough for now, so the fact that he’s so excited to have this going makes your heart swells with joy. “Well then, we’ll be friends who have casual sex anytime we want,” you suggest.

He blinks twice, a bit amazed at your offer, but to your surprise, he seems rather… disappointed? “What happens if we start catching feelings?” He quietly asks.

“Then I guess we’ll start dating for real.”

“Then…” He runs a hand through his hair, nervous. “What happens if I already have feelings for you?”

He states it so quietly, it’s a miracle you can even hear him. “Do you want to date me, Haechannie?”

He looks away, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. “Do you want to date me?” He murmurs against your skin, unsure and flustered.

You heave the heaviest sigh you’ve ever done in your life. “You’re unbelievable. I’ll decide for us then. Starting now, we’re dating.”

He lifts his head, and if he were a puppy, he would’ve had his tail wagging behind him, even when his face doesn’t show much. “That easy?”

“That easy. What, you have something to complain about?”

“No.” He grins, pressing a chaste kiss on your lips. “Hey, girlfriend.”

“Ugh, get off me, you’re gross.”

But no matter how hard you push your palm against his face, Haechan only giggles and turns you around so this time, you’re lying on his chest. “So,” he pushes a few strands of your hair behind your ear. “You like me, huh?”

“No, what makes you think that way?”

“Says the girl who just slept with me.”

“I slept with you ‘cause I was just curious about your dick. Jeno said you had a dick that was the size of his thumb.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Didn’t you see his InstaStory last night?” You reach up to gather your phone from the coffee table. “I took a screenshot of it actually. Man, you should’ve seen the comments. They’re hilarious.”

Snatching your phone away, Haechan runs his eyes along the words written on the screen. “That son of a bitch!”

Simpering, you sneak a peek under his boxer. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

“Oh, it’s on,” he deadpans, throwing your phone away and pushes you back down on the floor. His eyes glinting mischievously.

“What are you doing?” You’re still half-laughing when he brings your hands over your head, holding your wrists together with one hand as he settles between your thighs, his fingers hovering dangerously close.

“I’m gonna make you take your words back.” He wets his lip, one corner of his mouth turning upward. “Time for the second round, baby.”

***

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echo-of-sounds · 4 years

Text

daddy dom

Headcanons on the types of Daddy Dom Aizawa, Gang Orca, and Hound Dog are.

I was going to include all six guys in this but it got so much longer than I initially planned. Toshi, Hizashi, and Fatgum are coming tomorrow!

Warnings: Daddy Dom relationship, (the rest is only mentioned, there’s no real detail) punishments, choking, slapping, spanking, spitting, hair pulling, and rough sex

Aizawa Shouta

Shouta had an inkling he was interested in dominance when he started having sex. The Daddy Dom surfaced after a one-night stand happened to moan ‘Daddy.’ He enjoyed it, looked into the subject deeper, and realized that’s exactly what he wanted, needed. However, he hasn’t had a relationship where he’s felt comfortable enough or been in one long enough to practice it.

As your relationship develops, it is something he brings up because he isn’t shy about it. He wants to be your Daddy. He wants to be his girl’s protector and her anchor. He praises you when you’re doing well. He says how proud he is. He loves and cuddles you on your bad days. When you’re crying and scared, he’s right beside you, huddling you to his chest, protecting you from whatever you fear.

Pet names are a rarity. On the odd occasion a good girl slips out, it’s a telltale sign he’s in a highly dominant mood. You’re expected to listen, do what you’re told, and say, ‘please and thank you.’ To make you feel fluttery and happy, he’ll call himself Daddy as he’s helping you.

Kitten is even more limited. He uses it when you dress up in the pink lingerie he bought you. It has a little collar with a bell, a cat-eared headband, garter bands, and cute, frilly panties and bra. There’s also a cat tail butt plug you can play with. But there’s a catch- there’s depreciation. If you use it too much, he isn’t as excited and it’s clear to see. You need to keep the lingerie away until you’re in dire need of your Daddy and a good fucking.

He takes pride and joy in seeing your smile at a new, fancy bracelet or an adorable teddy bear. But he’s uncertain when buying. He knows what you like, yet he just can’t decide on which dress you’d prefer. Despite his self-doubts, his presents are usually excellent, especially any soft, thigh-high stockings or cute, striped panties he brings home.

Though you won’t ever be able to tell, sometimes it is hard for Shouta to discipline you. He enjoys your bratty moods and how you ignore his commands to sit still. Your whimpers and whines and facial expression are incredibly cute. But at the end of the day, he is your Daddy and it’s his responsibility to keep you on track and provide stability. His go-to punishment is no orgasming… for a long time. You can’t touch yourself or grind on a pillow. If you beg, it’ll only extend the punishment. Occasionally, spanking is also used, particularly when you’re riding him and not listening.

Highly dominant doesn’t always mean rough. Yes, he is that most of the time. But he has periodic moods where he won’t use discipline. It’s when he’s in a coddling mood. Daddy becomes gentle, erotic, intent, and intimate. Don’t hold back your moans. Please, whine and whimper and fuss and mewl. Your soft cries and little wriggles please him so.

When he is rough, you’ll be leaving red streaks down his back. He loves seeing them in the mirror the next morning, so he strives to get you that aroused and pleasured every time. And nothing is truly off the books for him. Whatever you wish, he’ll command: slapping, spanking, choking, hair pulling, and spitting.

Shouta is more of a nonverbal Daddy. Both of you know he’s dominant and it’s your job to behave, so he doesn’t feel the need to command you as much as others may. He just yanks your body around as he pleases, slaps and chokes you when you don’t listen or get off-topic, and spits on your tongue to get you to quiet down. Now that doesn’t mean he won’t talk. At your misdoings, his steeled voice is gruff and guttural, commanding, punishing, and asking what you did wrong.

Daddy gets even more domineering when you cum without permission. That’s the one rule you should never break. If he’s feeling charitable (which is rarer than a blue moon), he’ll let you cum. Other times, he’s deepthroating you, cumming down your throat, and making you swallow it. And that’s all you’ll get. Again, don’t beg. That’ll worsen the punishment. All you can do is be a good girl and hope he lets you cum in the next few days.

Gang Orca

Kugo never considered himself a Daddy or any sort of dominant man in general. The few times he’s had sex, he was more on the submissive side, letting his partner lead and ride him as they wished. His fear of hurting his partner really held him back. However, the instant he hears you softly, weakly whine Daddy, gently pawing his chest, pining for him to make you feel good, the switch is flicked and there’s no going back.

Before he fully engages in the Daddy Dom relationship, he does a lot of reading and asks you question after question. If he ever hurt you or pushed past your limits, he’d all but die inside. You need to ease into it. Let him become accustomed to the power dynamics, the dirty talking, what’s expected from him, and the lifestyle.

In the beginning, he’s as sweet as can be. You’re his little one whom he loves to spoil. He buys you dainty panties, comfy sweaters, and dresses for every occasion. You should always model clothing for Daddy. He’ll appreciate your appreciation. As you turn around in a cute, lace nightgown, his fingers flow up your thighs, caressing between them, gently brushing along your new panties, making sure everything fits perfectly.

He gradually leans into the discipline aspect as the relationship grows. Once comfortable with himself and you, the punishments come frequently. They depend on the severity of your bad behavior. If you don't listen, you don’t get sweets. If you didn’t listen twice, you have extra chores to do. If you didn’t listen three times, no sexual gratification of any kind for however long Daddy deems necessary.

In spite of that, he is a weak Daddy when it comes to his little one. Your puppy-dog eyes burrow into his heart. Your wiggling thighs get him heated. Your little mewls for your Daddy’s attention haunt him. But he doesn’t give in all the time. He still has structure, stability, and dominance to uphold.

Kugo is truly a safe Daddy. He’s your secret place where your every thought, desire, emotion, and fear will always be heard, understood, and respected. Whatever you tell Daddy when you’re curled up on his chest, snuggled in his arms, stays with Daddy. He guides you through the crowded mall, nurses the cuts on your legs, acts as an anchor through depression and anxiety, and protects you from the rumbling thunder. And by God, is he protective.

Protectiveness is his main characteristic. He wants you to wear his T-shirt and sweatshirts. When he cums, he seats himself fully insides, letting him empty out completely. His hands rub your lower stomach like he’s feeling his property. Even as he falls flaccid, he stays inside. He needs to make sure everything has drained. If he could, he’d keep you filled with his seed forever.

Tender, slow sex involves you riding Daddy. He squeezes your thighs and tummy as you bounce. He praises every movement, every part, every itty-bitty sound. Your passion is so important to him. Seeing your body seek out its pleasure and rapture in the safety of your own little world fills his heart with love.

Dominant Daddy is less common yet so fulfilling. His thick, wet tongue washes deep. Fingers spread you wide. His erection spreads you further. You’ll be thrown on the bed, stuck under him for multiple beautiful orgasms. As you cum, moan ‘thank you’ again and again. Your gratitude encourages him. He’ll keep you moaning into the morning.

Hound Dog

The second Ryo entered that seriously horny stage of puberty, he knew his dominance. As he started having sex, it only flourished. He’s rough, fast, controlling, and one-hundred percent, hands down a brat tamer. Your whines and protests are cute, but he always wins. Hearing his rasping, growling voice is enough to get you to concede to his demands.

Aftercare and any delicate aspects will take time and learning on his part. He wants to be so gentle, caring, and sweet with you. His natural rough nature gets in the way. As any good Daddy is patient with his little girl, a good girl needs to be patient with him. And when he gets there, he gets there. You’ll be swaddled in a warm blanket, given candy and drinks, and your favorite bed-time Tv will play while you wind down. His warm, smooth tongue laps over bruises and scratches.

There’s one big thing about this Daddy: God, he just loves to watch you suck: him (specifically his foreskin), his fingers, your fingers, a lollipop, a pacifier, whatever. Lay on his chest, wrapped in a blanket, and nurse on a binkie as you fall asleep. The most common way sex starts is with a blowjob. It commonly ends that way as well. He either makes you finish him with no pleasure for you or, after you’re finished, he lays you down and deepthroats you.

Right off the bat, punishments are a main part. There’s a written list on the fridge you must obey. Though he doesn’t spank. You might act up just to get spanked, and he won’t have that. The discipline always matches the offense. Are you back talking? You’re eating something you don’t like. Is your temper too hot? You’re taking an ice-cold shower for five minutes. Are you ignoring him? Daddy’s going to rile you up then leave you hanging and whining, showing you what it’s like to be neglected.

After the punishment is complete, Ryo transitions right into aftercare. Daddy loves you enough to punish you. That love is strengthened after by his licks and kisses. Besides, Daddies who don’t show their little girl compassion and care afterward, aren’t good Daddies. He loves and respects you and wants you to know, see, and feel that.

And the punishments never push past your boundaries. You’re never put in danger. In any way. The safe word is always available. He won’t give you food you truly can’t handle for whatever reason. He’s right beside you as you shower just in case something goes wrong. The moment the water’s shut off, you’re immediately swathed in a cozy towel.

During one of his more… inflamed moods, you’re fastened in a collar. It’s pink with little flowers. The heart decoration on the front is a padlock. Only he has the key. It has ‘Daddy’s Girl’ inscribed on the back. It goes on as soon as you get home. And it stays on until you leave. There is a leash he’ll use if you aren’t behaving, holding, leading, and controlling all your movements.

There are times when he goes into (sort of) a heat. It could be a quirk side effect. It could just be him. Either way, you’re going to get completely dominated. Your hair will be pulled. Your throat will be choked and fucked. Your cheeks, both sets, will be red and raw. Scratch marks and dark bruises will stain your neck, legs, and back.

His favorite is any doggy-style position. It’s carnal and crude. Daddy has total authority since his weight bears down, caging you to the bed. Use your voice. Let him hear every gasp and cry. Beg for him. Plead for more. Pray for just one more orgasm as your hair’s tugged and clit’s smack sore. The harder you crave, the harder he thrusts.

Sweet sex is a rare time when he kisses and cuddles. Heat surrounds you. Muscled thighs and callused hands direct your weak, longing body. His tongue never leaves your mouth, licking over yours, causing drivel to drip down your chin. It may not be rough, but the sincerity and intimacy provide more than enough pleasure for an amazing orgasm. And Daddy passionately walks you through it.

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years

Note

This request is the result of a very awake mind at 2 am. How about a part crack, part tooth-rotting fluff fic about and interview with characters of your choice.

I tried my best with this... it's difficult to do crack in such a short piece (hence this one ended up being a little longer) and although I think writing crack is really fun, I have no experience in the field XD. So... hope this is what you were looking for XD.

The Case of the Forgotten Birthday Gift

Summary: When the ninja are invited to the Ivory City of Shintaro for Princess Vania’s birthday, they find themselves in the most devastating predicament of all- they forgot to bring a birthday gift for Vania. In a panic, Cole offers her a chance to interview them as compensation. Not everyone is thrilled about the idea.

“We thank you for attending Princess Vania’s birthday,” King Vangelis said, hovering before the ninja with two winged guardsmen at his sides. “We ask that you leave any gifts on this table.” He gestured towards a table that was practically groaning under the weight of all the presents atop it.

“Um.” Cole blanched. “Gift?”

“Cole!” Jay whispered harshly in his ear. “Don’t tell me. That you didn’t bring a present for the princess. On her birthday.”

“I didn’t bring one? Last time I checked, we were all invited! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, I didn’t, so you better come up with something now or they’ll never invite us back here again!”

“Uh…” Cole’s brain felt like it was whirring a mile a minute, and he reluctantly turned back to the king. “Thank you, your majesty, but our gift to the princess is not something material.”

King Vangelis raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No, it’s a… it’s um… we’re giving you a free interview.”

“What?!” the other ninja all yelped, at the same time that Vania beamed, clapping her hands together.

“I get to interview the ninja? The ninja? Truly, this is the best birthday present ever!”

“Cole,” Kai groaned, putting his head in his hands, “what have you done?”

---

“When I told you to come up with something to give the princess, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Jay grumbled from where he was sitting stiffly in a chair next to Cole. “Did you really have to offer the girl who’s obviously a bit bonkers about us an interview?”

“I didn’t see you coming up with anything better,” Cole snapped. “Besides, she may be a bit obsessed, but she seems nice enough. Just go along with it. She’s like any other fan.”

“Any other fan, you say? I wouldn’t be so sure!”

Cole sighed, glancing back at where Lloyd was standing atop his chair, glaring down at them. “Lloyd, sit down.”

“She’s no normal fan, I’m telling you! I don’t trust her! She was too excited about this interview! She’s out to get us, she just wants to trick us into giving away information so she can exploit our weaknesses!”

Kai glanced back and forth between Lloyd and Cole. “Seriously, does no one else see what an obvious cry for therapy this is?”

“Lloyd!” Cole hissed. “For the last time! Sit. Down.”

“Don’t worry, Lloyd,” Zane said as the teen plopped down grumpily in his seat. “The odds of our team member’s princess girlfriend turning out to be the leader of a criminal gang for the second time in our lives are practically nonexistent! Under seventy percent, at least.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Cole snapped.

Zane blinked. “Well, then whose is she?”

“Not mine,” Jay told them, grabbing Nya’s hand. “I’m already engaged!”

Kai laughed. “No thanks, she’s not my type. Plus, I already have a girlfriend who stabbed me in the back, although luckily for me, mine came around, eventually.”

“For the last time, Vania is not going to betray us!”

“It’s not our fault we have trust issues,” Lloyd sniffed. “You’d think someone would book us therapy, but apparently that’s not a priority.”

“Well, if she herself isn’t evil, maybe she’s related to someone evil!” Kai said. “Skylor’s evil, psychotic father influenced her to turn on me. Do you think Vania has an evil, psychotic father?”

“Definitely,” Lloyd agreed, at the same time Nya said “No way.”

Nya shook her head. “Do you know how ridiculous you guys sound? How many evil, psychotic fathers can there be out there?”

“Um. There’s Chen, Milton Dyer, Skales, my father- need I go on?”

“Don’t forget Nadakhan’s evil djinn father!” Jay chimed. Lloyd blinked at him. “Who?”

“See? That’s barely any!” Nya exclaimed. “Besides, like half of those people are good now, so they don’t count.”

“But they were, which means there’s a high chance of King Vangelis being evil and psychotic-”

“Who’s evil and psychotic?” A cheery voice interrupted them as Princess Vania pushed open the doors.

“Oh, uh… just an old villain we faced,” Cole covered quickly.

“Oh, you must tell me all about them!” Vania smiled, pushing the doors closed behind her and clicking the lock.

Kai blinked. “Did you just lock us in?”

“Of course! I can’t have anyone else breaking in here and trying to eavesdrop on my very special interview!”

“Do people break into your room often?” Nya laughed.

“Not at all! Only a few times a week.”

“Um… you do realize that we’re crime-fighting ninja, right?” Jay told her. “We have lots of enemies. Maybe you should have some people guarding us while we’re here.”

“Oh, don’t worry! If anyone attacks you, Chompy will scare them off!” The ninja looked to where she was pointing to see a tiny dragon snoozing on Vania’s bed.

“Oh, how reassuring,” Kai said dryly. “The overgrown gecko can keep us safe.”

Vania raised an eyebrow. “You’re lucky he’s asleep. Mr. Chompy does not play nice when he’s angry.”

“Oh yeah, I’m so scared,” Kai grinned, leaning back.

Vania narrowed her eyes at him. “He killed a dire bat once.”

“Yeah, well, we fought off an entire flock of them from our ship.”

“First of all, it’s called a colony of bats, not a flock. Second, I know that a squadron of our guards had to go save you.”

“We didn’t need saving! They interrupted us just as I was about to use my mighty fire powers to burn them to a crisp!” “Chompy would knock them out of the sky before you could do that.”

“Yeah, well, I could squish Chompy under my foot.”

“Chompy could gouge out your eyes.”

“Oookay, as fun as this is,” Cole interrupted, pushing them apart, “Let’s just get this interview over with. Vania, what questions did you want to ask us?”

“Hold on.” Vania jogged over to the wall and pulled over a small table, setting up a camera on top of it.

Jay stared at it. “What is that.”

“I need to record this, silly!”

“What’s the point of locking us in here and not letting anyone else listen in if you’re just going to broadcast this whole thing to everyone, anyway?” Nya asked.

“Because seeing it live isn’t half as fun as watching a recording!”

“Then why record it at all?”

“How else am I going to rub it in all my friends’ faces that I met the ninja?”

“This is a non-consensual violation of my privacy,” Jay grumbled.

“Oh please, your face is over half the city,” Cole sighed.

“Welcome back to Truthful Tidbits! I’m your host, Vania, and I’m here with an exclusive episode today- with me, I have the famous ninja!” “What,” Lloyd said slowly, “are you doing?”

“It’s for my TV show,” Vania whispered.

“You have a TV show?” Nya spluttered.

“Wait, no one told me this was going to be on TV!” Kai yelped. “The camera’s not getting my good side!”

“Wait, if this is a TV show, shouldn’t we have makeup artists or something?”

“Jay’s right!” Kai agreed. “I can’t go on television without a makeover!”

“My database shows no recollection of the show ‘Truthful Tidbits.’”

“It’s not on mainstream television,” Vania grumbled. “I just show them to my videography class.”

“Oh.” Jay relaxed in his chair. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it? People are still going to see me without makeup! Just because it’s a small group doesn’t make this any less of a disaster!”

“I’m hoping to change that,” Vania beamed. “This is the big break I need! An interview with the ninja? Everyone will want to see it!”

“Andddd we’re back to privacy invasion again,” Jay groaned.

“Wanna bounce, Jay?” Lloyd asked.

“Do I ever-”

“Count me in, guys, I’m not doing this without a proper makeup job-”

“If you guys are all leaving, I’m not going to stay!” Nya insisted. “Zane?”

“It seems futile to stay if you all are leaving.” “You can’t leave!” Vania cried. “This is my present! Besides, you’re locked in here!”

Lloyd stared her dead in the eyes. “I will literally jump out the window to get out of this.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ll die!”

“Then tell Chumpy to catch me,” he told her, already climbing into the window.

“It’s Chompy!”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Kai reached out a hand, snatching the back of Lloyd’s gi before he could jump. “I don’t want to spend the rest of our stay in a hospital. What did you think was going to happen, you were going to sprout wings?”

“I’m part dragon,” Lloyd grumbled. “It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.”

“I have a much less life-threatening way. Stand back.” Kai’s fist lit up in flames.

“I swear, Kai, if you burn down anything, we are never coming back here,” Cole warned.

“A little arson never hurt anyone.” Hurtling a fireball at the door, it burst into flames. Quickly, it burned a human-sized hole in the door, and Kai, Jay, and Lloyd quickly darted through.

“What about my interview?” Vania protested. “You promised!”

“Technically, Cole was the one who promised you the interview,” Zane pointed out. “He never specified which of us you would be interviewing.”

“And since Cole’s staying, we’re technically not breaking that promise!” Nya added.

Cole blinked. “I’m what?”

“Staying. Have fun, you two!” Nya waved, and the two of them shot out the door, spraying ice and water as they passed to extinguish the flames.

“Sorry about that, princess,” Cole said, scratching the back of his neck.

Vania narrowed her eyes. “This better be the best interview ever.”

Cole grinned. “Mark my words, it will be. Fire away.”

“Speaking of fire, you’re paying for my door.”

“... Yeah, I figured.”

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kyle-valenti · 3 years

Text

burnout only feels like burning

2.7k / Summary: kyle valenti doesn't have the same quarantine as his friends; an exploration of kyle's trauma during covid as a doctor. (tw depression & other triggers you’d imagine with this subject)

read & comment/ ao3

A little like the virus itself, Kyle’s relationship with his mask begins with worry, annoyance, and then pain. He’s more than happy to have the proper N-95 mask as they begin to get their first case at Roswell General but then a couple more patients trickle in and within a few days his skin is irritated and itching. Maybe it’s the news, maybe it’s the texts from his friends that he’s increasingly missing, but when the Regiment starts spouting off about how COVID is a joke he thinks it might be affecting his nerves too. By week three his former red mark left by the mask has become a permanent feature to his face and by week five it’s not a mark but a bruise instead. Blisters and cracks in his skin litter his hands from over-washing. His feet become so overused the pads of his feet feel numb and bruised and he wears through an entire pair of shoes.

Positivity has fled from his life by week seven and now he’s inside of a survival mode he’s never experienced. He thought after last year he’d be used to anything the world (or universe, rather, given all these aliens) could throw at him. Now what feels foolish, he had believed that there was nothing that could be worse than the previous pain of losing a patient or finding out his father had experimented on people’s lives.

When he’s out of ventilators and CPAP machines because Albuquerque needs them more and he has to choose whether or not to save the life of an eighty five year old or a thirty two year old he remembers from high school, he breaks.

Guilt is one thing, grief is another, but the pure rage he feels knowing that Max Evans is out on the town patrolling as some fucking cop and not someone who could heal most of this hospital makes him want to commit actual murder. Maybe trading the blood of an alien on his hands would feel less heart-wrenching. But no. Max had brought back Rosa and had paid the price. Quelling his anger, he went back to work.

He slept at the hospital most nights in the height of it. Sure the couch was rough, but it was better than the other on-call doctor beds down the hall. Three twelve hour ER shifts of a usual work week doubled to five days of thirteen hour shifts. Soon there’s a week where he pulls double shifts for an entire week when one of his nurses is urgently hospitalized herself. Hospital directors had left them with no PPE except contaminated masks to reuse. Maria, Isobel, and Rosa are in the forefront of a drive to make and donate masks to his hospital after some social media posts that he doesn’t even see until the cloth masks arrive and his medical assistants give him their handwritten note. It makes him smile, but smiling feels so foreign that he almost wants to break from that.

Visitors are no longer allowed which means Kyle isn’t allowed to use his bedside manner to comfort the family of patients. He has to facetime mothers, spouses, and children and hold the phone over a patient who can’t breathe without machine assistance and pretend that everything is fine and that there’s still hope despite the hypoxia and lack of rising vitals. Ignore that if the patient goes into cardiac arrest more than once, the kindest thing to do given prognosis is to let the patient pass. Resuscitation and DNR (a patient’s begging request to not be resuscitated) becomes a word he uses in his daily work and not simply for intense surgeries.

Exhaustion isn’t a deep enough adjective to describe the fugue state he goes into. File to file, room to room, ventilator to next… he isn’t surprised when his body starts to wear down. When he no longer feels hunger and instead feels all too hot and dizzy. Telling himself it’s just because of how much he’s exerting his body while covered in layers and layers of protective clothing doesn’t help the fact that he’s starting to have more trouble breathing as he walks the hallways at a fast pace. When he begins to cough, he does what he promised himself he wouldn’t do and drives out post-shift to the desert cabin of Max Evans.

Part of him is too desperately tired to knock, but when he arrives on the property with the cop car idle and the house dark and at peace for the night, his fury greets him with the embrace of a long-lost friend. Knuckles pound at the wood and Max answers the door with surprise and a general look of defense, and Kyle tries not to immediately punch him in the face at the fact he looks like he had woken up from a comfortable sleep.

“Heal me.” Kyle manages to spit out.

“I—what’s wrong?”

“Beginning stages of respiratory distress, fever, nausea—what do you fucking think?”

“Kyle—,” Max starts to say, the hesitation deepening, and that does it.

“No. I have not asked you for anything in all of this, Evans. Anything!” He shouts, voice hoarse. “Not when people got sick, not when they started dying, not even when we started having to let people die on purpose. And you know what? I wasn’t going to even come and ask you now, but I can’t get sick when I’m the one here fucking saving lives out of the two of us and you’re just cruising the streets handing out goddamn traffic tickets.”

Max’s face isn’t stony like it usually is when Kyle’s yelling at him; this time it’s crushed and guilty but not nearly enough. “What kind of hours you work this week, Evans? A nice 8 to 4? Did you get facetime with Isobel or your mom, maybe binge through a few books and movies after you’re home? Did you sit down and eat a nice dinner and or go over to drink a few beers with Guerin since you can’t get sick? Even get a nice eight hours of sleep in your own bed in your nice quiet home?”

No response.

“I am not asking to sequence your DNA like Liz. All I am asking is for you to let me heal people since you don’t want to.”

A night breeze is all that makes noise for a moment as Kyle catches his breath and glares at Max, who stands quietly but is staring down at his boots before he finally looks up and nods. Max steps forward then, and Kyle sees that his eyes are actually filled with tears. Temper deflating, but still not subsiding entirely, given that not much else is able to be done; Kyle lets Max place a hand on his shoulder and feels the extremely weird feeling spread throughout his body. Something more electric than anything else, which God knew made a lot more sense concerning his powers and how the body operated with electrical nerve impulses, but that is a train of thought better left for another day. He wants to just walk away, and he almost does, but he still mutters a “thank you” before he does so.

When his nurse dies a few days later and he watches as the staff double bag her body to take to the morgue, he escapes to his office and crashes on his couch with sobs. There’s no one here to support him. He can’t go to his mother’s home and collapse into one of her comforting embraces without risking infecting her. He can’t get wasted at the Wild Pony with Maria when it’s closed. He can’t visit Rosa or Arturo at the Crashdown. Keeping his friends and family safe meant keeping them away from him. Keeping them safe meant he needed to stop pushing his head into his hands to try and control the sound of his crying and get back to work at saving the lives around them.

He gets put on leave by the hospital administrator when he’s almost arrested for decking Wyatt Long in the hospital parking lot as the idiot stood outside with a sign rallying Regiment members to make sure the hospital was told it was killing people on purpose for the election. If Jenna hadn’t been the officer on duty he would have been cuffed and put on record, jeopardizing his license, but there was some self-preserving part of him that desperately wished for his practice to be over anyway. He’s not even sure how Jenna handles it, honestly, all he remembers is her dropping him off at his house from her patrol car like she had been nothing but an uber. No matter how angry and adamant he gets, his boss refuses to bend, saying it’s for his own good given the connections the Long’s have in the town and how Kyle has worked almost 74 of the past 76 days.

Alex is the first to visit him, unannounced. When the doorbell rings Kyle is mindlessly pretending to watch some tv show in his living room that’ll distract him from his consuming thoughts about patients, so he doesn’t get up to answer. He checks his silent phone to see if he was forewarned of a visitor but sees nothing. Unsure if it’s his boss or a patient’s family, he forces himself up onto his sore feet and opens the door after grabbing a regular mask off the coffee table. Black face mask on and standing further out from the door on the porch is Alex, the usual gruff hello turned into something soft. “Hey.”

Kyle heaves a sigh. He had wondered when the pity visits would begin. “Hey. You really shouldn’t be around me, you know.”

“I’m clearly a minimum of eight feet away in an open space while masked.” Alex smarts back. “Either way, I’m worried about you.”

Scoffing, he shakes his head. “Don’t fucking worry about me. Worry about getting sick, because if I have to see another person I care about die, I--,”

“Kyle.” the other says too kindly, the sort of pacifying voice Alex reserved for only the most dire situations. “I have no idea what you’re dealing with in specifics, but my experiences do overlap with yours in some places.”

“And?”

Maybe it came out a little too rude, because Alex raises a brow, but then sighs instead. “And I’m just checking in to make sure you know people care about you.”

“Thanks, Manes.” Kyle huffs in return, managing not to roll his eyes because focusing on being blunt and abrasive was so much easier.

“Just be careful.” Alex interjects before Kyle could close the door and turn back to his show. “Dealing with the trauma of what you’re dealing with gets dark very quickly.”

“Because I punched Wyatt Long?” he spits back sarcastically.

“No, because the suicide rates for healthcare professionals are drastically increasing along with the rates of PTSD diagnoses.” Alex says flatly, ever one to be unfazed by sarcasm. “And I’ve lost more active duty members to suicide than I have combat.”

Kyle pauses, caught. Maybe Alex had known he would be, because there isn’t some way he can give a smile and reassuring wave with him like he could his mother or Liz. While Kyle hadn’t actively thought of a plan, he couldn’t pretend he had noticed signs of depression the second he was alone in his house.

“The quiet is the worst part, right?” Alex says, all but reading his mind. “Not always because of the flashbacks, although those are horrible, but because if things are quiet then--,”

“--people are dying.” Kyle finishes, his voice raspier by the end of the three words. “Yeah, well, mine still are.”

“They’re going to.” Is what felt like a cold response, but somehow gave Kyle the understanding he’s been craving. “They’re going to die and because of your profession you’re going to be able to save some of them. Which will make you think you’re responsible to save all of them and because you’re a good person you’re going to feel guilty in ways that no one will understand for being human and failing to.”

“Failing is all I do lately.” Kyle replies. “Usually the wins feel higher than the losses as a doctor, but with this-- and no one outside of it cares. They go outside and yell about how this is about a fucking election and when it’s not the patients, it’s the hospital pretending they don’t have enough money to buy us proper protection. Or the government saying this will all go away and that it’s just a light cold.”

Alex gives a small nod. “I know. I also know telling you the same advice that you’d give another doctor of trying not to burn out and instead taking a small rest is useless. So I’m just going to drop off these dvd’s and make you report back to me the difference when you’re done.”

Star Trek and Star Wars. Kyle finds a smile tug on his lips. Alex leaves with one on his as well.

When he gives a response to Alex a few days later on how Star Wars is better not more than a few minutes later Deluca is texting him with recommendations on joining her Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch. There’s something sweet about the fact that people have been clearly talking about him, even if definitely borderline creepy with how nosy his circle of friends can be, but he sighs and lets Maria add him to the group chat she has with Rosa and Liz where they review each episode after the fact and even chimes in every now and then. Isobel gets added not long after due to an Instagram story Maria shares and then the group has moved onto Friends after everyone shoots down Liz for suggesting Grey’s Anatomy on behalf of Kyle. Alex is also in there, even if it’s rare he chimes in with an opinion, but once they start Friends his commentary about how much he hates Ross that gets the entire group riled up does tend to make him laugh. Even Kyle agrees with Forest-- whose opinion had been shared by Alex-- that Chandler had all too many queer-coded scenes with Joey.

His mother facetimes him daily, which given how they both don’t exactly go out much starts to become monotonous, until she begins to give in and talk about memories she has of their father. Tidbits she never would have shared with him about their adult life when he was a child or teenager. He in turn facetimes Rosa and shares some of the memories of their father as well, which as much as she tries to pretend she doesn’t want for Arturo’s sake she clearly does with the million questions she asks every single time and the small smile she gives him at the end of their calls.

Liz updates him on her work which is a nice reprieve from everyone’s normalcy and lack of medical jargon sometimes, especially when she gives him inside info on covid vaccine studies not yet published to the general public yet. Everything in him wants this more than anything else in the world right now and he texts her almost every day asking if she’s heard more news even when he knows things take time. She’s a good sport about everything, even when he shares in a very angry rant about Max Evans and how they could have helped so many more people so much more quickly with his DNA-- however selfish that might have been.

When he goes back to work, he feels refreshed, even when it makes things hit like a freight train once more. Lost in a sea of inadequacy, his feelings extend past the pandemic. Even when things return to a level of normalcy and the cases subside he gets alien medical drama thrown in his face once more, and he starts to wonder if he’ll ever recover. If he was wrong to choose this calling. If the fact he can’t help Max or Maria is a sign from above or his father that it’s time to make some career move or change location like his mother and Liz. But, like he tells Michael Guerin. He can’t think he can face his future children and say he walked away from this. Or let people die by quitting, just like Rosa warns. And so he stays and tries to heal both other people and himself.

#so yeah this was the lighter version #i had to stop before things got to dark for my own mind #also genuinely feel like the mentions he gives to rosa about feeling lost #should stem from this if the writers aren't cowards #kyle valenti #rnm fic #kyle valenti fic #roswell new mexico #tw covid #tw depression #my fic #my post

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theromanticrationalist · 3 years

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For All Mankind's season 2 finale was just incredible. In many ways, I have been really impressed by this show and how they have been able to incorporate space exploration into the intimate threads of human history. The Moon, space, leaving the confines of the Earth's atmosphere, exploring the great beyond - all become catalysts for each of the individual characters - representing each of their own struggles. Because, as I believe, reaching out towards the stars ultimately becomes about reaching within the human soul - looking outward, is looking inward, and vice versa. The two are inexplicably entwined, and this show does a pretty good job at showing this.

More fan girl thoughts below the cut. . .

- Gordo & Tracy Stevens

I feel like this is best exemplified in Gordo and Tracy's story. I don't have time to outline it all at the moment, but the Moon becomes the stage upon which their hearts are made bare. It is so rare to see a redemption story, and a redemption story of a marriage no less, showcased with such power. I will forever be blown away by this story. *lays down* - *cries* - *cries a lot*

- Margo & Sergei

UH ... YES PLEASE.

A forbidden Soviet Era romance??? Yes yes yes yes yes. I need this! THANK YOU FOR ALL MANKIND. The both of them are my absolute favorite! Just. Everything about them. How they are the same and how they are able to communicate almost as if they are reading each other's minds, and the way Sergei looks at her, and the way Margo blushes and can't even look at him in the eyes, and just . . . *incoherent fangirl screeching*

I really feel like Margo knows the door that she opened. I hope the writers don't make her dumb in the next season - just some love struck nerd girl. Margo is naïve and lost in her own world sometimes, but she isn't stupid. I feel like after Sergei's call, she was realizing the full ramifications of what she had done and what this could mean for her and Sergei's complicated relationship. (Not to mention her standing with her own government and country!)

So, you know what I want to see?? I want to see Margo and Sergei play the most expertly played game of espionage ever orchestrated! I want to see them give false information to one another, and they'll personally always get offended by it even though they both know this isn't personal at all - they'll twist and turn words, double - triple! - meanings - are they enemies? Are they friends? Are they lovers? Do they even know? Maybe! Maybe not! How can they hope to be anything more when they are serving countries that are always on the brink of World War III? And yet!!!

And always Sergei will have stars in his eyes when he looks at her, whenever she does something impossibly clever, and Margo will always wear his favorite color and be speechless around him whenever he is trying to be charming.

I LOVE THEM. FOR ALL MANKIND YOU GAVE THIS TO ME NOW DON'T RUIN IT FOR ME

And let me just say that once again Margot is basically just me. OF COURSE she would fall for the enemy! Totally on brand. I get you, girl! I get you so hard!

<holding up my fingers like the Ben Wyatt meme> It's about the "it's complicated..."

- Danielle Poole

QUEEN. MY QUEEN. I knew she would come through and pull off the Soyuz mission with flying colors! And Danielle & Stepan have my heart! I knew Stepan wouldn't be able to resist her in the end, and that he would have his little Soviet heart melted in no time! 🥰🥰🥰 That whole moment of them defying their governments and choosing peace and brotherhood was just so beautiful. (I was pretty much an emotional mess the entire finale...) Then the gut punching realization that many American's didn't even get to see the historical moment live on TV because they were in the Fall Out shelters. Uuuuuugh. This show is SO good at building the emotional drama of this unfolding history. It feels so real! But it also feels very much like it could part of the Star Trek universe. They are exploring similar utopian and humanistic themes, and so I think I am going to make it my headcanon that our alternate history is part of the Prime timeline. It's official. I have declared it.

Speaking of Star Trek, though, I was tearing up when Danielle was quoting Star Trek. OF COURSE she is a Trekkie - OF COURSE. She is perfect without flaw. The most precious angel! I just wish she had more screen time this season, but I loved her story this season regardless!

- Thomas Paine

I never got to properly mourn the passing of Paine! I was pretty upset that he died, and just when he was becoming such an awesome character! (HE LOVED SPACE THE ENTIRE TIME OMG MY HEART.) However, I realized he was like the Agent Coulson of this show. That awesome side character with an unusual and unexpected quirky personality whose death becomes a catalyst for the bigger picture! Ellen is doing an incredible job within his place, though, and I love what it is building for her character (even if her story is SO SAD). At any rate, Thomas Paine shall be missed!

- Molly Cobb

Molly Cobb is BOSS. Her heroic moment on the Moon was such an amazing highlight for this season for me. But I am loving how they have taken her character in an unexpected direction, down a harder and more humbling road. It is heartbreaking, but such a deeply human story. Her taking her plane and trying to escape from the Earth's atmosphere was like the most DRAMATIC AF moment (omg this show), but also, I felt that too. I also loved her and Wayne's struggle through what Molly is having to face. They're marriage is so strong - perfectly challenging one another and carrying one another through life. I love them! This is going to be painful watching what Molly will have to go through, though.

- Karen

I do want to say a few more words about this whole debacle. The fact that the writers completely obliterated the Baldwin family is something I will not forgive them for, and it was very poor choice on their part, most especially how it came about. To me, the Baldwins have always been the anchor point of the show, but now they are all just kind of pathetic, as the trust in their marriage is broken (for no reason) and all so that Karen can go "find herself".

Now, it has always been a part of Karen's character arc that she needs to find her own identity. She gave herself to her family, putting herself last, and that isn't a good thing. Although we should be reminded that a woman serving her family as a wife and mother is NOT shameful, and so there was literally no reason for the writers to deconstruct this when it was actually a beautiful thing. Things aren't black and white. Karen can be both proud as a dutiful wife and mother AND have existential dread over her own identity as person. BOTH realities can be true and exist together! You don't need to destroy the one to have the other! It's called N U A N C E. Something American tv writers utterly lack in their writing now a days.

Regardless of all this, though, and the disturbing, messed up nature of Karen's affair with Danny - I am sick and tired of how often shows and movies depict a woman's exploration of identity through her sexuality. I find it to be really offensive. As if liberating a woman's spirit means turning her into a horny sex fiend. Sexuality is but one dimension of a woman's identity, one dimension amongst a thousand. To reduce her down to this basic and crude physical dimension, as if somehow sleeping around, having affairs, masturbating, etc, unlocks her deeper self, is really insulting to women as human beings. Being an independent, confident woman comes from a deeper place of the mind, heart, and spirit that embodies her entire person as a holistic being. We are more than the sum of our parts! Please, writers, for the love of God, stop making us into rutting animals!

Suggestion: American writers, creators, directors, just go read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. She'll wipe the floor with your pitiful displays of female independence. I have never seen any modern writer even come close to what Bronte was able to to achieve with her masterpiece. She was able to truly showcase the power, dignity, and grace of a woman's spirit flawlessly - showing how freedom and independence does not mean free to do whatever you want with whomever you want defying all traditions, religion, expectations, and principles - but is a state and quality of mind, that even in the most dire and unbearable of circumstances, your spirit remains immutable. A woman's strength is compassion in the face of adversity, serenity in the face of devastation, and strength in the face of oppression. THAT is true womanhood.

#lots of thoughts #my thoughts #for all mankind #this show has taken me to transcendent heights #but also has plummeted me into the deepest lows of disgust #it's going to be like this the whole time isn't it #margo madison #danielle poole #molly cobb

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rae-g · 3 years

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Dire Need of a Change: Spring 6 - Curiouser and Curiouser

I’m never going to get used to waking up this early, am I? You spent the first part of the morning as you normally do; rinsing off in the shower, finding something easy to eat, getting dressed. As you begin lacing up your boots, you hear a knock at your door. You quickly glance over to your door, wondering who would dare to have the audacity to knock on your door at any point during the day, much less at 6am. You wait a few moments, hoping it was just your imagination, but another round of -knock- -knock- -knock- ruined that fantasy.

Standing up, you make your way to the door and open it to find a short, portly woman standing before you. She wore a large cinnamon-colored braid in her hair, and an outfit of red and green.

“Uh… Hi?” You look at the woman, confused.

“Hello!” She smiled, and her eyes bright.

MEW

You looked down, spotting a small orange cat in her arms. You looked back up at the woman and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re the new farmer, right? I’m Marnie. I live at the ranch just south of your farm.”

“Uh, yeah. Hi, nice to meet you.” You continue to stand in the doorway, each moment becoming more and more bizarre.

Marine nervously chuckled, a soft and warm laugh coming from someone. “Well, I was out foraging in the clearing next to my ranch, and I found this,” she looked down at the cat, then back up at you, “sitting outside the entrance to your farm! I think it’s a stray… poor thing.”

“Oh.” You look back down at the cat, and carefully put out your hand, allowing it to sniff you. The cat sniffed your fingers for a few moments, then headbutted your hand. You smiled and started scratching it’s head.

“Well, if it isn’t too much to ask… Don’t you think this farm could use a good barn cat? I know we don’t really know each other, but it does seem to like you, and I’d hate for this little friend to be all alone.”

You look down at the little furry friend who has already begun purring. You gave a small smile and nodded. “Well… I don’t currently have a barn… But, it would be nice to have someone to watch TV with.”

Marnie’s face beamed as she carefully set down the cat. “How wonderful! I’m sure it’ll be so happy here.” She smiled softly, “You know about the upcoming Egg Festival, right?”

You kneeled and continued petting your small new friend. You looked up at Marine, “I don’t, actually.”

Marine grinned. “Well, it’s something we do every spring. I’m not sure if you currently have any chickens, but even if you don’t, we’d love for you to come. The whole town joins in and we have so many different dishes that people make. My nephew works hard all year prepping the chickens for the festival, and it’s always so much fun.”

You stand back up and brush your knees off. “Well, I think that could be fun. I’ll have to think about it. I’m not much of a cook, but it’s hard to say no to free food.”

Marnie beamed once more. “Well, I have to get back to the ranch before the shop opens. If you’re ever looking for animal care, please feel free to swing by!”

The two of you shook hands, and Marnie made her way towards the town. You looked down at your new responsibility and smirked. “Well… guess I’ll have to pick up some cat food for you later.”

----------

You spent most of the day continuing the monumental task of de-weeding your farm. There were still boulders, trees, rocks, and branches littered everywhere, but at least you were able to clear out a little more land. You began to think about what Marine had said. Chickens… Hmmm…You hadn’t even thought about having animals on your farm. The only buildings that seemed to stand the test of time at all were the main cabin, and the green house, but even those were in extremely rough shape.

You crossed your arms as you looked at everything. It was all going to be such a project. You shoulders slumped as every glance just added a new project to the list. I need to repair the green house. Clear out more trees and boulders. Get the oven working, and probably expand the house. Plus, if I want any buildings put up...You sighed. It was like a never-ending list.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you picked up your watering can and filled it up. You made your way over to your plants. The potatoes and beans were growing nicely, but it was the flash of yellow that truly caught your eyes. You bent down and moved some dirt, and gently tugged on the stem of the parsnip. It came up easily. Your eyes lit up as you stared at the little vegetable. A little on the small side, but it was definitely a parsnip. After dunking it in the watering can, you took a small bite.

“Oh! It’s sweet!” You took a few more bites, and before you knew it the entire vegetable was gone. You savored the taste of the fresh vegetable in your mouth. It was as if someone had sprinkled a carrot with sugar. You looked at the rest of the row and saw more flashes of yellow. “I… I have my first harvest.”

You smiled and began pulling up the small vegetables, inspecting each carefully before moving on. At the end, you had about nine. After watering the rest of your crops, you brought the parsnips inside and began rinsing them off. You picked out the best of the batch and looked around for a small basket or box. Grabbing one of the cardboard Joja boxes from your move, you placed them carefully inside and made your way towards Pierre’s.

----------

*ding*

The little shop bell alerted Pierre to your presence. He turned around and looked at you, “Ah! My favorite farmer. How can I help you out today?”

You walked up to the counter and smiled. “Yeah. I. Uh. Have some crops to sell?”

Pierre grinned, “Wonderful! Show me what you have!”

You placed the box on the ground and pulled out five freshly washed Parsnips. “It’s not much…”

“It’s fantastic! I mean, they are a little on the small side, but they look and smell delicious. Let me do some calculations and see what I can offer.”

After taking a few moments to talk shop, the two of you decided to swap your small harvest for some more seeds, but only after Pierre assured that you would be able to get at least a few more parsnip harvests this season. You placed the seeds in the box and smiled. It’s really happening. I grew vegetables and sold them. I’m really a farmer. The two of you eventually said your good-byes, but not before he told you all about the new rucksacks he would have arriving in the next few days.

----------

You spent the rest of the day getting your new seeds neatly sowed in two little rows, and finishing up some smaller tasks, before eventually making your way back into the house. Today would be game 4 of the Gridball season. The Tunnelers weren’t playing, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t enjoy the game. You washed up and changed, then made your way over to the bar.

----------

As you made your way to your seat, you spotted a familiar looking blue jacket. You sat down and flagged over the bartender.

“Hey.”

“Hey back,” you said, giving a small smile.

“Didn’t see you yesterday.” Shane took a swig of his beer, keeping his eyes on the TV screen.

“Didn’t realize you’d miss me.” The waitress came over, and you ordered a hard cider.

Shane coughed slightly, and turned away. After a moment, he turned back to the screen, his body facing you slightly more than it was a moment ago. “I don’t know, missed is a very strong word.” He smirked, and continued sipping on his drink.

You raised your eyebrow and grinned. You turned your attention back to the Gridball game, sipping on your drink. “I sold my first batch of crops today.” You said, continuing to stare at the screen.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Not much. Just a few parsnips.”

“Ah.” He took another sip of his drink, also watching the screen. “Joja has me on overtime this week. The other stocker called out sick, so it’s just me.”

“Laaaaaaame.”

“Yeah. But it’s fine. I’m not going to complain about more beer money.”

You raise your drink towards him, “I can drink to that. That is one of the rough parts about being self-employed. No days off. I don’t work my ass off, I don’t get any money.”

The two of you continued to banter back and forth for the rest of the night, only half paying attention to the game. Mostly the conversion centered around work, Joja, and favorite drinks. Eventually the barkeep called for the last round of drinks. The two of you finished off one more round of beers before heading outside of the saloon.

Taking a few steps out of the door way, you stretched and looked up at the sky. Your eyes widened, and you took a shallow breath. Shane walked over to you, a nervous look on his face, “Everything okay?”

You continued to look up into the night sky, “Its.. its just been awhile since I’ve actually seen stars.”

Shane looked up, “Ah. I get it. I remember when I first moved out here. Hard to see the stars with all the light in the city.” You nodded, then looked over at him. You couldn’t help but feel your cheeks warm as you watched him gaze at the stars. Eventually he glanced over at you, then coughed into his hand. “Anyway. I shouldn’t keep you.” He glanced around for a moment, “you’ll… you planning on swinging by the saloon tomorrow night?”

You nodded. “Probably. Once I get done with all my chores.”

Shane nodded. “Well.. Until then, I suppose.” But instead of leaving, he seemed to linger for a few moments.

“I look forward to it.” You smiled.

Shane reached up and rubbed the back of his head, looking away. “Uh. Yeah. See ya.”

You watched as he walked off.

“Hmm.. Curious,” you mused to yourself, before heading back home.

#Stardew Valley #Shane x Reader / Player #Slow Burn #Slow Build #Slow Romance #Depression #Alcohol Abuse #Anxiety #Dire Need of a Change

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cheeriecherry · 4 years

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Birds Of A Feather [4/7]

Hawks x Fem!Reader

Warnings: some swearing, a kiss

Part 4/7

By the end of the week, you’re walking into Hawks’ penthouse with nothing but a duffel bag of clothes. Most of your stuff had been moved to storage, but you’d told him you’d bring your own sheets, blankets, and pillows for the couch. He’d stared at you like you’d grown a second head.

He’d then gone on a tangent about how he had guest rooms, obviously, and how his sheets would be softer than yours. He’s probably not wrong, with his 1200 thread count egyptian cotton, but the way he says it ruffles you a bit. You don’t mention it, though. You don’t want to give him any kind of reason to kick you out.

“Hey chickadee, you gonna stand in the entrance all night, or are you gonna come in?”

You snap out of your stupor when Hawks calls to you, and continue lugging your things through the door.

The inside of the penthouse is beautiful; tastefully decorated (probably professionally), and it’s spacious rough that you could spread your wings out fully. The doorways are wider than average, likely catering to your boss’ specific needs. The entire place is gorgeous, immaculate even, and any person in their right mind would kill to live here.

You kind of detest it.

“I had some people come in this afternoon and set up the guest suite for you,” he says, kicking off his boots and flopping onto the couch. “They also brought some of your uniforms in from the agency, so you can change here. You won’t have to go in so early.”

“Thank you,” you tell him, and you mean it. Personal opinions aside, he’s let you into his home out of kindness. You’ll not soon disrespect that.

“Ah, you’re standing and staring again. Are you that impressed with the place?”

You snap back to attention for a second time, and hike your bag further up your shoulder. “I-it’s not that!” you try to explain, “I was just expecting something...different?”

Hawks sits up on the couch. “Whadya mean?”

“I dunno.” You shrug. “More lived in, I guess? Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful here, especially the balcony, but it’s also very...what’s the word…”

“Mature and charming?” he tries, but you shake your head.

He offers a few more suggestions, things like ‘perfect’ and ‘homey’ and ‘colourful’, each word hitting further and further from your mark.

Then it comes to you. “Monotone and sterile!” you nearly shout, your success momentarily quieting your desire to be polite. “It’s like it’s fresh out of a magazine, or a model home. Don’t take it the wrong way, Boss, I’m not hating on your tastes, but if I’m gonna be staying here indefinitely, I’m gonna have to add some personal touches.” You remember your manners. “If that’s okay…”

You worry that you may have offended him, with the way he’s looking at you, but a smile slowly spreads across his face, his eyes sparkling.

“Finally,” he sighs, “someone who speaks their damn mind.”

“Eh?”

“Do you know how many of the people I’ve invited here tell me ‘how beautiful’ it is?” He adjusts his wings and settles comfortably back into the couch. “All of them. Every single one. And look, I’m grateful that I’ve got this place, but it’s just a house. No sentimentality, no memories...just a space.”

“Well...it’s polite to not insult someone’s home when they invite you over…” you mumble, the severity of your outburst making your face heat up.

“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe they’re all schmoozing and hoping to get on my good side.”

The bitterness in his tone doesn’t go unnoticed by you, but you decide to leave it be. He should be free to be himself in his own home, and not have to put up any kind of front. You hoped he’d supply you the same courtesy, when you inevitably would wake up on the wrong side of the bed some mornings.

“Anyways,” he flips the TV on and tosses the remote to the side, “it’s late. You should probably unpack your stuff before you’re too tired.”

“Yeah…” you realize how wiped out you are as the weariness starts to settle in. “I’ve got tomorrow off though, so...if I wake up on time, I’ll bring you curry.”

You can hear him cheering as you walk down the hall to the guest room, and you smile. You’ll never understand his love for chicken, even though his enthusiasm boosted your confidence.

The room is spacious and airy, and has a beautiful view of the city. The bed itself is probably big enough to hold three people, and you’re silently grateful that your wings won’t be hanging on the floor while you sleep anymore.

You set your bag down by the door, and flop face first onto the mattress. God, it was the most plush thing you’d ever had the pleasure to lay on.

“I’ll unpack tomorrow,” you mumble, sinking further into the sheets and, eventually, sleep.

In the distance, you hear Hawks snoring.

----

You wake up the next day to sunlight hitting your face. It’s bright, and annoying, and too warm, and your bed really wants you to keep sleeping but you don’t think you can.

You sit up.

You can feel that your hair is a disheveled mess, and your tongue feels gummy and sour.

“Blegh.”

You (regrettably) roll out of bed and make your way to the bathroom to fix your morning vibes, checking the time along the way. Ten is later than you would have liked to wake up, but you suppose you really needed the sleep. And you did, surprisingly, feel more rested than you had in months.

It’s ten thirty by the time you’re done in the washroom, overall energy more put together and presentable, and you waste no time heading for the kitchen.

The kitchen which is...painfully under-stocked. A couple of condiments and wilting vegetables in the fridge...some frozen meat in the freezer...a bag of rice under the sink, for some reason, and...a completely full spice rack, every bottle unopened.

You knew your boss didn’t spend a lot of time at home, but this was just sad.

You make a mental note to go shopping later.

Thankfully he seems to have the necessary ingredients for chicken curry, which you’re happy about. It means you won’t have to brave the store just yet.

Bit by bit, you pull out what you need in order to cook, only sitting down when you have a moment to spare as the rice cooks.

‘Hey Boss, I’m making curry for lunch. Want me to bring you some?’

You send him a text. It’s still fairly early, and you know he has his meetings in the morning, so you doubt that he’ll get back to you before-

Your phone buzzes.

‘Chickadee, you sure know the way to my heart. I’ll leave my office window open.’

You send him a thumbs up emoji.

----

Once the food is finished, you pack it up into two containers, opting to leave the rest in the pot for now. You made lots, enough to get several meals out of it, just in case Hawks pulled his ‘too busy to cook’ excuse when trying to convince you to order take-out.

It doesn’t take long to fly to the agency, the skies much clearer than the roads. The city itself seems relatively calm, no sounds of explosions or screaming. There is a distant plume of dark smoke on the horizon, though…

But there were other heroes in the area. You wouldn’t be missed if you didn’t show up for one disaster...right?

But then you land in the window of your boss’ office, and your worry spikes. The room is empty, door closed, lights off, paperwork strewn about on the desk...like he’d run off in a hurry.

You pull your phone out and send him a text.

‘Lemme know if something came up. I brought lunch, but I can put it away for later. Stay safe!

-Chickadee’

He doesn’t reply, but that’s expected if he’s dealing with some kind of crisis. Maybe you should have headed to whatever disaster you’d seen earlier...if it was bad enough to call on your boss, it must be a pretty dire situation. Maybe he could use an extra pair of wings?

You sigh and take a seat beside the window, staring out at the city skyline. The black smoke across the way has turned to a dusty grey colour, a much less threatening hue, and one that bode well for any possible fires.

He’ll be fine, you decide, with other heroes undoubtedly on the scene. By the time you’d get there, whatever was happening would be dealt with.

You pull out your phone to scroll through the news while you eat.

Nothing urgent appears on the screen, nothing to incline that you were needed somewhere, nothing to say extra help was needed. Just day-old stories, gossip columns, the occasional media review. You do startle a little when a new article pops up that’s focused around your boss. You click on it, expecting to see some kind of haggard scene...but you only laugh.

“Hawks, most eligible bachelor in Japan, off the market?” You scroll further into the article to see what kind of nonsense the reporters have come up with this time.

What you don’t expect, is to find pictures of yourself littering the page. Pictures of you and Hawks together. On patrol, talking over lunch at a cafe he took you to one time, walking into his agency side by side, and -most recently- the two of you landing on his balcony.

You’re slightly panicked, and very, very flustered. Had he seen the column? God, he was probably used to it, though, being as popular as he was. All he had to do was look at someone and the media would start crying wolf, which in your opinion, was stupid.

Still, the more you read the article, the more you find it has some good points. You two did spend a lot of time together, more than he did with any of his other friends. But that’s all you are. Friends. Friends, and completely platonic roommates.

You weren’t sure why that made your heart sink so much.

So you copied the link to the article and sent it to him, typing a quick ‘lol’ afterwards. At the very least, he might get a laugh out of it.

----

You finish eating in record time, scarfing down a portion and a half of curry. It was lonely, sitting in Hawks’ office by yourself. You wondered if he ever felt like that when he was up here on his own. He was too busy for most things, too fast for his own good. Did that include friendships? He made time for you when he could, but you understood the busy and demanding life of a hero...other people might not.

You...understood.

The dull ache that you’ve felt in your chest for the past year returns, suddenly. The sadness and grief, the emptiness and all-encompassing tiredness, the big overhanging question of ‘what’s even the point?’. The point of being a hero, the point of suffering for the people who love you and hate you and who don’t even know you.

“Shit,” you sigh, your head and shoulders hanging low, wing dragging against the floor.

Hawks had brightened your life up so much these last few months. He’d brought the smile back to your face, the joy back to flying. You missed him when he was gone, worried for him when he was off on missions, fuck, you even cooked him lunch of your day off just so you could spend time together.

You were head over heels for him, and so totally screwed.

----

Hawks doesn’t return home until late that night. Far past your usual bedtime, but you’re far too distressed to sleep. If you hadn’t had your earlier revelation, you’d have chalked it up to ‘being worried’. But now?

Now that you knew you had feelings for him, all your thoughts were clouded. You were concerned because you liked him. You hung out with him because you liked him. Everything was because you liked him!

It was fucking with you a bit.

“What are you still doing up?” his voice sounds from the front entryway, startling you bad enough that you almost fall off the couch.

Your wide eyes snap to him, immediately taking him in. He’s worse for wear, that’s for sure. His uniform is singed in places, and you’re pretty sure the scuff on his neck is a burn. Most notably are his wings. Or lack thereof.

Featherless red nubs is a more accurate description.

“You look like shit,” you say, keeping the air about you casual.

He makes his way over to you and finds a seat on the couch adjacent, wincing as he sits a little too quickly.

“Thanks, chickadee. You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

Your face heats up. “I-I just mean! Long day?”

He groans, letting his head fall back against the cushions. You’re vaguely aware that he’s started talking, but the only thing you can pay attention to is the narrow column of his exposed throat, and how badly you wanted to lean over and press your lips against it.

You snap out of your daze when he nudges you with his foot.

“I feel like I’m talking to a wall,” you quips, devoid of any malice.

“Sorry,” you mumble, “what were you saying?”

“I was saying that we should hang out now that I’ve got a few days off. Kick our feet up, instead of culminating in a stuffy office.”

You shake your head. “As much as I’d love to, I still have work. Remember? I was already off today, I can’t miss more days.”

He whines, looking at you with sad puppy eyes. “It’ll be boring here by myself. You make the day more fun.”

“Hawks, I can’t-”

“Keigo.”

You perk up. “Huh?”

He rearranges himself on the couch so he can look at you more comfortably. “My name is Takami Keigo. Call me Keigo when it’s just us, okay?”

You consider it. “Why not Takami? That’s polite here, right? To use the surname?”

He nods. “Unless you’re close with the person. Family, good friends, the like.”

Your wings puff up, fully betraying the fact that you’re pleased he considers you a ‘good friend’. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and a teasing grin spreads across Haw-Keigo’s face.

“See? You waaaaant to. Say it with me: Kei-”

“Keigo.”

You don’t miss the way his cheeks tinge pink.

“You got it. And now, since we’re on a first name basis, I’m asking you to take a few days off to hang out with me.”

You’re exasperated.

“C’mon chickadee.”

“No.”

“Pleeeeease?”

“No!”

“Y/N…”

“No, Keigo.”

“Alright then. Now, as your boss, I’m officially giving you three days off.”

“You can’t just do that!”

“I can!”

“Hawks!”

“Keigo.”

“Sorry. Keigo!”

His expression is cheeky as you go back and forth for a while, and he’s unrelenting even as you gently beat him with a couch pillow.

It eventually morphs into a small war, the two of you chasing each other around the apartment, wielding whatever cushions you can get your hands on. You eventually end up tripping over the coffee table, shouting as you smack your foot and fall into an ungraceful heap on your back. Keigo wastes no time pouncing on you and pinning your arms beside your head.

Your wings are splayed out on either side of you, and he’s careful not to kneel on them. Even with your foot throbbing the way it is, he knows you could easily get away if you tried. But you don’t struggle. Instead you lay there quietly, out of breath, eyes locked on his. He can feel the warmth creeping up his neck, and you can see the redness returning to his cheeks.

“I...saw the article you sent to me today,” he begins, voice low. “I’m sorry they brought you into it.”

“I don’t mind,” you admit, “I just worry it might be detrimental to you. Some of your fans will be pissed.”

“Seriously?” He sits up on your chest, releasing your wrists. “You’re not online much, are you. Most of my fans ship us.”

“The hell does that mean?”

He laughs, soft of melodious. “It means that they like the idea of us. As a couple.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?” you wonder.

“No? Why would it?”

You avert your gaze from him, your insecurities and doubts creeping in under the scrutiny of his golden eyes. “I...guess you could just...do better, is all.”

“Chickadee...Y/N, look at me.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and shake your head. You feel very exposed laid out on the carpet, and you wish you’d never said anything.

A warm hand cups your cheek. “C’mon, sweetheart. Let me see those pretty eyes.”

You’re so flustered you don’t know what to do with yourself. Your heart is beating rapidly against your ribcage, and you’re positive he can see your embarrassment when you finally do as he asks.

But he only smiles gently at you, leaning down to rest his forehead against yours.

“Listen to me, and listen well. You’re the best I can do. You bring out everything good in me, and make me forget the bad. You make me happy.”

“Keigo-”

He shushes you by bringing your lips together.

#hawks x reader #takami keigo x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #winged reader au

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movienotesbyzawmer · 3 years

Text

April 26: Rocky V

(previous notes: Rocky IV)

A fifth Rocky movie if you can believe it! I saw this in the theater when it came out in 1990. My movie appreciation had become exponentially more sophisticated since the previous movie, but I remember thinking that they were going for something less formulaic when they came out with this. They even brought back the Oscar-winning director of the original Rocky, John Avildson. And surely this character was way too old to still be able to win fights against professional boxers, right? I must say, I don't remember what the story of this movie is.

The intro does a brief throwback to the original name-scroll-plus-fanfare, but now we're showing a recap of the previous movie's final fight during the credits, which promise an appearance by no less than Burgess Meredith.

Do you think there was a conversation where Sylvester Stallone condescendingly told Avildson, "hey, trust me, start the movie with three and a half minutes that is just the end of the last picture, easy money baby, cha-ching ya know?"

The story begins immediately after the Battle of Cold War Symbolism, and we see that he is experiencing physical trauma as a result of Soviet Boxing Technology.

Then we see that they had the idea to introduce a Don King-type character, a really irritating boxing promoter blindsiding him in public to get on his case about a new challenger. Do you think the promoter character will have a nuanced arc.

After a chill father-son catch-up chat, there's an awkwardly-blocked expository scene about how Paulie made some stupid mistake and got tricked into signing away millions of Rocky dollars to a sinister accountant. And then he goes to the doctor who tells him he has irreversible punch damage and can't fight any more. Conflict is looking dire. Do you think Robot Character will arrive soon to cheer us all up.

After selling all of their possessions at an auction, Rocky goes to his old hangouts. He leaves the corner bar looking defeated. They don't show how he was defeated in the bar, but that bar clearly humiliated him.

Then he goes to the old gym, and here's where we have a flashback scene of Burgess Meredith giving him a pep talk. It's kinda nice. But it still feels like we're at the point in the story right before the tide turns and suddenly Rocky is inspired to become supernaturally good at boxing once again. But that's not gonna happen; we're just twenty minutes into the movie.

Rocky has to move back into his old neighborhood. It's dirty and run down, and people gawk.

0:32:00 - For the third time in this movie, Rocky tries to charm his family with a LOOK WHAT I PULLED OUT OF YOUR EAR gag. The characters are barely charmed by this gag. We, the audience, are way way way less charmed.

Fake Don King is buzzing around a lot. He is a dick and he is annoying to every single person alive. It's effective at driving the conflict because he is so persistent at needling Rocky into maybe fighting. But the acting is cringey. Kinda the point, though, right?

Just like that, the old gym where we saw the flashback, which was abandoned and run down, is open for business and full of people. How did that happen?

0:43:30 - Okay now it is me - Zawmer! - who is about to be an unappealing bad guy because I must now report how little tolerance I have for this scene with two child actors. Rocky's son, who got bullied at school earlier, is having his first maybe-we-fancy-each-other conversation with a girl. The dialogue has no chemistry with these kid actors.

I should mention that there is a character named Tommy Gunn. He is a spirited young boxer who has found Rocky and wants Rocky to help him. He is bemulleted and earnest and good-punch-y.

Rocky is going to manage Tommy, but his son wants some attention. Feels like an artificially manufactured conflict. Plus the dumb bullies at school beat him up again. It is hard being the newly-poor child of Rocky Balboa.

0:53:25 - I probably wouldn't have caught this if I hadn't watched the first movie kind of recently, but we cut to a fight, Tommy is fighting someone and it's in the same church that started the first movie. He wins that fight and it becomes a montage of Tommy becoming increasingly successful under Rocky's coaching, plus there is evidence that Rocky's son is trying to get his dad's attention by using some of the gym equipment.

It does seem like it would be fun to make boxing-improvement montages.

Oh, the kid learning boxing was so he could get back at the bullies. Mission accomplished but he clearly thinks his dad was supposed to be even nicer about that, even though he was kind of nice. But he was in the middle of something with Tommy, I mean, come on!

Ooh, and that was just a brief interruption in the boxing-improvement montage, it keeps going. This movie is pretty generous with fun montages.

The falling out scene between Rocky and Kid is not better than a similar scene in an after school special. And it's way worse than that one anti-drugs commercial we all remember, "I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU"

Oh, but then Kid runs away and starts hanging out with Ivan Drago! Drago starts teaching him how to beat up his dad, and says something about "If he die, he die". No. No he doesn't. That doesn't happen. I was just getting a little bored there. What's true here, what's actually true, is that Kid's increasingly rebellious personality has yielded a very, very stupid looking ear chain. It is an earring… with a chain hanging off it at the exact perfect length for no human being to think it looks good. The length of that chain is the chain-length equivalent of the amount of time that Talia Shire closes her eyes that one time.

A new conflict emerges where Tommy is going to sign with Fake Don King. It turns out Rocky had no interest in making any money. You can't blame him really. Rocky's all "don't sell out". But. Dude.

Okay so Tommy Gunn, having divorced Rocky and married Fake Don King, wins the title fight and becomes the new champion. The crowd boos, and they also cheer "Rocky". Rocky is not there. Rocky is watching the fight on TV in the basement and also punching a thing because he can't help it, but the crowd at the fight is like "Rocky" and "boo". I don't quite get it.

This press conference is kind of clearing it up, see, no one thinks it was a legitimate fight, it seemed fakey. There is pandemonium and insultation! It is clearly building to some silly insistence that he, Tommy, should fight Rocky.

Tommy shows up at the bar and he's hopping mad because he ain't nobody's robot and will you accept my challenge Rocky! Fake Don King thought this would turn into an actual arena event, but it's turning into just a back-alley fight like in that Fight-y movie about that Club.

It escalates thusly. As Rocky endures cinematically beautiful flashbacks to fights from earlier movies, they punch each other beneath rumbling trains. I sound mocking but some of it is pretty visually interesting.

Interesting enough to serve as an abstract explanation for how, once again, Rocky is supernaturally good at punch-game. It may be a street brawl this time, and we may have to do without Adrian closing her eyes Just So, but once again the Rocky movie ends with him winning the fight and everyone being very very excited about that. He punches Fake Don King because of how smarmy he is, and even the priest is delighted.

There is a denouement of Rocky and Kid bonding genially by the famous steps, and then the credits roll in front of touching stills from all five movies, and an Elton John song that didn't have as much cultural impact as some other songs we've heard recently.

I guess I like the montages and the quick cinematic choices that are to be found here and there in these movies, but mostly when I think back on them it seems like they are arrangements of familiar modules. In this one, the modules were held together with more flimsy material. I was wrong to think that this movie would be less formulaic. Soon I am done with this project. Soon. SOON.

#rocky v

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amandlas · 4 years

Text

almost gone (in these little moments get your cards out)

tfota | jude x cardan, she doesn’t come back au, no smut, hurtful and punishable tbh (ao3)

entry to jurdan week 2020 by @jurdannet - day 7: wild card! a what-if au had jude tried to make a new life in maine (don’t worry, cardan shows up). heaps of angst. little payout. sorry in advance. trigger warnings: violence, guns, shooting, and death mention.

[canon divergence from twk ending. title from “lay your cards out” by poliça]

gone. she’s gone. avulsed from her land, never hers, and her lover, never loved. the mortal world welcomes her with wide arms, arms that are shorter than she remembers, a little less homely, much less magical. after all, how can the ordinariness of television, powder tea, and surround sound compare to the true magic of faerieland?

vivi says it will be well. of course she does. why wouldn’t she, with her strong blood and pointed ears.

jude stares and stares at the tv. at the window. at the door. she’s not so stupid as to believe it will allay her want, but like programming, she follows the routine nonetheless.

two months. oak is recalcitrant to her teachings. vivi is buoyant in her obliviousness. they do not see her. she cannot see herself. the closest thing she has to a mirror is miles away, attending a new husband and parading with stars dangling from rounded ears. if taryn were to come, jude thinks she wouldn’t recognize either of them.

she is ashamed to watch her pillowcase blotted with tear stains at nightfall.

it’s more embarrassing than waking up the first time to menstrual blood staining her sheets, two stories up in madoc’s estate, knowing not what it meant or what to do.

jude duarte avoids as superfluous emotions as sadness or hopelessness. being a mortal in faerie, those sentiments would wash her out of focus, riddle her with doubt, and with a certainty would so far as kill her.

but, she thinks, i am not in faerie anymore. i am no longer in a place where blood is a better find than tears. where eyes are dry and swords are sated by throats and bellies.

perhaps in her native world it is safer. that’s what jude wanted this whole time, was it not? safety. if she were meant to feel relief, she should feel it now.

survival feels wet against her cheek.

he keeps slugging his damn arms. jude tugs oak roughly to her, fixing his stance, and urges him to strike.

“will i still be king someday?”

as per usual, he tries deflection to talk out of a combat lesson. jude is unmoved. “yes.”

“are you sure?”

she shifts her weight to her other leg. “there is no other way.” his form is poor. she identifies his weaker side and rounds slowly to it. “the crown answers to blood. raise your elbow higher. protect your face.”

oak listens for once. his voice is shrill still. “so there is no one else?”

of course there’s someone else. another bearer of the crown, another royal to lead their nation. but jude grits her teeth and resorts to her best asset: lying. “no. no one else.”

her little brother pauses, their lesson half-present in his mind. intrigued, she watches the scrunch of his brows as he formulates a thought. “unless cardan has a child. then there would be another.”

if he sees her freeze, he doesn’t mention it. the scenario turns her thoughts errant, threatens her with a conniption. some sick part of her wishes to linger on the possibility, but with oak before her and posed to fight, she cannot allow herself that masochism.

oak stands expectant, his arm growing weary and slouching. the least she can do is not lie.

“i suppose.”

he remembers none of the stance the next evening.

“no word from dad. taryn either.”

jude lifts her face to catch vivi rummaging through envelopes of mail. “what, were you expecting miracles? a shift in the weather?” she scoffs, coming back to her task. counting money. hard-earned cash from late shifts of all services and flavors. espionage, theft, the occasional sparring match. the underground fae crime ring taints the soul, but it pays in fifties.

vivi interrupts her quick fingers. “he liked you best, you know. dad always gave more of himself to you than to me or taryn.” she notices her brother sitting at the couch, leans in to rumple his hair. “or oak.”

jude shoots vivi a cruel look, an exasperated look. “what good that did to me.”

her sister’s eyes are fierce as a growling cat where they pin her in place. “quite some good, your highness.”

jude does a fucking great job at not screaming.

she hates to think of the name.

what could his true name be, she wonders? if she commanded it, before the brokering of their epically failed marriage for his release, jude asks herself if he’d given it. if he’d hated her that much more.

her mind swirls with reminders of midnight black eyes, of fingers against her lips and the abstruse feeling of possession by another being.

she won’t think of it. she won’t dream of it. she won’t aerate the two syllables in a whisper of dark sky. she certainly won’t be pelted with the scariest word, the four letters she refused since childhood to allow a place in her. the word that died with a blade on its back as it ran to the kitchen. the word that meant a certain foolishness, a certain danger. she won’t. it’s her new mantra: she won’t, she won’t, she won’t.

falsehoods have always been her strongest asset.

“we shouldn’t be watching this shit,” heather sighs between mouthfuls of red licorice.

they’re leaning on the couch, lined up like soldiers catching their breath amidst pilgrimage to battle. the television blares high. jude notices heather has shifted her free hand to cover oak’s eyes.

she inspects the playing show more closely. one second there’s a wide shot of scenery, familiar in its medieval setting, and the next there’s a person. a striking young woman with silver hair like new iron falling in tresses across pale shoulders.

the figure is so intimate it nearly makes jude jump. “a princess,” she murmurs.

heather shakes her head. “no. oh no. well, sorta.” oak squirms in her hand, breaking free of her hold, to which she sighs and acquiesces. “sure, i guess, but more than that. it’s complicated.”

from her place next to oak, jude nods. “royals tend to be.”

her sister’s lover, or ex lover (certainly an ex something), barrels on. she uses hand gestures to further her explaining. “her father was the mad king, but she was only a baby when he got dethroned. she was exiled from her home, far across the sea. then she married a powerful man, leader of a tribe, and sorta grew into herself. after he died, his rivals and his people tried to disbar her. turns out she had more in her arsenal than was believed.” heather wags her eyebrows at the show.

jude couldn’t be more confused until a huge, black winged creature crosses the screen. “are those…”

“yup,” heather confirms. “the mother of beasts. and her husband’s people, they followed her. even though he was gone, and was their real ruler, and it was unacceptable that she rule on the basis of who she was, they still accepted her as leader.”

jude stiffens. “really.”

they made it seem so close, so easy to reach. the princess-who-wasn’t-a-princess straightens her spine, amplifies her voice. when she speaks, people heed.

heather slices her reverie. “because she has magic.” she points to the overflying monsters. “badass.”

ah. because. she. has. magic.

a non-magic girl slouches back in her non-magic couch, watching a non-magic box, consumed by baneful imaginings.

unprepossessing. that is what they called her. ugly, if wine or fury loosened their vocabulary. how had i let someone who called me that touch me at the collarbones? kiss my throat? call me his sweet villain? jude has no answer. she replays and loops the plethora of adjectives her dear husband and company had called her. wormfood. unsightly. repellent. direful. unbecoming. synonyms alike to the same derivative, final word.

mortal.

the circle of worms, she and taryn. daughter of dirt.

she wishes she were nobody’s daughter.

it takes her three nights after that to realize now she really is nobody’s daughter.

her exile hits the half year.

bride of faerieland. the mortal queen.

a fugacious dream, she finalizes. no more than a fleeting child’s wish. had she remained at home, no, in faerie , she’d never have been queen. not without the people’s approval and not with her mortality. a hollow crown, a fool’s wreath.

she cements it into her brain, sears it to memory. she never. would. have been. a true. queen.

oh, but what a vision they would’ve been. jude, stiff boned with graying hair, and cardan beside her, youthful as ever and tethered to her with ball and chain. unescapable. a fresh minted prison for him. he’d be gagged to ask for her kisses, much less beg for them. when her skin sagged and time plundered her heart, how quick he’d be to run from her. a bat out of hell.

when it processes that she’s thought of his name, written it to existence in the myriad of her thoughts, she breaks into a cold sweat.

she won’t call her exile a blessing. there’s many descriptors for the singular event that redefined the last leg of her fleeting teenage life, and blessing won’t cut it. recently, however, jude has had the chance to add timely to the list.

jude kills a troll. he’d been preying on humans the same time as her abscond to the human realm. this particular troll began his horror streak after developing a taste for the helpless glaze in their eyes at final moments before teeth sunk into shoulders, the way they rolled back or if the occasion came up that the eyelids would fall crookedly. the funny look of a drugged, passed out, mindless loon. except these were dead loons, victims to the desire of a beast. these humans had been lured into the abandoned subway tunnel, but jude had strolled there all on her own.

“that bitch carries the devil,” commented one of the fae. gathered in a ring, stealing glimpses of her over their shoulders.

waiting for her pay, jude kicked the tip of her boot into the solid ground, arms crossed. “that bitch can hear. i may not have fae hearing, but i’d abstain from testing me were i in your shoes.”

the fae she had spoken to was of the sea, and was barefoot. irony not lost on her.

sooner than expected, jude duarte developed a reputation. successful runs, frightening recounts of what she did to earn her money, it swiveled up and circled around her like a tornado. some fae considered testing if the legend was bigger than the person, and some fae had lost the use of a limb. she knew she’d been strong before, but this new world taught her what an unstoppable force she was. had always been.

they give her a nickname. fearful of evoking the name given to her at birth, though being human it had no effect on her. still, shadows shivered at her wake, watching, consuming jude duarte’s trail of defeated foes. in the damp, cold streets of maine, in a world she long since had cut true tethers from, she’s reborn as the wrath.

in her mind, somewhere in the bowels of the elfhame palace, the court of shadows laugh up a storm.

oak grows less querulous and more capitulant to his role. jude in turn decides to do the same with her old-but-now-new home amidst mortals.

she watches tv. repaints her bike. buys new clothes. eats toasted waffles with peanut butter and honey.

when heather mentions a museum across town, jude no longer stares at her blankly. she doesn’t fumble or grasp for words. her foot’s planted on the ground, steady and strengthening.

she becomes inclined to music. an old trait, now in a new ambient. vivi glamours money to grant her a gift, a small excuse to cheer her up. the gadget fits most of her hand, sensitive to her tact and bright during the darker hours. heather hauls her laptop once in a while to upload new songs onto it, teaching jude how to sift through the list.

music player in her hand, jude sheepishly assembles a queue of songs that she likes. tunes that have replaced bards in taverns or notes plucked from lutes.

an aggressive song by a vexed wife goes first, the one with words that hit jude harsher than she wants to admit, the title saying not to hurt yourself. another one called once upon a time. a wedding song turned rock, a “strong electric guitar” according to heather, the singer belting about being loved tenderly. paint it, black by the stones that roll. where once her fingers would’ve stumbled over the gadget’s buttons, today she masters with ease.

the stunted child, the wraith of a human girl she once was rears her head in jude’s dreams. she gains color with each passing day.

by the time her exile hits eight months, jude begins the transition. she intends it to life, gives it air to breath.

i, jude duarte, will be happy in the mortal world.

she wills herself to change on a molecular level. when the desire of faerieland hightails back, she slams it to the back of her mind. she transforms the pain into power, into will. the scar left behind from her banishment becomes fuel for her new life. for the transformation into who jude could truly be in this wide, marvelous, enormous human world.

they don’t want you. they have not once wanted you.

he doesn’t want you. not like you do him.

doesn’t

want

you.

move on, she begs herself. move on. move on. move on. stop chasing after ghosts.

the wrath is elbow deep in a goblin’s guts. he swindled bryern a bagful of gold coin. it came down to her to rescue it back, and assure the impediment of a repetition. that’s when she met her.

“hnnnnggg…” moans a figure across the room.

jude ignored the drugged out junkies on her way in, leaving them in the back burner while working through the bulk of her job. but the turncloak goblin is dead, and was that noisy mound moving?

“help…” she hears.

jude rarely considers herself so altruistic. but the meekness of the plea pulls her across the room, tugs her legs to the sprawled person.

human. a girl, dirty blue hair all too reminiscent of nicasia, but not so polished as to pass for a sea princess. no, this girl appeared on the edge of a precipice, thin coat of sweat across her body.

“more,” the girl begs.

like clockwork. jude squats down to get closer. “want me to get you out of here?”

weakly, the girl nods. “she’ll find me.”

“what’s your name?”

the stranger smacks her lips, eyes rolling in her head. “lolli.”

lolli turned out to be an easy haul but a terrible map. jude exasperatedly dragged her through alleys and corners, hearing the laments of her companion through the journey. lolli got sidetracked from her ride-or-dies, see, shot up a bit too much powder - something she called never - and had an urgent need to return to the clan.

jude’s self-preservation rang high when she knocked on the selected door and met a fae two heads taller than she. his red skin shone bright in the doorway, his glamour invisible to jude’s geas.

“thank you for bringing pop back to us. i’m qylin” he says across from jude, having invited her in and given her a once-over. “uh, you mortal?”

she’s declined a drink, but accepted a chair. “as they come.”

qylin moves closer. “and you took out melbor? pop’s supplier?”

“is pop meant to be lolli?”

“her full name’s lollipop.”

“oh. i see.” a red flush runs across her face. “melbor huh? didn’t catch his name. i did catch both his kidneys though.”

qylin whistles. “damn. a mortal.” he pronounces it with wonder. nothing like she’s used to. it falls with disbelief in her ears.

“that’s quite a might you got in you. here.” in an outstretched hand, jude finds a tiny acorn that no doubt has a message inside it. “if you ever quit meandering for coin and want to run with the real wolves, i’ll answer.”

wolf. she’d been a girl and she’d been a mortal. then she’d been wormfood and after that she’d been a queen. couldn’t say jude once considered herself a wolf, or imagined running with them. then again, she had become so many things far from her imagination.

the ward. the mortal. the queen. the wrath. her list of faces ran endless, each mask pressing heavier and heavier on her fragile composition.

in the beginning, vivi congratulated her like a preschooler with a trophy. “look at you, making an effort. i told you home wasn’t so bad.”

months later they’ve turned to “you are too far out” accompanied by the tapping of her foot, a face riddled by concern. “you’re jumping into danger again.”

vivi didn’t know how jude missed being afraid.

if she dreams of cardan, the sting pulls her awake and breathless into the chirping crickets of the dark hours.

ninth month. her exile is a baby somewhere, born and breathing. a marking reminder of her incipient rule cut short.

jude duarte makes a decision. she steps outside of the girl she used to be, the teenager latched to a world that had not once been hers.

the acorn is light in her hands. she splits it open, unrolling the paper inside, and when she sees the address and phone number it takes her a total of eighteen minutes to pack.

saying goodbye without telling them it’s goodbye cracks a new wound in her already shattering heart.

oak thinks she’s going to the gym. vivi thinks she’s babysitting oak. heather might’ve had a clue, but she kept silent while jude hugged her, muttering a quick thanks for watching her brother while vivi came from the post office.

it appears, after years, she’d learned to say farewell to all things that were close to her.

qylin refrained from asking questions, just as jude liked it. she watched, studied, learned, kept to her rank while scheming for more. the room and cot qylin offers is as home as any she’s had.

when she urged cardan to inveigle the princess of the undersea, it led them to a hidden alcove draped with vines, to a couch where she’d bared more of jude duarte than she had in her entire life. the memory is both a memory and the dream that recurs most in her sleep. their tryst, their unculminated tumble, their fumbled connection, whatever people would want to call it. in her sickest hours, jude allowed herself to think of it with a tender gaze, with a pink shiny filter, with the dreaded word she’d been on the run from for years.

that you hate me. tell me that you hate me.

“i hate you,” jude whispers. “i hate you and i married you and i hate you.” the two phrases weren’t mutually exclusive.

lollipop has been gone for weeks, but her junkie spirit is alive.

the wrath evaded nevermore like cats did water, but the gradual acclimation to qylin’s ring fills her with misplaced ease. it took them damn near six months, but jude finally surrendered her arm.

it pricks, the needle, like the pinch on her finger when cardan stabbed her for the salt in her blood. for the antidote to faerie fruit.

she’s high. she’s at a revel in new york and she’s vulnerable and she’s high.

it doesn’t take long for jude to cement her decision to never do drugs in her natural life again. but once that’s been engraved in her think tank, the world turns mellow and technicolor. it tells her to enjoy while it lasts.

she’s surrounded by leaves, platter of fruit, dancing pixies and slender fae. painful reminders of the home she direly tries to forget.

in a mirage, she pictures black curls under a golden crown of flowers. cruel lips forming a smile.

as if underwater, ears plugged with chlorine liquid, jude hears a seductive voice to her side. “what a pretty thing.” a woman. tall and thin, fae ears and slit green eyes. eyes that fall down to jude’s chest. “busty.”

not all quite there, jude struggles but succeeds in recognizing the tone coming from her courtier. and before she can respond, to her surprise, a second woman emerges from the back of her new companion.

she’s got beautiful straight teeth and straighter talons. “careful. saphine can bite.”

after being called hideous half a life, this come-on douses jude awake like a bucket of water. she studies the two girls and the raking nature of their eyes. she thinks perhaps if she paid more attention she could’ve recognized that in cardan’s eyes. could’ve told it apart from the hatred, the arrogance and the disgust.

without preemptiveness, without pause to think it over, jude tugs both girls to her. her body busts in sensation.

she remembers cardan in a maze, draped in languor and gold faerie drug and girls. black shark eyes watching her while horned girls had their way with him. one kissed his neck, she remembers, and another his knee.

“here,” she scoffs, pushing down sapphire or whatever’s head to her knees. “above my boot.”

a chuckle. “feisty, huh?” she hears, and she truly doesn’t care.

next, jude unceremoniously pulls the second girl up to her neck, leading them exactly where and how she wants them. she’s a constellation of heat and brief spikes of libido.

does cardan think of her? when he’s in bed or bedding someone new, whichsoever activity he performs at night, does jude cross his mind? does he remember her? sometimes in the ridiculous seclusion of her mind she thought cardan would be faithful to her once upon a time. she could slap her own cheeks for such foolishness.

his face appears stark in her memory. deep hollows on his collarbones, raven black hair and eyes devouring her like fruit. his lips, they’d been so soft.

jude leans her head back and laments her ghosts. she inhales sharply.

after the hot spell passes, after jude feels the trickle of tongue make its way up to her thigh and another down her chest, she pushes them away.

why? she doesn’t know. jude is only sure of the fact that she’s tired and doesn’t want this and instead wants a glass of water then maybe a bed.

saphine tilts her head, rolls her eyes, and waves her off, moving along. jude is thankful, for the first time, at being so easily discarded.

a month later makes two years since her infamous exit.

“unless cardan has a child,” oak said. many moons past.

the memory of him brings upon a dream. the opposite to her listless, watered-down dreams she grew used to having.

she sneaks through the palace, it’s name near forgotten to her, crawling against walls or chasing shadows.

he’s there. he’s in many of her dreams and he’s there in this one. hair astray. tilted crown. reclined on a couch, his tail freely swishing left and right.

if he remembers their pact of marriage, he doesn’t bother to show it. no mourning, no sadness, no desperation. unlike the other dreams of him, in this he’s placated. joyful, even, in a way so seldom his character.

jude’s understanding is little.

something squirms in cardan’s arms. when she gets closer it nearly takes her breath away to a fault, threatening to kill her. it’s a baby. older than a newborn but small enough to fit in his arms, to paw at his chin and gargle.

no test could prepare her for this sight.

and cardan. he’s absolutely changed. reinvented in the light of this babe, this creature jude hasn’t seen the face of. because that is his spawn, the tiny tail swishing from its rear indicates as much. that, combined with the black tresses, leaves no doubt that she is looking at a king and his heir.

in the depths of her shriveled dignity, jude duarte senses another break, another disgusting branched crack.

her husband is inconsolable in love. his bright smile slashes wide across his face, softening his sharp cheekbones. he lifts the baby to his face, pressing their noses together, cooing. she hardly recognizes him. but she recognizes the lack of a need for her.

this was a nightmare.

cardan lets the child descend, adjusting them in his lap with heartbreaking gentleness. to her horror, the toddler turns and pierces jude in place with raven black eyes.

she runs cold all over. the child has the look of a girl.

her coloring is unique, darker than cardan’s and any fae’s. it’s closer to… jude’s own. and below the black curls, which she realizes now is actually dark amber brown, there’s ears. rounded, untipped, human ears.

jude is utterly unmoored. the scene melts. she wakes up to hands descending upon her, to frightened questions of why she was screaming and that she’s woken up half of the gang. they cannot get a straight answer from her, and after plowing her with cups of water and aspirins from a quick run to the mini-store, the most they get from jude duarte is a somber face and a fall into her pillow.

jude becomes a gallery of girls. she’s judy, and she’s martina, and she’s amelie with the occasional latika. running in qylin’s underworld gang requires her to. police don’t catch her, fae detectives don’t either, and if by chance she needed to run an errand the name she gave was one of a basinful of fake i.d. cards.

“i once had a twin,” she offhandedly told someone.

“what was her name?” they asked.

jude slurped from a tall gas station soda cup. “doesn’t matter.”

three years. the earnest smile she’d lost a number of winters ago returns tenuously but surely. as a sliver, as a tiny reminder, as a planted seed showing the very smallest evidence of root.

a pixie joins their ranks. young and limber. her cerulean skin reminds jude of a blue court under the sea.

“fand,” she greets the mismatched group. “newborn nomad.”

jude welcomes her by the form of a nod, turning back to the display of headshots splashed on the table, organizing it into a semblance of order.

she feels fand dance around her, suspicious to her presence. she thinks for a hot minute that fand might want to cause trouble. jude focuses her attention to the knife hidden between her breasts.

the pixie stares at her, unabashed, and right as jude thinks to reach to her chest, fand grows the courage to ask. “you. do i know you?”

the question falls flat. “i don’t believe so. there’s little chance our paths crossed.”

fand squints. “well, i’ve just left elfhame. finally broke from that unruly mess.”

lightning forks in jude’s chest, attacking her nervous system. an old phantom possesses her body, causing her to still.

the pixie moves closer, inspecting. “your look, it’s so familiar.”

jude understands in a minute.

taryn. fucking taryn. always, forever, impossible-to-be-rid-of taryn.

summoning years of falsehoods and acting experience, jude breaks eye contact to laugh and feign offense. “all mortals look the same to fae, i’m sure.”

that is not a lie. she learned that from the wickedest prince himself.

when fand slips away from the gang two nights later, jude forces herself to block it from memory.

she’s almost twenty-one. in faerie she might have died since she was eleven.

here, she’s got a family. a rough knit circle of confidants, people she rarely thinks twice about trusting anymore. her music keeps her company, and her growing arsenal of skills, of wins, it warms the smallest piece of her soul.

how could she have hated such a place?

“counterinsurgents. we calculate two dozen below the bridge,” jekka, qylin’s second, explains over a map.

jude’s focus is precise, uninterrupted.

the years, the lack of practice from a simple lack of need to, makes it so that she doesn’t religiously check the perimeter, doesn’t spot a green face. his dark tuft of hair and hooked nose, spying from the window, hidden among leaves and wind.

if she had seen him, she might’ve remembered her old friend. if she’d seen him, she might’ve broken down in tears, or begged for a word, or done none of those things to help jekka figure out their positions for the next day’s raid.

“watch for the sniper!” one of her gang yells.

jude ducks, experienced muscles leading her across the space, the shielded street with broken streetlights. abandoned houses repurposed for criminal night creatures sprawl one after the other. they’ve chosen one a stone throw from the river, so close they could taste the salt while counting bloody fae or human scalps.

five, six, seven leaps and she’s out of shot, crammed into a wedge in the building. she took down three counterinsurgents already. the wrath ran rampant today.

another figure jumps out the window, two yards from her, and takes off running through the backside of the house, the one facing the water. swift as the wind, jude pursues in fervor.

bam.

first the noise like thunderclap. then the pain.

oh.

when they screamed sniper, she expected an arrow. she expected a taut bow and a sharp, easily removed tip of metal. not a bullet.

in the end, jude has been a galaxy of abridges.

she’s had abridged parents, gone before her eighth birthday. that led to an abridged innocence and an abridged life in their rudimentary home in maine. she’s had an abridged relationship with her sisters. an abridged sense of belonging.

she had an abridged romance with a prince and king. that chapter being severed short was, as they all were, not her fault.

she had an abridged marriage. an abridged kingdom rule.

to be culminated in an abridged life. thin and meager.

she hopes no matter how small her garden has been, that each poison flower and cherry blossoms she’s sowed has done its best to enrich the tiny piece of universe allotted to her.

she should’ve known when she saw the river.

in water all began, and in water it ends.

there are no screams. no chaos. the gang has left her, chasing their foes further up the street, looking to corner them. jude? she’s going for a dip. a passage to the next life. she’ll float to it. gargle on the last of life.

“huh,” she whispers.

the ache is pungent in her back, the bullet hitting close to the spine but not quite. deadly, though. deadly for sure.

she wasn’t queen of nothing. she was queen of death, the hierophant of misery. her whole life has been a string of it. well, no longer.

jude duarte reaches the water’s edge, using each fiber of her strength to not fall in quite yet.

in the haziness of all that she’d done and all that she’d run from, he comes to her. in dream, in flesh. she’s not yet in the water.

“jude.”

this has to be the mark between. the straddling line of life and death. because somehow, impossibly, she hears him.

“jude!”

or?...

her brows scrunch in confusion, a naked toe in the river already. she wants to turn, but the seeping life at her back won’t allow it.

she doesn’t need to. long arms surround her, someone moving in front of her to read her face, to see what lies there.

it’s him.

jude’s lids droop. her back is on fire, and she burns in the flames. he’s barely changed. matured into his looks, if she had to put it into words. his tar eyes, slender lips, pointed nose and legendary black curls suddenly remind her of being seventeen.

there’s so much in his face she can barely read any of it. “is it you? is it really you?” he demands.

she’s always been jude. who jude became, that was a different question. one she no longer cares to ask.

“i found you. i finally finally found you.” his voice is incredulous.

is he the harbinger of the beyond? was that his role to play this entire time? her thoughts eddy and murk the more time passes with a hole in her back.

it is an arcane thing, in truth, to be held by a creature she’s craved and despised. her body responds on its own by pressing closer, seeking warmth.

he might be crying. could also be the angle of the sun.

“please,” he whispers.

she hasn’t said his name in years.

“cardan.”

his eyes fall closed.

her mouth repeats the motion, recognizing the familiarity of his name. cardan. once her king. her husband. the sight of him brings forth a wave of emotions, cascading through her like a waterfall.

cardan tugs her close to a punishingly tight degree. “i thought you dead.” he speaks into her ear. “we searched for years. i thought you were gone. gone, jude.”

the word pulls her back, creates distance between them. jude lets herself get lost in his eyes, those splendid eyes, bottomless and infinite, a serene look on her face as she responds:

“almost.”

the fractious prince too arrogant to be a ruler does not stand in front of her. this man is similar, but a sense of strength she hadn’t seen is forefront and shining. jude wishes she could appreciate it.

if only this weren’t the last time.

“so it is you.” she says it with wonder, with a detachment that lets her turn away from his arms and face the river.

cardan’s intake of breath indicates he has finally seen her wound. he twists his neck, shouts to someone far back, hidden in the houses. “shes hurt! SHE’S HURT!” his voice is raw and desperate.

jude walks into the water.

a hand at her arm stops her, keeps her in place, but she shrugs it off with newfound confidence and turns around. cardan’s incredulous face sparks memories of faraway lands and kingdoms.

“what are you doing?” he demands.

jude’s lips break into a smile. how she missed his voice. she walks back until water reaches her waist, then her chest, then the crown of her head.

“stop!” she hears.

the layers of the girl she was, who she is, who she could’ve been, they merge. yes, she had missed faerie. yes, she had wanted cardan. yes, she had wept tears of rage at knowing she could not have either of them back. if she cried now, her tears would turn to river water, melding into the beautiful greater whole.

a hand grips her chest. another tugs on her neck, urging her up, up, up.

air. sweet air in her lungs.

jude gasps, her plans interrupted. the bulletwound at her back sears at the salt water, the sensation so intense it actually numbs her and leaves her feeling very little.

cardan presses her flush to his body. he raises her up, and his face is marked with horror and betrayal.

“how could you?” he weeps. his features are anguished, desperate. he’s shaking her by the shoulder. “how could you?”

jude smiles a wet smile. “remember when you pushed me into the rapids? and you forced my twin to abandon me and kiss your cheeks? i can’t remember a time when i’ve been warm since then. the water, it was cold. like a leech.”

“the roach is gathering for a salve. jude, you will be okay. you need to get out now.”

she realizes there’s something wrong. “wait. no. that’s a lie. i am a liar.” she tilts her face to his, eyes meeting. “you were warm. behind the throne room and in your bed. you kept me warm. but you ripped me from my home and i've been cold since.”

cardan does something she didn’t imagine him capable of. he didn’t do so when balekin beat him. he didn’t do so when his family was slaughtered. he did so this moment, with her encircled by his arms. cardan sobs.

maybe this is when he understands he’s been forever her herald. the marker of her death. their destinies, interlinked, but only for this.

as he bares himself open, jude candidly studies his face. there’s freedom in allowing herself to admit she missed him. missed all of it. her kingdom that never was.

“i’ll heal you,” he implores. his hand runs down wet and shakingly down her face. “you’re my queen. we’ll use our magic. we will, jude, if you stay with me. don’t you get it? the exile was fake. i never meant for you to vanish. i’m begging you, please, help me heal you.”

her forehead falls on his. waist-deep in water, she feels his short breaths fall on her cheek. “you held hatred for me once.”

slowly, miserably, cardan shakes his head. the motion makes her pull away but he doesn’t let her, staying together. “love. i held love, jude.”

love

four letters.

years of running. and it caught up to her all the same.

his words hit her worse than the sniper did. she staggers in his embrace.

“hold.” he says the word with intensity. “i hold, jude.” cardan refuses to let her go, won’t let her fall. “you walked away with my heart.”

thoughts swirl in her head. they swim around like the fish crossing in between their legs.

“hold,” she says weakly.

hold love. he loves me.

impossible. and true.

“huh.”

“hold me,” she asks him. and he does.

he does.

he appears vacillant to his actions save for holding her.

jude can’t remember a time when she wasn’t running. from her parents’ demise. from madoc’s threats. from the cruel fae. from her sister’s betrayal. from cardan’s torments and, apparently, his ministrations of love. from her own shadow.

they haven’t moved from the water. it’s been a minute. it’s been four years.

jude feels her body slag, the water making up for the new deadweight.

“i wish you’d never left me,” he murmurs.

gratingly, she lifts her hand to trace a finger along the hard, straight line and point of her husband’s ear. “cardan, are you here to ask me for a divorce?”

his face breaks. she’s fully leaning on him, his long arms cradling her to his chest. amidst their soaked clothes, she feels the thudding of his heart against her cheek.

jude’s eyes flutter open and closed. “i want to tell you i will. i want to tell you i’ve waited for it. i - ah…” a jab of pain causes her to pause. “i want to tell you it hasn’t been eating me alive to be apart from you. i want to tell you… so… many… lies.”

through her misty vision, she sees cardan shake his head. “you are not leaving me.” the conviction in his voice draws a laugh from her.

“oh, cardan.” it’s the last good breath in her lungs. in the distance, she feels the ripples of someone entering the river, racing towards them. she sees only pitch black eyes. “i already have. i already have.”

they are esoteric, rendered in numinous light. from their entwined bodies in the water, there grow white flowers at the riverbed, their petals straining for the sun.

#jurdanweek2020 #jurdan #jude duarte #tfotaedit #cardan greenbriar #he's kinda scattered in this fic tbh but i promise there is SOME sort of follow-through to the angst #if you survive getting there #this took me all night and now its 9am HELLO THANK YOU FOR THIS MADNESS HOLLY BLACK #note: this will be my last tfota fic fellas #nicky writes #mine #mine:tfota

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