#i'm so sorry i vanished off the face of the earth

[dcxdpdabbles]

Could you please do another part for royal consort? Maybe with phantom causing some chaos?

Tim didn't know how he ended up here. Consort Danny had disappeared into the crowd, and the King was sneering at any nearby humans. In hindsight, maybe dancing next to the couple wasn't the best idea, but he felt he had to do something.

King Phantom had been in a foul mood since the moment he arrived. Tim just wanted to let him know he wouldn't have to worry about him getting in the way of their love or their quarrel.

He may have overstepped to clear things up as quickly as possible. Now, he was dangling from the arms of a King who was one wrong word away from starting a war.

"Um, Your Majesty?" He tries, nerves making his voice high and tight as green glowing eyes glare at him. "I'm sorry-"

"It's fine," King Phantom bites in a tone that showcases how not fine it is. "Darling and I are just having a lover's quarrel. It has nothing with the likes of you."

Okay.

Tim scrambles to think of what to say. "I hope things work out."

"They will. What can I help you with?"

"Um, a dance?"

"Why?"

"I....just as a favor."

The King tilts his head in consideration but says nothing, eyes scanning the crowd and likely searching for where his husband had stormed off.

Tim is still determining what he will do to smooth things over.

He's been trained from a very young age to run circles around the ballroom halls of Gotham elites. He knows how to disarm with a smile and bite out a throat in the same motion.

Tim can dine with people twice his age and twice his experience and still make them hand everything they own over with a smile. He's good at figuring people out, finding out what they want, and manipulating them into wanting what Tim wants.

But to do that, he needs to know the rules. The rules of High Society were the thin line between victory and defeat. If he made one wrong move, vultures would overcome him and rip him apart before he could say, "My bad."

And sadly, Tim did not know how High Society worked in the Infinite Realms. The few who knew the rules or culture didn't explain what he needed to know. Constantine barely cared about manners with his fellow humans, Raven avoided the other beings for fear of her father, and Zatanna struggled with understanding the way of the rich or nobility.

Tim could make a guess, but the vast difference in their cultures could turn a simple greeting into a faux pas. Even King Phantom's appearance was something Tim couldn't really understand.

The God of all Afterlives thought Danny Fenton was the peak of beauty, so much so that he shapeshifted to look like him with only his coloring as a difference. Tim and a majority of the world thought Fenton was rather plain-looking.

He wasn't ugly, but his face was forgettable, something that wouldn't turn heads or be easy to pick out among a crowd. Yet King Phantom strutted around, somehow seeming appealing with his plainness. Tim wondered if the King moved confidently to make him more attractive than his model or if his otherworldliness peaked through his human facade.

In any case, he doesn't think he would be comfortable making out with a being who actively made himself look like him, no matter how in love Tim was. But that was how higher beings courted, according to Constantine, and Tim could not dismiss the valuable information.

He didn't understand it, but he didn't need to for him to know that Danny Fenton had a lot of control over King Fanton.

That, in itself, was a horrifying thought.

"King Phantom isn't just a ruler of another nation with nukes strong enough to take out the world," Constantine had said in the briefing before the ball. "He isn't even a god. A god has domain over a concept. King Phantom is every concept that humanity can comprehend. We can not afford this war. He can blink and make gravity on earth vanish. He can snap his fingers to plunge the sun outside the Milky Way. Worst of all, King Phantom can switch his Rules."

"What do you mean?" Bruce demanded, voice hard and steady.

"Every Higher being has Rules. Don't tell a Fae your name. Don't leave a ghost without saying goodbye. Don't invite a vampire inside. They are bound to follow those rules, and usually, you can defeat them with them, too, but what about King Phantom? His Rules are ever-changing. No one knows why, and that's horrifying. What will you encounter with him, and how will you survive?"

The last question plays through Tim's head as King Phantom takes a deep breath through his nose before huffing. He glances down at Tim as Red Robin would look at an old computer he was planning on rewiring. Easy to tear apart and rebuild to his liking. He swallows a gulp load of spit.

"Three dances." The King says at last after a heavy silence.

"Your Majesty?" He dares to ask.

Phantom doesn't bother with an answer as he suddenly strides to the side, yanking Tim. He stumbles for only a few seconds before he corrects his footing and finds himself in the center of the dance floor.

The two move in a fast-paced waltz, feet stomping on the ground in rhythm with the music as the King twists and turns. They pass through other couples- causing the vigilante to shiver. It felt gross- taking over the dance floor with dazzling movements.

People scramble out of their way, even if King Phantom somehow causes a density shift to not have them bother, encasing the two in a small circle of awed onlookers.

Sweat is building at Tim's brow, trying to keep pace with the King, who likely had centuries to perfect this dance. He probably witnessed its creation. It was fun.

He raises with the tempo, falls with the rhythm, and is whisked away by Phantom, who leads him through each movement as quickly as Tim breathes.

Phantom yanks Tim flush against him for the following song- causing Tim to stiffen in distress. There are far too many eyes on them who will spread rumors- but he doesn't dare push the other away. This is a Vietnam,ese waltz, but its pace, as the song used to speed up in tempo.

At least the King isn't looking at him, eyes still scanning the room with an intense hunger and awareness. He hasn't seen his husband.

His family has yet to report where Consort Fenton ran off, but he can hear them whispering escape plans from their respective party guests to check.

Things could have been much more awkward since their last encounter when the King offered Danny the position of concubine. Thankfully, the Royal didn't seem interested in Tim in any way.

The third song ends, and the King practically rips himself away, stepping back with a weary smile. "You wanted one dance as a favor. A favor for a favor.

I look forward to having you grant it, Drake-Wayne."

Shit.

The rules change trap, and he fell right into it.

Tim smiles, hoping his distress will not show. But with his luck, the King can tell when lies are spoken. "Of course."

King Phantom bows his head slightly, folding one hand very oddly. He snaps upright and marches into the crowd, walking right through guests approaching him. He doesn't even glance at them. Strangely,

he seemed angrier than before as Consort Fenton reappeared at the top of the stairway, which should lead to a more private bounty. Fe ton is waving a small rectangular box at him, grinning like a madman.

Fenton's blue eyes accidentally meet Tim's, shifting from pride and warmth to suspension and possible hate. He curls the rectangular object to his chest protectively, and the moment it touches his Consort necklace, the two items start to glow.

Phantom starts running toward him.

Double shit.

"Tim," Dick hisses, walking up to him. "I can not express this enough. What the hell did you do?"

"I think I just made the lover's quarrel worse."

Dick's face pinches. "Maybe it's not too late to try and seduce them-"

A loud bang echoes through the room as King Phantom screams, a sound so unholy and inhuman that it drags Tim to his knees. Around him, guests scream, also falling, but a few are unconscious, while some are only clutching to their ears in agony. A strong wing picks up, blowing the once classy ball into a makeshift hurricane, and Tim's feet give out from under him by the force of the shock wave. He is flung into a wall, followed a second later by Dick.

Thankfully, his brother can control his fall so that when he does wind up on top of Tim—for appearances—he doesn't put too much pressure on him. Most are not so lucky.

People make sickening cracks when they collide with the walls, slumping to the ground like broken puppets, unable to escape the explosion.

"What's happening?" Bruce demands in his ear as various screams emerge around the room. Some guests still fly around like rag dolls, caught in an unseen tornado. Chairs and tables crash into each other as the chaos unfolds, as Damian responds to his father.

"The Consort seems to be under attack. So something or someone is using him to power a gateway!" Damian screams, voice just barely heard over the other noises.

Tim strains against the blowing wind, trying to ease the ache in his eyes to gather more information. He sees a horrifying sight.

Consort Danny is floating in the air, mouth open in a silent scream, as a portal forms around him. The blaring white lighting buzzes with electricity, running over his body in fast and dangerous bursts.

He looks to be dying.

The King is flying in front of him, attempting to reach the human, but a force field is bouncing him back. With each failed attempt, King Phantom's hands crackle with power, and even from across the spacious room, Tim can tell that if he were to use that power, Wayne Manor would not survive.

Let alone the humans trapped inside of it.

"We need to get people out of here!" Yells Duke, likely seeing the real danger with his power. "The King is going to kill everyone!"

Despite wearing an earpiece, Tim can barely hear his father bark out instructions as the howling wind carries on. Tim can only watch the King of Ghost summon an army.

Miniature portals pop around the Ballroom as undead knights pour out in drones. They carelessly walk through humans, not bothering to help in any way as they quickly take up formation before the Consort.

They are posed for battle. But against what?

King Phantom's voice booms across the room, starting a terrible ring in Tim's ears. He hits the ground, his chin in a painful ache, clutching his ears, willing the ringing to leave.

Tears well up in his eyes as the ringing gives way to achiness, making it hard for Tim to pick his head up. It takes a moment before he can understand what King Phantom has shouted.

"Danny, you dumb, stupid Consort, stop picking up random shit you don't understand!"

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

(Genshin Impact) Lisa, Eula, Yae, Shenhe, Chiori, Rosaria, Navia, and Furina's S/O feeling insecure

No one requested this, just writing away some blues tonight since I can't sleep. Totally unrelated, Just Give Me A Reason is a really good song.

Lisa immediately noticed something was bothering S/O.

The way their hands fidgeted on the teacup, staring out into space with their brows creased.

(Lisa) "...S/O?"

She gently calls out to them, snapping them out of whatever they were thinking about as they blinked a few times in surprise.

(Lisa) "Is something the matter?"

S/O gave a smile, one she immediately knew was forced.

(S/O) "Ah, it's nothing.-"

Their expression vanished the moment they saw how concerned Lisa was getting. There was no point in lying to her, was it?

S/O sighed as their fingers resumed rapidly tapping against the side of the cup, struggling to look her in the eyes.

(S/O) "This is going to sound really dumb but...I've just been thinking lately. You...still love me right?""

Lisa's back straightens at their words, where was this going?

S/O shook their head in a slight panic as they realized how their words came across.

(S/O) "I-It's nothing you've done, I promise! I just...I'm just worried that I'm not good enough. And that...you'll leave me because of it."

Lisa for her part remains silent for a moment. Not because she didn't know what to say, it was the opposite.

She was just relieved that it wasn't something more serious. But regardless, Lisa's arms reach over the table and hover over their hands before gently squeezing them.

(Lisa) "S/O, you've always been perfect for me. Whatever thoughts you have right now, don't listen to them."

Her smile and soothing voice makes S/O thankfully relax, with them meeting her gaze.

(Lisa) "Of course I still love you. I always will."

Lisa gets up from her seat to embrace S/O, letting them take a second to let their emotions out.

(S/O) "Lisa-"

(Lisa) "It's okay. Take as long as you need."

Eula is completely stunned when she hears S/O voice their thoughts.

Leave them?

Eula's mouth opens to immediately rebuke that, but quickly silences herself.

Truth be told, she felt that fear herself. The fact that S/O chose to love a Lawrence was a fact she still struggled to fully comprehend.

S/O was the first person to show her true love, and it felt like a knife to her heart to hear them think so little of themselves.

Instead, Eula's palm slowly caresses their cheek, letting their head rest into it.

And with a voice that grows softer by the second, she takes a deep breath and replies:

(Eula) "You mean more to me than anything I could ever say or do, S/O. Don't ever think that you're not good enough for me, because there's no one else I'd rather have."

(S/O) "...Thank you, Eula."

Once she sees that smile she loves, she gives one herself, not being able to help the teasing that follows up.

(Eula) "Remember, our feud is for the long-haul. Don't think that you can escape it that easily."

(Eula) "Hah, of course..."

Yae exhales deeply, processing S/O's words as her ears uncharacteristically twitch for a split second.

A soft chuckle from Yae is the sound S/O hears, making them turn their gaze from the ground to her.

(Yae) "Frankly, I thought when you began that sentence, it would be far worse."

For once, there's no sign of a mischievous smile or anything resembling that she'd tease them.

Yae gives a soft kiss to their forehead before taking their head to rest on her chest in an intimate hug.

(Yae) "I certainly hope you'd know by now, S/O. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't be here right now."

(S/O) "...S-Sorry, Miko.-"

She cuts them off by squeezing them tighter, her voice still as affectionate.

(Yae) "Don't apologize. Just remember that even if you doubt yourself, that I won't."

S/O pulls away after a small eternity, with Yae's expression going back to normal.

(Yae) "Good, that's the face I like to see."

Shenhe is terribly confused.

Why on earth would she ever leave without a good reason to?

(Shenhe) "You don't have to worry about something like that, S/O."

Abandon the person who made her feel human again, to feel love when she thought it was completely gone?

She would have to go completely insane to do that.

(S/O) "I-I know...It's not fair to you at all and-"

Shenhe instantly hugs them tightly, her face and voice not fluctuating all that much despite the strength that held S/O.

(Shenhe) "I am still struggling with emotions, but I know the feelings I have for you are real."

She's put at ease when S/O hugs her back. Thank the Archons she was saying her piece correctly.

(Shenhe) "I'm sorry that I have ever made you doubt me, but I love you, S/O."

(S/O) "I'm...I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

Neither of them move out of each other's arms for a long while.

Chiori sighs before she speaks up in her usual stoic tone. Though this time, there's a hint of kindness in it.

(Chiori) "Well, you're right about sounding dumb."

...Wait, shit that's not what she meant-

(Chiori) "I mean, you know I'm not the type to beat around the bush. If I wanted to leave, I'd have done it. I'm still here, aren't I?"

...Chiori shakes her head, mostly at herself. Even at times like these, she still can't help her choice of words.

This time, she moves to give them a tight hug, wiping away the tears forming at the edge of their eyes.

Chiori feels their heartbeat, giving her time to think of a way to not sound like a bitch.

(Chiori) "Too direct right now, aren't I? Then how about this, my feelings for you haven't changed, and they won't."

She hears S/O give a small chuckle, making her a little more at ease.

(S/O) "You have such a way with words, Chiori."

(Chiori) "Remember, you chose me...And I chose you, S/O."

Rosaria is silent, much of her actions mimicking S/O's.

She didn't look them in the eyes as she took her time, coming up with a response in her head.

Once she glanced at S/O and saw how uncomfortable they had become, she figured out what to say.

(S/O) "I shouldn't have brought this up, sorr-"

(Rosaria) "I'm glad you did, S/O...If anything, I feel like I haven't been there for you enough."

And she was proven right, seeing how they were tonight.

Rosaria hesitates before letting her hands hold S/O's, closing her eyes.

(Rosaria) "I know I'm not here a lot of nights to reassure you, and I know I'm really bad at this kinda stuff..."

Instead of saying anything, she gets up to kiss them, hoping that gets the message across.

(Rosaria) "...Don't worry about me leaving, that's not happening."

She makes it a mental note to come home sooner than usual now, if at the very least to wipe any tears S/O may have away.

Navia thoughtfully listens to S/O's troubles.

Her expression is completely serious, not saying anything until they finished their sentence.

Her first instinct is to wrap her arms around them and tell them that it's okay, but she knew what they really needed.

(Navia) "S/O. I don't think I could imagine my life with anyone else. And I never want anyone but you."

Seeing them relax got her to do so as well, Navia leaning in to kiss the top of their hand.

(Navia) "Don't ever be afraid to tell me these kinds of things. I'll make sure that you won't think that way about yourself ever again."

Now, she allows herself to give them a bone-crushing hug, making her giggle.

(S/O) "Thank you, Navia..."

(Navia) "It's what your wonderful girlfriend is here for, right?"

To brighten their mood, she puts her hat on them, before tilting it down and giving a cheeky smile.

Honestly? Furina completely understood the feeling, more than S/O could ever know.

She was so afraid that the people of Fontaine or that those closest to her would leave upon knowing what she was really like.

Centuries of feeling that she wasn't good enough for anyone ate away at her every night.

So to hear S/O voice the same words, thinking they weren't good enough for her?

The person who loved her despite everything? That broke her heart.

Furina's arms wrapped around their back before her head rested on their shoulders, hugging them tighter than she ever had before.

(Furina) "...Thank you for telling me, S/O."

She had no room to tell them that they shouldn't think this way about themselves. After all, she was still struggling with the very thing plaguing their mind.

(Furina) "I'll love you, no matter what you think. Because you'd do the same for me."

[haeryna]

the sadness we shared is my clarity ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆ ↪ fushiguro megumi x reader

summary: it's spring when fushiguro megumi finds you. it's summer when he realizes he loves you. but as the days shorten, and time runs out, megumi realizes you're slipping away.

tw: angst, as per usual. mentions of gore, and sexual tension but nothing explicit or nsfw. you and megumi are both idiots. half of this was churned out in a day so please give the author grace. not proofread. arrangedmarriage!au and friends to enemies to lovers. megumi is Mean. mutual pining, so much that i want to throw up. mmm yummy clan politics

notes: banner by the lovely @/cafekitsune! title taken from txt's deja vu. had this fic rotting in my head and in my drive. dedicated to riko, for being one of the first mooties i ever had. love you @riaki !!

also i'm sorry everyone for vanishing off the face of the earth pls accept this fic as an apology :'))

part one/??

It’s summer, and the air in Kawasaki is miserably hot and oppressive. Tacky skin clings to thick cloth, and Megumi grimaces at the feeling. Gojo had finally decided to send all the first years together on a mission to deal with a group of Grade 3 spirits, deeming his pupils “worthy to finally make their debut!” To celebrate, Nobara had corralled everyone to a small cafe, located near the train station. “Cmon, this place has air conditioning, and Ijichi won’t be here for at least another hour,” she insists, fingers wrapped around the curve of your wrist. Begrudgingly, Megumi follows along, heavy with the knowledge that where you go, he'll follow.

He can’t help but sneak glances over, as you and Nobara fawn over the icy desserts and drinks the cafe has to offer. The soft swoop of your neck is revealed as you lean in closer to peer at the deserts hidden behind the glass. A bead of sweat trickles down into the hollow of your collarbone, and Megumi swallows hard, forcing himself to look away. The flush on his cheeks is from the summer heat, he tells himself. He can’t quite bring himself to believe it. 

“Fushiguro!” you call out, and he forces himself to look at you. “What is it?” 

“Aren’t you going to get a drink?”

Megumi hesitates, before grumbling an affirmative. As the other three move to secure a table, he turns to face the cashier. She seems younger than him by a few years, makeup done even in the hot weather with mascaraed eyelashes batting at him innocently. She misses the proffered bills, running her hand along his, before apologizing a bit breathily. “It’s fine,” Megumi sighs. His thoughts wander as the cashier chatters away mindlessly. You were favoring your right side. Were you injured? Had one of the curses somehow reached you before he could stop them? Your technique had seemed to wane towards the end of the fight. Were you overexerted? Did he have to speak to Gojo about how hard he’d been training you? 

He pulls himself from his thoughts just in time to notice the cashier leaning over the counter, watching him curiously. “Would you like a receipt, sir?” 

“No,” is his curt reply, shoving all of his traitorous thoughts of you deep down inside of himself. The cashier pouts. “If you fill out a survey, you can get five dollars off on your purchase!” 

Megumi can feel himself grimacing. Nobara would kick his ass if he didn’t at least take it and offer it to her. “Fine then.” As he turns back to the table, he scowls at the too-bright smile on Yuuji’s face. “What’s that look for?” 

“Fushiguro, she was totally hitting on you!” 

He swats away the eager high five. “Did the curses fuck with your brain or something?” 

“No, seriously, look at the receipt she gave you!” 

Megumi can feel the heat of your gaze as he unravels the receipt. Under the printed text of “FIVE DOLLARS OFF AFTER SURVEY COMPLETION!” was a line of neatly printed numbers. Scowling, he shoves the offending piece of paper in your direction. “Here. Take it.” 

“I don’t want your leftovers,” you shoot back, eyes blazing, and his traitorous heart wrenches. “It’s not for the number, idiot. Weren’t you and Kugisaki just complaining about spending that much money on drinks? Take the survey and stop whining.” 

He lets himself fall back in the familiar rhythm of bickering with Nobara as she swats at him. He’ll do anything to avoid the way your offended gaze turns thoughtful, how you seem to study his face as he forces himself to continue the lie he’s let himself live. You cannot be his, Megumi thinks desperately, even after the four of you depart the cafe, and after you toss the crumpled up wad of paper into the trash can. Even as you fall asleep in the backseat of the car, head perched onto his shoulder, he fights down the growing panic and nausea. He would rather break his own heart in the process than let you suffer from his affections. 

Cursed, he thinks. There’s a reason his mother passed, his father killed, and his sister stolen away. He’s as cursed as the shadows that seep from his domain with their tendrils that wrap and curl over every inch of light. Megumi has already accepted that the feelings that grow by the day can never be revealed. You, with your sunshine laugh, whose tender hands would always reach for him after a mission. Fushiguro, you’d say, kindly. You’re hurt again. Let me grab the first aid kit. You, with your hands that are soft and gentle, as much as Megumi’s hands are calloused and stained. 

I love you, he finally admits, as he carries you from the car back to your room. Yuuji had an ankle injury, and Nobara couldn’t handle hauling your weight up the stairs leading back to Jujutsu Tech. At least, that’s what he tells himself, as he shifts your weight in his arms, feeling the way you subconsciously pressed yourself closer to him. I love you. Your eyelashes flutter in your sleep, brow crinkling ever so slightly. Gently, Megumi smoothes it over with his thumb. I love you. 

Fushiguro Megumi was by no means a religious man. He’d known that there was no god in the battlefields of a sorcerer, no mercy in the torturous death that only curses could offer. And yet, as he lowers you down to the comfort of your mattress, he finds himself praying. I’ll do anything, he thinks, as he watches you in the depths of your slumber. I’ll give up my body, my soul, my life. Just please let her live. Please let her be happy. 

Please give her someone that could take better care of her than I ever could. 

Fushiguro Megumi found you in the first rainfall of spring. 

You hadn't noticed him, quietly watching the droplets fall on the sakura trees planted near the perimeter of Jujutsu Tech. The edges of your kimono were stained with mud, with a chunk of your haori ripped out on the left side. Megumi frowned. Silk, he noted, and gold. You’re dressed too well to be here, but too oblivious to be a threat. Just to be sure, he let his fingers curl around the handle of one of his tonfas before he spoke. 

“Who are you?” 

Startled, you turned to face him, and his scowl deepened. You were pretty, even with your eyes rounded in shock, and the undignified noise that had escaped you when you realized you weren’t alone. When you told him your name, voice hesitant, Megumi couldn't help but hate the way his heart reacted as you spoke. 

“I’m looking for Gojo Satoru,” you finished, teeth sinking into the plush of your bottom lip as you waited for his response. Megumi swallowed hard.

“A lot of people do.” He kept his tone steady, forced himself not to let the heat in his chest rise to his face. “What’s a Kamo doing here, looking for him?” 

Megumi had heard of you, of course. Gojo had raised him with at least a basic understanding of the three Big Families, and their prominent figures from both the past and present. The half-sister to Noritoshi Kamo, you had been held behind while your elders sent him away to the sister school in Kyoto. Women, Gojo had said, tone playful but eyes cold, are seen as nothing more than breeding stock and political pawns. They’ll probably keep her there until she’s married off. 

Something seems to settle inside you, and Megumi can’t help but watch, ensnared in the web you weave. Your hands smooth over the creases in your kimono as you exhaled, shoulders rounding back. Even covered in grime you radiated elegance, though you were betrayed by the still-skittish look in your eyes. “I’m here to make a deal with him.” 

A few days after the four of you had returned from your assignment in Kawasaki, you realized that Megumi was behaving rather oddly. 

At first, he seemed moody. Tired, you assumed. With promotions coming up, Gojo-sensei had been training the four of you even more rigorously than usual. Your mornings were filled with research, analyzing the few texts that Jujutsu Tech had recovered on cursed techniques that were even remotely similar to your own. The evenings were spent sparring, with thick dust kicked up under the lukewarm breeze, and the faint howls of Megumi’s shikigami in the distance. 

Sighing, you squat down, calling softly into the woods until one of his Divine Dogs trot out, tongue lolling out happily. You can’t help the wistful smile that tugs at your lips as you run your fingers through soft, black fur. They’d taken a liking to you, after you started carrying a few dog treats in your gear to give to them. Megumi had always complained that you spoiled them, babied them too much. You couldn’t help it. You loved his shikigami dearly. 

What did that say about you? The thought makes you lightheaded for a moment. The heat, you think, a bit desperate. It was all the heat. 

“You’re late.” 

You tilt your head backwards, startling at how close he’d gotten to you. He’s dressed for the summer heat, ditching his uniform for something more practical. Linen pants brush by you as he reaches your side, and your heart seems to convulse when you realize you can see the slight ripple of muscle under the fabric of his shirt.  Heat flares in your cheeks and you look away. Stormy eyes study you, a flicker of something predatory passing through them before he turns to his shikigami. 

“And you. Stop running off like that.” 

The Divine Dog whines, and you crinkle your nose, turning back to meet his gaze. “I was calling for it because I couldn’t find you. You weren’t where we normally spar.” 

“Gojo wanted us to use the other fields.” 

“Fine, fine.” Petulant, you reach for his wrist, hoisting yourself up off the ground. Before you can even speak, he’s tearing it from your grasp as though you’ve burnt him. “Hurry up. We’re losing light.” 

You follow after him quietly, ignoring the sting in your hand from the phantom contact. He’s probably overwhelmed with the work we’ve been doing, you remind yourself, yet you can’t help the slight feeling of dread that runs up your spine. His dog noses at your palm, whining softly, as thought it can sense your distress. Its owner however seems none the wiser. 

“Why did you want to spar today? Didn’t Gojo-sensei say we could take today off?”  

“The next mission is the one that the higher-ups are sending us on to see if we should be recommended for a higher grade. That means it’s going to be more dangerous than usual.” 

The trees clear to reveal a clearing, grass matted down from hours of sparring. “I hate when you’re right.” 

Megumi spares you a sharp glance but says nothing else. “Warm up quickly. I want to be back before it gets dark.” 

You stretch out under the waning light, letting your technique run through your body for a few moments. Cheating, Yuuji would insist, but you would be lying if you said you weren’t eager for a fight. The upcoming mission loomed over you, anxiety building as you thought about the uncertainties of it all. You hadn’t trusted the higher-ups from the beginning, and you especially didn’t trust them in any circumstance where Itadori Yuuji’s life was at risk. You exhale, feeling the familiar buzz of your cursed energy flow as you move. “Okay. I’m ready.” 

Sparring with Megumi feels like a dance, more than anything else. He was your partner long before Yuuji and Nobara had even transferred to Tokyo, and your body has been trained to move as seamlessly with him as possible. Every step forward he takes you step back, and with each swing of the staff, your katana rises up to meet up. You lose yourself in it for a moment, watching the way his jaw clenches in concentration, eyebrows furrowed as you narrowly avoid a pointed elbow. A sharp jab of your blade, and Megumi is suddenly right in front of you. The air leaves your lungs in his presence taking in the scent of his laundry detergent and the slightest tinge of the soap he uses. He takes advantage of your distraction to disarm you, flipping you neatly into a hold. 

“Yield,” he says, pressing his knee down into your stomach a little more firmly. You try your best to ignore the sight of him kneeled between your legs as you try to kick out from under him. His eyes darken at the sight of you, pinned and struggling to free yourself. 

“Yield,” he says, once more, and you do, letting your body rest against the ground as you stare up at him. There’s a bead of sweat trickling down his temple, the veins of his slender hands raised as he holds his staff. You let your hand curl against the wood of it, feeling the pressure of it resting on your throat. 

“I yield,” you say, and in that moment you know that you have. Fushiguro Megumi has stolen your heart from the day you met him. I’d give you everything, you realize, as Megumi helps you to your feet. There are 35 trillion blood cells in the human body, and every single one of them runs for you. You let your fingers intertwine with his for the briefest moment before forcing yourself to pull away. I would do anything to have you. My greatest sin and my holiest salvation wrapped into a single body. 

“That was a good fight,” he tells you, taking your silence for sulking. Maybe I wanted to lose. Maybe I did want to fall for you. Would that be such a sin? 

“Thanks,” is your stilted answer, the setting sun sealing your fate. You’re in love with Fushiguro Megumi. And you don’t quite know what to do about it. 

The mission is simple enough, until it isn’t. An abandoned hospital, Ijitchi had said in the car ride over. Residual curses had been spotted clinging to the interior, feeding off of an unknown source within. Intel had suggested that it was a Grade 2 spirit at most. You watch as Nobara takes a bit too much pleasure in nailing the swarms of weak curses that had greeted you at the entrance, Yuuji laughing at how easily his fists send them to a rather unpleasant demise. Yet, you can’t shake the feeling of unease that settles over you. This is too easy for a promotion mission. What were they hiding? 

Then Megumi opens the doors to what would’ve been the emergency room, and all hell breaks loose. 

Bloodstains, bright red, catch your eye first. They’re splattered all over the room, on the floor, curtains, and on the hospital sheets yellowed with age. You see the bones next. Human; skulls, ribcages, femurs, all picked clean and white enough to shine under the fluorescent lighting. The light flickers. A tumorous mass sits in the center of the room, a conglomeration of hair, teeth, and eyes that blink slowly at you. Your spine stiffens, and immediately, you pull Megumi towards you as a ropelike strand of hair tightens around the spot where he was standing. 

Those fuckers. A Semi-Grade 1? 

“Megumi,” is all you can make out. In the hallway, you can hear something more menacing, something equally as terrible as what sits in the room inside with you. You can hear Nobara’s cry of pain as a nauseating crack rips through the air. They won’t survive without him. “I’m sorry.” 

His eyes widen in understanding a fraction too late as you gather all your energy and shove him back out into the corridor as the curse flings a file cabinet at you. It crashes into the door, and you can hear Megumi calling your name with something that sounds like desperation. The hinges rattle as he throws his weight against it, but the cabinet holds firm. When you turn to face the curse in front of you, the look in its eyes is amused as you draw your blade. A cavernous maw opens, splitting it down the center as misshapen lumps of flesh spill out. Smaller curses, remnants of the innocents it had lured and devoured. A sudden chill goes through your body. 

This isn’t a Semi-Grade. This is a full-fledged Grade 1. 

There’s something vicious in the way you move, tearing through cursed spirits as though they’re paper. Ichor stains the ground around you, as red as the blood you channel through your veins. Dimly, you think you’re screaming. It was a set up, you think desperately. Of course the higher-ups would try to kill Itadori Yuuji at any cost. They didn’t give a fuck about you, or Nobara, or Megumi. Fury fills the cavern of your chest as you lunge for the hulking Grade 1, as it grotesquely pushes out the corpse of one of its victims into something far more sinister. You rip it to shreds without a second thought. 

The sound of steel on flesh makes the hair of your arms rise as you finally manage to cut a nasty gash into the misshapen curse in front of you. It howls in pain, tendrils reaching for your body as you leap away. Instead, the tendrils open the serrated wound a bit further, opening a new pocket for its children to crawl out of. That was the first blow you’d been able to land; ten minutes have passed since you trapped yourself inside a room with it. Will you make it out alive? You shake the thought away angrily.

Gritting your teeth, you increase your blood flow, shooting it down to your legs and the fibers of your muscles. Your blade shines as it cuts down curses, the Grade 1 merely watching with a demeanor that you can only describe as bored. It’s toying with you, you realize, but what pricks your heart isn’t fear, but resignation. Your foot catches on the rubble for only a moment, and the Grade 1 moves, slamming you into the wall with enough force for you to feel your ribs shatter. Blood fills your mouth and you choke, lungs heaving. Punctured, your technique tells you, a liter gone. The air tastes like iron and salt, and you realize with a start that you’re dying. 

You feel oddly calm as the world spins, watching as the ropes of hair approach your prone body. The last thing you see is the door shattering open, and the look in Megumi’s eyes as he sees you. There’s terror in his normally stoic expression, his arm outstretched towards you as Nue dives for you. Nobara and Yuuji are moving, but all you can see is him. His hands are bloodied at the fingertips, as though he’d been clawing at the door with his own hands to pry it open, his lips moving soundlessly. There’s a dull ringing in your ears, the toll of death that signals your end. His hand cups your face, and you allow yourself to lean into it for a moment, reveling in the touch. I could die like this, is your final thought as you succumb to your injuries. I’m happy that you’re holding me, Megumi.

The world around you feels muted, when you finally awaken. Your vision is blurred as you peel your eyelids back, and you wince at the sensation. How long have you been out for? Slowly, the blurred tinges of light start to focus. A lamp, dimly lit to your right on the nightstand next to a pitcher of water and an empty cup. A punctured lung, a liter gone. Your hand drifts to the bandages that wrap your chest, carefully letting your cursed technique scan your body. A few lacerations, but for the most part you were fine. Crisp sheets rustle as you sit up, examining your surroundings. The hospital in the infirmary. Somehow, they managed to bring you back. 

Megumi’s eyes, so desperate and lost as his hand reached for you. 

You try not to think about it, as you carefully test your body. Your limbs ache, but that’s to be expected. Your hair has been neatly pulled away from your face; Nobara’s work, no doubt. Her screams from behind the door, the dread in your chest when you realized they might not survive without Megumi. You watch your fingers shake as you reach for the water, letting it soothe away the pain in your throat. Did she even make it? Did they live? 

The door opens, startling you from your thoughts. Megumi stands in the doorway, hand pushing through his hair. You take a moment to examine him, noting the dark circles under his pale skin, and how his long hair seemed mussed. His eyes scan the room, passing over you before focusing on you with startling clarity. 

“You’re awake.” 

Hesitantly, you nod, as he drops into the seat beside you. “Did…did they…”

He cuts you off before you can even finish your sentence. “Kugisaki and Itadori are fine.” 

You stare down at your hands, letting the silence wash over you. Yet, you’re dimly aware of how suffocating it feels, how your shoulders were unable to relax even with the knowledge that your friends were alive and safe. Megumi continues to watch you, but before you can say something, anything,  his voice fills the air, terse and clipped. 

“What the fuck were you thinking?” 

Startled, your eyes meet his. “What?” 

“Did you think I was too weak? That I couldn’t handle it just because you’ve been a Grade 2 longer than I have?” The eyes that normally watched you with a hint of affectionate exasperation were cold, and hard. “You behaved recklessly. Did you even think about how it impacted the rest of us? Because of you, Kugisaki broke her leg, and Itadori almost had his arm cleaved off. You did all of that just for the rest of us to find you half dead in a puddle of your own bones and blood.” 

“Stop it,” you whisper, but Megumi’s voice only twists into something far more cruel. “You thought you were being so brave, sacrificing yourself, only to realize that you weren’t that special. You couldn’t even take down that Grade 1 alone. Kugisaki had to save you, even as she was practically screaming from the pain.” 

“Megumi,” you whisper, and he pauses, clearly unused to his name falling from your lips. “Why are you so angry at me?” Your voice breaks ever so slightly and you bite your lip hard enough to taste blood, ashamed at the wetness in your eyes. “Where is this coming from? I don’t understa-” 

He slams his palm against the wooden surface of your bedside table, rattling the drawers. “Are you really that stupid to ask what you did wrong? You fucked up. I thought you were different, but in reality, you’re no better than the rest of your clan, are you? You’re just another filthy Kamo.” 

Your hands shake as you twist them into the off-white infirmary sheets. “What are you talking about?” 

Megumi laughs, but it’s jaded, sharp. “Congratulations. You’re being promoted to a Semi-Grade 1, all because of your little stunt that landed the rest of us into hospital beds. Even though we all had to help you finish it off, they’re only choosing you. I wonder why.” 

“Megumi.” Your voice rises, as your heart finally shatters. “I did it because I thought you would die, you know that. I don’t give a fuck about the politics of the higher ups, or my clan, or even my grade. I just wanted to protect you all. You know that.” 

He rises from the chair next to your side, expression indifferent to the tears that are rolling down your cheeks. “As if I’d believe you.” 

“Megumi,” you call out, desperately, as he walks away. “Megumi!” 

He doesn’t look back, and you’re left alone in the dark with only the moon to bear company as you sob. I don’t understand, you think, deliriously. Can’t you see that I love you? Can’t you see I’d rather die than watch you break in front of me? 

Megumi barely makes it to the lawn before he retches into the bushes. Bile rises in his throat and he squeezes his eyes shut as he replays the moment over and over and over again. For five days, he’d held vigil at your bed. For five days, he realized that your love for him would get you killed. For five days, he’d wrapped his heart in iron, knowing that what he was about to do would break the both of you. I would’ve only gotten you killed, he thinks, numbly. It’s what landed you here in the first place. 

Yet, Megumi can’t stop recalling the exact moment the relief in your eyes had turned into betrayal, how your lips had trembled and your hands shook. Your voice, desperate and pleading, calling his name as he forced his legs to walk away from you. How he can hear your sobs faintly trailing from the windows above, matching the tears that are trailing down his cheeks. 

You’ll hate him forever, he thinks, dazed, as he forces himself onto his feet. You’ll hate him forever, and by god it’ll be the most painful thing he’s ever experienced, but as long as you’re alive he can bear it. As long as he never has to see you there again, laying in a heap of your own blood, eyes dazed and unseeing, he will carry the sins that it takes to keep you alive and away from him. 

I love you. I love you, and I’m sorry that someone like me ever fell for someone like you. I love you so much that the thought of being without me tears me to shreds. I love how you take care of my shikigami like they're your own. I love how every touch you give me heals something that I didn't know I was missing. I love you, and I need you to live more than I need air to breathe.

I love you, and even though I don't think you'll ever forgive me, I'll always follow wherever you go.

[chronicowboy]

The ambulance carrying Chimney trundles away, and Hen retreats to where Buck and Eddie are huddled for a breather. She gives Eddie a light tap on the back as she joins them, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders in what she assumes is half reassurance and half leverage to keep himself upright.

Honestly, Hen is just impressed he's still standing. Its been one hell of a day.

"How'd he look?" Buck asks, face locked tight into careful neutrality.

"Well, he was cracking jokes with Julie." Hen smiles shakily, the feel of her best friend's blood on her hands making her skin itch.

"He'll be okay," Eddie tells them both, quiet conviction in his voice. "He's got too much to live for."

Hen watches the look Buck and Eddie share with curiousity. Its a loaded look full of unspoken words Hen could never hope to understand. But then Buck nods, his shoulders lose just the slightest bit of tension, and he turns back to the rubble.

"We've got more work to do," he says gravely. His eyes flicker to Eddie's hand where its pressed against his ribs. "You can sit this one out, Eds. I really think you should."

"We need all the help we can get, Buck." Eddie shakes his head and pushes off Hen to steady himself. "I'll take frequent breaks, but I'm not stopping until I have to."

Buck clenches his jaw, but before he can protest their radios crackle to life.

"Firefighter Diaz, do you copy?"

"Linda?" Eddie frowns, and Hen feels a sickening stone of dread drop right through her stomach.

"Eddie." Linda's voice wobbles, and Hen's chest tightens. "Eddie, I'm so sorry. I just got a call from Christopher."

For a moment, the scene goes deathly silent. Hen can only hold her breath and remember the way the world had dropped out from under her when she'd got the call about Karen's lab.

"W-what?" Eddie croaks, eyes wide and unfocused.

Hen reaches out to grab Eddie's hand, glances to see where Buck's comfort is, always the first one to be at Eddie's side. She knows its a mistake the moment she looks at him. Captain Buck has vanished, replaced instead by the sodden, dirty, bloodied Buck they'd found in the aftermath of a tsunami. Tiny, shaking, frozen with fear.

"Christopher was under the bridge when it collapsed," Linda carries on, words trembling. "He's stuck in there."

"Is he-" Eddie chokes back a sob, chest heaving with his breaths, and rolls his eyes up skywards. "Is he still on the line?"

"Yeah, do you want to talk to him?"

"Please," Eddie rasps.

But before Linda can patch him through, there's an almighty grumble like the earth itself is growling and another section of the bridge collapses in on itself.

Hen throws her arms out on instinct, unwilling to lose anymore of her team to this goddamned bridge, but its useless. Eddie's too weak with pain and shock to do much more than nudge her, and Buck's still frozen in place. But Eddie's scream. Well, that's not something Hen will ever be able to forget.

She'd thought the way he screamed Buck's name on the ladder had been bad. But now Eddie's half hunched over as he screams his lungs out, a thing so primal that Christopher's name is almost unrecognisable where it falls from his lips. Hen feels his grief all the way down to her bones as she catches Eddie before his buckling knees can hit the floor.

He's heavy, too heavy for her aching arms, and she looks to Buck for help only to find an empty spot.

"Please," Eddie whispers over and over, voice wet and raw.

Hen follows his gaze and finds Buck at the fresh wall of rubble, tearing chunks of debris away with nothing more than his bear hands. She blinks, expecting to find herself in darkness and soaked to the bone by rain, but Buck is screaming Christopher's name not Eddie's.

Hen lowers Eddie to the floor, propping him up against the car and making sure he has a clear view of Buck's frantic work. She turns just in time to watch Buck bark orders at a group of gathered firefighters, but then he's right back to scrabbling through the rubble and screaming his lungs out.

"Linda," Hen murmurs into her radio, "is Chris still with you?"

There's a pause. Too long. Hen squeezes her eyes shut tight.

"T-the call hasn't ended, but..." A deep breath. "He's not answering me."

Hen curses quietly to herself, sends a prayer up to a god she doesn't believe in, then turns back to Eddie, his eyes still fixed on Buck with something desperate and pleading. Her eyes drop, unable to stomach the expression of pure anguish on his face, and she finds Eddie's gloved hand wrapped around his St Christopher medallion.

She wants to promise him that Christopher will be okay, wants to promise him that he'll make it out the other side, wants to make a hundred promises that she absolutely shouldn't. But Hen loses her own voice when she thinks about how she'd react if it was Denny under tonnes and tonnes of bridge.

The next thing she knows, Buck is calling out for a gurney with a hoarse voice and diving into a hole in the wall of rubble. Hen wonders if he realises he doesn't have a helmet on or if he just doesn't care. She watches the small opening with baited breath, gripping Eddie's hand as tight as she can possibly manage.

Its a long five minutes before Buck emerges from the hole with a dust-covered body in his arms. The sob that bubbles out of Eddie is almost as haunting as his scream. Buck cradles Christopher against his chest like he's the most precious thing in the world as he picks his way through the chaos towards them. Sooner than Hen can comprehend, Buck is falling to his knees by Eddie's side, his own eyes glassy with tears.

"Hey, buddy," Buck chokes out, "told you I'd get you to dad."

"Chris," Eddie sobs, reaching out for him. Buck doesn't miss a beat, manoeuvring himself and Chris closer so that Eddie can hold his son without aggravating his injuries. "Hey, Chris. Hey, I'm here."

"Dad?" Chris mumbles weakly, but for the smile that breaks across Eddie's face you'd think it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Yeah, mijo, I'm here." Eddie shakes a glove off to brush the curls off of Christopher's forehead, and Hen waves the paramedics with the gurney over. "I've got you. You're gonna be okay."

Hen makes the mistake of looking at Buck again, and her eyes fill with sharp tears at what she finds. Buck, the gentle giant, cradling Christopher with the most care in the world, and looking down at father and son like they're the reason he's still breathing, his heart is still beating. Buck watching Eddie murmur reassurances to Christopher like he's just found faith for the first time in his life, like a resurrection, like this is why he came back from the dead.

The gurney breaks them from the moment, and Hen helps Eddie to his feet as Buck lays Christopher down. Eddie takes his hand the moment he's upright and he's staggering along with them to the ambulance before he's even steady on his feet.

Hen watches them roll Christopher into the rig, watches Eddie climb in after him, watches as Eddie turns to catch Buck's eyes just before the doors close between them. Hen doesn't have to know Buck and Eddie's secret language to know that that look meant thank you. She turns to Buck, a few steps in front of her, suddenly looking lost in all the debris. When she lays a hand on his shoulder, he clears his throat and sniffles before composing himself.

"Back to work," he mutters and then he's off again.

Hen hears her own voice echoed in her head: are you capable of being a father and walking away?

[chaussetteblanche]

I had this idea in my head for a while; With Kit Connor x gf reader, where she comforts him when he was pressured to come out

thank you <3

pairing : kit connor x reader summary : you are by kit's side as he deals with being forced to come out word count : 900 words warnings : swearing

note : the fact that some so-called "fans" watched the show and had the nerve of accusing him of queer-baiting and pressured into coming out when he was only eighteen is just disgusting to me, check yourselves y'all

You'd been dating Connor for a while. Being an actor, you'd met at some party he had attended with the Heartstopper cast. You'd met Yasmin first, and had immediately hit it off. She was unbelievably funny and down-to-earth. She had introduced you to the rest of the cast, and, naturally, you'd been drawn to Kit. You had exchanged numbers through shy smiles and shaky hands, the rest was history.

Dating someone in the acting world was both a blessing and a curse. As an actor, Kit understood and could relate to your struggles with roles, management, fame, social media... just the industry in general. You bonded over similar experiences as bisexuals who could pass as straight and who didn't always bother with labels or clarifying their sexualities. But as an actor, he was also often on the move, filming thousands of kilometres away from you or in a different time zone altogether.

But even with all this, being with Kit was easy. You both clicked, you just worked. You communicated your feelings and needs and even though you'd had your fair share of arguments, you loved him more than anything. He made you and your life so much better.

So you can imagine that when people he started being accused of queer-baiting and being pressured by people who missed the meaning of the show entirely to come out, you didn't take it well. You loved Kit with all your heart and would tear the world to pieces just for him.

"I just can't believe these people! How dare they? How can they just- sit there and demand this of you!" you'd ranted one night. "You're eighteen for Pete's sake! You don't owe them or anyone anything! Fucking cunts, it's just ridiculous that they think so!" Kit watched you from where he was sitting on the couch, running a hand over his face. You sigh, licking your lips as you trudged over to him. "I'm sorry," you speak softly, standing in between his legs. He looks up at you, shaking his head. "You've got nothin' for apologize for, luv," "But I shouldn't go off like this, it's not fair to you, this negative energy..."

He pulls you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you and burying his face in your neck. Your hand immediately goes to his hair, gently scratching his scalp as the other wounds itself around his shoulders. "I would make them vanish off the face of the Earth if I could, I swear, I-" "You did all you could, my love, it's already more than enough." He meant the countless posts you'd made concerning his situation as well as other actors', speaking up on the issue in many interviews... He was right, you'd done everything in your power. But it still wasn't enough. And it was killing you.

"But it's not, though. They just won't stop! Where is their bloody decency? And you don't deserve this, any of this. It's so unfair." "I know," He lifted his head up to look at you. Your hand cupped his jaw before you kissed him deeply. "I can take it," he assured against your lips. You pulled away, frowning. "But you shouldn't have to. It's so unfair. I wish we could just shut them all up, tell them to fuck off." "But you've done that already, haven't you?" he chuckled. "Yes, but clearly the message didn't get through." He pressed a sweet kiss to your lips. "Stop worrying about me. I'll take care of it." "What will you do?" "I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out."You'd seen the tweet before you'd seen him. He was supposed to come over to your place for Halloween, you were planning on attending a party together, dressed as Shaggy and Velma. You were halfway through getting ready. You had your outfit on and were just getting started on your makeup when your phone started blowing up. Confused, you picked it up, seeing Kit's tweet everywhere. You slapped a hand over your mouth, scrolling down Twitter. Even though you were furious at the people who had brought him to this, you couldn't help but feel proud of him for taking control of the situation and coming out on "his own terms", if they could be qualified as such.

Your doorbell rings and you all but run to open the door. Outside stands Kit, looking absolutely beaten. You bite your lip, eyebrows furrowing. "I just saw," you breathe. He walks in and pulls you into a big hug, sighing shakily into your hair. You rub his back. "Oh, baby," you coo, "I'm so sorry, you don't deserve any of this,"

You usher him to your couch, closing the door and start making some tea. You set both your cups down on the coffee table, sitting down next to him. You take his hands in yours, caressing his knuckles. "How do you feel?" "I- I'm just disappointed, I guess. I thought people, especially after watching the show, would be more understanding, empathetic... just- more human, I guess." "Yeah, people are disappointing." "But I wanted to be the one to say you, you know? I didn't want that taken away from me, I didn't want to be outed." "And you were totally right, you took control of the situation and I'm so proud of you. You changed the narrative." He gave you a small smile.

Kit laid his face in your lap, hugging your thighs. "It still sucks, though," he spoke, voice muffled. You nodded, running a comforting hand up and down his back. "Yeah, it sucks. Do you wanna stay here tonight and watch some scary movies?" "Yes, please."

[zukosdualdao]

something i was thinking about regarding the parallels of aang and zuko accidentally burning toph and katara, respectively, is the similarity in their reactions in the immediate aftermath, but the way their reactions diverge afterward, re: apologies.

Aang tosses it into the air and spreads his arms out. For a second, he has a smile on his face, but it vanishes as he accidentally burns Katara's hands. Katara shrieks in pain. Aang: Katara! I'm so sorry! Sokka comes running to Katara's side. Sokka: [Concerned.] Katara, what's wrong? [Angrily.] What did you do?! Aang: It was an accident! I was, uh... Katara, I'm so-- Sokka furiously tackles Aang. Sokka: [Enraged.] I told you we shouldn't mess around with this! Look what you did! You burned my sister! [Katara runs away.]

Zuko: Who's there? Stay back! [Whips fire.] Toph: It's me! [Throws up an earth shield, but steps back into Zuko's fire blast.] Ow! You burned my feet! Zuko: I'm sorry, it was a mistake! [Comes toward her, but she begins to crawl away.] Toph: Get away from me! [As Toph crawls away, she grabs the earth under her and throws it backward at Zuko.] Zuko: Let me help you! [Dodges another rock.] I'm sorry! [Tries to grab her.] Toph: Get off me, get off me! [Brings up some earth which sends Zuko flying back.]

both of them try to immediately apologize as soon as they realize what they've done, and while that's understandable and they both do feel genuine remorse, the kinds of apologies being made in these contexts are inherently a little selfish. an apology should be for the other person, and neither katara or toph is in a place to process it, as both are in immediate pain and both are panicking. aang and zuko also both try to repeat the apology - aang only doesn't get all the way through his because sokka tackles him and interrupts - in the moment when it's become very clear that it's not going to be appropriate or helpful at the time.

where i think they diverge, though, is that while aang continues to feel remorse, he doesn't offer another apology now that tensions have lowered and she might be in a better place to receive it. instead, it becomes about his own guilt, and katara having to comfort him, telling him it doesn't matter because she was able to heal herself.

Katara enters the cottage to find Aang sulking. Aang: Jeong Jeong tried to tell me that I wasn't ready. I wouldn't listen. I'm never going to firebend again. Katara: You'll have to eventually. Aang: No, never again. Katara: It's okay, Aang. I'm healed.

he also learns the wrong lesson from it. and to be clear, i'm not criticizing that as a writing choice - i think it's very realistic. but instead of resolving to do better in the future and learn discipline, he declares his intent to avoid firebending instead of committing to the responsibility of controlling it. (which, as katara rightly points out, is just not going to work.)

whereas, despite his lapse in wallowing in his own guilt - why am i so bad at being good? - by the next day, zuko is able to apologize to toph in a setting where tensions are lower and she's better able to process it, as her feet might not be completely healed but are healing and she's in significantly less pain and a clearer mindset. he gives the explanation of it being an accident without excusing it, instead affirming that he knows he has a responsibility to be more careful and resolving to do better.

Zuko: [To Toph.] I'm sorry for what I did to you. [Bows to her.] It was an accident. Fire can be dangerous and wild, so as a firebender, I need to be more careful and control my bending, so I don't hurt people unintentionally.

i think the reason zuko is able to work past this and not keep wallowing in shame and guilt is because part of his journey has been learning (with help from iroh) that the guilt and shame he was made to feel for his 'wrongdoings' in ozai's eyes never actually helped anything, and he has finally started to internalize that. so he's able to say "i did a wrong thing and i'm sorry and i will do better" without either trying to completely justify himself or debasing himself, and that's powerful and important.

[universallychaoticpan]

Hi! Hello! Can I request separate for Fyodor and Dazai where the newbies (cough Sigma cough Atsushi) had a crush on their s/o's but they deny it WHILE BLUSHING RED, and insist that they just admire and inspire to be strong like s/o (Even thou s/o is on a very different league compare to them)

I'm so sorry I like vanished for a sec- I've been taking a break from some things but I'm back!! Anyway I was so excited to write this- always so fun to write some cute crushes.

It wasn't like Atsushi had never had crushes before- there had been some cute girls over the years, definitely. I mean he couldn't name them off the top of his head, but he'd definitely had crushes.

Yeah those were nothing compared to you.

When he had joined the Agency, he had taken notice of you- Dazai's pretty significant other who was smart and sharp as a knife. You were sweet and kind, compassionate in a way he was unused to, and always ready to match Dazai in whatever wild scheme he had cooked up for the day.

Now Dazai wasn't an idiot- far from it, he was incredibly intelligent. You two had been together for a couple years when Atsushi had shown up, and when he noticed Atsushi's budding crush on you, he had teased you to no end. Truth be told, Dazai found it funny. And one day, he cornered Atsushi in the empty office, a wicked smile on his face.

"Atsushi," he called, his voice taking on a singsong lilt that made the white haired boy wary of what was coming next.

He poked his head around the corner, looking at Dazai laying on his couch. "What is it?"

Dazai beckoned. "Come here, would you? I've got a little question."

Atsushi walked forward nervously. "Yes sir?"

"Y/n," Dazai said. "What do you think of them? Honestly?"

Atsushi sputtered, stammering before trying to cover up his reaction. "Y/n? They're uh- they're nice! Really...really nice."

Dazai's smile widened. "You think so? And what about their appearence? What do you think of that?"

Atsushi wanted the Earth to swallow him whole right then and there.

"I mean they're attractive, I guess? They have a good smile...and pretty eyes...and their smile is-" He cut himself off when he saw Dazai's smirk. "I mean you asked! And anyone would say that about them it doesn't mean anything and honestly I just see them as a mentor- I mean they're so powerful and smart who wouldn't want to be like them right like everyone likes them-"

"Atsushi, you can stop answering this dumbass's questions."

Atsushi stopped his rambling cold, freezing in panic as he slowly turned around. And there you stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe as Dazai died of laughter on the sofa.

Crap. You had definitely heard everything.

Now. Sigma was a comparably logical person. It wasn't often his emotions got the better of him- one didn't make it into the Decay of Angels by letting things like emotions control them, or how they made decisions. He had always been that way; he got things done, and while he wasn't unkind, he was simply matter of fact. He'd been called blunt more times than he could remember, but he didn't mind. He was who he was- nothing changed that.

And then, of course, you had come along.

He knew who you were; he made it his business to know things. Fyodor's partner and largely considered the second in command in the Decay of Angels. Dangerous, stunning, and deadly cunning- how could he not know who you were.

And suddenly, he was getting distracted all the time. He was giving the wrong orders, daydreaming while on duty, dealing the wrong hands- it was terrible. He would be working and suddenly the thought of your pretty smile would pop into his mind. He would be trying to sleep and he would think of how you pulled the wildest stunts at times just to entertain yourself.

Worst of all? He knew Fyodor noticed. Smart people did not get on Fyodor's bad side- smart people didn't antagonize him and they most definitely did not have crushes on his significant other.

So he rationalized. It wasn't a crush- he just admired you is all. And who wouldn't? You were a top member in one of the most feared organizations in the world. You were smarter than most people could conceive, and to top it all off, you were extremely strong. Yeah, that was all. He just really really admired you. That's what he told himself when he caught himself staring, or when he realized he'd been thinking about you during work again.

Not a crush.

Definitely not.

[nicoline1998enilocin]

Dancing in the street

Pairing | Steve Rogers x Civilian!Female!Reader

Word count | ~ 750 words

Summary Steve hasn't been himself lately, so he returns to his roots and goes to the part of New York he grew up in. As he's strolling around Brooklyn, he suddenly spots you dancing in the middle of a crosswalk, and he can't help but smile at your enthusiasm. When he gets pulled into a dance, he lets himself go and dances with the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

Warning(s) This occurs between Infinity War and Endgame but doesn't necessarily follow all canon events | Swearing.

Request @tittittoee | Hii!! Omg omg as soon as i saw this video I thought of Steve Rogers having a grumpy day and when he saw y/n dancing. He couldn't help but to let out a chuckle. (In the video when she turned to look at the other person while she pointed her hands at them) can it be y/n grabbing steve to dance with her. So they’ll just be dancing in the middle of the crosswalk 🥰

A/n I want to thank you for this sweet request! I enjoyed the video, and the idea is lovely because I always want to make a smile appear on his face 🥰 My requests are currently closed, and I will post the ones I already received over the next few weeks. Thank you to @ccbsrmsf1 for proofreading this one! 🖤

Banners: @vase-of-lilies | Divider: @firefly-graphics | GIF credit to the owner

Main Masterlist | Steve Rogers Masterlist | Read on AO3

It's been nearly two years since Thanos made the Snap happen, and half the popularity on Earth has vanished. Despite all his best efforts, Steve's still adjusting to this, but it's incredibly difficult without his best friend by his side.

Bucky vanished all that time ago, and Steve hasn't been the same. His only tether to the past he once knew and loved is gone, and he's been trying his hardest to adjust.

''He'll come back, don't worry!'' or ''He'll be back before you know it!'' were only a few of the things he heard almost daily, and he was getting sick of it by now.

And that's precisely why he stormed out of the Avengers Compound to make his way to Brooklyn. He needs to go back to where he grew up and where he met his best friend, back to his memories.

He took his motorcycle and drove off, not caring about the mess he left behind right now.

The wind blows through his long, golden locks as he makes his way to his old neighborhood, ready to get lost in his thoughts, all so he doesn't have to endure more pity from strangers, coworkers, or friends.

When he reaches his old neighborhood, he parks the motorcycle and takes the keys out of the ignition before taking in every building around him.

After a short walk of a few minutes, he arrives at the house he used to share with his Mom as he was growing up, and when he looks up at the windows, he feels a lump in his throat.

''I'm sorry, Mom. Sorry I couldn't be there for you before you passed,'' he whispers, wiping away a tear from his cheek, and he sits down on the stairs in front of the door, his elbows leaning on his knees.

His head hangs low, his hands constantly raking through his hair to calm his mind, but nothing seems to work. His mind is filled with pictures of his Mom, but also Bucky.

He still can't believe it's been nearly two years since his best friend vanished right before his eyes. It's been two years since he lost the last bit of hope he had. And it's been two years of a neverending battle.

''FUCK!'' he exclaims loudly, and a few people on the street look at him, but he doesn't care. The entire world could vanish for all he cares, with him included.

He stays on those steps for nearly an hour before he decides to go somewhere else because being here only makes him feel worse, and he wipes his tears away aggressively.

After picking himself back together, he makes the trip back to his motorcycle. He has to stop at a red light before a crosswalk, and that's where his attention is immediately drawn to you.

It is a beautiful day outside, and you take full advantage of it as you stroll through Brooklyn, getting to know the neighborhood you just moved into.

You were bouncing happily on the soles of your feet at the side of the road, and Steve couldn't help but smile at your enthusiasm. Seeing you like that somehow worked wonders for his mood as well.

As soon as the light turned green, you couldn't contain your excitement, and you danced onto the crosswalk and stretched your arms out at Steve, a stranger to you.

''Come on, dance with me!'' you exclaim happily, and Steve does, smiling from ear to ear at your happiness. He lifts your arm to let you twirl a few times before you pull him to the side of the road he just came from.

He didn't care, though, because he wanted to go wherever you were going, too. With a wink, you let go of his hands and turned around on your way to your destination, and Steve was left with a massive smile on his face.

All he could hope for was that he would see you again because seeing you made his day just a little brighter. Even if his best friend wasn't here, you managed to make him smile like an idiot, and he wasn't complaining for a single second.

Suddenly, it felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders, and the drive back to the Compound wasn't so bad anymore. You showed him how you can make the best out of every day, even if it's just by dancing with strangers on a crosswalk.

And for that, he will never be able to repay you.

[anurst]

Girl Bradshaw

Summary: the moment of truth. Can you and Bradley work out your differences?

A/n: oml im so sorry for the long wait. i just kind dropped off the face of the earth. i didnt really have any motivation to write but now i'm back! this chap is kinda short but another will be posted on Tuesday :D

Warning(s): angst, estranged family

Part 9: Sometimes I wish I was 10

Before Jake, you never really fully believed in cloud nine. Now though, as you giddily walk through the halls of camp, your body tingles with newfound excitement. Electricity practically flows through your veins.

"I take it the date went well?" Amy's voice comes from behind you. Normally, you would have chastised her for sneaking up on you, but for now, you just smile as your cheeks slightly redden. Amy's smile widens even more as she latches onto your arm. "Oh my gosh! You have to tell me everything! And, I MEAN everything!" The both of you giggle as you push open the door to the gym.

The rest of your team turns to the pair of you and it's no secret that they're curious about your date. Carlos certainly isn't subtle as he wiggles his eyebrows at you. Jensen's the only one (besides Amy) who vocally asks you how you went. Just as you're about to recount last night's events, the doors swing open and a panting Bradley stands there.

Silence spreads for a couple seconds as Bradley gathers his breath. Offering a shaky smile, he rubs at the back of his neck. "Sorry for, uh, barging in, but I'm here to talk to Braidy."

When Nolan clears his throat, you roll your eyes and turn to face Jensen again. "We'll give you two a minute," he says and your eyes widen. No way he was actually going to leave you alone with Bradley?

Jensen gives you a small pat on the shoulder as your team shuffles by and out of the gym. The door closes behind them and each step that Bradley takes towards you seems to get louder.

Your fists clenched tightly together as you will yourself not to turn around. Turning around means acknowledging that Bradley's standing less than five feet away from you. The brother who abandoned you and seemingly forgot your existence bites his lip as he tries to find the right words. "(y/)– Braidy, please just hear me out."

"What if I don't want to?" 'Idiot, why'd you respond?'

"I'll keep finding you and repeating what I'm going to say. I'll keep apologizing until the world stops spinning. I know that sorry doesn't make up for the years of pain I put you through. That sorry won't just magically fix us. That it won't undo all the words I said. But, please Braidy, at least let me make it up to you."

Make it up to you? What if there's nothing that can be done? What if you're finally done with Bradley and that painful chapter of your life?

"I don't care Bradley. I don't want to fix us."

"Braidy, you're my sister–"

"SO I WASN'T YOUR SISTER BACK THEN?" you yell before you can properly think. There's a heavy burn in your chest and a part of you think it'll burst any moment. Every breath you take feels as though you're inhaling smoke. Your eyes meet Bradley's and the suffocating feeling vanishes.

You feel like you're ten again. A fifteen-year-old Bradley wipes the fat tears that roll down your cheeks. One hand comes up to ruffle at your hair and he quietly cooes at you to stop crying. Soft reassurances of 'everything is gonna be okay' repeat after one another as more tears fall.

The calm and warm reassurance that Bradley constantly provided for you returns and it scares you. It scares you that after so much pain and heartbreak, Bradley can still make you feel so warm with just a simple look.

It's almost as though nothing has changed and time hasn't past. And if you're completely honest, that thought doesn't invoke any fear. Because right now, in this moment as you stare into your brother's eyes, you wish you were ten again.

Bradley slowly lifts a hand to wipe at the tear that rolls down your cheek. His other hand wrap around the back of your head and brings you closer. Soft whispers come from Bradley's lips but you hardly hear them over your sobs.

"Everything's going to be okay. Just let me make it up to you."

"…You can’t…” you whisper as you push yourself out of Bradley's arms. Furiously wiping at your cheeks, your arms wrap around your torso as you direct your gaze to the floor. "I can't even look at you, Bradley. Every time that I do, I'm just reminded of the worst event of my life. I don't think you can make it up to me, so just, please, leave me alone." You take a step back and swallow the lump at the back of your throat. "I'm happy with the life I've made. I'm happy with my friends and family. I appreciate you apologizing, but I don't accept it."

Before Bradley can say anything, you quickly turn and walk out of the gym. Weirdly enough, the weight returns and it feels like you can't breathe. Walking away from Bradley might be the wrong decision, you think. But, that doesn't stop you from continuing down the halls.

Taglist: @potato-girl99981 @callsign-cacti @caitsymichelle13 @darhk-angel @madkill44 @cherrycola27 @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @clockworkballerina @krismdavis @phantomxoxo @piceous21 @laneyspaulding19 @multifandomfangirll @moron-says-what @rhirhikingston @startrekfangirl2233 @mightiestheroes @gizmodear @meritxellao @adaydreamaway

[blossom-hwa]

elegies | k.th

pairing: Taehyun x Beomgyu genre: angst, apocalypse!au warnings: cursing, character death, mentions of blood and guns, zombies word count: 7.1k notes: — this is the second rewrite I'm posting here of this story! you can find the original and the first rewrite linked below :) As the world around him falls, Taehyun keeps moving on.

Lavender Mist | the things we lost along the way | TXT Masterlist

Kai disappears in the middle of the night, and all he leaves behind is a note. 

I’m sorry. But everyone’s leaving and I have to leave first or you’ll leave me too.

Don’t look for me. 

That’s it. That’s all, the culmination of nearly twenty years of friendship—familiarly messy handwriting scribbled in fading pen on a scrap of dirty paper, fingerprints of dirt smeared on the edges. It’s still in Taehyun’s backpack, crumpled so much by now it’s unreadable, but it doesn’t matter. He couldn’t forget those three sentences if he tried. 

I’m sorry. 

Taehyun’s sorry, too. Because for all the betrayal of Kai’s disappearance—he chose to leave, chose to vanish, chose to leave Taehyun behind in this shell of a world when they’ve been best friends for so long—Taehyun wonders if things would have happened the same way if he’d been more observant. Less consumed in his own grief. Able to see Kai, really see him in the days after Yeonjun and Soobin left. Would the blank of Kai’s silences have managed to permeate the dull static of his own thoughts. Would Kai have come to him? Would he have been convinced to stay?

They look for him anyway, Taehyun and Beomgyu both. The undead roam and the sun burns fierce, but even as the heat sloughs off his skin and the faces of the undead haunt his sleep, Taehyun can’t stop, won’t stop, even when Beomgyu lays a hand on his arm and says with his eyes that Kai isn’t coming back. 

Because he can’t be gone. Not like this. It’s just—a cruel joke. It has to be. Taehyun searches every house and sees Kai hiding behind every corner. He ventures into abandoned subways to find Kai walking out of an old train. He wanders the earth in a daze, seeing Kai everywhere and nowhere, and he’s gone but he can’t be he won’t believe Kai can’t be gone he can’t be gone I need to find him—

Then an undead lurches out of a gas station bathroom and nearly takes a chunk out of Beomgyu, and Taehyun remembers he still has someone to lose.

So he opens his eyes. Blinks away the visions of Kai that haunt the corner of his eyesight, and forces himself to see the world beyond the blank space that Kai left when he disappeared. There is still someone here. Someone left. Someone with him—who stayed even after Kai chose to leave, who still cares for Taehyun, miraculously, even after weeks and months of neglect. And so they move on. As five minus two minus one. 

So it’s something of a fucked up joke when Kai returns. 

. . . . .

He appears as a shadow in the corner of Taehyun’s eye. Another hallucination, Taehyun thinks at first. A mirage in the heat shimmers rising from the sunbaked ground. He turns away, ready to ignore it, but then Beomgyu gasps, too. 

“Kai.”

Taehyun blinks, and there’s his friend standing in the sun, staring back with shattered eyes.

Everything in Taehyun screams to sprint forward, to grab Kai and shake him and hug him and punch him hard. Sob a garbled mix of something like fuck you and how did you find us and I’m so glad you’re back and what happened to you—

But then he sees the black veins creeping up Kai’s neck, and he knows.

“Taehyun.” Kai’s familiar voice cracks on the syllables of his name, but his shattered eyes are clear, so clear. He doesn’t move, but Taehyun has to fight the urge to step back. “Please.”

Please. His head spins. The world is static and only Kai’s bruised face is clear. Please. What the hell is he asking for—

Bulging pupils drop to the gun at his side, and Taehyun understands. 

“No. No.” He shakes his head, takes the step back. “No, no—Kai—I can’t—”

“Please,” Kai whispers again. “For me.”

Solid in the haze of the sun and the moment, Beomgyu’s hand makes its way to Taehyun’s shoulder. He barely feels it, almost doesn’t even remember anyone exists but Kai and him, but he does hear when Beomgyu’s whisper flutters past the static and into his ear. “You don’t have to.”

And he’s right. Because Taehyun doesn’t have to—in the strictest definition of the word. He doesn’t have to raise the gun, put Kai out of his misery the way Kai wants him to. The world will move on if he doesn’t. He could turn around and walk away and nothing would be any different. 

Besides, Kai was the one who left first. 

But—he’s also wrong. Because Kai’s been bitten and if he doesn’t die, he’ll live forever in the worst way possible. Because if Taehyun does turn away, he’ll be condemning Kai to a fate they’ve both agreed is worse than death. Because Kai is still his best friend, no matter what, and who is Taehyun to resist a dying boy’s last wish? What is he, really, if he doesn’t?

Taehyun’s hands are cold. He doesn’t shrug off Beomgyu’s grip, but he does shake his head. “No,” he replies, numb fingers wrapping around the barrel of the gun. “No, I do.”

Kai stares up at Taehyun as he readies the weapon, cracked glass eyes almost whole as a little smile glimmers on his face. “Thanks,” he whispers, and in that moment, Taehyun can’t do it. Won’t do it. This Kai looks too much like the old one, the one with a bright smile and a dolphin screech laugh and dark eyes that glittered with mischief—

Dark eyes marred, now, by those bulging black veins crawling across bruised, burnt skin. 

Almost on reflex, Taehyun pulls the trigger. Bang.

And what remains of Kai slumps over, blood and brains pooling in a deep red puddle on the dusty ground. 

Taehyun stands there for a while. A second, a minute, an hour—he’s not sure. It’s cold and it’s hot and the world is hazy and he can’t move, can’t tear his gaze away from the remnants of his best friend.

“Taehyun.”

When he finally reacts to his name, Beomgyu has definitely said it more than once. His grip has tightened on Taehyun’s shoulder but when Taehyun finally twitches, the rough-soft hand loosens, slides down to his wrist. “Come on,” Beomgyu says quietly, tugging slightly. “We need to go.”

Blood and brains, still open eyes. A smile. 

Taehyun doesn’t move. 

“Taehyun.” The grip tightens. “Let’s go.”

Go. Let’s go.

“Taehyun.”

He forces his eyes away from the bloody hole blown into Kai’s head. Vaguely, he feels the gun being peeled out of his hand, hears the safety clicking back on. Beomgyu tugs at his arm again and with a final whisper of his name Taehyun follows, numbly, Kai’s bloody face all he can see. 

. . . . .

How do you remember the dead? 

It’s a question Taehyun hasn’t been able to answer in the months since the outbreak, when the initial slew of bodies filled the streets and his parents never came home. He could have answered before—smiles immortalized in picture frames, voices in videos taken on phones with the recorder laughing behind the camera. But the internet is gone now and with it the hundreds of thousands of memories people left stored in the cloud. Photos are easily crumpled, even those tucked into plastic sleeves eventually ruined by rain or dotted with dust and dirt, and the time it takes to properly sketch and color a scene to remember is a luxury no one can afford anymore. It’s not as if Taehyun ever had the skill for it anyway. 

Memory, then. The duty of the human mind. But the brain is a fickle thing—imperfect, messy, jumbled and imprecise compared to the printed photos he once held in his pocket and backpack, the pictures and videos he had saved on his phone. It remembers what he wishes it wouldn’t and lets go of what he holds most dear. The voices of his family, his friends. Their smiles, their laughs. Ghosts, now, all of them—so faint and pale compared to the horrors that haunt him now. These are the things that leave. 

Kai’s bloody face is one of the things that stays. 

It haunts him in the days after, that vision of a bloody smile. Beomgyu’s gasp, the black veins creeping up Kai’s face, spasms of pain ruining the angelic picture his friend had once been. The gun barrel between his hands, the broken look in Kai’s eyes, a whispered plea for a mercy that only he could grant. The whole moment is so vivid in the way Kai’s last smiles aren’t. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. 

Life isn’t fair, his parents had told him in the past about things like broken crayons and strict teachers. Move on, and let go. And maybe, in the old world, he could have taken that advice. But they weren’t there to see the world crumble. They weren’t there to watch Taehyun take his first undead life at the ripe age of nineteen, his first real life weeks later. They weren’t there when the ropes at which he could grasp in this swirling ocean of a desert frayed and snapped, when the world took everything and everyone away and left him behind. They weren’t there to watch their son shoot his best friend in the face. 

How do you move on when there’s nothing to move on to?

Life isn’t fair. Taehyun hates his parents for leaving him with that, and loves them for not knowing better. What a luxury it would be to have been left behind in the strange world of before, of neon lights and supermarkets and the ability to store laughs on the cloud, never to face this new earth full of monsters only before seen in nightmares. He’s grateful they didn’t have to see what he’s become. He resents that they left him to figure this out alone. He prays that their lives ended as painlessly that they could have. He cries when it hits him, over and over and over, that he’ll never see them again. 

Move on, and let go. 

He's so glad they died in a world where that was the best advice they could have given, and hates them for not living long enough to give him something better. 

(What would his parents say if they knew what he had done? What words would they have given him to live off of?)

(Would there be anything to say at all?)

So Taehyun doesn’t move on. Can’t. Because—he needs to know. How do you reconcile the horrors of now with the joy of the past, keep the memories of the dead alive without seeing their bloody faces every minute? He can’t remember Kai’s laugh or his music, not when his mind won’t stop playing that moment on loop, a faint smile, a whispered thanks, a sharp bang and the remnants of Kai’s body falling, falling, falling to the ground…

Five days after he pulls the trigger, Beomgyu finally begins to tell him.

“They’re still with us.”

Taehyun isn’t sure why that’s what brings him out of this half lucid stupor. Vaguely, he understands that Beomgyu has been talking to him for a while. Talking at him, at least, because he definitely hasn’t been responding. But for some reason he hears that sentence, fully registers it, and though there must be some context he doesn’t have the constant aching grief catches fire in his chest and all he can think is how dare you, how dare you, how fucking dare you try to say that to me now—

“How do you know?” He has Beomgyu’s dirty shirt in his grip, the older boy looking up at him with eyes wide in confusion, surprise, burgeoning anger of his own. “How do you fucking know? How could you say that to me, how could you try and say that after I killed him with my own hands—”

And then his eyes begin to burn. And the tears begin to fall. And the fire dies as soon as it blazed, melted under the weight of Beomgyu’s words, and he’s crying, sobbing, his grip on Beomgyu’s shirt gone as every tear he hasn’t been able to shed over the death of everyone he loved releases itself from the broken remnants of his soul, and he’s crying, and crying, and crying—

Beomgyu’s face swims in his vision. It’s so clear, that moment, despite the blur of his tears obstructing the large eyes and thin lips drawn in a pinched, painful expression Taehyun recognizes from his own few encounters with a mirror since it all started. Because—fuck, Beomgyu is grieving, too. Kai wasn’t just Taehyun’s friend. At some point in time, he was Beomgyu’s too. 

Yet despite this grief, Beomgyu’s eyes are soft. No longer angry. And—in the future, Taehyun will know why. Because the loud and playful and endlessly, carelessly kind Beomgyu that he’d known from a distance on the schoolyard is somehow still the Beomgyu of this deadened husk of a world, brash and cheerful and sweet chaos personified in his lightning sharp laugh, still a ray of kindness and raw hope despite all the world has done to make him otherwise. In the moment, though, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand. Can’t comprehend how Beomgyu couldn’t hate someone who’d killed a boy they both knew because for all that they’d each pulled the trigger, it had never before been on someone they knew as a brother, a boy they both cherished and loved. So why was Beomgyu still here and trying to comfort him, of all things, when Taehyun was the one who’d caused him so much pain?

“He’s dead,” Taehyun sobs. “He’s dead, and I killed him.”

“He asked you to,” Beomgyu replies quietly. 

Against his will, the image returns. Kai’s eyes, so clear, so earnest as he asked despite the oozing veins spasming up his neck and cheek. Please. For me. Words as lucid as his eyes had been, then, devoid of the glazed grief they’d held when Yeonjun and Soobin went, of the emptiness they’d borne the night before he left. In those last moments, if you could ignore the final phases of infection creeping up his skin, he’d have been indistinguishable from the childhood best friend Taehyun had known all his life. 

Taehyun squeezes his eyes shut against the scene burned into his vision. Please. For me. 

Who was he to refuse the smallest of mercies to the boy he’d always called a friend?

But still, the grief keens in his chest. But still—even then—

(Mom, Dad, I’m so glad you never saw me like this.)

“It wasn’t fair of him to,” Beomgyu continues, cutting through the ache. “But he did.”

Taehyun’s stomach lurches. Twists. It wasn’t fair of him to. No, it wasn’t, but what else could he have done? What else? He was already in the final stages of infection. He had no weapon that Taehyun could see. What could Taehyun have done—what the fuck else could he have done, what other fucking choice did he have—

Life isn’t fair. 

Not fair. Never fair. It never could’ve been, never would’ve been, not in this world where he’s been cursed to remain amidst the ashes of everything he’s ever known. 

“None of this,” Taehyun grits out, trying not to scream, “is fucking fair.”

“It isn’t,” Beomgyu agrees. “And they—Kai, Yeonjun, Soobin, everyone—they know that.”

Clear as day, unsaid words hang in the air. 

None of this is your fault.

“That’s how I know they’re still with us, Taehyun. Because nothing was fair to them, and nothing is fair to us.” Beomgyu had been holding him before but somehow Taehyun was also holding Beomgyu, then, fingers and legs twisted, their sides pressed together as the older boy heaved a deep, shuddering sigh that Taehyun could feel against his chest. “They know it, and they accept it. They must.” 

So honest. So sound. So reasonable in Beomgyu’s soft voice, even though on the schoolyard, Taehyun had often fancied himself the more logical and cynical of the two, between his skepticism and Beomgyu’s purported cheer. He listens, and tries to hear, and though the moment is but a blur between the pounding in his head and the tears in his eyes, some things echo. Some things stay. Beomgyu’s words ground him, his voice hoarse with tears, whispering so clearly into Taehyun’s ear. 

“I want you to know, too, Taehyun. That’s why I dare to say it.”

. . . . .

In the weeks after, Taehyun thinks. And wonders. Ponders Beomgyu’s words and their truth, teases apart belief from fact. It’s true that life is unfair, that nothing has been fair for Taehyun or Beomgyu or anyone else they knew, but how does Beomgyu know with such certainty that the others know? That they believe, and understand? Because knowing and believing are not one and the same, and besides, they’re dead. How could Beomgyu ever know the thoughts of the dead?

“I don’t know,” is what Beomgyu admits when Taehyun finally finds the courage to ask. They’ve long stopped counting the days but it’s been some time, maybe a month or two, though neither of them can be sure. “Like you say, it’s belief, not fact, but only in the sense that they never told me. I believe in them.” He sighs a little. “That they would never blame us for their circumstances, the way we’d never blame them for ours.”

Taehyun stares at the ceiling, feeling the rough, dusty carpet beneath them. They’re lying in another abandoned house, the previous one picked clean of the few provisions it once had. Picture frames of a happy family haunt the tables and walls, and he tries his best to ignore their eyes staring down at him from their perches. Some of them have fallen to the floor, knocked over by another survivor too worried about food to care about a few smashed pictures and panes of glass. 

Or perhaps the photos unsettled them as much as they unsettle Taehyun, and they gave in to the urge to shatter the frames on the ground. 

Grief and loathing rise in Taehyun’s chest, and he swallows around the urge to vomit. Beomgyu is better than he is. Taehyun still finds himself cursing his parents for leaving him alone like this. Soobin for getting sick. Yeonjun for disappearing. Kai for forcing him to pull the trigger. Even Beomgyu, sometimes, for making him wanting to stay alive even the slightest bit when it would be so much easier to just give up. Which is none of their faults and he would never want the dead to return just for the sake of his own cold comfort, but it still fucking hurts and sometimes it tries to eat him alive. 

He tells Beomgyu as much, not really knowing what reaction to expect, but the older boy only shrugs from his position splayed out on the floor. “But you could never really blame them for this, could you?” 

He’s right. Taehyun couldn’t. Which just makes everything hurt more. 

“I don’t want to think of them this way,” he says. To his side, he feels Beomgyu’s eyes turning to him, but Taehyun keeps staring at the ceiling. “I just—I want to remember the good things. The memories we had. And how they should have been, if we were all still alive.”

“…Remember when I told you they’re still with us?”

Taehyun almost snorts. “I nearly strangled you, I think it’d be hard to forget.”

“Yeah, well.” Beomgyu snickers too. “Besides that, I was being serious, you know.” His tone turns somber, and even though sleep pulls at his eyelids, Taehyun strains his ears to listen. 

“It’s not really remembering,” Beomgyu says quietly. “At least for me. It’s like…a certainty. Knowing that they were there. Knowing that they lived, knowing that I loved them, and knew them, and knowing that they loved and knew me too. I was touched by them when they lived.” He takes a deep breath. “So as long as I live, a part of them…they’ll always be alive, too.”

Beomgyu’s words wash over Taehyun’s skin, a light balm to soothe the ever-present ache in his chest. It’s a lovely thought—so lovely, really, that only Beomgyu, the last ray of raw hope in this world, could have thought of it. But when he finishes, and the silence falls again, something about it still doesn’t sit right with Taehyun. Because it’s all a little too lovely for this broken world of disaster and death. 

“How can you think that?” Taehyun asks, and there’s no venom this time. Because for all the beauty of Beomgyu’s words he still can’t quite comprehend them, understand how Beomgyu could ever accept them fully. He wants to know. Needs to. Kai’s face still haunts him whenever he closes his eyes, blood and a smile and stifling smoke rising from a gun in his hand, and he needs it to stop and Beomgyu’s the only one who knows how. How do you remember the dead for what they were, and not just the monsters they became? 

“I don’t know,” Beomgyu says again, voice almost frustrated and uncharacteristically sharp. He softens, though, when Taehyun finally meets his eyes. “I just…” He swallows. “I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it.”

They sit in silence for a while as Taehyun mulls over Beomgyu’s words. I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it. He understands. It feels like if he doesn’t believe in something, the grief will bury him alive. 

“I feel like I’m dying,” Taehyun says quietly. “Every moment, even when I’m not.” Drowning in what is, what was, what could have been.

“Me too,” Beomgyu replies, and in the fractured starlight glinting into his dark eyes, Taehyun knows he’s telling the truth. That he’s dying, but his belief lends him a rope in this dark, dark ocean of blood and sorrow, a rope to cling to that keeps him alive. 

I want to believe, too, Taehyun screams inside. I want to. I need to. 

“Taehyun.” Moonlight glints in Beomgyu’s eyes. “Look at the stars.”

Taehyun looks out the window. The black night glitters with little diamond stars, so bright and so beautiful that his breath catches. How had he never noticed them before?

“Sometimes, when it’s my turn to watch, I look at them. And I pretend.” Taehyun follows the trail of Beomgyu’s finger as he points to the sky. His eyes, once fractured, now glitter wholly in the moonlight, soft and shining and lovely, all-knowing, so full of a glowing foreign hope. “Like, in that cluster, maybe that’s my mom. And my dad, and my brother. And maybe, next to it, there’s Yeonjun and Soobin and Kai right there.” His finger shifts slightly. Hovers. When he looks back at Taehyun, there’s a little smile on his lips, strong and soft and sure. “I like to think that someday I’ll join them, and we’ll finally be together again.”

Another lovely cliché, one that could only have sounded so beautiful from Beomgyu’s own voice. And this time, when Beomgyu’s hand lowers to the ground, Taehyun finds himself bound by the spell of his words for just a moment longer as the stars twinkle cheerfully above him. 

But they’re too lovely. Too bright. Too beautiful to be proper elegies for the dead, when their cruel hope never even dims as the pieces of Taehyun’s world shatter one by one. They could never reflect the sorrow he carries in his scraped hands, the grief he cradles in his ruined chest, the memories, good and bad, that he clings to in the fragments of his broken mind. And as Taehyun continues staring, staring, trying to summon the hope that sparkles so beautifully in Beomgyu’s eyes, all he can think is one thing. 

The stars have no right to shine this brightly, not when everyone he loves is dead.

. . . . .

It’s not the only fancy of Beomgyu’s that Taehyun doesn’t understand. Beomgyu sees so many stars in his sky, finds hope in so many strange little things—a tiny flower by the side of the road, a single whole lollipop in a dusty convenience store, a rare, cool wind breezing through his hair as they trek from one shelter to another, taking from empty grocery stores and hiding in abandoned subways. It’s fascinating to Taehyun, really—that Beomgyu can go through so much, can see Kai’s bloody face in his memories every day, and still find something in nothing and believe it matters. He’ll turn around to find Beomgyu humming old songs to the empty air. Inhaling the scent of nature’s overgrown flowers so deeply he chokes. Making bracelets in five braided colors of string as a byproduct of a night’s boredom, looped around his wrist when Taehyun wakes. 

“I found the string in a random room and remembered making these when I was a kid,” is all he says to the question in Taehyun’s raised eyebrows. “Got bored while you were sleeping.” 

It feels strange, the sensation of the soft, thin braid tickling his wrist as Beomgyu ties it in place, shifting against his skin as he turns it this way and that. Five threads messily twisted and turned together. Five colors, five boys, five friends…

Material things don’t last. Taehyun knows this well. It’s one of the first things he learned in the days after the world fell apart—when the photos he carried of his family finally ripped to the point of no return, victims of dust and rain and his dirty backpack and pockets, when the mementos of home he tried to take became more burdens than memories and he had to leave them behind. But though he knows this, something akin to hope still flares, the tiniest spark, in his chest. 

Later, he’ll admit to himself that he’d hoped, foolishly, that this could be his grounding. That this could be how he would remember. But for now he pushes the spark away, looking at Beomgyu and raising an eyebrow to hide the lump welling in his throat. “You sure this is a braid?” he asks, and neither of them says anything about the way his voice catches on the last word.

Beomgyu sticks out his tongue and Taehyun has to hide a smile at how ridiculous the older boy looks, eyes narrowed and glinting with mock hurt and mischief. “You don’t need to wear it if you don’t want to, jerk.”

Even as Beomgyu says the words, though, Taehyun knows that nothing could ever induce him to take it off on his own. Because for all he can’t understand Beomgyu’s stars in a dark, dark night, Taehyun does understand how he feels about the lovely stars in Beomgyu’s own eyes that make him want to listen to everything the loud-mouthed, sweet-tongued boy has to say. A candle lit in the dark, a rope thrown to the drowning. 

A single star in Taehyun’s black night, the only one he could ever say was truly beautiful.  

Which is why, perhaps, when the bracelet disappears several months later after a too-close call with a horde of the undead, Taehyun feels like something in his chest has been ripped open and torn out. It was bound to happen, he knew—the strings were already thin and faded before Beomgyu found them, and the dust and grime of every day under the hot sun couldn’t have helped. But still, when they get away and Taehyun realizes only dried black blood and sweat now decorate his wrist, not a hint of the five colors to be seen, he nearly goes back. Nearly turns around and sprints to where he almost died just to find it again. Because of that hope, that cruel, dangerous hope—hope when he knew, he knew, that it couldn’t be.

(Hope is meant for the naïve. Hope is meant for fools. Hope is meant for the people who still see loveliness in a world torn apart, for the people who look at the stars and do not see the cruelty of their beauty, only their cheerful, everlasting glow.)

(Hope is a sword that attacks the wielder and weakens him to the world, showing him the love obscured by dust and static and blood.)

(Hope is a word that gives the world meaning again.)

(Hope is a weapon that snatches that meaning away.)

Beomgyu stops him, a hand on his wrist. “Leave it,” he says quietly, his fingers wrapping gently around Taehyun’s arm. “It’s done what it can.” 

But—it hadn’t. Hadn’t, at least, the way Taehyun wanted. It hadn’t remained the grounding point that he needed. It hadn’t kept the horrors away. In fact, it was one of the horrors that tore it from him, tore away Beomgyu’s gift and the meaning attached to it, leaving only black blood behind. 

(Hope is a weapon that snatches that meaning away.)

Taehyun cries that night, tears running hot and silent down his cheeks as Beomgyu breathes softly in his sleep. And when Beomgyu eventually wakes to Taehyun’s quiet sobs, he doesn’t stop the older boy from wrapping his arms around him, bringing Taehyun’s head down to his shoulder, and letting the tears soak into his shirt. 

Because for all it seemed Taehyun never understood Beomgyu, it had always felt like Beomgyu understood him. 

. . . . .

Beomgyu knows, too. That material items don’t remain, that they can’t be counted on to house the memories they need, desperately need, to preserve. Taehyun was there when Beomgyu’s own photos became too crumpled and torn to salvage, when the braid he’d made for himself disappeared beneath the dust and dirt of the earth just days after Taehyun lost his. For all his sentimental nature, Beomgyu understands the world around him, knows that despite warmth of its burning sun, nature is cold and unforgiving to those who have wronged it. 

So when Taehyun finds the empty can of lavender Febreze in Beomgyu’s bag, he feels like he should be surprised. The last of the scent has long since dispersed into the air, memories of the smell relegated to the back of his mind, so when it comes out in his hand he blinks a little and for a moment there is some surprise—he’d thought Beomgyu tossed it when it emptied. But then he blinks again, and he has to wonder how he ever could’ve thought Beomgyu would even think of throwing it away.

It had been a rare cool day when Beomgyu plucked the can off a barren supermarket shelf and shoved it into his bag, despite Taehyun’s raised eyebrows and obvious concern for the state of his remaining sanity. Taehyun hadn’t asked questions then, but when they found shelter for the evening, just a few days out from where they hoped to reach a survivors’ compound, he’d raised a pointed eyebrow as Beomgyu produced the can from his bag. 

“Don’t interrogate me!” Beomgyu had yelped, hands raised in mock indignation as Taehyun fought to hide a smile at his antics. “I’m innocent!”

“I wasn’t going to interrogate you,” he’d replied, giving up on hiding the smile. There was no point anyway, not when Beomgyu looked so carefree, so happy, so unchanged despite the cruelty of the world around him. “I just want to know.”

The hands came down, but Beomgyu’s smile stayed. “I don’t know,” he’d said, shrugging. “It was just there, so I took it.” Taehyun had snorted at that, but he wasn’t done. “I guess I just…didn’t want to leave with nothing at all.”

Despite the previous levity, Taehyun remembers a tightness in his chest, a prickling behind his eyes as he stared at the almost garishly purple can in Beomgyu’s dirty hand. That was something he could understand. 

“Do you even know how it smells?” he’d asked, ignoring the stupid lump in his throat. He’d never quite given up on that habit, not even long after Beomgyu proved he could read Taehyun no matter how he tried to keep his tears quiet. 

But Beomgyu didn’t say anything, just looked at the can with a guiltily mischievous expression on his face. His finger rested on the valve as he looked back up at Taehyun, ready to shrug again as he grinned. “Look, it has to be better than the things we smell outside.”

It was better, but mostly because it’s hard not to be better than the stench of rotting corpses mixed with the tang of dried blood coupled with the scent of blooming flowers in the hot wind that somehow makes it all worse. Strong, too—clearly a year of sitting unused on a shelf hadn’t done much to dampen the scent. When Beomgyu sprayed it the first time, more on accident than anything else, they had to stifle coughs and sneezes for too many minutes as the mist tickled their noses.

And yet they kept it. 

Which is weird, because most useless things that Taehyun and Beomgyu, despite his inner child, would put in the same category as questionable year-old Febreze get left behind. It’s a luxury, and there’s no space for luxuries in their bags—not phones, not photos, not dingy string bracelets braided with threads in five different colors. Things like Febreze weren’t supposed to have held a place in their lives. 

But as the days pass, Beomgyu carves out a place for its too-strong flowery sweet scent. A tiny puff in the air when they return to their current shelter after finding the compound razed to the ground. A small spritz to freshen up before they move on to the next abandoned home. And as they keep struggling through their barren world, emptying the can on their way, Taehyun begins to wonder—when humanity has completely fallen and another race takes up the earth, what will they be remembered by? Will it be the broken braided bracelets threaded in five different colors fallen by the side of the road? Will it be photos of the dead left in abandoned frames in abandoned homes, or stuffed in dirty bags and soiled by dust and rain?

Will it be an empty can of lavender mist at the bottom of a survivor’s bag, the strong, sweet scent of home still a wisp in the air?

Because for all the tickle of lavender mist grates on Taehyun’s nose at the start, slowly, subtly, it does begin to smell of home. Of comfort. Of rest. Of Beomgyu’s presence on the days when Taehyun can’t hold the gun for fear of seeing Kai’s bloody face, when Taehyun can only find death and disaster in every street they pass, when he can’t stand without the world crashing down on his shoulders. On these days, there’s always the weight of Beomgyu’s hand in his, in the press of his body against Taehyun’s during sleepless nights, in the brief dusting of lavender mist into the air…

And one day, the scent isn’t too strong. It isn’t too sweet. It’s a break, a respite, a piece of the old world that miraculously wasn’t lost even in the wake of disaster. 

When Taehyun looks at Beomgyu then—really looks at Beomgyu—as he spritzes small bursts of mist into the air of their new makeshift shelter, it only takes him a minute to realize that Beomgyu feels this way, too. That he’s probably felt it for a long time. 

So when Taehyun finds the empty can in Beomgyu’s bag, after the momentary surprise, he blinks once, and twice, and remembers the scent. Remembers the sentiment. Remembers this reminder, however small, of home. 

How could Beomgyu have thrown this away?

He tries the valve, even though he knows it’s empty. Nothing comes out. 

It’s been three days since Beomgyu went. Three days since he showed Taehyun the bite festering black and red, three days since he drew the gun at his belt and weighed it in his hand, three days since he smiled at Taehyun, lips trembling, and raised the muzzle to his temple.

(“Turn around, Taehyun. Don’t watch. It’s okay.”)

(“I won’t do it until you turn away.”)

Only then, with the empty metal can in his hand, does Taehyun finally cry. 

He cries for his parents, who were out when the virus got them and never managed to return alive. He cries for his friends who passed first, three of the five strings that frayed over the months until the knotted bracelet fell off his wrist, one ill, one disappeared, one shot. He cries for Beomgyu, the fourth string and his only family left, his last thread of hope in this heartless world. He cries for him, Taehyun, the fifth string and the last one alive, so far from home and never to return.

Taehyun cries for the hope Beomgyu carried that was destroyed three days ago with a bullet shot by Beomgyu’s very own hands. A bullet that took the last of all that he had, leaving him with—

Nothing. 

(What will the world remember him by when he goes?)

When Taehyun wakes in the middle of the night, eyes red and cheeks sticky with tears, something in him begs to stay still. What use is there in forging on, in living when everything has been lost, when there’s nothing and no one left to survive for?

(A crumpled family photo dissolved in the rain?)

Is there even a point?

(A broken braid of five frayed strings, buried under the dust by the road?)

Taehyun stares at the gun by his side. Loaded. Always within arm’s reach. So easy to lift, so easy to position, so easy to use. It would be so simple to mimic Beomgyu’s actions from three days ago. Lift. Point. Pull. Bang.

(Or the trail of bodies left in his wake, one sick, one vanished, two shot with the very gun by his side?) 

But on his other side, the can of lavender mist rolls against his hand. The metal is warm from his touch, the dirty purple of the wrapping an eyesore in the corner of his vision. He looks at it through bleary eyes and for a moment, he can almost smell it in the air—strong, floral, sweet. 

Home. 

(Perhaps a can of lavender mist at the bottom of a beat-up bag, the remnants of a scent that came from home.)

Material things don’t last, it’s true. Everything eventually gives way to death and decay. But in that moment, Taehyun learns—some things return anew. Bursts of five rainbow colors, a single star in a cloudy night, a remnant of lavender blooming on the breeze—and they tickle a memory in his mind, bringing back, if only for a moment, something beautiful. 

Perhaps this, then, is letting go. How to remember. Not by the stars and their ominous cheer, not by memories slipping from the desperate grasp of his mind. Because he will remember. Always. By the tiny things that remind him of those he once loved, and still loves. 

Memories fade. There are things Taehyun can’t or doesn’t recall for long stretches of time. Voices. Laughs. Smiles. The good and the bad, the horrors and the joys, what once was and now is. But sometimes, a piece of the current world will remind him of something. A bird’s soft chirp brings back his mother’s gentle voice. A roll of thunder crackles like his father’s laugh. Yeonjun’s reassuring grip, Soobin’s soft smile, Kai’s musicality in a light, cool wind curling through the air.

Beomgyu’s hand in his own under a night sky full of stars, fingers loosely intertwined with a promise of hope he will never understand.

(Hope is for the naïve. Hope is for fools. Hope is for the people willing to give their hearts to the world, when nothing guarantees that they will get it back.)

But this is hope. His hope. His remembrance. His elegies for the dead, poems written not in the stars but in the pockets of color he finds as the days go by. There isn’t much for him, not in this world, but there is something left for those who have gone. A hope. A dream. A wish. A prayer whispered on lavender scented air, too sweet and too strong and smelling so much of home—a prayer that things will be okay someday.

(Hope is a weapon that weakens the wielder to an unforgiving world.)

And if they are, even if it only becomes true in the last moments of Taehyun’s life, he wants to see it. For them. 

(Hope is a word that gives the world meaning again.)

It isn’t easy. It isn’t fair. It never will be, really. There will always be days when the horrors constrict his chest so he cannot breathe. There will always be days when he can’t lift himself from the ground, so he tries to just give up. There will never be a reason he’s alive and everyone else is dead. But on those days, when the sun sets and the moon rises and the stars come out once more, Taehyun holds the long empty can of lavender mist, its label rubbed away under layers of dirt and grime, and he remembers. A sweet scent, a cackling laugh. A gentle voice, a warm smile.

A boy who gave him a reason to be. 

So when morning rises, Taehyun rolls over. Stands. Places the empty can back in Beomgyu’s bag, picks it up along with his. Slings them over his back. 

And starts walking again. 

The sun beats harsh on his brow. Branches catch on his clothes. The snarl of animals and the undead alike whisper faint in his ears. But day by day, Taehyun continues, despite the strangling embrace of Mother Nature curling around him no matter where he goes. Because at night, when darkness sets and the moon rises, Taehyun will feel it. Hope. Not in the garish twinkle of the stars, not in the baleful gaze of the moon on his skin, but in the reminder of a boy whose smiles never made sense, who found things beautiful Taehyun could never dream of comprehending, but who held his hand anyway as starlight shimmered in his dark, laughing eyes. 

In the scent of lavender mist filling his nose, no matter where he decides to go. 

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

[thekenikaridevblog]

Hello everyone! Sorry for vanishing off the face of the earth when it comes to dev updates on this blog. I've been focusing a lot on art fight but still I Very Much missed the once-every-two-weeks update schedule even before july, and for that I apologise

Anyways, I wanted to change a bit how these work

So far, with the post with the Mastermind singing in spanish gif, I was tracking the progress of the full 1.2 chapter. This made it a bit unencouraging because even though I did make progress, it still felt like it was a long way off (which it is don't get me wrong) with how slowly the numbers went up

So I decided I would cut the "end goal" of the updates for now to something more small and manageable and make it feel like it's being done faster. 1.2 was meant to be for days 2, 3, and a bit of 4 of the death game. Since my progress is incredibly linear (by which I mean I make stuff as it happens in the story and I don't work on something that happens on day 3, then on CGs of day 2, then write dialogue of day 4, so on) I have literally only done stuff of day 2.

So I decided that these updates for now will only track the progress of day 2! (I'm also planning on finally showing it to beta testers once it's done, so that's an important milestone, but I won't officially release it until I'm done with days 3 and 4, sorry yall)

So yeah, numbers have changed a lot

Backgrounds (0/0)

Tilesets (1/1)

Normal CGs (4/7)

Dialogue (35%)

New character sprites (5/4) (I still need to do one, I went overboard with other sprites that won't show up in this day)

Cutscenes (0/0)

Free time events (0/0) (there won't be any in this day)

Music (1/?)

[lassieposting]

I really liked your theories about the prototype and catnip and would like to hear your thoughts about some other stuff if that's okay with you. I'm sorry if it's not organised

who do you think we play as ? at first I thought it was one of the 3 most mentioned characters like Stella or Rich but poppy refers to the player by they (do you think one of those characters uses those pronouns or they used ot to keep the mc a mystery?)

also the most confusing thing by far for me is in the dream sequence we have the gulit hunts you and the radio messages but what do you think "happy and fun why was it done" it's so out of place compared to the others

Also the "get up " radio do you think it's the same as the death messages?

Also why do you think the prototype showed up at the hallucination when we weren't present at the at the hour of joy how did we know about any of this

Also is just me or is ollie after final fight call sound so passive aggressive 😅?

Aaaaaa thank you Nonnie! I'm glad you enjoy my unhinged rambling ❤

So I do actually have thoughts on some of these!

who do you think we play as ? at first I thought it was one of the 3 most mentioned characters like Stella or Rich but poppy refers to the player by they (do you think one of those characters uses those pronouns or they used ot to keep the mc a mystery?)

So like, I don't think we have enough information yet to fully discern who the protagonist is, but based purely on the details we do have so far, I'm tentatively inclined to side with MatPat on this one: I think the most likely candidate at this point is the unnamed Head of Security, owner of the executive slide with the missing name in Chapter 2.

We know that Playtime did take steps to conceal what they were doing from their Average Joe workforce. The instructional posters directly order employees to stay out of the Innovation Wing unless they have authorization. Marcas Brickley's tape indicates that he witnessed PJ Pug-A-Pillar moving around through the gap in the Innovation Wing gate, but he has no idea what the "monster" was, and he's disturbed and distressed by having seen it. The workers in the lobby in the Hour of Joy tape don't seem to have realised that Huggy Wuggy was not a statue. Poppy recalls workers panicking and asking, "What are those things?"

The correspondence between Playtime and the contracted construction company directly states that the secret labs they're building are strictly need-to-know, only to be discussed with those with authorization at Playtime and the building company.

Mommy Long Legs recognises us. Given that the average production-line worker was not aware of her existence, that means we are someone who was high-ranking enough to know about and be directly involved with the Bigger Bodies Initiative.

The Head of Security would absolutely have a good reason to be wracked with guilt. If that's us, keeping the Prototype contained, and the Bigger Bodies creatures compliant and harmless, was our responsibility, and we failed. We knew how dangerous the experiments could be - Huggy Wuggy killed several security staff during his escape attempt, after all, people whose lives were ours to safeguard, people whose families we would have had to break the news to - but we still failed to put sufficient measures in place to prevent a mass uprising (it's implied we as the player character are not fully aware of what happened at the factory, but we know that something went horribly wrong enough for all our coworkers to vanish from the face of the earth). It's entirely fair for us to feel like every single human life lost in the Hour of Joy is on our head.

Rich is an interesting possibility, but while he clearly doesn't like working for Playtime and suspects something is Off about the place - he brings up that the workers aren't allowed to talk to the orphans, and that the orphans are deprived of sunlight in the underground Playcare - he doesn't seem to be actively complicit in Playtime's atrocities. He's a regular day-job worker, not a high-ranking exec, and I don't think he has any clue just how evil his workplace really is. My suspicion is that Rich's audios exist to make a point to the player that good people also worked at Playtime, who didn't know about the Bigger Bodies initiative, and who were slaughtered regardless during the Hour of Joy. Rich exists to provide a face (or, at least, a voice) to the people who were killed who didn't deserve it.

also the most confusing thing by far for me is in the dream sequence we have the gulit hunts you and the radio messages but what do you think "happy and fun why was it done" it's so out of place compared to the others

So personally, I'm inclined to think that this is possibly CatNap, now a young adult, trying to rationalise what the Hour of Joy was meant to achieve versus what it did achieve. Because in the end, it didn't actually do shit. The experiments are still trapped in the factory. Cruelty is still ongoing, only now it's toys hunting toys rather than humans experimenting on children. CatNap is old enough to remember the glee and relief and catharsis brought on by the Hour of Joy, by being free, by being safe, by being reassured by the Prototype that it was all over. And then the gradual, sinking realisation that they're all trapped, every one of them, with a dwindling food supply and no hope of ever going back to their former lives. I think he's asking himself what the point was, when it didn't actually achieve anything long-term.

Also the "get up " radio do you think it's the same as the death messages?

Short answer: Possibly.

That's not Prototype's voice. We've heard him talk in his tape and in Project Playtime - he has a very deep, almost demonic growly voice. Honestly, the get up almost sounds more like Harley Sawyer, the doctor. But we also know Prototype is a vocal mimic, so that very well could be him talking to us, using one of his many imitable voices.

Since the hallucination is guided by CatNap, and CatNap has had a telepathic connection with Prototype, I actually have a few theories on what this could be.

It is Harley Sawyer. We know he essentially tortured the experiments post-transformation, Prototype in particular. This could be a memory CatNap has seen in Prototype's mind of one of those sessions - making a point to the player that the experiments were subjected to horrific abuse and an uprising was their only option.

It's us. Again, if we're the Head of Security, that could be us snapping at an experiment, suggesting we were somewhat callous and not particularly invested in their welfare. Which would make Prototype's Get Up death screens a deliberate mockery - turning our own words back on us.

It's Prototype, same as the death screens, and he's just using someone else's voice. You may have read my theory that Prototype was military, and if this is him, that comes through here; he's a stubborn, hard-headed determinator who has very little patience for us failing to make ourselves useful. He needs us. Get up. We can die later.

As a side note on this section, the "DON'T MOVE. DON'T MOVE AN INCH." voice? I have a fond headcanon that that's us. That's our voice. That's CatNap's - Theo's - final memory before he completely lost consciousness when he was electrocuted: it's us and our security staff cornering Prototype at gunpoint when he brought Theo back for medical attention. That's the moment he was recaptured - Theo's last memory of being human.

Also why do you think the prototype showed up at the hallucination when we weren't present at the at the hour of joy how did we know about any of this

Because it's a hallucination. We're not seeing what actually happened. We're seeing a representation of the protagonist's mind making sense of everything they've learned.

If we are the Head of Security, we know about the Prototype. Keeping his ass contained and making sure he couldn't hurt anyone would've been our primary job. Because we're a human and part of Playtime's executive board, we would have seen him as an evil monster who's violent for no reason, and we would have been given access to the shrink's reports on him - we'd know he's fiercely intelligent, we'd know he's stealthy, we'd know anything that would be relevant to us keeping the facility workers safe. But I think the protagonist underestimated him - a wholesale rebellion prompted by his mind control ability never crossed our mind. And here, I think the protagonist is realising for the very first time just how intelligent he is, just how much influence he has, and that he masterminded the toys' rebellion. We're realising it all comes back to the Prototype. And we're setting that knowledge in the wider context we now have of just how torturous the experiments' treatment and situations were while Playtime was functional.

However, it could also be to do with CatNap, since he's the one guiding the hallucination - Prototype's hand reaches down from on high to smite us, in line with CatNap's religious zeal. It could be CatNap trying to scare us off by showing us the Hour of Joy in a glorious light; his hero saving all the experiments. Fear him, lest ye be smoten, and all that.

Also is just me or is ollie after final fight call sound so passive aggressive 😅?

There is definitely a Vibe about that interaction, a distinct tone that he doesn't have the rest of the time. I'm undecided how I'd read that tone - on one hand, it sounds almost resigned, as though we've made our choice as to whose side we're on and the Prototype considers this us deciding we're his enemy, but on the other...that doesn't match up with my suspicions about his ultimate goal.

It could, of course, also be resigned as in grief. One tired old soldier to another tired old soldier: he knows we didn't really have any other choice than to try to kill CatNap, since CatNap was determined to kill us, and he had no choice but to follow through because all the doctors who could have tended to CatNap are dead, but he's hurting and angry and bitter about it all the same.

Anyway I hope you enjoy these ideas!

[twst-drabbles]

Monday, May 20, 8:00 PM CT

Is when the Request box will be open for any and all requests! Sorry for vanishing off the face of the earth, it's getting harder and harder to engage my brain in writing of any kind, so I've just been tinkering around with different journaling RPG'S to see if I can get the brain going. Ended up homebrewing my own campaign to emulate an old favorite, Magician's Quest on the ds. And now I'm craving something similar to MySims Kingdom.

Anyway, be sure to be there when the Request Box opens! I have no preference so you can just spill in whatever request you want.

[gabithefanwriter]

War

Neytiri x Female Reader

Angst. Mentions of character death.

I’m posting this and then I’ll post the request I got. I might also Start posting about Neteyam soon, or maybe for some other fandoms as well, but for now I’m planning more Neytiri and Neteyam, so yeah. Expect them.

I knew it's wasn't gonna be easy, but I had to fight. I had to fight for my mate. I had to fight for her home, for my new home.

I was on my ikran, riding beside Neytiri and trying to keep her safe, but the humans came in with their robotic armours. I shot an arrow just as a gun shot was heard and hit Seze, my arrow flying into the glass and launching deep within the human, and my heart lurched in my chest. Neytiri fell into trees with her ikran. I dove down with my ikran with her, trying to reach her.

I shot more arrows as I flew down with my ikran, finally landing on my feet as I saw her trying to push Seze off of her. I dropped my bow and arrows and pulled her now dead ikran off of her. I watched as she caressed the corpse, both of us watching in despair as I began shooting the machines making their way over, including a ship from above us. I climbed onto my ikran and shot directly in the glass, killing the pilot before I felt a bullet graze my shoulder, which made me lose balance and fall off my ikran.

He barely caught me, but let me land on the floor safely. Just then I watched the his wing get clipped, landing beside Neytiri, Seze and I. I looked at my Neytiri, holding her close as I looked up again, another hovering jet above us, shooting at the Na'vi riding Direhorses and being blown away by the explosions, direhorses neighing and Na'vi falling underneath them, crying out in fear and pain.

Another explosion shook the ground, and Neytiri let out a cry, and I held her tightly. I looked into her lime green eyes, caressing her face and planting a soft but passionate kiss before pulling back the bowstring and knocking an arrow, shooting the rest. "I see you."

Neytiri looked at me with wide, fearful eyes. "No, Y/n please, no. I can't lose you!"

"It's okay, Neytiri, I'll be back."

I went ahead and jumped over a fallen tree, shooting more arrows and watching the robots and humans fall. I felt a bullet enter my shoulder, making me cry out. More explosions were heard, and I grabbed onto a root of a tree, holding it tightly before shooting another three arrows.

Good thing I participated in archery competitions back on Earth.

They didn't all fall, but I knew that I had to distract them, get their attention off Neytiri.

"Y/n stand down! Do not Engage!"

Jake's voice rang through my ears, but I only replied back. "I'm sorry Jake, but I have to protect Neytiri."

I heard Neytiri's desperate cry, begging me to stop and go back to her, but I couldn't. She was in danger, and I would protect her.

I watched another jet fly over head, shooting closer to Neytiri. I ran and pushed her aside, shooting an arrow to the wing of the jets, successfully bringing it down, but the bullets were still firing, and I felt them tear into my skin, and I fell.

I cried out in pain, fighting to stay awake, but I was unable to. I felt myself being dragged away, behind a tree, where Neytiri sobbed and held me in her arms. I fought to keep my eyes opened, and I only saw Neytiri's crying face, her tears falling on my cheeks. "Y/n!" She screamed, trying to keep me awake. "Wake up, Y/n! My Y/n!"

But my eyes grew extremely heavy, so with what remaining strength I had, I got up and kissed her, cradling her cheek before all my strength vanished, and I was left all powerless in her grasp, until I finally had Eywa reaching out her hand, with me accepting it, and taking me from the world of my beloved. And given that I nearly died in my human form, and Eywa was able to let me stay as a Na'vi, there was no chance for me now.

Soon enough, I couldn't even feel my mate's touch.

3rd P.O.V

Neytiri cried as Y/n fell limp in her arms, her cries enough to send chills down one's spine; painful, the screams of mourning. She lost her father, her home, and now, her mate.

"Jake," she sobbed, "Y/n—she's dead."

Jake, flying on his ikran, widened his eyes, goosebumps all over his avatar. Y/n, his close friend, was gone.

He felt his eyes sting with tears, even as he tried to focus on the current battle. There was now another reason atop of millions of others on why they would win.

He and Neytiri would avenge Y/n. They were going to chase off every human off of Pandora if it was the last thing they did.

The screams and cries of fear surrounded Neytiri as she saw a direhorse on fire. She notched an arrow and aimed it at one of the humans, but Jake yelled at her through the comms. "Neytiri, do not attack. Get Y/n's body and get out of there now! Do not attack!"

Neytiri didn't listen, only focusing on the man who was responsible for her mate's death.

But Eywa had heard them, and aided them into battle.

Time skip

The battle with Quaritch that happened later was filled with fury, as when Neytiri found Jake unconscious, she shot an arrow at the tiny human in the giant robotic suit.

The arrow pierced out of his chest, and Neytiri grunted as she shot another one, protectively going to protect Jake's avatar, hissing at Quaritch.

Time skip. Again.

The battle was over. They won, but not one single life was forgotten. They found the bodies of their beloved ones, and made their own form of funerals for them.

Neytiri gently laid Y/n's limp body onto the grass, leaving a final kiss on her mate's cold lips.

Jake watched as he began crying over his friend, Neytiri going to hug him in search of comfort.

They lost a friend, a lover, a warrior, one of the people.

But they would always remember the impact that Y/n left in their lives.

[snowconestufftsblog]

So erm- sorry for just vanishing off the face of the earth my guys, just haven't really made anything i felt like it was worth being posted here and I know the majority of yall are here just for my mcyt art stuff and my ass hasn't made any -3-". I ain't stopping or have lost interest in it, definitely not by a long shot. Just haven't found anything I could make that's simple to make but good enough to please y'all. I will definitely post soon but don't get too hype pls. And 1 more thing to say, I know this will break a lot of y'all's hearts, but I might drop the Serial killer winners AU, but but, I am willing to give this idea to anyone who can put it to better use than me. You wouldn't have to worry about giving credit cause honestly I wont care about that. But I just wanted to make that clear. I'm sorry if really loved it and wanted more, I did too, just motivation to continue it lost and I fully understand if yall wanna leave this blog cause of it. It won't hurt me at all if you do. I just wanted to give an update for everyone and I will still continue to do stuff here. I hope you guys are doing well and have a wonderful day!

[draconicfool]

@crimsononiarataki asked: "Ya know, teasin' someone like that ain't very nice," The Oni would be grinning while he looked down at the face of Shoi-Ming. The considerably taller male had slowly advanced on the other, likely leading him to have his back pressed against something solid. A clawed hand would move to gently grip one hip, the other hand likely holding the other's face firmly, yet not too tightly at the same time. His sunset eyes would meet the amethyst of the other, and his pierced tongue would slip out from between his lips for the briefest of moments. He'd effortlessly lift the other, pressing him a bit more solidly into the surface he had initially been pressed against. Due to lifting the other up, their faces would be much closer. Still, he'd lean down a bit while chuckling slightly. "Somethin' tells me that ya wanted this to happen. Ya get me to chase ya so much, it was only a matter of time before I pinned ya to somethin'." He had the urge to close the gap between the two of them, but refrained for the time being he wanted to hear what Shoi-Ming wanted. If it was to be let down, that was fine, he'd put the other down and step back. Since he'd not done anything remotely intimate, short of gripping the other's chin and hip, their friendship would remain intact. Or so he hoped. "For some reason I'm drawn to ya, and it has nothin' to do with Geo." Their faces were close enough that either of them could close the gap and simply kiss. Being that neither of them were mortal, it was likely to be a somewhat instinctual response, too. The hand on the other's hip would tighten a bit, not trying to cause pain to any extent, and the Oni would be using his own strong frame to keep the smaller pinned to whatever surface he'd managed to get the other against, as well. The way he had Shoi-Ming held, would likely allow the other to feel more of his strong body. He knew the other didn't lack strength of his own, but the thought of the differences in their levels of power were nowhere on his mind at the moment. All he was thinking about was how badly he wanted to kiss the smaller male.

Now this...certainly wasn't the position that he thought he would be in. His previous bubbling laughter stopping the moment that Itto had him pinned against the cliff face. At first he had thought he'd done something wrong. After all, to his mind he'd just bitten Itto and ran off like their usual games seemed to go. Though, perhaps the placement of that bite to anyone else would be seen as an indication of want. Of need.

And when the other's hand gripped his hip- and the his chin- how flustered he became. Opening his mouth to speak but finding he didn't really have an answer. A response. It was only a matter of time before I pinned ya to somethin'.

"Have-- I overstepped--?"

It was, after all the first thing that came to mind. Even as he was picked up by the other. His own dark-tinted limbs wrapped around the other, as if being let go meant falling. Even if it didn't. Even if part of him merely wanted to hold tightly only Itto. His heart thumping desperately in his chest. As if it wanted to leap out. As if it could do such a thing.

That flicker of worry seemed so quickly to vanish with the other's words. I'm drawn ta ya. And there it was. That familiar warmth that he found himself feeling every time the other was near him. There was, for a moment, the thrumming of the earth behind him. His own nerves showing in the way his own element resonated. Trying to find the proper words.

And then- perhaps on instinct. Perhaps on something more-- he would close that gap between them. Their lips pressed together as his eyes closed and the earth fell silent. Still.

And then how red he was, pulling away as he covered his mouth now.

"I- I am so very sorry-! I did not ask for permission at all, that is-- unbecoming of me-!"