#i'm sorry about the lack of read more cut guys

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 I LAUGH LIKE ME AGAIN (SHE LAUGHS LIKE YOU)

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: four years apart and the ultimate question is about to be answered: do you and dazai really still know each other, or are you clinging to a fantasy of the past? you decide to put it to the test with a game of wits and questions when dazai gets back to your apartment—but as the game drags on, dazai starts to wonder if maybe he was wrong. worse, if maybe he would prefer to be wrong.

(wordcount: 14.5k; ņsfw; fem!reader; port mafia executive!reader, jealous!dazai, possessive!dazai, smoking & drinking, unprotected sex, switch!dazai, switch!reader, undertones of angst (happy ending). lmk if anything is missing, im rushing to get this out!)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys here it IS - sorry it's late, but TRUST it's worth it. i'm so proud of this fic, genuinely one of the things im most proud of writing. this is technically a part 2 to he's my collar but can be read as a standalone

It takes far too long for Dazai to make it out of the Port Mafia headquarters, with both Akutagawa and Chuuya prowling about like the dogs they are. He wonders if you tipped either of them off—Chuuya, in particular—because the slug had been looking around like he was searching for someone. He thinks you’re entirely wretched for it, knowing that if he got caught, he’d be trapped in that damp and filthy torture chamber until he managed to finagle his way out, and he plans to make it known to you just how entirely displeased he is by the situation. 

The path to your apartment is achingly familiar, and the giddiness in his chest is something he hasn’t felt since the day he left. He knows that he should probably be more careful—he’s still in Port Mafia territory, your apartment spans the top floor of the easternmost building of the five towers—but he also knows that you’re the only one with direct access to the cameras in this building so he’s more reckless than he would’ve otherwise been. 

The floors tick up agonizingly slowly, Dazai swears that there must be something wrong with the elevator because it’s never taken this long before to get up to your place. His fingers thrum against his thigh, and his foot taps the ground impatiently. He paces from corner to corner within the small space like a caged animal. He thinks that maybe he should be taking advantage of the time alone, come up with some better excuses as to why he didn’t say anything to you before he left.

“I wouldn’t have left,” isn’t going to cut it. As true as it might be, it’s not the full truth, and Dazai knows you’ll be able to sniff it out in a matter of a few seconds with a clear head. He’s not walking into a cheerful reunion between old lovers, he’s walking into what’s about to be a stressful game of chess against a strategist whom Dazai has always considered a near-equal, a battle of wits against a woman whose whole life has revolved around political warfare. If he wants to keep his dignity intact and his secrets safe, he’s going to have to be incredibly cautious with what he says to you and even with how he reacts to what you say to him.

Still, he can’t help the giddiness. The excitement. He’s missed you. He’s missed you so much that it hurts. He’d thought that over time, the longing for you would go away, but it never did. If anything, it got worse because, over time, the pictures of you started to lack the soothing feeling they used to bring to the aching in his chest. Over time, he started to forget the sound of your voice and the sound of your laugh.

He’d known that you’d been sent away on foreign business not long after his last call to you, but he didn’t think Mori would actually keep you abroad for three whole years. He’d been hoping, maybe, that he could stumble into you one day. Or maybe just watch from afar, get close enough to hear the sound of your voice again. He’s been grossly denied of you for too long, and he knows that it’s of his own doing but that only makes it worse.

When the elevator dings, announcing his arrival on your floor, Dazai is sorely unprepared for the conversation about to take place. He steps into your penthouse, eyes drifting around the familiar vast space.

Like your office, not much has changed since the last time he was here. Your coffee table is still set down a few centimeters too close to the couch in the living room—the same couch he had his first kiss on with you when the two of you were sixteen and drunk on champagne celebrating a successful mission. You still hang your black jacket over a chair instead of properly on a hanger, it’s why it always has a crease on the back—he’d noticed it when you left your office, and he can’t help but smile slightly at the confirmation as his eyes linger on where it’s draped over one of your kitchen chairs. 

You tried to convince him that you’ve changed in the years the two of you have been apart, but Dazai doesn’t think you’ve changed much at all.

You’re leaning against the windows, looking down on the city—he knows you must’ve heard the elevator, but you haven’t bothered to look his way yet. There’s an indecipherable expression on your face and a glass of wine in your hand. You’re still dressed in your suit and Dazai notices there’s a glass of whiskey on the rocks untouched on the kitchen table. He shrugs off his trench coat and drapes it over yours, hoping that the scent of you seeps into it because he’s gone too long without it.

His fingers curl around the glass of whiskey you’d left out for him, and for a moment, he swears that he’s eighteen again. He’s making his way to your penthouse after a long mission with Chuuya, you’re expecting him—you always are—and he can never push away the fondness that squeezes his chest when he finds you lounging back on your couch, flipping through channels to find something to watch, a glass of his favorite whiskey set down on the coffee table next to where your feet are propped up as you wait for him to show up.

He wonders if you even care to remember what his favorite is. He wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.

He makes his way out of the kitchen and back into the living room, and he’s reminded that he’s not eighteen and you’re not waiting for him to show up after a mission because you finally look at him, and his breath catches in his throat.

He thinks you look a bit older now than you did four years ago—to be expected, of course—and there’s a coldness to your eyes that hadn’t been there before. Impossibly, he thinks that you’re somehow even more beautiful than you were when he last saw you, and he realizes again, throat tightening, that even after three years of no contact with you, he’s just as in love with you now as he was the day he left.

He knew it back then before he left, even if he never said it. When he was eighteen and could only feel any inkling of pleasure when he was with you; it wasn’t like he’d never tried to have sex with other people, he’d whore himself out for information at any given chance and slept around frequently after you started dating a civilian to distract himself from the bitter jealousy he felt, but he’d never known how good it was supposed to feel until he slept with you for the first time. When he was seventeen and could only ever feel comfortable in your presence, seeking you out at any given chance when he couldn’t handle being around people anymore; he’d curl up in your office with your orange blanket, napping as you did work, knowing that you’d keep people away from him. He thinks he might’ve even known when he was sixteen when the two of you first met on the streets of the Kanagawa prefecture.

He wonders if you even believed him when he said it earlier—he doubts it, you don’t seem too keen to believe anything he says, and he doesn’t blame you for it. 

But whether you believe it or not, it’s yours—that rotted heart of his, shriveled and shabby, riddled with holes and decay, half-eaten by maggots and worms it might be, but it’s still yours. He thinks that it was meant to be yours since the moment he was born, and it’ll be yours even after the two of you are long dead. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to go without you again—he doesn’t think he can. He knows that despite the tentative ceasefire, the Port Mafia and the Agency are still enemies, but he knows in his heart that he won’t be able to leave you again. Even just the sight of you has condemned him completely. 

Then you speak, and at once, his entire world falls apart.

“I’m leaving again in the morning,” you finally say, tone flat and eyes sharp and shrewd as you look over him. He reminds himself that this is not a reunion, that he needs to get his head on straight if he wants to make it out of your apartment in one piece, but it’s hard. “I was only brought back to smooth things over with the government after the whole fiasco with Fitzgerald and his American cronies. I’ll be leaving for Russia in the morning to meet with Tolstoy and Nabakov. Hopefully, gain some intel on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s plans before the man makes another move on the city.”

He… did not anticipate that you’d be leaving again so soon. Something cold and sharp latches to his heart, like jagged nails ripping it apart. He makes sure it doesn’t show on his face.

“Be careful,” he tells you quietly. “Dostoevsky… he’s not someone to underestimate. Just-Just be careful.”

You raise your eyebrows, unimpressed, “I’ve worked with Dostoevsky before. I don’t need you to warn me about him.” 

Your voice is cool. Sharp. Dazai sighs, knowing that anything he might’ve said to you earlier in the night is lost to you, and he doesn’t know if he’ll have it in him to bare his heart again, only for you to scorn it. He’s not meeting with you as he knows you—as his closest friend, as his lover; he’s meeting with you as the Port Mafia executive. Not the version of you that treats with allies, wining and dining them with glittering eyes and playful smiles as you use your ability to ensure they never turn on the Port Mafia; the version of you that sits at the round table with enemies, with a quick mind and calculating eyes as you decide whether or not they’re worthy of being absorbed into the Port Mafia or if Double Black will be sent out to eradicate them. 

“I told you everything I had to say back at the office,” Dazai tries, and he wonders if you’ll let him get away with it—he doubts it, but it’s worth a shot, and it will at least stall for a few moments as he tries to forcibly turn the cogs in his mind to figure out the best way of appeasing you. “I missed you. I… couldn’t say goodbye to you, not if I was to leave. I…”

I love you.

He doesn’t say it; he thinks he was only able to push it out earlier in the night in the heat of the moment, the orgasm-induced haze fogging his brain enough to let it slip out in desperation to make you give him a chance. And it worked because you gave him a second chance when you invited him back to your apartment, but Dazai doesn’t know how to make the most of the opportunity. He thinks he’s a fool for not preparing for this before getting here.

You click your tongue sharply, lip curling up in something close to disgust, and Dazai is glad he didn’t speak his ‘I love you’ because he thinks he might’ve actually cried if that was your reaction to him saying it.

“The only things you told me earlier in the night were half-truths and sweet talk. I didn’t invite you back to my apartment to hear you beg for another chance, Dazai,” you say coolly, and Dazai desperately misses the sound of his given name on your tongue. The corner of your lip curves up into a half-smirk, eyes suddenly glittering beneath the dim lighting of your penthouse as you add, “Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to it after we talk.”

He thinks the fact that you’re already considering an after might be a good sign. He can feel his cheeks flush a bit at your words, but instead of letting himself get rattled, he takes a step forward, well into your personal space, as he dips his face down so close to yours that his lips nearly brush yours as he speaks.

“I’d beg pretty for you,” he whispers, letting his voice drop an octave as his gaze tracks down to your lips. “I’d even get on my knees.”

Unfortunately, you are entirely unbothered by the proposition. “We’ll see, I suppose,” you say, and then raise your eyebrows, signaling for him to take a step back.

He does, and he feels distinctly put out and rejected by your reaction, but he sighs and asks, “What did you invite me here for then?” 

He very much does not like the way your eyes glitter now—shrewd this time, more amused, dangerous, as if you know the two of you are about to tread down territory that he’s going to be unfamiliar with. You nod for him to follow you into the kitchen, taking a seat at the head of the table and motioning for him to sit opposite you.

He does.

“We can play a game,” you finally concede. Dazai settles back against his chair, fingers still tapping rhythmically against his glass of whiskey, a terrible habit that Dazai has accrued whenever he feels cornered. Not a frequent occurrence, but damning when it is. Your eyes linger on them, and he knows you’ve pinpointed the tell. He forces himself to stop, but from the way your lips curl up, he can tell it doesn’t matter. “Ten questions each. Yes or no answers only.”

Dazai notices that you pointedly leave out any rule about the honesty of each answer—intentional, surely, so he probes.

“How do we determine the winner?” Dazai asks. He finally takes a sip of the fine whiskey you’d poured for him, and his question from earlier is answered. His favorite. There’s a warm feeling in his chest at the realization that you’ve remembered it even after all of these years.

Your lips curve up into a sharper and wider smile, teeth glimmering like knives beneath the soft lighting of your kitchen. The glass of wine in your hands is suddenly more reminiscent of a gun being pointed at him than your choice of alcohol, and he feels as if he’s already made some egregious mistake in your eyes.

“After we give our answer, the other has to decide whether or not it was truthful. In the end, we’ll both see how many the other got right. A test to see how well we still know each other,” is all you say in response. You’re mocking him and his insistence that the two of you are still the same, but Dazai intends to prove himself right. You tilt your head to the side and then say, “The prize is to be determined by the winner. I’ll ask the first question.”

Dazai winks, a lecherous comment already on his tongue about the prize, but the withering look you give him is more than enough to make it die before he can let it loose. He pointedly takes another sip of his drink and sinks in his seat.

He thinks that this should be an easy win. You’re quite the adept liar, but you’ve always had a glaring tell. Well, he amends, it’s glaring to him, at least. Not many others would be observant enough to catch it, and even if they were, only someone with an abundance of experience with you would be able to put it together. His gaze flickers up to meet yours, wondering if your lashes flutter right before you tell a lie. It’s such a simple and subtle tell, so casual that it took Dazai a year and a half to put together, but it was hard to miss once he did.

You hum to yourself as you give off the appearance of thinking about a question, but Dazai knows you better than anyone, and he’s certain that you already have all ten prepared, so he rolls his eyes at the faux show of uncertainty. 

“We both know you know what you want to ask,” he finally says. “Do us both a favor and quit with the theatrics.”

Your lip quirks up in amusement. “And here I was being gracious giving you more time to formulate whatever lies you’ll try to get away with,” you drawl, and Dazai nearly flinches.

“You know me so well,” Dazai sighs to hide how disconcerted he really is. “The question?”

You stare at him for a moment, and your lips curl up into a deceptively soft smile that almost throws Dazai off because, god, he’s missed you. And he knows you’re looking at him like this just for this specific reason because you’re a despicable bitch who knows that he’s always been easily unsettled when people show any semblance of affection toward him, but he can’t help the way he falters.

He tries to brace himself for whatever invasive question you’re about to ask regarding his reasons for leaving. Tries to prepare himself to lie cleanly because he’s sure you’re as aware of his tells as he is of yours. 

Then you ask: 

“Did you defect because of something Oda asked of you?”

Jesus. Right for the throat. You really don’t pull punches. 

Dazai’s throat tightens at the mention of his old friend, but he’s able to keep his expression clear of the sudden pain that your question brings on. You’re watching him carefully for reactions, gaze hawklike as you study his face, and Dazai is not about to let you pinpoint any more of his tells so early in the game.

He figures that this is an easy question; you already know the answer but want to hear the confirmation from his lips, so he decides to tell the truth.

“Yes.”

“The truth,” you say, an indecipherable expression on your face. He wonders if you want to ask what Odasaku asked of him, but that’s not part of the game and Dazai has no intention of answering that.

Be on the side that saves people. If both are the same to you, become a good man.

You might laugh in his face—Dazai Osamu, the Demon Prodigy, a good man? The idea is blasphemous, and he thinks it might actually hurt him if you scoff or laugh in response to hearing that, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t give away more than he has to, hoping that you don’t just straight up ask him.

You open your lips to speak, and Dazai braces himself for the prying question, but instead, you only probe, “First question?”

He wonders if your whole first question and the implications of it was just a means of trying to throw him off because now he’s fumbling trying to remember what he wanted to ask you before you hit him with it. He wouldn’t put it past you to play dirty like that—bringing up his dead friend and his last request just to unsettle him to give you the edge.

“Did we meet during my underground years after I defected?” he finally asks, and yeah, he knows the answer to this question. The missing half of his ear and waking up in the old safe house he used to hide out at with you is more than enough evidence for him to come to a definite conclusion, but he wants to hear it from you.

“Yes.”

Dazai inhales sharply and then murmurs, “That’s the truth.” And then, more loudly and far more affronted, he accuses, “I can’t believe you shot half of my ear off.”

He expects you to toss him a wink and a sharp grin, unrepentant and even finding amusement in his offense, but instead, your expression falters for the first time since he’s arrived. Something strange crosses your face; for whatever reason, his words leave you conflicted and Dazai suddenly feels even more nervous than he already was because now he can’t help but wonder what he might’ve said to you in his drunken state. 

He supposes that’ll have to be another question, but first, he’s going to have to figure out how to phrase it to get a yes or no answer first, without being vague enough for it to be a waste of a question or easy for you to misconstrue.

You hum after a few moments, taking a pointed sip of your wine. Dazai watches curiously—you’re bothered still, you’re not even trying to hide it. He knows you have better control over your facial expressions than this, so he thinks maybe it’s a ploy to get him to start spiraling down a path of useless questions. Put off by his sudden inability to discern your schemes, a part of him wonders if maybe you were right because the him of four years ago would’ve seen right through you right now.

“I’m afraid it had to be done,” you sigh with faux regret, but he can tell from the way the smile on your lips doesn’t reach your eyes that you’re not into the banter. “Were you able to fulfill Oda’s request?” 

Fuck. This time Dazai can’t withhold the grimace that spreads across his face. He tries to keep his voice light with a deflecting comment, “My, bella, you’re really hitting with the deep questions tonight, aren’t you?”

You raise your eyebrows, tilting your head to the side as you wait for an answer, not giving him any room to formulate a response to your question. He finally sighs and shakes his head, taking a long sip of his whiskey. He wishes he had a pack of cigarettes on him, suddenly desperately longing for the pleasant burn of the smoke against his throat; he needs the buzz badly right now.

As if you could read his mind, you shift in your seat a bit and stuff your hand into the pocket of your slacks. It takes a few seconds but you fish out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, sliding them across the table over to him. If he wasn’t already so in his head over the question you asked, he’d make a quip over the fact that you still know him so well despite your insistence otherwise, but he only pulls out a cigarette and lights it, looking curiously down at the familiar brand.

“Since when did you start smoking these?” he asks quietly, eyes fluttering shut as he tilts his head back and takes a long drag of it. He exhales slowly and then adds, “Thought you liked the other ones, in the green box.”

“Teal,” you correct, and then frown a bit. “... Switched after you left.”

Dazai’s eyes flutter back open as his gaze focuses on you, wondering if the implication you left up in the air is something he can take at face value or if it’s just another way of trying to get him to lower his guard. But from the way you suddenly don’t meet his eyes, Dazai thinks you might be being honest: you switched because they reminded you of him.

Dazai’s chest suddenly feels heavy again.

“... No,” he finally responds to your second question. “Not yet, at least.”

“... Truth,” you say, and Dazai’s lips curl into a wry smile.

“Unfortunately.” The word slips out before he can stop it.

Your gaze flickers back up to him, curious, but Dazai doesn’t give you the chance to dwell on his comment, asking his next question: “Did I… admit anything to you that night that I wouldn’t have said while sober?”

His fingers tap rhythmically against his glass of whiskey, half-empty now; he’s anxious to hear your response.

“You did,” you confirm.

Dazai grimaces because that’s another truth, and that is not good. But just like how he doesn’t offer any context for his answers, you don’t either. He doesn’t know what he might’ve admitted or how you might’ve taken it—he’s going to have to waste another question on this topic.

“Truth,” he murmurs.

You hum and then ask, “Do you still blame yourself for what happened to him?”

“Come on,” Dazai complains sharply, tossing you a dirty look now. His jaw is tight. He wonders if you keep asking about Oda as some sort of sick revenge for him leaving, ripping open wounds that never properly healed so you can dig your fingers into them and twist around. You don’t look bothered by his outburst, waiting patiently for a response. He lets out an angry sigh, looking away and taking another long drink from his glass and another drag of his cigarette. 

He voices his first lie, “No.”

You let out a puff of air, rising to your feet and making your way over to the opposite counter, you grab the bottle of whiskey and bring it back over to him, topping off his now-empty glass before pointedly holding out your hand. He passes the cigarette over to you, tilting his head back to watch you bring it to your lips—a part of him longs to lean forward, to slide his hand behind your neck and cradle your head as he brings his lips to yours, inhaling the smoke as you exhale it, dizzy off the proximity to you, high off the buzz of the nicotine, just like the two of you would do when before he left.

He refrains, if only barely.

You exhale the smoke, a small cloud billowing around you—Dazai mourns the waste—and then you pass the cigarette back over to him. Your fingers brush his as you do, and a spark shoots through his arm at the touch.

“A lie,” you finally say, looking down at him with a frown. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could’ve done to save him.”

“You don’t know that,” Dazai says tightly, averting his gaze from you as you make your way back over to your seat across from him. “If I’d been faster-”

“If Mori wants someone dead, then they’ll die,” you interrupt him, a grimace on your face as you look down at your wine glass. “Trust me, Dazai, there was no saving Oda Sakunosuke.”

Dazai pauses instead of snapping again, catching the expression on your face. Haunted, as if you’re speaking from experience. He tilts his head to the side and then asks quietly, “Are you talking about your ex-partner? Itou?”

If Dazai remembers correctly, he died on a mission when you turned eighteen. You never told him the circumstances, and he never asked, but it was the first and only time you ever broke down in front of him.

The corner of your lips tightens, “Is that your next question?”

Dazai barely withholds a frustrated sigh. 

“No,” he says quietly, and then asks, “Did I tell you why I couldn’t say goodbye? The real reason?”

He holds his breath now as he waits for your response. One way or another, this question is a double blade: if he did tell you why, then he’s at another disadvantage because he’s going to feel distinctly bare and vulnerable; if he didn’t tell you, he just admitted that he lied back at your office, at least partially. 

After what feels like an eternity, you finally say, “Yes.”

The truth. Dazai wonders when you’re going to utter your first lie, if you will, or if you’re trying to make some sort of point by being honest with him. He voices his answer and then waits impatiently for your next question as his mind races.

He desperately wants to know how you responded to him back then. Would you have come with him had he come to you before he left? Or would you have chosen the Port Mafia? He wonders if he should ask, make it one of his remaining seven questions, but he doesn’t know if he has the guts to hear your answer, so maybe he’ll just change the subject.

“Are you enjoying yourself at the Agency?”

For the life of him, Dazai cannot figure out your angle. First, the prying questions about Oda and now asking about the Agency. He doesn’t know what he expected at the start of the game—you’ve always been unpredictable, but even more so now. He’s never had such a hard time reading you or your intentions before.

He starts to feel even more doubtful, wondering if you were right.

Maybe he doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does anymore.

But this is an easy question, so he says the truth with little hesitation, “I am.”

Dazai swears the corners of your lips curl up into a soft smile, but it’s gone so quickly that he might’ve imagined it.

“Good,” you say quietly. “I’m glad.”

Dazai’s lips part, a warm feeling spreads through his chest at the honesty in your tone. Desperately, he wants to know what’s going on—where’s the rage and the betrayal he expected from you? The hate? Why do you seem… okay with all of this?

Irrationally, he starts to wonder if everything from the office was just a heat-of-the-moment conversation. If now that you’ve had time to sit on your thoughts, you’ve realized… realized what? That you’ve moved on from him? That you don’t care what he does anymore? That you’ve accepted that he’s no longer a part of your life? The warmth in his chest disappears, edged away by a sudden coldness and desperation because he thinks he’d rather die than go back to a life without you.

Even more irrationally, he remembers the comment you made back at the office, the admission that you’ve slept around since he left. Oh god, what if you really have moved on?

He knows his next question.

“The people you slept with—were they all one-night stands?”

He doesn’t want to know the answer unless it’s a yes.

You raise your eyebrows at the abrupt shift in his line of questioning, and then, to his absolute horror, you say, truthfully, “No.”

“What do you mean no?” he asks angrily—he thinks if he was a bird, he’d be puffing his chest out in irritation. He feels antsy suddenly, he needs to move around. He starts tapping his foot against the floor, his fingers against the glass. And again, he thinks you’re a despicable bitch because you only look amused at his question as if he’s not beside himself with righteous fury.

“It’s not your turn,” is all you respond with, and Dazai has a distinct urge to throttle you. Then you ask, “Do you feel like you belong there?”

He halts.

His fingers freeze from where they’re tapping against the glass, his foot freezes mid-motion. His lips part as he’s confronted with the very question that he’s been struggling with for two years now. He wants to yes, if only to maybe be a little spiteful, to rub in your face that he’s somewhere good and he’s somewhere where he belongs, and it’s not somewhere with you. A cruel dig to get back for the aching in his chest at the thought of you being with other people, but he knows that you’ll catch the lie, and more importantly, he doesn’t want to hurt you like that.

Maybe he has grown a bit because the Dazai of four years ago nearly killed your civilian boyfriend when he found out that you were dating someone besides him and then promptly made a show of sleeping around to try to get back at you.

So, instead, he says quite honestly, “I don’t know.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Not a yes or no answer, but I suppose it works. How curious.”

He hates your cryptic comments. Pointedly, he side-eyes you as he takes another long drag of his cigarette. Already, it’s nearly down to the nub, so he puts it out on your table, ignoring the distasteful look you give him, and then reaches for another to light as he asks: “Were you in a relationship with any of them?” 

You roll your eyes at his prying, and he cannot hide the abject horror that crosses his face when you say, “Yes.”

“That better be a lie,” he complains, and when you look at him as if to ask if that’s really his guess, he makes a show of pushing out his bottom lip and looking away as he says: “I cannot believe you dated other people. Cheater.”

“We were never even dating, Daz-”

“Yes, we were,” Dazai protests instantly, entirely aghast at your words. “We absolutely were. What does that even mean? Of course, we were dating. Everybody knew it. Ask anybody. Ane-san knew. Gin-chan knew. Chuuya knew. Even Mori knew. We were so dating, you-”

“You never officially asked me to be your girlfriend, which is, unfortunately, the most fundamental step of dating,” you interrupt him, and Dazai stares at you in disbelief.

“I bought you flowers, we fucked exclusively,” Dazai complains, aggrieved. “We were definitely dating, and you definitely cheated on me because we never broke up.”

“If we were dating,” you emphasize the if very pointedly, and Dazai is distinctly put out by it, “then we broke up the day you left without saying goodbye.”

Dazai withers. He has no witty comment to return fire with, so instead, he just takes another sip of his whiskey, grateful for the combined buzz of the alcohol and the nicotine to distract him from the overwhelming guilt he feels whenever you bring up how he left you.

“Do you feel like you belong more with the Agency than you did with the Port Mafia?” 

Your next question is an amendment to your previous on, and it leaves Dazai just as lost.

He wants to belong with the Agency. He does. Desperately. He wants more than anything to feel as at home and comfortable in the light as he does in the dark. He doesn’t want to question his place among them anymore, he doesn’t want to wonder if he sticks out like a sore thumb. He wants to enter the office and feel like he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not, just so he can keep his place with them. He doesn’t want to have to fear at every corner that he’s going to revert to old habits, and they’ll see him for the monster that he is: a monster that should have never left the dark crevices that he crawled out from, a monster with blood so black that it strikes fear in even the most terrible mafiosos.

“No,” he admits the insecurity that’s plagued him to the one person he feels comfortable enough with to voice it aloud. He can’t bring himself to look up at you, wondering if the admission will give you some sort of sick satisfaction, if you’ll be happy that he’s not finding a place he can be comfortable in without you. Instead, he decides to rush to ask his next question: “The one you were in a relationship with, did you love him?”

He thinks that the question came across as far more timid than he meant it to be, and his eyes slide shut as he waits for your answer.

“There were multiple I had relationships with—” Dazai scoffs, of course, there were multiple. “—...but no, I did not.”

He lets out a soft puff of air, shoulders slumping a bit in relief. But his fingers are still tense around his glass, waiting for whatever question you’re going to ask next that’s going to dig deep into open wounds, stripping him of all of his masks and armor to force him to lay himself entirely bare in front of you.

“Did you really blow up Chuuya’s car before you left?”

His eyes fly open at the sudden change of pace in your questions, noting the smirk curling at the corner of your lips and the amusement glinting in your eyes. He accepts the olive branch quickly as he gives you a sharp smile and asks: “What do you think?” 

Your hand flies to your mouth to muffle a laugh, and the smile on Dazai’s lips becomes a bit softer as he watches you desperately try to get yourself under control. “You’re insane, you know that?” you finally say, still trying to bite back giggles. “He was so mad. Raged about it for weeks.”

Another question pops into Dazai’s head at the mention of Chuuya, and before he can consider whether or not he actually wants to know the answer to it, he asks: “Speaking of Chuuya, was he one of your trysts while I was gone?”

Suddenly, you are not laughing, and suddenly, Dazai regrets speaking.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Do not tell me-”

“He was,” you confirm.

Dazai’s glass of whiskey is empty. 

He grabs the bottle and drinks right from it, miserable.

“I think I would’ve rather been stabbed through the heart,” Dazai says mournfully, and though he keeps a faux-light tone with you, his throat feels like it’s swollen, and he feels a bit sick to his stomach.

He’s always been jealous of the bond you have with Chuuya. Absurdly jealous, even. You clicked with him quickly—you clicked with both of them quickly, and maybe it was a matter of the three of you being the youngest of the Port Mafia’s uppermost echelon, but Dazai doesn’t want to attribute it solely to that—but the way you clicked with Chuuya was different from how you clicked with Dazai. Two people so completely human locked away in the dark, clinging to one another to maintain some sense of normalcy; your and his casual humanity made Dazai’s lack of it irrefutable and glaring.

Regardless of the why, he never liked how close you were with Chuuya. 

Even before you were dating him—because you were dating him—a part of him had always felt sidelined whenever the three of you hung out together. Not because of either of your wrongdoings but just because it was hard for him to keep up with the two of you. He always felt a bit lost trying to, unable to follow along when the two of you would start laughing at jokes that he didn’t understand even when you explained them to him, when you would share glances with one another that spoke whole conversations he wasn’t privy to. The two of you got along in ways that Dazai would never be able to get along with anyone because there’s just something fundamentally wrong with him at his core. Chuuya, for all of his talk and fear regarding the question of his humanity, has always been so unfailingly human in ways that Dazai, to this day, cannot fathom to understand.

After you started dating him—because you were dating him—it only got worse because he’d see you with Chuuya and wonder if you were better off with someone like him instead. Dazai doesn’t know how to treat you right, clearly. He can’t even treat himself right; and Chuuya has always been the epitome of a gentleman, loathe Dazai is to admit it—Ane-san drilled that into the other boy where Mori only taught Dazai how to be cruel and unforgiving. The line between love and obsession has always been a terribly blurry one for him, and you have always wavered on either side of it—and Dazai, unfortunately, does not love healthily and obsesses so entirely that it would have most people running for the hills. 

For better or for worse, you’re not most people.

In his spiral of insecurity, he doesn’t catch the way your brows furrow as you put together some puzzle pieces. “Dazai,” you say suddenly, drawing him from his thoughts abruptly. There’s an accusatory look in your eyes that he really does not like. “Were you the one that booby-trapped my fucking apartment?”

Dazai snorts.

“You bastard,” you snap at him, and Dazai can’t help but bite the palm of his hand as a means of trying to stifle his laughter. “Mori thought it was a goddamn assassination attempt. He kept me under watch for weeks because of you. I couldn’t leave the towers without half of the Black Lizards with me.”

“Sorry,” he coos, not sorry at all. Dazai, because he clearly doesn’t know when to learn his lesson, then he promptly asks, “Am I better fuck than Chuuya?”

“Jesus Christ, Dazai, get off the topic of Chuuya and my sex life, it’s clearly only upsetting you,” you snap at him instead of answering the question. Dazai wants to argue and retain some dignity; he’s not upset, but then his entire world is shattered by your next words: “I am not answering this question.”

Dazai blanches. He can feel the blood drain from his face. He’d thought this was an easy question to make him feel a bit better. What do you mean you won’t answer? Does that mean Chuuya-

No. Dazai refuses to believe it.

 “No way,” he says, shaking his head. “He’s not a better fuck than me. You can’t possibly-”

“He’s not,” you finally say, and Dazai audibly lets out a sigh of relief. “But if you ever mention anything along the likes of that to him, you will never fuck me again, Dazai Osamu. Do you understand?”

Dazai is too relieved to even argue. “Yeah.”

“No more questions about my sex life,” you say firmly, and Dazai doesn’t respond, but he does agree internally because he doesn’t think his heart can handle any more scares like that. Your eyes sharpen again, and Dazai braces himself. “Were you the one to tell Mori I lied about being sick so I could skip out on the ball Mishima hosted when we were seventeen?”

Dazai’s eyes narrow right back at you and rather than answering, he shoots one of his own questions at you: “Were you the one to tell Mori I had his contact in my phone as ‘ignore’?”

You take his lack of an answer as an affirmative, correctly so. Dazai has no regrets about ratting you out to Mori because he was not about to attend Mishima’s event without you on his arm. He’d rather die. 

“You bastard, do you know the lengths I went to fake being sick? I wanted one night to relax without people breathing down my neck.”

“If I had to go, you had to go,” Dazai retorts petulantly. “I was not about to suffer with only Chuuya as company. You had no reason to tell Mori about the contact name besides to be petty. I fought with Chuuya for weeks because I thought he was the one to do it.”

You choke on a laugh. “Chuuya was so mad, he had no idea what you were talking about.”

“He tied me to a pole and swung me around for three hours,” Dazai complains, but there’s a smile on his lips as you burst into laughter, unable to stifle the giggles that spill from your lips.

“I know,” you wheeze, “I got it on video. We watch it sometimes when we’re bored and can’t find a movie.”

Dazai gapes, and you laugh harder, but for the first time in four years, Dazai finally feels… at home, he feels comfortable in his own skin again. He’s back in your penthouse, he’s drinking his favorite whiskey and smoking his favorite brand of cigarettes, you’re sitting at the kitchen table with him and laughing your head off at his expense, and for a moment, Dazai feels as if nothing has changed: he feels like himself again, eighteen and entirely enamored by the sight and sound of you, and you feel like you again, all of the doubt that had begun to rise to his chest as the two of you played the questions game long gone.

He falls in love with you all over again. Harder this time. Faster. He thinks he’ll fall in love with you again and again every day for the rest of your lives, each time more than the last, no matter how impossible it might seem.

He thinks maybe it’s not that he feels like he belongs with the Port Mafia more than the Agency. He thinks that it’s you. You’re the one he feels at home with. You’re the one he’s comfortable enough to be himself with. You’re the one he belongs with, always has, and always will.

After a few moments, you finally manage to get yourself under control, still giggling a bit as you look back up at him. Your smile is softer now, eyes gentle, more genuine than the smile you gave him before asking the first question. Dazai’s breath catches because when was the last time you looked at him like this—the last time anyone has looked at him like this? A warm feeling spreads through his chest; Dazai thinks he would stay in this moment forever if given the opportunity.

“Are you happy?” you ask quietly

Dazai blinks, startled, and an odd feeling spreads through his chest once your question registers. His lips part to answer, but no words leave them; he draws back as if he’s been slapped, a bit flustered and confused because that’s the furthest thing from what he expected you to ask. He wonders if you’d asked the last three questions to lull him into a false sense of security.

“I-” he starts to say but cuts himself off. “What kind of question is that?” 

He tries to deflect instead of properly answering, frowning, but you only raise your eyebrows, pointedly keeping your lips sealed to let him know that you expect an answer. He shakes his head and then sighs, bouncing the question in his head a few times before going for a cop-out: “When I’m with you? Always.”

You’re not pleased by his decision, frowning as you look away from him—he knows that’s not what you asked, not really, but you should have been clearer with your question if you wanted him to give you the answer you expected. But he doesn’t like the sudden disappointment on your face, it leaves his skin itchy and his chest longing for the soft look to return.

So he sits there, ruminating on the question. Is he happy? He should be, right? He’s saving people. He’s on the way to fulfilling Odasaku’s final request. He has a whole group of people whom he can rely on without having to fear being taken advantage of or betrayed at every corner. He’s happy.

But is he trying to convince himself of it? Why is he still trying to kill himself if he’s happy? Why is there a part of him that feels lonely no matter how surrounded he is by people? Why is it that when he’s at his lowest points, the only two people he wishes he could be with are you and Chuuya? Why does he ache for the days he’d spend dragging the two of you around Yokohama, causing trouble for Mori—the closest he’s ever felt to enjoying life?

“I don’t know,” he finally amends his answer, looking down at the bottle in front of him and the cinders of the cigarette dangling between his fingers. He lifts it to his lips again, taking one last drag of it as he tries to figure out what his last question should be.

There’s only one pressing question he has left, but he hesitates, unsure if he really wants to know your answer.

He forces it out anyway.

“Would you… would you have come with me back then?” His voice is quieter than he intended, cracks over ‘me’, and to your credit, you don’t react to the question, expression as eerily still as it was before, as if you’re considering your words.

A yes or no. It shouldn’t take this long for you to answer. Each second that passes feels like an eternity, and Dazai suddenly feels anxious, he doesn’t know why he asked this question because if the answer is no—if it’s no, then…

Finally, you let you a soft sigh, taking a sip of your wine as if to prolong his agony.

Your lashes flutter before you speak.

You lie for the first time that night.

“Yes.”

Dazai’s voice sounds far away as he says, “That’s a lie.”

“I guess you were right,” you say softly, but you sound so distant, like you’re on the opposite side of a long, empty tunnel and not sitting right in front of him. “We do still know each other decently well; you got them all right.”

Dazai doesn’t care. In fact, he would have gladly conceded a loss in this game, and he would’ve gladly admitted that maybe the two of you don’t know each other as well as you used to if it meant that he got the last question wrong because then he would’ve just given you a coy expression and asked if you’d let him get to know this new version of you too. You would’ve said yes, and he would’ve made quite the pleasurable night out of it for the two of you. Instead, he had to insist that nothing has changed, and now he has to come to terms with the fact that he was right and he had known you well enough back then to know not to ask you to leave with him because you would have chosen the Mafia over him. 

He’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t even notice you approaching him until you’re leaning on the table next to him, index and middle finger coming beneath his chin to tilt his face up toward you. He looks up at you through his lashes, eyes searching your face, but he only finds another blank slate that he can’t read. His breath hitches when your hand slides from his chin to cup his cheek, and he can’t help the way that he leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut.

“I would choose you over so many things, Osamu.” You speak his given name for the first time in years, but he can hardly find any comfort in it because he knows he’s not going to like what you’re about to say. Your fingers card through the tips of his hair, brushing the dark locks behind his ear as your thumb sweeps over his cheekbone. “But not over the Port Mafia. Just like how you didn’t choose to stay for me.”

“It’s not the same,” he says, voice hoarse. “It’s-”

“It is,” you interrupt, voice deceptively gentle, and he thinks you’re entirely unfair because he can hardly focus with your touch distracting him. He’s missed it so much—he’s gone four years without it, without any type of touch that wasn’t him getting his shit kicked in by Kunikida or an enemy. “You didn’t choose to stay for me. I wouldn’t have chosen to leave for you.”

“Why?” Dazai asks tightly, and he hates that when his jaw tenses, you smooth your fingers over it, and he unclenches it immediately.

There’s a sadder look in your eye now as you give him a small smile. “You know why.”

Of course, he knows why. He feels the hatred deep in his gut as his mind draws back to Mori. Because that’s who the issue is. It’s not the Port Mafia. It’s not your friendship with Kouyou. It’s not even your friendship with Chuuya that’s the issue. It’s Mori and your undying loyalty to him. No matter how much you claim to despise him, bashing him every chance you get, sneering at him whenever he tries to treat you like his daughter, Dazai knows that when it comes down to it, you’ll always choose him. You’d throw yourself on a sword if he asked it of you, and not for the first time, Dazai wants to spit in the man’s face for making you feel as if you’re eternally indebted to him for rescuing you from that warzone so many years ago; for making you feel as if you’re nothing without the Mafia, nothing without him.

“You don’t owe him anything,” Dazai says tightly. “You have to know that by now—you don’t owe him anything.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation, Dazai,” you sigh, sounding tired. Your hand drops from his face, and Dazai longs for your touch again instantly. His fingers twitch from where they’re resting on his lap; he only barely stops himself from reaching out for you. You try to smile as you change the subject, but it hardly meets your eyes, “It’s a tie then. No prize for either of us, hm?”

Dazai is not so inclined to switch the subject. He wants to press on this now that he has the chance; he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to rip you out from beneath Mori’s thumb, but he needs to at least try… but you’re leaving again in the morning, and Dazai also does not want to ruin this night with you. He doesn’t know when he’ll get another.

So, instead, he matches your half-assed smile as he looks up at you and says, “I didn’t say you got them all right. You only said that I got them all right.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Did I get any wrong?” you ask, amused.

No.

“Yes.”

“Liar,” you say, but there’s a fond lilt to your tone as you let out another puff of air, the smile on your face finally reaching your eyes as you look down at him. The soft lighting of your kitchen casts a pretty glow over your face, your smile is so entrancing that Dazai thinks he could stare at it forever.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes out, the words slipping from his lips before he can stop them. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He’s sure he must look like a fool right now, entirely enamored by the sight of you, unable to even fathom drawing his gaze away. He wonders if you’ll protest again, call him a liar, and shift away from him.

You don’t.

The smile on your lips falls, and a wrecked expression crosses your face as your eyes search his. Your lips part to speak, and he waits with bated breath for whatever you’re about to say—he thinks that if you deny him again right now, it might completely shatter all of the walls he’d so carefully built to protect himself.

“I’ve missed you too,” you whisper as if you’re scared to speak the words out loud—and how can he blame you when the last time you dared to speak them, he hung up on you, never hearing from him again until tonight.

God, the guilt he feels whenever he thinks of you returns with a vengeance, so intense that Dazai starts to feel sick to his stomach. He can’t handle it, so he does the only thing he knows how to do to distract himself from it.

His movements are clumsy as he pushes himself up to his feet, nearly tripping over the leg of his chair, and his fingers feel clunky as he lifts them up to cup your cheeks. For a second, he fears that you might move away from him, but you don’t, so he leans in to press his lips against yours.

There’s no tenderness to his kiss. Dazai kisses you like he wants to consume you, lips sliding messily against yours, blunt nails indent crescents into your cheeks as he holds you close. Usually, he would be embarrassed by his blatant desperation and lack of finesse—he’s never been a sloppy kisser, when the two of you were younger, you would always let out pleased hums into his mouth, lashes fluttering as he worked his lips carefully against yours, tongue sliding against your own as he traces his name on it. 

All of his finely honed skill is thrown out the window now as he kisses you like a man who has been starved for years. He has been starved for years—the quick fuck in your office did nothing to quell the longing he’s felt for you the past four years. He could kiss you for hours. Days, even, and it still won’t be enough. Nothing short of an eternity with you would be enough to make up for the four years he’s been deprived of you.

He lets out a low groan into your mouth as you nip at his bottom lip, hands sliding from your face down to your hips. He’d take you here. Right now. But he remembers the last time he tried to fuck you on your kitchen table, it ended with him choking on the barrel of your gun as you yelled at him for being gross (“I eat on this table, you heathen!”) and he’s not particularly in the mood to set off your temper now that he finally has you in his arms again, so it’s with much restraint that he grabs you by the hips to walk you back into your bedroom.

He can hardly concentrate as your fingers twist the hair at the nape of his neck, soft moans slipping from his lips, muffled against your mouth. It’s only sheer instinct and muscle memory that has him making his way from the kitchen and down the hall. He can’t bring himself to separate his lips from yours for even a second. And he’s a mess because he’s not coherent enough to force himself to breathe properly through his nose, so his lungs are burning and his head feels a bit light, but he doesn’t care so long as it means he can keep kissing you.

Turn left, turn right, second door from the end of the hall. 

His fingers fumble for the knob of your bedroom door, pushing it open a bit too hard, considering the way he hears it slam against the wall and how you tug his hair hard in retaliation. He doesn’t care, moans a bit louder even when your nails scrape his stinging scalp, and you let out a derisive noise against his lips before biting down hard enough to draw blood.

The taste of iron makes a slow smile curl at his lips, walking you back toward the bed, and it’s only when your knees hit the edge that you finally pull away from him. “If you broke my door, you’re fixing it, Osamu.”

Dazai’s smile is lecherous. “I’m gonna break something alright,” he croons, relishing in the way you immediately roll your eyes at him. It’s all so familiar—he can almost pretend that he never left, that nothing has changed since the two of you were eighteen, dumb, reckless, and in love.

Before he can press you back against the bed, he feels your fingers drop from around his neck to his waistband, curling around his belt loops. In an instant, you’ve twisted the both of you around, and suddenly, it’s the back of Dazai’s knees pressed against the edge of the bed as you push him down onto the mattress. He hits the sheets with an ‘oof’ and a hazy smile, surrounded by the scent of you, drowning in the sight of you. He thinks he might be in heaven. 

You shift on top of him, straddling his waist; Dazai’s hands instantly come to rest on your thighs, sliding up the sides to grab your ass and pull you more firmly onto him. He groans when he feels you grind down against his cock, and god, he’s already hard just from kissing you. He hears you snort above him, but Dazai doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed.

His lips part in a silent moan as you lean down to ghost kisses along his jaw, hands sliding up his chest. He feels you wrap your fingers around his bolo tie and tug it, you let out a sharp noise of distaste against his skin before murmuring: “I hate this ugly thing.”

He lets out a huff of laughter that quickly breaks off into a moan when your lips trail to the spot behind his ear that always makes him writhe. His fingers bite into your hips, pushing you down on him as he rocks his hips up into you—shit, he might be able to cum just from this. His cock is straining painfully against his beige pants, twitching as he grinds up against your clothed cunt. He thinks maybe if he fucks his hips upward a few more times, he might be able to push himself over the edge, but as desperate as he is to chase his release, he refuses to cum anywhere but inside of you.

Plus, he thinks he’ll be shamed to hell and back if he finishes in his pants with you hardly touching him. 

“Then strip me out of it,” he gasps, lashes fluttering as your teeth graze his pulse point right above the edge of his bandages. Fuck, he’d give anything for you to bite down—riddle him with marks he can’t cover so he can flaunt them off to everyone who looks at him. Dazai knows that there are countless men and women out there who’d die to be able to be called yours, he wants them to know he’s the only one who can take that honor. “What’re you waiting for?” 

You hum and then sit back on his hips—he bites his bottom lip raw as you unintentionally put even more pressure on his cock. He’s half dazed out, not realizing that your grip tightened on his bolo tie until you straight up yank it off of him, snapping the string around his neck.

“No!” he complains, watching with wide eyes and parted lips as you fling the now-broken bolo tie off to the side of your room. “Noooo, why’d you do that? I’m going to have to order a new one.”

“Boo-hoo,” you say dryly, hardly paying attention to him as your fingers curl around the hem of his vest, pulling it up over his head, snorting when he lets out a puff of irritation as his nose gets caught around the collar. 

“This is so unsexy,” he protests, rubbing his nose. “Shouldn’t you be more gentle?” 

“Stop wearing so many layers of clothes,” you retort, but Dazai is placated when you lean back down to kiss the corner of his lips, lashes fluttering as his eyes slide shut. He lets out a pleased hum as you kiss down his jaw, nimble fingers unbuttoning his final layer of clothing. He wishes he wore an undershirt just to watch you huff in annoyance. His breath catches as you nip at his skin and then murmur, “This better?” 

“Yeah,” he breathes out, voice wavering as you get down to the last button of his shirt, sliding it off of his shoulders and easing him out of it. His body shudders as your hands slide over the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Fuck, it’s been so long since anyone’s touched him beneath his clothes, even with the bandages still acting as a layer between the two of you, his nerves are on end, sensitive to everywhere your fingers touch.

He wonders if you’ll pull off the bandages—it’s a line that the two of you only crossed once back then, and although the idea of it has him brimming with anxiety, he longs for the feeling of your skin flush to his.

He almost feels a bit embarrassed when you sit back again to admire him as if there’s not a scar-ridden body hidden beneath the bandages. You look at him like he’s beautiful, like he’s not a monster disguised as a man, like he’s human. Dazai has always felt distinctly seen beneath your stare like you can see through all of the masks he wears and see him for him, and that has not changed over the past four years.

He’s missed the comfort of it. He has. It used to unnerve him back then, thinking someone could see him so clearly when he tried so hard and so carefully to hide himself beneath layers of impenetrable masks, but after going four years alone, with no one for him to turn to, no one he could look at and have them just know what he’s thinking… 

Yosano once mentioned offhandedly that to be loved is to be seen, and Dazai thinks the only time he’s ever been seen—truly seen, down to his core, deep in his soul—is when he’s with you.

It was a very lonely four years without you.

“I thought about you every day,” Dazai tells you softly, the grip on your hips easing up as he looks up at you. “Made a list of places I wanted to bring you and then burned it because I never thought I’d get the chance to be with you again. Stared at old pictures of you all the time, couldn’t sleep without thinking about memories with you. Drank your favorite wine just so I could pretend I was tasting it off your lips.”

You bring your hand up to cup his cheek, and Dazai leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut again. He kisses your palm, humming softly when your thumb runs along his bottom lip.

“There wasn’t a single day I went without you crossing my mind,” you admit quietly and Dazai’s breath hitches as he stares up at you, dark eyes wide and lips parted. He thinks he should say something, anything really, but it’s a lost cause. You don’t seem to mind, luckily, because you only lean down to brush your lips against his again.

This kiss is softer than the last, lips trembling against yours as your tongue dances along his inner lip. He thinks his cheeks might feel wet but he doesn’t dare acknowledge it; you don’t either, only using your thumbs to brush away the tears as they spill over his cheeks.

“Are you really leaving again in the morning?” he finally asks, and he hates that his voice cracks over the words.

You hum in agreement, still hovering over him, still running your thumbs along his cheekbone. His lashes droop shut, but he forces them back open as you speak. “I am. Bright and early. Flight leaves at six.”

His gaze flickers to the left, over to where your alarm clock is set up on your nightstand. 

12:35

He looks back at you, eyes swimming with desperation.

You give him a soft, wry smile. “We should make the most of the night then, hm?”

He doesn’t waste any time on that.

His grip on your hip tightens, and in one swift motion, he flips the two of you around, elbows resting on the mattress on either side of your head as he hovers above you. Your eyes glitter as you give him a coy smile, and again, Dazai falls in love.

Then, he ruins the moment.

“Tell me how you fucked Chuuya.”

Your smile drops. “Osamu, what the fuck?”

“Tell me,” he pouts, nudging his nose against your cheek and peppering soft kisses on your cheek and down your neck. His knees drop to the bed on either side of your hips, holding up his weight as he reaches down to unbutton your slacks, sliding them off your body. A smile flickers onto his lips as his fingers graze your panties—drenched, finally, evidence that he’s not the only one so affected by this. “Tell me. Were you on top? Did he take you from behind? Was he rough? No, it’s Chuuya-”

“If you care so much about how Chuuya fucks, Osamu, how about you go fuck him yourself?” you interrupt him.

Dazai gags.

“Don’t ever say that again,” he says and then returns to his mission, fumbling with his own pants now as he tries to yank them and his briefs off, unable to hold back the relieved sigh when he finally frees his cock, unceremoniously tossing them to the floor. “Tell me.” 

“Why do you care so much, hm?” you ask, reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes. “I told you that you were better.”

You’re only trying to deflect from the question and he almost lets you succeed, partially placated, but he stays strong, leveling an unrelenting stare onto you as he waits for your answer. You sigh heavily, and he knows he’s won.

“Not rough,” you say as if Dazai hasn’t already come to that conclusion. Chuuya’s had a crush on you since the three of you were sixteen. Dazai assumed he had grown out of it, but evidently, he was wrong, considering he took the opportunity to sleep with Dazai’s girlfriend—because you were his girlfriend—the moment Dazai was out of the picture. What a little snake. Dazai needs to vandalize his apartment again. Maybe set up a few more bombs. He’s only drawn back from his mental spiral when you start talking again: “He took the lead. Wanted to see my face the whole time, make sure I was okay.”

“How gentlemanly of him,” Dazai says—he’s not bitter. He’s not.

“It was,” you agree, too genuinely.

Dazai squints at you hard. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” you say. “You asked.”

“You don’t need to sound so wistful.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Osamu, I’m not wistful.”

“How-”

“Are we going to talk about Nakahara Chuuya all night, or are you going to fuck me?” you interrupt immediately, looking increasingly incensed. Dazai only raises his chin at you pointedly—you’re the one that slept with Chuuya. “Time is dwindling, Osamu.”

Okay. 

Dazai’s gaze flickers back to the clock and then back down to you, withering a bit under your irritated stare. He sighs and leans back over you to kiss the corner of your lips, fingers curling around the hem of your panties to slide them off your legs.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against your skin, his kisses linger against your skin now as he drags his lips down to your jaw. “The thought of him being with you…”

It makes Dazai want to do terrible things. The part of him that he locked up deep within rattles at the bars of its cage, furious and bloodthirsty. The trigger finger he’s been so careful to tame twitches with a desire he hasn’t felt in four years. The thought of anyone being with you makes Dazai sick to his stomach—Dazai is the only one who should get to see you like this, be with you like this—but the thought of Chuuya being with you is so much worse.

“You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Osamu,” you tell him quietly, fingers intertwining with his hair as he nips at your neck. “No matter how much I slept around, nothing was ever able to fill the hole losing you left. Not even Chuuya.”

Dazai exhales, shaky—the guilt returns, and so does the doubt because what right does he have sitting here being petty about what you did while he was gone when he was the one who left you behind without so much as a word? His eyes flutter shut, he spares a few more chaste kisses across your throat before lifting his face back to yours, kissing you gently.

“Let me make up for lost time then,” he says softly.

He doesn’t hesitate now, one hand dropping down to your thigh, lifting it to wrap around his waist as he presses his hips into you. His breath shudders when his cock slips against your folds, a low moan spilling from his lips. He has to reach down to angle himself properly, tip pressing against your tight hole.

The fingers of his free hands are shaky as he lifts them to cup your cheek. “Look at me,” he says, heat spreading through his abdomen when he realizes you already can hardly hold your eyes open, quick breaths escaping your lips as you try to keep yourself from cumming already. “Look at me, I want to see you.”

Your eyes flutter open, lidded and heavy as you look up at him, and Dazai thinks that maybe he could cum just from the expression on your face alone, inhaling sharply as his thumb drags across your bottom lip. He thinks maybe he should try to get ahold of himself, fearing that if he pushes inside of you now, he might cum on the spot, but his cock is aching so badly that Dazai thinks he might die if he doesn’t feel your heat around him immediately.

It takes all of his strength to keep his eyes from sliding shut as he pushes inside of you, desperate to see the way your face twists and your breath catches. Your lips tremble, chest rising and falling rapidly, he can feel your thighs tightening around his waist, and Dazai groans when your heels dig into his lower back, forcing his hips flush to you, burying his cock deep in your cunt. He chokes, grip on your thigh bruising; his abdomen tightens, and his head feels light.

No way, he thinks, gritting his teeth as he tries to hold back the waves of pleasure threatening to tear through him. He hears you let out a huff of laughter beneath him, and Dazai would shut you up with a sharp thrust of your hips, but he’s still desperately trying to regain control over himself, so he thinks that’s maybe not the best idea.

His forehead drops to rest on the pillow next to your head, lips brushing your ear as he lets out a low moan. He can’t even savor the way you let out a full-body shudder, fingers coming up to toy with the hair at the nape of his neck. Fuck, you’re so tight—Dazai can feel your walls tightening around him, spasming, his breath is shaky, and he tries to distract himself by pressing his lips to your skin, mouthing messily at your skin, sucking and nipping and counting to ten as he tries to settle down.

But it’s hard with the soft sighs you’re letting out, the way your fingers catch on his tousled hair, tugging enough to make his scalp sting. His head is so fogged that he can hardly think straight—god, he’s missed this, he hasn’t had the comfort of letting himself go like this in… since he left, really. His mind is always turning, plotting out ten, twenty, thirty steps in advance in fear of making a mistake, slipping up and letting the rest of the Agency see him for what he is, slipping up and their lives being the price just like with Odasaku. It’s only with you that’s ever comfortable enough to finally let the cogs in his brain slow and shatter, lose himself in carnal pleasures, lose himself in you; it’s been four years since he’s last had a reprieve from his own brain.

But he only lets himself slip halfway—tonight isn’t going to be about him, it’s about you. He has four years to make up for and he intends on getting a good start on it tonight.

He pants quietly as he lifts his head enough to bite your earlobe, tugging it gently before pressing his lips to your temple. “I’ve missed this,” he admits, voice raspy and clogged thick with emotion. “I’ve-”

He can hardly get the words out, and his breath catches when your hands slide from behind his head to cup his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. He thinks he must look wrecked—he can already feel the sweat beading on his forehead, and he knows his eyes are probably glazed over. You still look stunning, a soft expression on your face as you look up at him as if he’s not buried to the hilt inside of you. 

Unfair, he thinks mournfully. 

“What're you still holding onto, hm?” you ask, and Dazai only barely registers your words, sinking into your touch as you brush matted hair out of his eyes. He can finally bring himself to roll his hips—experimental, slow, trying to make sure he can actually move before trying to fuck you. Then you sigh softly, and he’s too out of it to try to make out the expression on your face as you say: “You work yourself so hard… always have. I’ve got you, you can let go, Dazai. C’mon.”

“No,” he hums, but his voice is strained, evidence of his struggle. “Tonight’s about my favorite girl.”

“Favorite?” you tease, lifting your shoulders off the bed to ghost a kiss against his lips that nearly has his hips stuttering—the conversation so reminiscent of one that the two of you had at seventeen it almost makes him smile.

“Only,” he amends quietly, kissing your nose, then the corner of your lips, and then nipping your jawline.

Just when he thinks he’s good to actually start picking up the pace, intent on fucking the thoughts out of you until you forget about your stupid flight in the morning, he catches a suspicious expression on your face, one that has his eyes narrowing.

“What?” he asks dubiously; your eyes are glittering in a way that he knows from experience is dangerous. 

You don’t say anything, just look pointedly at your thighs, then up to his shoulders. Dazai tilts his head to the side, recognizing what you want, and after a moment’s hesitation, he slides your legs up above his shoulders, folding them to your chest, eyes nearly rolling back at the new angle. Fuck, his hips do stutter this time, breath hitching. He has to readjust again, mentally focus on not cumming on the spot, and then-

And then you say: “He had my legs like this.”

A trick. 

Dazai knows it. 

You’re trying to make him let go of the thin thread of self-control he still has. To give in. To let all of the gears in his brain finally fall apart for the first time in four years.

He knows it.

He falls for it anyway.

Dazai’s jaw tightens, gaze snapping down to you only to catch a goading look in your eyes, a sly smile on your lips that Dazai has every intention of fucking right off your face. He inhales sharply, one hand sliding up your body to grab your chin, blunt nails digging a bit too deeply into your cheeks.

“Yeah?” he says, voice rough. 

Your lashes flutter and lips part as Dazai pointedly jerks his hips up. Your breath catches over a moan, and Dazai knows that this new angle is affecting you just as much as it is him.

“Mhm,” you agree, and just like that, the thin thread snaps.

He snaps his hips into you so hard that your bedframe bangs loudly against the wall behind it, quickly setting a steady pace, nice and deep, quick enough that you can’t even get a breath of air to your lungs before Dazai is fucking it right out of you. Already, he’s so fucked out that his mind is in shambles, one hand settling on your hip to hold you in place as he thrusts his hips into you, hitting that sweet spot with each stroke while his other hand, still cupping your face, slides down to your neck.

He doesn’t squeeze—wouldn’t dare to cut off the pretty noises spilling from your lips, moans of his names, choked gasps and cries between each rock of his hips—but the fact that you trust him, him, enough to have his fingers wrapped around your throat is always a quick way make him topple over the edge.

His eyes dart down to your chest, realizing, very unfortunately, that you haven’t taken off your button-up yet. He nearly bites down on his tongue in frustration as his hand comes down to your chest, careful to keep the pace of his hips as he hooks his fingers around the first button just to yank down, popping off half of the buttons of your expensive dress shirt and haphazardly pulling it off of you to toss it to the side before fumbling with the clip of your bra.

“Osamu,” you hiss, and Dazai revels in the way your voice wavers with each thrust, biting back moans. “That’s the second-”

You don’t get to finish your sentence. Dazai tosses your bra over with your discarded shirt and dips his head down to wrap his lips around your nipple, tongue swirling around the sensitive bud before rolling it between his teeth, and you’re gone—Dazai lets out a muffled groan around you as your back arches up into him, crying out his name, walls tightening around him as you cum on his cock.

“Oh-f-hah-fuck,” Dazai gasps as he rests his head on your collarbone, grip on your waist tightening. 

He has to physically force himself to lift his head, bracing his forearm on the mattress next to your head, desperate to see the way your eyes roll back, he can already feel himself teetering over the edge—the lewd sound of skin-on-skin, the sloppiness of his cock driving in and out of your cunt, he can feel your cum dripping down his cock, smeared on his pelvis.

His hand slides behind your head, lifting it from where you have it pressed against the mattress. Beautiful—the only thought that can run through his hazy brain is of you and how perfect you are, lips swollen and bitten raw, parted as pitched moans escape them, tears spilling from the corner of your eyes as he fucks you through your orgasm and right into a second. He’s the only one that should ever get to see you like this, with your clever brain fucked right and dumb, body writhing against the bed as you cling to him.

He leans down again, trailing sloppy kisses against your neck, gasping as he starts to feel his high approaching.

“No one makes you feel like this,” he says, or maybe he begs, he’s not sure if he’s making a statement or pleading for you to tell him it’s the truth. “Tell me. T-shit-tell me.”

“No one,” you sob over another moan, and Dazai can feel your pussy fluttering around him—he wonders if he’s already fucked you into a third. Usually, it takes longer. “No one, Osamu, you’re the only one.”

And that’s the only thing he needed to hear to give him that final push. His steady pace shifts into a more erratic one, sloppy and desperate, as he chases a high that’s just out of reach. His moans are muffled against your skin, teeth scraping your collarbone, mind a jumbled mess of thoughts of you. He feels your fingers trembling as you lift them to his cheeks, pulling his face up to press your lips against his, and that’s all it takes: he lets out a wanton moan against your mouth, pressing your legs further into your chest as his hips still against your ass, finishing deep inside of you.

Spots dance in his vision, head buzzing and ears ringing; he swears his orgasm lasts an eternity, body shaking and shuddering above you, letting out breathy moans into your mouth. He can feel his cum dribbling out of you, pooling onto the sheets beneath the two of you, so much of it that you can’t even keep it all in you. 

He doesn’t let his lips leave yours once—the kisses are messy and sloppy, devoid of all of the finesse that the two of you usually have, teeth nearly clashing, tongues sliding against each other’s. 

It’s only when his vision finally starts to clear and his head feels less on the verge of passing out does Dazai finally trails kisses from your lips to your jaw and down your neck before he finally collapses on top of you, mind entirely gone, like he’s floating on clouds. He pants as he tries to catch his breath, eyes lidded as he absently trails kisses along your chest and collarbone. He thinks the world could be ending around the two of you, and Dazai wouldn’t even have the capacity to notice. For the first time in four years, he really, truly allows his brain to rest.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, eyes drooping shut as he lets himself be enveloped by your arms, drowning in the comfort of your scent.

He doesn’t want to know. He’s scared to look at the clock and check.

“Tonight was supposed to be about you,” Dazai finally complains, burying his face in your chest as he pouts.

You only let out a soft laugh above him. “We have the rest of our lives for that… You deserved a break, Osamu.”

The rest of our lives.

Dazai’s throat tightens, vision blurring a bit at the thought—he can only barely bring himself to respond, and the words that slip out are not what he means to say: “I never thought I’d get to be with you like this again,” he admits, voice hoarse. “I never thought-”

“I know,” you interrupt, voice quiet, a bit shaky. “... I know.”

Of course, you know.

He can’t bring himself to say anything else, so he doesn’t, sinking into your arms and allowing himself the comfort he’s deprived himself of for so long. He almost starts to drift off—and god, he can’t remember the last time he’s dozed off willingly, only able to sleep after drinking copious amounts of alcohol or taking an even more copious number of sleeping pills. It’s not until you speak again does he stir back awake from the brink of sleep.

“What did he ask of you? Oda, I mean,” you finally ask, fingers brushing through his dark hair, lulling him further to sleep.

Dazai thinks that you’re cruel, asking him while his mind is still fogged from the exhaustion following his high, and he’s still half asleep in your arms, trying to regain his bearings. The words slip out before he can think twice, forgetting his fear of you laughing at the idea of him trying to be a better man.

“He asked me to be on the side that saves people… if both are the same to me, he wanted me to be a good man.”

The words dawn on him too late; he can hardly bring himself to look up at you, scared that he’s going to find an amused expression on your face or a derisive sneer. He wouldn’t blame you, he’s thought the same about himself ever since he left the Port Mafia, doubt and self-loathing riddling him with every step he takes in the light. He waits for the scoff, he waits for the laugh, he waits for-

“... I think he would be proud of who you’ve become, Osamu. I think you’ve fulfilled his request.”

Dazai does look up at you now, feeling particularly vulnerable, still scared that he might find a mocking expression on your face but he doesn’t. Only an uncharacteristically soft expression is painted on your face as you look up at the ceiling, a genuine one—a small smile and a look in your eyes that makes his heart feel warm. You don’t notice him looking until he lets slip out:

“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispers. 

(I love you, he means)

“I’ve missed you too,” you say back quietly.

(I love you too)

[stargirllanaa]

Pretty when you cry

Warnings: NON-CON SMUT, Dark!Rafe, Toxic relationship, Abusive relationship, domestic violence, drug-use, manipulation, lying

Summary: Heavily Based on ‘Pretty when your cry’ by Lana Del Rey, like really heavily, Your relationship with Rafe Cameron is falling apart before you’re eyes.

A/n: First smut 🫣 anyway, request are open so hit my inbox with your darkest ideas! I would definitely recommend listen to Pretty when you cry by Lana Del Rey while reading!! Enjoy <3

Wc: 2k

18+ ONLY MINOR DNI!!

Your friend group had planned a fun night all together; you were all going to stay at the beach till dark and watch the stars. You had been looking forward to it; things had been rocky with Rafe, and you just wanted to get out and enjoy a night with your friends and boyfriend.

As you applied your blush, you were completely lost in thought; images of a few nights ago and your encounter with your boyfriend flashed through your brain.

You tried to focus on your makeup routine, but the bruises that were revealed on your wrist when your sweatshirt sleeve fell were a constant reminder.

“Are you serious, Rafe?” You questioned your boyfriend when you caught him in the bathroom doing a line.

“You said you were done... You said you were quitting.” disappointment filled your voice.

He looked up at you with dilated pupils, trying to wipe away the white powdery residue from under his nose.

“I'm sorry baby… I-” he thought to himself for a minute.

You signed in response.

“I should have known…” you softly said under your breath,

“No… listen…I got into a fight with my dad earlier...This is the last time...” The blonde promised you in a shaky tone.

Your eyes shot to the leftover coke on your bathroom counter; there were about two lines left, you didn't want that shit in your house, and more importantly, you didn't want him doing that shit in your house. So you moved your hand over, ready to wipe it straight onto the floor.

But Rafe saw it coming; he had been analyzing your eyes the whole time. He caught your wrist before it came close to the counter; his grip was tight and rough.

“Come on, baby, don't make this complicated.” your boyfriend threatened as his grip got tighter and tighter.

“Rafe, you're hurting me,” you said as your eyes brimmed with hot tears.

“You’re hurting me, y/n!” he pulled you closer to him; the scent of his cologne was so strong it made you nauseous. “You know I'm going through stuff and… mess up sometimes! And I-”

“You promised me, Rafe!” you cut him off. “You promised you would stop.” tears spilled over, and you smiled, lacking happiness. “But you don't care about that, do you?”

His eyes narrowed at your words, and his grip on your wrist became tighter, causing you to let out a sob.

“You clearly don't give a shit about spending time with me because you're high all the time.” you voiced between sobs. “You don't even give a shit about me…you care about one thing,” you said, voice broken as you used your free hand to point at the two remaining lines on the countertop.

Rafe said nothing, but you could tell you were spot on by how he looked around as his breathing sped up.

He dropped your wrist before leaving the bathroom and the lines he had just fought you over; he made sure to slam the door and stomp down the stairs.

You shivered as you thought about how tight he was holding on to you, but he was high, and people do crazy things under the influence. But the problem was Rafe had been under the influence a lot recently.

And every time he hurt you, it would always go the same way; you guys would argue, usually about his drug problem. He would hurt you, usually to make you shut up. Sometimes were worse than others, but it always ended in you sobbing and him profusely apologizing. He blamed it on the drugs…his dad and you would forgive him. Or he would just leave you there and text you ‘sorry’ later.

You missed the days when the two of you first started dating; everything seemed so simple and sweet… So normal.

You and your boyfriend were going ice skating together; you were excited but nervous. It was your first time, and you didn't want to fall and embarrass yourself.

As you entered the rink, you immediately held onto the railing as you tried to keep your feet in place. They were slipping and sliding everywhere, and the railing was your only hope not to fall and bust your ass.

“Baby,” Rafe said with a slight laugh as he stuck his hand out. “I got you; hold my hand.”

You took his hand, one hand on the railing, one in his. He showed you how to push yourself forward and keep balance, but you were still struggling.

“How do you do that,” you said with a chuckle as if he was a professional ice skater.

“Youre cute,” the blonde said with a smile; the truth was you were the girl he had always dreamed of; you were so naive.

You always hoped he would stop using and times could return to how they were, but part of you knew things would never be how they were; they hadn't been in a long time.

Looking back at the mirror, you realized you had been applying blush to one cheek for about 2 minutes. You needed to finish getting ready. Things would be better tonight, at least you hoped they would be.

When you made it to the beach, Rafe wasn't there yet; that was fine, though he was probably late, traffic or something. You tried your best to focus on your friends, the music, and the alcohol, but as the night went on and the stars came out, Rafe's lack of presence was very noticeable. Your friends and even his friends had asked you where he was, and you just responded with a quiet ‘he’ll be here soon.’ was that true? You didn't know. He wasn't answering texts or calls; you even dm’ed him on Instagram, hoping for a response.

But he didn't show up, he didn't come through… he never did.

And as you looked up at the stars surrounded by friends, all you could think about was when Rafe told you that ‘all the pretty stars had shined for you.’

———-

One of your friends dropped you back home after your night out. Rafe was supposed to take you home with him, but it was apparent why that didn't happen.

As soon as you started taking off your jewelry, your phone started ringing; you looked over at it to see who was calling and quickly picked it up.

“Rafe, are fucking kiddi-” you started.

“Open the door. I'm outside,” he stated before hanging up.

You rolled your eyes at the sound of him ending the call; you were so fucking angry. The two of you were supposed to have fun tonight, not fight. He stood you up. He did this shit all the time, using stupid excuses like, ‘I lost track of time,’ ‘my dad and I got into a fight again,’ and ‘I fell asleep.’ But those excuses could only work so many times.

As you stomped down your stairs to the front door, you took a deep breath; you didn't want things to go left more than they already had, but that didn't stop you from opening the door when your gut told you not to.

Rafe pushed past you, letting himself into your house.

“Baby, I'm sorry I lost track of time.” classic Rafe.

You looked down at your phone, taking in the time, then back at him.

“For 4 hours, Rafe?” You scoffed at his words; how many times would he use that excuse?

“The ‘fight with your dad’ would have worked better this time.” you sarcastically stated as you rolled your eyes.

“Don't be like that.” the blonde spoke as he walked closer to you.

“No, don't tell me how to act! You always do this to me.” your eyes brimmed with tears as you thought about how broken your relationship was.

Rafe brought his hand up to your face, initially causing you to flinch, but he brought it closer to the top of your head and began stroking your hair.

“I'm sorry… stuff's been hard for me with my da-.” he started.

“I can't do this.” you tearfully confessed, trying to pull away from him.

His hand paused in your hair, but he still kept you close.

“What do you mean ‘you can't do this?’” your boyfriend questioned, voice mixed with confusion and anger.

“Rafe, let go of me.” you calmly stated, trying to get away before things got ugly.

The hand stroking your hair was now grabbing a handful of it; he pulled you back slightly, but only enough to make eye contact.

“I need you, y/n,” Rafe said as his eyes narrowed.

“Don't say that-” you stated under your breath, looking down at the floor.

“Don't say I need you?” the blonde asked you as he pulled your hair slightly, forcing you to look back at him.

“You know you're just gonna leave again,” you shouted through tears.

Rafe looked away from you, thinking of what he should do; he needed you; you couldn't leave; you couldn't just decide that you ‘couldn't do this.’. He had to show you how much he needed you.

You gasped as Rafe’s grip on your hair tightened as he started dragging you. The pain coming from your head was so brutal it left you screaming for him to stop. Before you knew it, he pulled you up by your hair and pushed you back onto the couch. You were terrified; when you looked into his eyes, they were darker, just like they were the night he grabbed your wrist, and every time he had ever hurt you before, but you were confused; he usually just slapped and pushed you around. This was a different level; he had never taken it this far.

“Rafe!” was all you screamed out before he cut you off.

“You don't think I need you?” he smirked before pushing your hair back so he could see your whole face. “I need you so bad you don't even understand.”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, wondering how hurting you could possibly show that he needed you, but when you saw him start to undo his pants, everything became a lot clearer.

“Rafe..” you trailed off, hoping he wasn't about to do what you thought he was.

“Shhh baby... You’re okay.” the blonde says as he reaches under your skirt.

“No, I can't do this,” you said as you tried to sit up, but your boyfriend immediately pushed you back down.

“I told you to shut the fuck up.” He hissed, clearly annoyed by your words; he had already made up his mind; there was no going back now.

And when you felt him inside of you, you couldn't stop the sobs that escaped from the back of your throat, and when you glanced back at him to see him staring directly into your eyes while taking advantage of you, it made your stomach turn.

“Fuck” Rafe said with a moan, “you're so pretty when you cry.”

[unlosts]

hi !!

i'm pretty sure it was me w the perfume request! (my brain is so scattered i barely remember what i asked for but!! i'm so so excited to read it when you're done <33) (btw i'm loving the spencer fics and i'm psyched for more, your writing is so beautiful 🥹🫶🏼)

A/N: Thank you so much for your request! It was exactly the one I lost. Hope you like it, I had a lot of fun with it 🫶🏼.

Also no one asked but I'm a firm believer that Hotch is a Grey Vetiver by Tom Ford guy, or he should be!

At exactly 9:18 the sound of the elevator opening interrupts the quiet morning, Aaron Hochner walks out heading briskly towards his office, coat over his shoulders and briefcase in hand, nodding in greeting to the rest of the team who collectively turn to stare at him with various degrees of confusion plastered on their faces. 

“I was about to call a S.W.A.T team,” Says Emily, stopping him in his tracks “again.” 

At that Hotch finally turns to face them, his usually pristine white shirt wrinkled like he had picked it off the floor that morning. 

“Excuse he?” He asks, brow arched. 

Derek lets out a laugh at this, languidly spinning his chair from side to side but before he can say anything JJ, ever the mediator, interrupts “You’re just not usually this late, we were starting to worry.”

“Yeah, cuz y’know you have a bad track record” Says Penelope with a grimace, she’s perched by Morgan's desk toying with a feathery pink pen while she talks.  

“They were worried, I just knew you were maybe having some fun for once” Derek chimes in with a smile, letting out a huff when Pen pokes his side with her pen. 

“There’s no need to make a scene out of it, I’m sure I've been late plenty of times before” He tries to say in a stern enough tone that they’ll hopefully drop the subject. 

It would be easy to classify it as merely teasing but Hotch knew the entire team worried about him, namely about his lack of a social life outside of work. And usually he would entertain their banter for longer but he really is late today and he can already feel the beginning of a headache forming. 

“Actually," Spencer adds without looking up from his paper“this year, you were only late three times, the last one being about two and a half months ago on July when you had a flat tire and had to wait for triple A”.

“Thank you for that, Spencer” Hotch says, shooting him a look.

“No problem”   

“Nothing happened, I just got stuck in a bad pile up on my way there and I was already cutting it close beforehand, so if you all could focus back on your files that would be great, we have to present our consults before 5 today” He says trying, and failing to regain a modicum of authority. 

Just when he thought that they had tired themselves out, the elevator opens up again and you spill out of it, carrying with you the floral scent of your perfume and a dazzling smile that spells nothing but trouble for him. The kind that makes him stay up until 2am in the middle of the week and turns what was meant to be a quick shower into a half hour delay. 

“Hello hello, sorry for being so late, there was a bad bad pile up on my way here” You speak without pausing once for breath, your heels click clacking on your way to your desk where you unceremoniously dump your coat and purse on top of your desk. Heading for the kitchen to brew a new pot of coffee. 

On your way there you playfully ruffle Spencer’s hair and wink at Pen, who can’t help but comment on your good mood “Well aren’t you happy this morning missy” 

You make eye contact with him for a split second and Hotch can feel his throat dry up, he always felt like you breathed life into any room you walked in, the sun patterns following your steps whenever you went. So it makes sense that even now in the middle of fall he feels something warm settle over him even with such a brief look. 

He thinks he’s been staring at you for hours when it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, by the time he snaps out of it he finds Emily regarding him with a quizzical eye and a smile that does nothing for his brewing headache. 

“Well, I’ve just been having a very nice week” You reply pointedly “even went and got myself a new perfume” He did, actually, but it’s not like you can say that. 

Seeing an out in the conversation he starts once more to go towards his office before he’s interrupted, once again, by one Emily Prentiss. 

“Huh” She says, pinning him down with a perfectly arched eyebrow

“What?” He asks exasperated, quickly losing his patience. 

“Aren’t you testy today?” She teases “I was just thinking about the fact that you both got stuck in traffic, despite coming from opposite sides of the city, that’s all” And with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders that’s anything but, she turns to work on her files. 

You pop out of the kitchen carrying with you two expertly done mugs of coffee, and even better timing, hastily sitting by Emily’s desk and leaving one mug in front of her. 

“I was hoping you could look over one of my cases with me? I’ve been stuck for ages and I could use a fresh set of eyes?” 

“So this is bribery coffee?”

“No, the bribe is the very nice bottle of red I have back at my place that’s all yours next girls night, the coffee is just because I’m a delight to be around” You reply grinning at her. 

Emily huffs a laugh and with everyone distracted Hotch finally makes his escape, shutting his office door and basking in the blissful quiet of his office. 

He spends the next hour and a half failing to fill expense reports, his mind wandering to your hair splayed on the pillows this morning; you staring up at him in the shower, a droplet of water running from the bridge of your nose to rest on your lip being kissed away by him. The exact dazzling smile from this morning but all his to keep.

The lost twenty minutes after dressing he spend with you pressed against the entrance door, your hands running over his back.  

With an hour left to go before lunch and a creek in his neck from leaning his head on his palm all morning he gives up and goes to get himself his second coffee of the day.

In the kitchenette right by the vending machine is his headache personified, getting herself a bag of skittles. 

While he makes his coffee Emily pauses next to him and extends the bag of candy in a silent offer that he declines with a shake of his head, right before leaving she says “I do love the new cologne, very summery fresh, but just a heads up, I do think she wears it better than you” 

[torscrawls]

A Ghost by Any Other Name ch.3

You can read the whole story on AO3!

If you prefer tumblr: Chapter 1 can be found here. Chapter 2 can be found here.

---

Danny was big. Like seriously big, with a tall frame and wide shoulders, but Tim didn’t think he had been for very long. He still moved his body as if he wasn’t quite used to the size of it yet. Maybe Tim should have been intimidated, but he was too used to big enemies and siblings to really take notice. 

No, what he had taken notice of was the prosthesis making up the other's left arm. A prosthesis that Tim would bet his whole hidden stash of coffee in the Batcave was homemade, a fact that had spurred him to start talking with the guy when he had spotted him sitting alone at lunch.

A prosthesis that currently lay on the table between Tim and Danny where they sat in an otherwise empty room usually used for construction and prototype testing.

Tim hovered with his hands over the arm as he looked up at Danny and asked for the third time, “Are you sure?”

Danny nodded, straightening the liner covering his now exposed upper arm. “Yeah, man. I’ve been doing this solo ever since— well, since I got it. If you could help me work out some kinks that would be great!”

Tim let his hands fall to the prosthesis, tilting it this way and that to get a better look at it as he took in the patchwork of metal. He didn't have any trouble believing that no one else had worked on it as it was clearly cobbled together from whatever Danny had been able to find. The soldering was stable, but looked patchy from where it had been stretched thin to cover what it needed to.

It was an impressive piece of machinery to have been made by one person, even more so from what were clearly scrap-pieces, but if Tim was being honest the most impressive thing was that it moved at all.

Considering its weight, its many functions, and the length at which Danny could use it without charge, there was no known source that could possibly power it. 

Danny had given him some vague explanation of batteries, sustainable energy, self-sufficiency, and a whole lot of nonsensical buzzwords. Tim might not be an expert in prosthetics, but even he knew that it wasn't possible to have batteries big enough to sustain it for a whole day, and small enough to keep the arm as lightweight as it was.

“So,” Tim said as he placed the arm back on the table. “What do you need help with?”

Danny looked up from where he was fiddling with the fingers of the prosthesis. “I can’t get the thumb to move but I'm thinking of adding something to make the articulation of the fingers better, so if you have any ideas about that I would love to hear it.” He perked up, “Oh! I also need to make it lighter, I think, so that I can keep it on for the whole day. It’s starting to become too heavy for me.” Danny gave a strained laugh. “Not getting any younger, you know?”

Tim didn't buy the excuse of age, Danny wasn't old by any means and he certainly was big enough to be able to support the weight, but he had noted that Danny didn't use the arm every day. Which meant that there was another reason for it. 

“Is this related to your… Illness?” Tim asked carefully.

Danny didn’t answer. Which in itself was answer enough.

“Can I ask… What it is?”

He really didn’t want to pry, but maybe Danny didn’t seek out treatment because he lacked the money for it. If so, Tim found that he wanted to help. “If it’s a question of money, then I can—”

“It’s not,” Danny cut him off. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Alright.” Tim dropped the subject as he reached for a small, closed hatch at the underside of the arm. “What’s this part? The power source, right?”

He had just managed to get it open an inch, peeking inside to see something glowing green when Danny snapped the lid shut with a harsh, “Don't touch that.”

Tim held up his hand in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry.”

Danny kept his eyes narrowed and fixed on Tim a second longer, but then relaxed. “No, I'm sorry. I just—It feels personal, okay?”

“Hey, no worries. I get it,” Tim assured him, trying to curb his own curiosity by reminding himself to feel grateful that Danny had trusted him enough to let him work on the arm to begin with. “Thanks for letting me take a look at it.”

“I know it’s not much,” Danny said self-consciously.

It was, but Tim understood what he meant; understood the frustration of being restricted by material things. Tim would love to see what Danny could do with better materials, and there were some benefits to being the son of the richest guy in town. 

“I might have some materials lying around, if you're interested. And I might have an idea about that thumb.”

Danny's whole face lit up.

Tim realized that they were actually starting to become friends. Wish meant that there was only one thing he could do in this situation.

——

Tim scanned the results of the background check he had just completed on Danny.

He had come up clean. Almost too clean. But he also came from a small city in the middle of nowhere; maybe there hadn’t been that many opportunities to get into trouble in Amity Park.

Tim had found no signs that Danny was in any way out to get them, which was great since Tim really didn’t have the time and energy to fight some new villain pretending to be his work-friend and coffee-buddy. His heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

He did trust in Wayne Enterprise’s HR-department (and security department’s) ability to screen new employees but since he had started to run into Danny more often he wanted to investigate himself. But to his surprise, those accidental meetings seemed to just be actually accidental. So even if Tim had been burned one too many times, Danny was starting to look like an actually nice guy. No matter his big size, slightly uncanny looks, and cobbled together technology. The villains can’t get all the cool people, Tim thought smugly and found that he was more relieved than he wanted to admit that Danny had come up clean.

“A new friend?” Dick asked with a raised eyebrow and an infuriating smirk as he leaned over the back of Tim’s chair to get a better look at the screen.

“A colleague,” Tim corrected distractedly as he scanned the documents.

Danny almost seemed too perfect; a friend factory-made to suit Tim.

He liked coffee, he was witty, not afraid to tease him even though Tim was his boss, quick-witted, and had a big interest in technology and inventions. A fact that was proven in his work as well as his prosthetic arm.

In truth, Tim had already started to sneak Danny some projects under the table. Not bat-classed project, but… Maybe some personal things he had under development and would like a second pair of eyes on. And Danny’s insights had proven to be invaluable. Tim looked over his shoulder at the still-smirking Dick. Danny was also non-judgmental and non-infuriating, in contrast to certain other people that should not be named.

As if hearing his thoughts, Dick laughed and nudged his shoulder. “This is a thorough check for a colleague.”

Tim averted his eyes. Maybe it had been longer than he thought since he made a normal friend.

Dick smiled. “I’m glad it came up clean. You could really need some more friends.” 

Dick ignored Tim’s outraged “Hey!” as he scanned over the document before pausing with a frown. “Amity Park? Where's that?”

“No idea.” Tim clicked away on the computer. “Apparently a small town that mostly makes its living as a tourist trap. And their draw is…” Tim trailed off as he digested the last word before exclaiming, “Seriously?!”

Dick leaned in. “What?”

“Ghosts. The whole town claims to be haunted by ghosts.”

“Alright? That's eccentric, but it's not that strange.”

“No, it's just…” Tim dragged a hand through his hair. “It's the second time lately that ghosts have come up.”

And he really didn't want to associate Danny with the two lunatics from a couple of months ago.

“Well, maybe it’s a sign that you should change careers and become a ghost hunter! Can you imagine? A superhero ghosthunter!” Dick laughed and punched him in his shoulder.

Tim snorted and swatted at him. They were really lucky that ghosts weren't real.

——

Of course, after foolishly tempting fate, ghosts stayed not real for far shorter than Tim would have preferred. It wasn’t even a month later when his entire worldview reoriented itself (and really, he should be used to that by now) as that belief died and didn’t come back to life. Which seemed to be a rarity all of a sudden.

At first, they hadn't realized what they were; seemingly harmless and, most unsettlingly, impossible to catch. The blobby apparition had fazed through any and all containment devices they had tried to capture them in, and more often than not they hadn't even been able to touch them. None of their sensors worked, just spouting nonsense readings that fluctuated wildly.

The blobs were hard to handle but thankfully they weren't very destructive since they mostly caused confusion and some accidents brought on by gawking bystanders.They weren’t really attacking anyone—yet, the cynical part of Tim’s mind added—but they were causing enough of a panic to be a problem.

Thankfully, Gothamites generally knew to keep well away from new and unknown possible threats.

The real problem was that they had no idea what they were dealing with and no idea on how to make it go away, but overall Gotham’s green and glowing new decor didn’t really take president over all the daily attacks from both villains and normal criminals.

Tim had foolishly (once again, damn it Tim) believed that was it.

And then he got a message on his communicator masquerading as a cellphone summoning him to the cave for a new type of threat. Tim straightened up from where he had been sprawled over Danny's sagging armchair. “I'm sorry, I have to go. Something came up.”

“Oh?” Danny looked up, eyes immediately jumping from the video game on the TV to Tim. “You okay?”

Tim waved him off, feeling a bit guilty at the clear worry on his friend's face. “Yeah, yeah, nothing bad. Just… A family thing.”

Danny grimaced and Tim guessed he'd had his fair share of family things. He let go of the controller in his right hand, instead grabbing at his prosthetic left, rubbing at it as if in pain.

Tim got to his feet. “It was nice hanging out though. Same time next week?”

Danny's grimace immediately turned into a smile and even though it looked genuine, there was something strained at the corners. “Sure! Good luck with the family.”

There was real fear there, barely visible under the happiness. Tim reluctantly discarded the observation, reminding himself that his friend wasn't a mystery for him to solve. “Thanks. Good luck with the boss without me.”

Danny laughed and shucked a pillow at him. “As if your so-called skills make any difference.”

Tim ducked the soft projectile with a smile before leaving, mind already focusing on what new threat could have come up for him to be called in on one of his few nights off.

Said threat turned out to be an intangible, periodically invisible, glowing, and floating villain. All of those characteristics wouldn’t necessarily lead Tim to the conclusion that he was facing off against a ghost—Gotham was filled with a lot of weird people with even weirder powers—but what sealed the deal was the fact that this new villain just wouldn’t shut up about being one. The ghost of boxes, to be more specific.

Tim would say that he had higher hopes for his own afterlife, but who was he to judge?

And, sure, if that had been the end of it then maybe the easiest answer would have been that they were facing off against a man with very specific interests and an unfortunate chemical accident in his recent past (it had happened before, more than once) but now they were staring down a new villain every other week. All of them proudly proclaiming themselves to be ghosts, and all of them freaking every sensor and scan the Bats threw at them the fuck out.

So ghosts. Were apparently a thing.

Tim wished he was more surprised than he was.

So far, most ghost attacks would stop seemingly by themselves. The ghost in question would be mid-rant and mid-destruction, only for them to suddenly pause, eyes wide. Every time this happened, the ghost’s focus was directed at the group of innocent civilians unwisely trying to catch a glimpse of the action that always accumulated during attacks that weren't too destructive. Their leading theory was that the ghosts were simply scared of the living.

Which was lucky, because the ghosts were both frighteningly strong as well as too many for comfort. Tim was desperately looking for more dependable ways of combating them, but so far he had come up with nothing.

It was hard to fight an enemy you couldn't touch and they weren't used to feeling so powerless.

Which also meant that the small and round creatures that shared all the characteristics of the bigger ghosts, except for the fact that they were shaped more like jelly than people, were also—more than likely—ghosts. It had taken them a frankly embarrassing amount of time to reach that conclusion. Yes, Tim was well aware that Bruce was a world-known detective and that he himself was a genius. No, neither of them had mentioned this slow deduction to anyone.

All of this led up to Tim stumbling into work on a Wednesday, definitely late and definitely operating on way too little sleep. They had all stayed up late yesterday (or maybe it was today? It was hard to even think) facing off against a ghost that claimed to be able to control technology. Okay, facing off might have been an exaggeration. The truth of the matter was that they had ran. The risk of an unknown villain, someone with largely unknown powers and unknown motivations, getting into their tech had been enough of a threat to warrant a tactical retreat.

Which had proven to be a good choice since not even half an hour later there was an attack on their servers. And then another. And another. All of them seemingly from the same source. They had taken readings and scanned everything five times over, but the source of the attack seemed to adapt and change and move in a way that was almost… conscious.

Tim would swear off coffee forever if it turned out not to be the ghost that claimed to be able to control technology. They had been able to stay on top of the attacks but only barely, which was very worrying considering their top-of the line and frankly absurdly paranoid firewalls and assorted protections, as well as the fact that they had, well, Tim on their side.

He promised to never mock Bruce and his paranoid precautions again. At least for a week.

Thankfully they managed to contain the possible (probable) ghost in one of the computers stored in the basement by continuously upgrading and changing their fire walls. But this thing was learning and adapting faster than they could keep up with. It was only a matter of time before it broke out.

Too bad they had no idea who to reach out to. Or even where to start looking for a person who specialized in supernatural possession of computers. The science of ghost hunting didn’t exactly amass reputable scientists and inventors, or if it did, they were probably laying low so as to not get lumped in together with their more… eccentric colleagues. Understandably.

Which meant that trying to find a reputable expert on ghosts was as impossible as grabbing a hold of the ghosts themselves. But Tim knew that he would never be lucky enough for an expert to just stumble into his life, so they kept on searching.

So. No sleep. A whole work-day in front of him. If only he didn't have to keep up appearances. 

Tim tried to keep a brave face and go about his normal duties in his day job and nightly activities, but the threat hung heavy over his head. As well as the lack of sleep, but that didn’t feel as heroic.

Thankfully, his tiredness seemed to act as a homing beacon for his new friend and before he even sat down at his lunch table, Danny was there with two extra-large coffees.

Tim accepted one of them with teary eyes. “You’re a life-saver.”

Danny laughed. “At least I can keep you from joining me.”

And Danny did look tired. He always did.

He was holding his own coffee in his shaking right hand. Apparently the little tweaks and upgrades they had made on the arm hadn’t been enough to make it as reliable as he had wanted, if Danny chose not to use it. Instead it was hanging at his side, looking a little less cobbled together with a new top-plate and Tim felt happy knowing that Danny had taken him up on using the materials.

Tim had started to be able to anticipate what kind of day it was going to be just from how Danny held himself and today didn’t seem like a good one. He was still unsure of what exactly was wrong with his friend, but he was scared to ask again and risk offending him. Their relationship was still too new.

So Tim sipped his coffee and simply said, “I appreciate you keeping me alive.”

“We don’t need any more ghosts,” Danny muttered under his breath and took a sip from his own coffee.

The comment made Tim’s exhausted brain suddenly remember that Danny came from a town known for being haunted. It was a slim chance—since it probably was a cheap way of luring in tourists—but maybe Danny had some insights that could help them with the newly appeared ghosts. And especially the one trapped in the computer in the basement.

The only problem being that Danny had never revealed where he was from and Tim couldn't very well admit to doing a background check on him. That would probably ruin the mood since he was fairly certain that wasn't normal behavior between friends. Admittedly his perspective on what was normal or not was pretty skewed; something his siblings never hesitated to point out to him. Which was true, but they really didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to being normal. 

Tim made sure he sounded casual as he tapped the logo on his coffee cup and asked, “Hey, do they have Crabby Coffee where you’re from?”

Danny paused, something suspicious in his eyes. Then he smiled and asked in an almost casual tone of voice, “What, you don't believe I'm a local?”

Tim snorted. “You asked me if Arkham was an arcade just last week. Besides, you don’t have the right accent.”

“Fair,” Danny allowed with a shrug and a grin that was only slightly strained at the edges.

“So...?”

“I’m from Amity Park,” Danny said in a way that indicated that he didn’t like the fact, mumbling the last words as he looked away from Tim

Tim pretended to be surprised. “Amity? Never heard of it. Is it known for anything special?” And then he almost winced at his own clumsy and obvious fishing for information. Bruce would be so disappointed if he saw this. Okay, maybe he was more sleep-deprived than he thought.

It was lucky that Danny seemed distracted by some sort of inner conflict as he shuffled from foot to foot, not meeting Tim's gaze. “Well… It's a tourist thing…”

“Oh? Like what?” And now Tim was interested why Danny seemed so hesitant to share. Not a mystery, Tim reminded himself.

Danny deflated, looking defeated. “It's ghosts.” Then he switched to the overly-enthusiastic way of speaking inherent to all slogans, clearly mimicking some commercial, “Come on down to America's most haunted town! Guaranteed to scare the ghost right out of you!” and then in a fast paced mutter, “The city of Amity Park is not liable to retrieve any ghosts that decide to leave their bodies during your visit.”

Score.

“That's so cool!” Tim didn't even have to fake his interest as he asked, “Was it really? Haunted?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Danny hedged.

Tim gestured at Danny with his coffee cup. “I'm asking you.”

Danny paused with a worried frown on his face that he quickly tried to hide, looking at Tim intently as if he tried to work something out. Then he shook his head and simply said, “No.”

And it was the first time Tim had detected a lie from his new friend. Which meant that he did know something. Tim felt himself get excited at the prospect of a challenge, a mystery, and this time it was connected to their current problems which meant that it was fair game. He finally had a lead and he refused to let it go.

Why would Danny lie about his town being haunted? Was he scared of being made fun of? Didn’t he think that Tim would believe him? Ghosts was a rather eccentric thing for your town to be known for, maybe he had been ridiculed before.

Or maybe, a more jaded part of his brain supplied, he had been threatened to not say anything. Maybe he was hiding something.

Maybe Tim would have to show him some things related to ghosts and see how he reacted sooner rather than later.

“You sure?”

“Yes. It's not haunted.”

“Ah, so it's just a tourist trap, then? To make money?” Tim asked, trying to keep the excited interest out of his voice, trying to keep the conversation casual.

Danny wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Yeah, but it's nothing special. Just like any small town, you know?”

“Some people always take it a bit more seriously, right? There's always some believers,” Tim fished for more information. In every tourist attraction that claimed to be the home of Bigfoot or Mothman there was always someone who actually believed in what they were selling.

And if they believed, maybe they had some real information. Maybe even ways of combating them.

“Yeah, sure. There's those that believe and even—” Danny paused, swallowed, and then said, with real anger in his voice, “even some nut jobs that claim to study ghosts.”

Some people were studying ghosts? Tim made a mental note to look into them.

Danny cleared his throat as if embarrassed by his outburst and asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Tim allowed the subject-change, not willing to push it and risk Danny suspecting him. “Haven’t you seen all the new villains on the news? They look kinda ghostly, don’t they?”

“Most newspapers write about them as if they’re a new kind of meta-humans.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tim shrugged. “But I don’t think ghosts would be much stranger.”

“You’re not scared?” Danny asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Of course!” Tim laughed. “But I don’t see why they would be more dangerous just because they’re dead. If anything, that only shows that they’ve already been killed once!”

Danny smiled at that and Tim took it as a win. His new friend might not feel comfortable opening up about everything just yet, but at least he could show that he’s open to talking about it when he was.

[joels-shitty-puns]

The Key To Your Heart - Track 4

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x Musician!Reader

Gif by:@sh214

Series Summary: After writing your feelings for Pedro into a song, it gains a lot more popularity than expected. Ultimately it brings both criticism and support, with new possibilities around the corner.

*! New warnings will be listed first !*

Series Warnings: 18+ only (MDNI). Mentions of food, weight loss, weight gain, dieting, weighing, potential eating disorder, food guilt. Potential for puns/dad jokes (name of my blog, and the fic) should give that away. This is my first fic which should be its own warning, lol. Also some cursing. Mentions of masturbation (f) maybe more smut later idk. Sadness, reader is pretty depressed. Poor body image. Rude people. Bullying-ish and just lack of support? Anxiety. Age gap! Reader is in her mid 20's, Pedro is current age (48).

Other stuff: Reader is plus sized. AFAB. Inexperienced. Also has a dog, but you can pretend it is another creature probably. Further, in case it isn't clear, italics almost always are the reader's inner thoughts!

Word Count: ~2.3K

Series List: Here!

Miss last chapter? Here!

Hi there! To those of you who have read and are still with me, THANK YOU! I love you all. I'm sorry that my chapters are taking longer and longer. Work has been a bit more hectic lately and I also just had some serious writer's block with this chapter. That being said, it feels a little rough and I apologize if its awful lol. But either way, thanks for hanging in there with me and please let me know what you think! Your comments make me happy!

__________

You groaned, stepping out of bed and drifting towards the bathroom. Your face was sticky and your eyes stung from crying late into the night. It was silly, naive, and frankly stupid… but sometimes you can't control how hard emotions hit. Seeing that Pedro didn't actually watch your video was a let down - to put it mildly. Obviously he's a popular guy. A star. He has better things to do.

You should be grateful he even responded to your Instagram message before. Even though it hurts, surely he has more interesting things to do than message someone like you. Just because you wrote a song and he said he liked it doesn't mean he owes you anything more.

So after a fitful night's sleep, you were utterly exhausted; physically, mentally, and emotionally. Luckily, it was still your weekend and you could rest today. 

More like spend the day wallowing in your self pity… you think, disdainfully at yourself.

Looking in the mirror, you notice your puffy eyes. There's some new acne, and a mop of frizzy hair on your head. After using the toilet, you step on your bathroom scale before your shower; a morning routine you started during years of dieting. Another 3 pounds. Up again?!

You look in the mirror, pinching your stomach with a sigh. I guess I shouldn't have had those cookies yesterday…

The food guilt creeps up as you think of the goodies you've eaten recently. Cookies yesterday, fast food the day before. You were bitter that you weren't one of those people that could just magically eat whatever they wanted without gaining an ounce. 

But you aren't, and you should know better. 

Frustrated with your appearance, you begin your usual internal debate about how to fix it.

Maybe I should go back on the diet…

But the diet caused you so many problems. Remember the stomach issues? The hunger? The lack of joy? Binge eating on cheat days until you were sick?

But! I lost so much weight!

Yeah, until you started gaining weight…

Maybe I didn't cut enough. People said I looked so good. I was *almost* skinny.

Maybe people would like me more if I was skinny… Maybe Pedro would like me if I were skinny. There's no way he would be with me looking like this.

These were the debates that plagued you for months… years… a lifetime.

You showered, tears beginning to flow again as you tried to push out the thoughts. He was probably just busy, but either way you knew you didn't have a chance. 

Your friends were right. You were an obsessed fan. It was… concerning, as they said. They pitied you when you felt sad about your feelings. Just find someone you actually have a chance with, they pushed. Someone real.

But... he did message you. Maybe he didn't even know you had an interview yesterday? Maybe he watched it later. You were being utterly ridiculous. It didn't matter anyway.

But what you didn't know was that Pedro felt just as disappointed. He wanted to be the one on your list. The one you loved. He went to bed just as mopey as you did and woke up just the same.

_____

Having washed away your bad feelings as best as you could, you gave Skipper a kiss on his little forehead and made some coffee while scrolling Instagram. You were nervous to see what people had to say about your interview, but you had to face the music eventually.

As you could have predicted, people were running through the potential suspects (or prospects, that is) who have brown curly hair and brown eyes. Some supported you and loved your interview. Others criticized you for being too chicken to show yourself. 

You weren't used to this level of attention, and you really weren't sure you enjoyed it. But you were grateful to have your two lives kept separate, your true persona still shaded in privacy.

What you did not predict, was a notification popping up from Pedro, interrupting your scrolling. Forgetting to breathe, you immediately clicked on it. If the message were food from the oven, you would've burnt your hand the way you grabbed it so fast. 

Perhaps I should've been a little more chill about opening this so quickly... Oh well.

Pedro Pascal messaged you: "Hey! I watched your interview yesterday. You did fantastic. I know fame is new to you and you're nervous, but you're a natural."

Your heart swelled. He did watch it!! He must have just been busy during the live stream.

You replied: "Pedro! You watched it!?! Thank you so much. That really means a lot to me."

Pedro read your message immediately, but instead of sharing in your level of excitement, he was hit with a wave of confusion instead. She must just be trying to not hurt my feelings. She already knows I watched it.. unless she didn't even notice my name. Or she didn't care enough to look for it…?

He decided to play along with it anyway. "Absolutely, I did. I've had it marked on my calendar since the day it was announced a couple days ago and watched it as it was streamed live."

His response took you by surprise, and then made you angry. If he really watched it, he would know that they gave you a list of the people who watched it live. Why was he lying to you about it?

You started to plan out your response, maybe even send an accusatory comeback, but then you thought about it again.

Why would he lie about it? What would he gain by lying? He messaged you.

With this in mind, you instead chose to take a different approach. One better designed for fishing. One you had to be very careful about, so as not to reveal the fact that you looked for his name.

"Wait!? You watched it live? I didn't see you on the list. You're one of the few people I've spoken to who actually seem genuinely friendly and interested in having a conversation with me. I had sort of hoped you were listening."

There. That doesn't sound too revealing, right? Totally friendly…

Pedro opened your message and was met with both confusion, and something else he wasn't expecting. Hope. Did you look for his name??

Still, he wanted to address the confusion. "You didn't see me on the list? That's odd.. but I'm sure there were a lot of names to scan through. Maybe my name was just buried in that list."

You knew it wasn't buried. He was the only name you looked for. The only name you cared about seeing on that list, not that you'd admit that to him right now. But you also didn't want him to feel that insignificant either.

"There were a lot of names, I'll give you that. But I swear you weren't there. Were you logged into your account? Maybe your Internet crashed, or you missed part of it?"

Instantly he remembered the ten or so minutes that Oscar interrupted him. 

Oscar!

"Oh shit! That's it. Oscar barged into my house while I was watching it and I slammed my laptop closed."

"Oscar… Isaac? Wait, why did you slam your laptop closed?"

"Yeah, that's the one. And… I don't know. He just surprised me, I guess. It wasn't a planned visit."

Slamming your laptop closed is an odd reaction to your friend visiting, but okay, you thought.

"So you closed your laptop, and missed a few minutes. And that must have been the moment they pulled the list of viewers."

Pedro replied. "It must have. But I was there, more than happy to listen to what you had to say"

If my name had been on the list, would her answer have been different? When asked whether the man she loved was on the list and she said no, would my name have changed anything? Pedro wanted to ask you these questions. But he couldn't. Not only was he scared, but he also didn't want it to come off as some douchey comment that made you uncomfortable. He wanted to get to know you better, even if just as a friend, and he wouldn't let a silly little crush ruin that.

You sent a response that could be deemed as friendly or neutral, still cautious. "Thank you Pedro. I'm really glad you watched it."

He replied without hesitancy. "Of course. But, I am sorry that your guy wasn't on that list."

He sounds genuine. Not like he's fishing for information like everyone else on the internet. In turn, you decide to be playful with your response. Risky, but still not too revealing. "It's okay. It turns out that list wasn't as accurate as I once thought it was" you typed with a smirk.

"So maybe he was watching after all," Pedro answered.

"Maybe he was."

Pedro soon changed the subject, "I did enjoy hearing about your favorite things, though. You may know this already, but I love movies. Some of the ones you mentioned are a couple of my favorites as well. But as for your favorite books, I haven't read them, but I've been meaning to find a new book to read."

The fact that he was a reader made your heart flutter; the thought of him sitting with a book, his glasses perched on his nose, brow furrowed as he stroked his thumb over his lip in deep concentration. You were overjoyed at the thought of him reading *your* favorite book and potentially having someone to talk to about it. Before you knew it, you had frantically sent multiple excited messages.

You: "Oh! If you read any of my favorite books we HAVE to talk about them!"

Second message: "AGH the first book I mentioned is my favorite, out of all of them. The ending blew my mind. And the characters were just so amazing! Well except for that one guy.. but I won't spoil that…"

Third message: "But my favorite character has the greatest lines!!! Sometimes I like to quote it but nobody else gets it. And the way the author describes the settings is so magical, it makes you want to be there."

Pedro caught himself smiling at his phone, wrapped up in your excitement, as you were finally able to talk to someone about your favorite book. It was adorable how happy you seemed.

He started to type a reply when you sent another message. "Shoot… I'm sorry. I got a little too carried away…"

"Who told you that?"

Huh?

"Who told me what?" You asked.

"Who made you feel like you had to stop talking when you became excited about your interests?"

His question took you aback, but your mind struggled to pinpoint the answer to it. There's been so many people that have told you that over the years. People you assumed were friends. An old crush who didn't like multiple text messages at once. Classmates who would complain or make fun. It was routine.

"Oh. It's not a big deal. It's just something I've heard over the years. But I also know how I get and I don't want to be too much. I'm sorry. I don't want to monopolize the conversation too much either. But hey, you didn't mention, what are your favorite books?" You tried to change the topic.

Pedro felt that protective feeling bubble up in his chest again.

"Over the years!? There have been multiple occasions?" Pedro shook his head, even though you couldn't see through the text. "I'm sorry anyone ever made you feel that way or said anything to imply that your interests weren't worthy of being heard. Fuck them. They should be thankful that you shared your interests."

They should be grateful to hear your beautiful voice get so excited. To get to see your excitement and smile, Pedro thought to himself angrily. He hoped he could someday witness you getting excited over your interests in person too.

"Thank you Pedro. But really, it's okay. I know I get a little… obsessive and crazy, especially with sending multiple texts, so I don't blame them. Haha. :)" you tried to soften the mood.

"I don't want you to ever feel that way with me. I liked hearing you talk about your interests."

You began to type, but Pedro beat you to the punch.

"In fact… if you'd like to talk more," he gave you his phone number. "Feel free to text me, or you can call me too. I like talking on the phone, but I know not everyone does."

Holy shit. Is this real life? Did Pedro Pascal just give me his phone number? And ask me to call him?

Truthfully, your introverted self really didn't like talking on the phone. But the idea of talking to Pedro, hearing his voice on the other end of your phone was too much to handle.

What you didn't realize, was that Pedro wanted it just as bad.

Your fingers danced over your phone keyboard, trying to find the right words for a reply. What do you say when the love of your life (that you didn't think you would ever have a chance with) gives you his phone number?

Pedro watched anxiously as the three dot-dot-dots of typing appeared and disappeared over and over. His heart was racing, and he began to worry he may have overstepped this time. 

Why did you give her your number? She's going to think you like her!!! 

But you do like her, you idiot, Pedro berated himself.

He ran his hand down his face, waiting for your response in agonizing suspense. But instead of hearing the pop of a notification, his phone began to ring instead, an unknown number displayed on the home screen.

Wait… is that her? Is she CALLING me?!

He answered frantically, practically dropping his phone in the process. 

"Hello?"

"Hello? Pedro? It's me.."

You heard him give a breathless laugh before answering with a gentle "Hi."

_____

Thank you for reading!! Let me know your thoughts :) More will be coming soon. I know this is a painfully slow burn lol. Thanks for being patient.

Next chapter! Here

_____

Taglist: (Want in? Let me know!)

@pedrotonin @starcrossed02 @lightupsketchersperson @cartoon-garbage04 @tyferbebe @maryfanson @gwendibley84 @faithfullyyours2000 @brilliantopposite187 @hc-geralt-23 @jenniferpendragon

[brainhanging]

Hello, hanging brain... (Sorry, I just don't know what your name is)

I was wondering if you... you have Lawrence headcanons? Or any BTD character, actually... It does not matter...

I'm not sure if these are interesting enough to share, but I do have some random thoughts about him.

(Hey guys, look what I've just discovered, the keep reading feature, haha... sorry for my previous long ass rambling posts which I didn't know how to cut at the time) (•́ω•̀ ٥)

Okay, so Lawrence. Sometimes I imagine that he would normally have this relativly longer fingernails because he didn't like or couldn't remember to cut them. And once they got annoyingly long, he would trim them painfully short.

Another thing is that, I think he would definitely choose to cut his own hair instead of receiving haircuts from others, due to his autism and lack of trust for human in general. Therefore, the long hair and the bang were very unlikely to be a fashion choice. I think he might have tried to cut his hair short once or twice, but he didn't like the result. After that he just let it grow. Eventually, his hair would grow long enough that he'd have to cut the front so it wouldn't block too much of his vision.

Now, besides the grooming habits. I knew he did crave for connection, but at the same time he's arrogant, had trust issues and anger problems. So he would get bored pretty easily and started to do some really crazy shit to MC even though they "both know the truth". Just like how he treated his plants, he loved how they depend on him so he could do whatever he wants with them.

And I secretly think he touches himself more often than he wants to, and PCT hits him hard each and every time.

These are just some really random stuff that came on top of my head while I was working on some Lawrence art, hope you'd find them somewhat interesting. (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡♬

(Sry for the late reply, last few weeks were pretty tough for me. And you can call me whatever. Hanging brain is perfectly fine if you're comfortable with it!)

[bonkwosher]

OMGOMGOMG… i saw your dan stevens character x reader post and i’m literally the happiest person alive over how accurate they are 😭😭💖💖 if you don’t mind me requesting (holding back sending so many requests in the future): how would frank/trapper/david react to a partner with stuffed animals/plushies? (as somebody who has a bunch of sanrio ones and kinda gets clowned on by some family members for it 😭) 🥺 + maybe what stuffed animals they’d give to their partner as a gift? THIS ONES SO SPECIFIC BUT 😭💖

A/N: I'm so incredibly glad someone enjoyed my headcanons that much. Also, please send me a million requests it would make me so happy (no pressure). Also Also, I loved reading your reaction through hashtags in your reblog lol

Pairing(s): Travis "Trapper" Beasley x GN!Reader, Adam "Frank" Barnett x GN!Reader (Separate), David Collins x GN!Reader (Separate)

Contains: The boys reacting to the reader having stuffed animals, the boys giving you stuffed animals, sex mentioned with Frank but barely, Frank being a dork, Trapper being a sweetheart, David being a good listener

Frank:

I have a feeling Frank might be a little weirded out, for lack of a better word, at first, especially if there are a lot of them. If you've got a couple he'll be fine with it but if there's a bunch he'll just be a little confused as to why they're important at first. Like this man can't grasp why you have an attachment to them.

As you spend more time together he'll pretty easily get used to them. If they have names he will only refer to them by name, he won't call them stuffed animals, plushies, stuffies, etc. He becomes like the dad that didn't want a pet, then cut to the dad absolutely loving the pet but never admitting it.

Like you two go to sit on the couch together to watch a movie & you left a stuffie on the couch & he fully treats it like a human. Like he nods at the little guy & goes "Gerald," in greeting before scooting the plushie to the side of the couch.

If you store a bunch of them on your bed, he definitely refers to them as "the fellas" regardless of their genders if they have any. Like he'll climb into your bed getting ready to cuddle you & acknowledges them saying, "What's up fellas?" Mainly because it makes you laugh.

He definitely does not like them facing you two when you're having sex or making out. He will turn them to face the wall one by one if he has to.

After finding out that you like plushies so much I think Frank would be the kind of guy to buy you one before he goes on long heists. He did it once & that made you smile so he kept doing it. The first time he brought you a little one, a white cat with yellow spots.

"You know, I'll be on a business trip the next couple days & I thought this one looked like me so I thought it would be a good idea. Now you don't have to miss me or whatever."

You definitely agreed that it looked like him. The little cat had a scowl & everything.

Trapper:

Trapper probably has an old stuffed animal from his childhood that's being held together by many different stitches & still sits on his bed to this day. So when you tell him you have stuffed animals he's not even phased, actually, he shows interest in them.

He wants to know their names, & if they don't have names he wants to name them.

There was a time when you & Trapper had gotten into an argument & he gave you some time to cool down & he stayed in the bedroom. The door was left ajar & you heard some quiet talking. After getting the right angle you manage to catch the man talking to your pile of stuffed animals that lived in the corner of the bed about how sorry he was & how he didn't mean to upset you.

As you watch your hand accidentally knocks the door a little causing it to squeak on its hinges. Trapper immediately turns to you, his face flushing when he realizes you were there. "I'm sorry, your stuffed animals are just really good listeners."

If any of your stuffies get ripped or you find a hole in one you better believe he goes full vet mode. He's had to do stitches before so sewing is nothing. He will play hard into the vet thing to make you laugh, especially if your stuffed animal getting ripped is a big deal for you. He'll whip out a stethoscope, wrap the limb that got ripped in some paw print bandages, etc. He also loves any praise about him being good at his job so please give him some.

I feel like Trapper's stuffie gifts would come with a story. Like the day he took out King Kong's tooth he probably got you a King Kong stuffie & told you all about it. Now next to whatever stuffed animals you have you have all the titans of the world (at least the ones he's worked on) in plushie form.

David:

David, like Frank, will probably have a little bit of a tough time gathering what makes them so special to you but he would probably just straight up ask you. David loves listening to you talk about just about anything, especially when it's something you care about. So when you tell them why they mean so much to you, it only brings him joy.

I imagine before you were even partners & he was heading off to the army (He would not have left if he had the guts to ask you out), you gave him a small stuffed animal to remember you by. As he was getting ready to go & everyone got a little teary-eyed, he swore to you that he would keep that little stuffie until he saw you again. That little guy survived a war & when David returned, you best bet that little guy was alive & well in his backpack. He stays with him in that big ass green backpack to this day.

Whenever you're away on business or don't get home till late, you'll arrive home to see David cuddling one of your stuffies to help him sleep. He claims it has the slightest smell of your perfume/cologne/etc & it reminds him of you.

If the collection grows past space on your bed for all the stuffies, David will build you a shelf for them. You won't even ask him to. He'll just see that you have space in your room for a shelf, you'll off-handedly mention you're running out of space on your bed for the stuffies, then he'll put two & two together & build you that thing. An added bonus, he'll probably be in a tank top or some shirt that shows off his arms on the hot summer day he decides to build it. Maybe even shirtless.

I feel like David wouldn't get you any specific stuffed animals. He would just wait for you to mention the ones you want, literally run across town to get it for you, then run back & it appears in your flock of stuffed animals the next day.

[lokisprettygirl]

Deadly Locks (Detective! Daemon Targaryen x Female Reader) (Non Canon Au) (Dark )

Read Chapter 7 here // Series Masterlist

Chapter 8

Summary: Tension grows between you and Daemon amidst the killer being caught, learning the truth about his mother's past and your date with Pierce.

Trigger Warning: Rape and torture, 18+ , smut, It's a crime thriller so there would be some squeamish dark stuff, read at your own discretion, mention of rape, assault and murder, miscarriage, Speeding and driving under the influence, Reader has long hair, Daemon's hair is up for imagination, Cigarette consumption, some geographical errors

“Mam, would you like to order now?” You were asked for the third time in the last hour and you no longer had the energy to respond. He wasn't coming, you knew that. It was your birthday and you were at the edge of your patience with him, you had called a bunch of times and texted over and over again but he wasn't answering, he had told you this morning that things would change tonight, that he'd make them better but as usual he wasn't there.

“Ummm sorry I don't think he's coming so I'll just leave, sorry for wasting your time” you apologized to the server as you got up and walked out of the restaurant, it was raining heavily and the sound of the rain blocked the sounds of your heart breaking. You knew you had to let him go, his job would always be his first priority and you'd always come second to him. What had happened in the last few months, if that wasn't enough to make him want to be with you when you needed him the most then what will?

You knew you had to break both of your hearts tonight and let him go because being with him was bringing you more pain than happiness these days, he was never there with you.

And you were done, you were finally done.

**********

Daemon was anxiously awaiting a call from any of his acquaintances or colleagues, hoping for an update on the case. He had been waiting for more than twelve hours since the Barber Killer was apprehended but he had received no new information.

He was pacing back and forth in the living room and you didn't know what to say to him, the energy between you two had been awkward since last night when you told him that you had agreed to go out on a date with Pierce. There was no dancing around anymore, you had made it official that you were moving on from him.

“Daemon maybe you should just–’ you opened your mouth to speak but he cut you off,

“Don't you have to get ready for the date? It's 6 pm already” he raised his brow and stared down at you so you sighed.

“I'll just take a raincheck…I think we should be–” he cut you off again and this time you were visibly upset by the snarky tone of his voice. You wanted to say that you needed to be with him today because you needed him and he needed you but he wasn't even listening to you.

“Just go..go out . I'm sure you are excited ”

“You're right …I am excited indeed , it's not as if the guy who abducted and raped me and wanted to kill me got caught today or anything”

You got off the couch and slammed the door shut as you went inside to get ready. He sighed deeply as he could tell he had hurt you somehow, he just didn't know what he had done, he was the one who should be upset, you were going out on a date with a guy you liked in the very least, he should have been the one to feel hurt.

The next time you came out of the room you had a dress on, he remembered the dress, he clearly remembered the dress.

Daemon had received an urgent call from the 999 dispatch center, alerting him that you had called in regards to a possible intruder in the house. He was immediately dispatched to your location, having received a promotion to the officer position just a few months prior.

He hastily approached the front door, knocking on it with urgency as he stepped onto the porch. The house was relatively new and lacked a security system because none of you were able to afford it just yet.

As soon as you opened the door he saw the Blue dress you had on, it wasn't immodest but it wasn't innocent looking either, plenty of naked flesh was visible for his eyes

“Darling are you alright?” he asked you softly, worry was evident in his voice.

“Mmm i knew they'd send my favorite officer” you mumbled seductively before you pulled him inside by grabbing the crisp collar of his navy blue uniform.

“Are you fucking joking?” He asked you making you chuckle in response, “You made a 999 call because you wanted me to get here?”

“Yeah?” The smirk on your face infuriated him and made him want to kiss you at the same time.

“You are insufferable at times, you know that? Insufferable and reckless..you're scrappy and you think it's really cute don't you?”

“Is it not officer?” You asked him as you pressed him against the door so he groaned before he cupped your cheeks and flipped you around..

“You know you could get arrested for this hmmm?” He whispered in your ear so you smiled.

“So arrest me” you pulled your wrists up and he took the handcuffs out to tie your hands behind your back before he turned you around and pulled your dress up, his lips latched onto your neck immediately. It was the sight of him in the uniform that turned you on so heavily, he was so tall and so handsome, it made you want to do illegal things at times just so he'd punish you like this.

“I'll give you what you want.. and I'll give it you good but the next time you'd even think of pulling some shit like this I swear to god I'd fucking make you sleep in the jail for a week” his voice was sharp and commanding which only made your panties soaked

“Goddd keep talking officer” you moaned loudly so he chuckled before he lowered down your drenched underwear and unzipped his cock, you let out a loud gasp as he entered you in one quick motion,

“You're unbelievable my scrappy girl” his voice was barely a whisper in your ear and you weren't any better,

“but you love me”

“I do…I love it when you're being this way”

“Fuck me officer daemon please”

“How do I look?” You asked him so he cleared his throat as he snapped out of the memory lane.

“Beautiful”

Pierce was going to pick you up from Daemon's house and he had chosen to take you out for dinner to a fancy restaurant. You were glad you had made an effort to put a dress on.

“So ummm how are you ? Like really how are you…cause I saw the news and it must be hard” he asked you so you gave him a smile.

“I don't want to talk about myself..how are you doing” you asked him and he eased up a little, he was really nervous about the date, you could tell. He was a nice guy but you weren't able to give your undivided attention to him when your mind kept drifting towards the menace that was your ex boyfriend Daemon.

About half an hour later you looked to the side and spotted a similar face in the window, he immediately ducked away in an attempt to hide so you put your fork down and excused yourself.

“Give me a minute…I'll be back“

You placed the napkin down on the table before you made your way out of the restaurant and turned to the left to face him.

“What do you think you are doing?”

“I'm enjoying a smoke” Daemon said to you so you rolled your eyes.

“What are you doing here?” You asked him and he chuckled

“Just making sure you're safe”

“I'm not your responsibility –”

“You are…i promised..I gave you my word”

“Well you promised so many things before as well but you broke them over and over again so it really doesn't make a difference…just go home”

You huffed before you turned around and went inside the restaurant again to say goodbye to Pierce because you knew Daemon won't really leave and you won't be able to concentrate on the sweet guy in front of you because the truth was you were still hung up on the love of your life and there was no denying it anymore.

Pierce was sweet and amazing but you didn't want to lead him on especially knowing that you still held feelings for the man you had broken up with two years ago.

He looked like a sad puppy as he offered to drive you home but you assured him that you'd reach home safely and you waited for him to get out of sight before you stormed out of the restaurant and Daemon glared at you.

“I didn't mean to cut your date short” you snickered sarcastically as he said that.

“Uhhhuh is that why you were being so discreet about being here?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were safe”

“Take me home daemon”

On the way back home none of you said a word. An argument was about to ensue and it has been years since you had argued with him.

As soon as you reached home you went to his room to change and he sat down on the couch to calm his nerves, he didn't lie when he said that he was trying to keep you safe but he was also driven crazy by the thoughts of you enjoying your date with Pierce and falling for him in the process.

“I didn't even want to go” you said to him as you stormed out of the room wearing a night robe, your face was ridden of the makeup you had worn and hair was tied up in a bun, you looked so beautiful and so homely as if you belonged to him.

“Then why did you say yes to him?”

“So I can move on and turn a new leaf”

“I want you to move on darling but not with him or anybody else” you glared at him as he said that.

“I broke up with you for a reason dae-”

“I can change”

“I don't want you to change yourself for me. Look…before this thing happened to me i..” your eyes teared up as you spoke to him making it difficult for you to continue but you knew you had to say this to him “Before I suffered through this thing I had a warped understanding of your job and what you do and how important it was. At times i didn't really understand that it's because of people like you that this world is somehow safer for people like me and I don't think i gave you that benefit of doubt, that understanding that–”

“Stop..y/n stop..” he walked towards you and wrapped his arms around your shoulders to pull you closer to him “You were there for me when I was nothing, you were there for me when I got shot and was bedridden for days.. and i wasn't there for you when you needed me.. time and again I have let you down – we lost our–” his voice choked on his tears as he remembered the incident that had sealed his fate and made you drift further away from him “We had a miscarriage and i should have been there for you to take care of you and i wasn't..i deserved that..i deserved you wanting to leave me and look for someone who'd treat you better than this”

“But I can't move on ..you ..I miss you so much…everyday, every night in the past two years i have missed you-” you confessed to him your true feelings and his heart skipped a beat.

“I can change not because I have to..but because I want to..I need you sweetheart –”

“I saw the ring ..I saw it in your closet”

His grip on your shoulders loosened as you said that.

“So?”

“So? That's your response?”

“I don't know what you want me to tell you”

He stepped away from you so you groaned internally. Why was he being so difficult?

To Save him the further discussion his phone rang and it was Otto, he was called to the precinct in relation to the case so you gave him a smile and looked away.

“Go..it's important”

“So are you..come with me”

“I don't think I want to go there ..i don't want to see him”

“You should..that bastard is not speaking, he hasn't said a word until about an hour ago when he asked to see me..so come with me.. I don't want you to be alone here” you nodded as he said that.

“I need to change” you walked past him but he grabbed your arm

“We will continue our talk if that's alright with you”

“Okay..i didn't want to hurt you daemon”

“I never wanted to hurt you either but I'm sorry that I wasn't any better” he kissed your forehead so you closed your eyes and cherished the lingering touch of his lips before you walked away from him to change.

As you both reached the station Rebecca was already there and she seemed terrified, no longer there was a look of smugness on her face which you didn't really understand the cause for, sure you were afraid to be in the same place as the killer as well but she seemed terrified of something else.

Corlys took you and Rebecca to the interrogation room, Daemon followed as well, you stood outside the glass wall and you could see the killer on the other side, he couldn't see you ofcourse but that didn't make it any better. They had placed a similar mask over his face and the moment the killer's eyes opened, you were struck with a jolt of anxiety and instinctively took a step back. You could feel your heart racing and your breathing becoming shallow. It was as if the reality of the situation was sinking in for the first time

“It's him..that's him..that's him” your lips trembled as you spoke so Daemon walked closer to you and linked his fingers with yours.

“That's him Daemon…i ..oh god”

“Ssshhh it's okay you're safe sweetheart” he cooed in your ears as he wrapped his arms around you

“That's not him” Rebecca intervened so you turned around to look at her, Corlys and Otto were intrigued by her statement as well.

“That's not him?” Corlys asked her so she denied again.

“That monster raped me and beat me up everyday, i would recognise his eyes and that's not him” she said as she stormed out of the room leaving everyone confused.

“It's him daemon trust me”

“I trust you okay?” Daemon asked Jake to take you outside and as soon as you were gone he glared at the killer with a complete look of hatred.

“What does he want from you?”

Otto questioned him so Daemon turned his head to look at him

“I don't know. I need to speak with him..i need to interrogate him”

Corlys tried to interrupt the discussion but Otto shot him a look and allowed Daemon to investigate.

The murderer was handcuffed to the table as Daemon entered the investigation room, he ripped the mask off his face and his eyes flickered as he looked at his features for the first time. They indeed had similar eyes, not just the color but shape as well.

“I have been wanting to meet you brother” the killer spoke smugly which only angered Daemon further

“I'm not your fucking brother”

“Oh but you're..well not really mine but you're little Jamie's brother aren't you”

“Who's Jamie?” Daemon asked him as he sat down and composed himself. He had to stay professional and treat him like any other criminal to get as much truth out of him as possible.

“Jamie is the one that got us in trouble..you think I'd have gotten caught being a bloody idiot?”

“I'll ask you again, who's Jamie?”

“Arghhh some detective you are”

The killer's relaxed demeanor was hard for Daemon to wrap his head around. Despite the abhorrent acts he had committed, his calmness seemed to defy reasons. It was a chilling reminder of the killer's ability to compartmentalize and maintain a sense of composure even in the face of the most heinous actions.

Otto and Corlys were baffled seeing the interaction between the two, a psychiatrist was watching the interrogation to evaluate the killer.

“Jamie is one of us, he's in here” the killer pointed towards his head “now I don't allow him to come out very often because you see he's not like us. He's a child, a fucking nine year old”

“What do you mean by us?” Daemon asked him.

“Us ..me and mother” the killer chuckled

“You really think this is going to work? That pleading insanity is going to get you off the hook?”

“I never said that I killed those women, have i?”

Daemon rolled his eyes in frustration as the killer gloated. He got up and he was about to head out when killer spoke again,

“You confessed to Detective Corlys” He chuckled as daemon said that

“Ohh he's just trying to upstage you my guy .. besides it was Jaimie who said it…not me..and I need a lawyer”

“You are lucky she kept you..she didn't keep me, she abandoned me” Daemon turned around to look at the killer who suddenly seemed so different and guilt ridden, his eyes were teary and his voice no longer held the arrogance.

As Daemon stepped out Otto followed him and asked him for his opinion which only made Daemon chuckle bitterly

“Well get that man a lawyer..why don't you?” Otto sighed as he realized Daemon was still pissed at him for the suspension and for not believing in him.

“It was nothing personal, I'm your senior..you need to show me some respect around here”

“Yes sir, definitely, well I need to go home and be with my girl since the case is not mine anymore”

Otto sighed as Daemon walked out, as soon as he saw you he wrapped his arms around you protectively to escort you out of the station.

“Rebecca, she left the precinct in such a hurry –” you spoke to him but he dismissed you.

“It's not my problem darling…they'll handle it”

“It's your case, you have worked so hard on it–”

“It's not my case..can we just go home now?” He asked you so you didn't argue further..

“What did he say, did he confess?”

“He's beating around the bush..trying to fool everyone with the theatrics”

“Did you see his face?” You asked him so he sighed and nodded.

“Yeah..”

“Are there any similarities between him and your mother?” you asked him curiously and you noticed how his jaw had clenched and how his knuckles were straining so harshly on the steering wheel.

“He's my half brother-”

Every hair on the back of your neck stood up as he let out that information so nonchalantly.

“What?”

“My mother was twenty one when she had a child, that's when she had her first episode, as soon as he was born she got obsessed with this idea of raising him like a girl, the father supposedly died and she was left with the child alone for years in a house in the middle of the woods, he didn't go to school so he never really knew whether he was a girl or a boy”

“I don't understand..”

“She met my father during a grocery trip when she was thirty..that's when she realized that she didn't want to waste her life away like this and they got married, she never told him about the child she already had, she said that she had abandoned that nine year old in an orphanage somewhere outside the city and she never looked back” your mouth stayed open as you processed the information, his mother was mentally unstable, there was no denying that but what she had done to that poor faultless kid was purely evil.

“Okay but…ummm how do you know it's him? How are you so sure? That child she had, he could be anywhere” You asked him and his eyes teared up in response. A part of him felt for that boy she had abandoned like a trash as if her own kid never meant anything to her, but that child grew up to be something so horrible, he understood his hatred towards women who were around the same age as his mother was when she had abandoned him but he didn't understand his need to kill and torture other women who never meant anything harm to him.

“The location to the killer's lair..the one that made me find you..she had sent me that anonymous mail with the exact location..that's how I know”

“You need to tell them Daemon –”

Your eyes widened in realization as he said that. You didn't even know what to say to him anymore.

“She'd be taken away–”

“And she fucking deserves it..she made a monster out of him-”

“No he did it himself..”

“Daemon -”

“He's going to confess sooner or later and he can talk about his mother if he wants to”

You nodded in disbelief as he said that, he was trying to protect her.

“Sorry..i thought you wanted to get justice for those women that died so brutally and for me and your mother is equally responsible for that..if she had any inkling about this then she should have come forward after that first woman died..but she waited and watched them die to save her own arse”

His eyes welled up with tears as you said that, he knew he was in the wrong here and he knew he had to fix it. After everything he had been through he had vowed to always do right by people and now he was disappointing the only woman that had been his rock since he had met her, he can't have that, he'd never forgive himself if he was to hurt you like this again.

As you both reached home, you stepped out of the vehicle and went inside quickly to get away from him but he followed you immediately..

“Y/n-”

“Just don't say anything..don't make it worse” your voice came out in broken whispers and that only made the guilt unbearable for him .

“Listen to me” he grabbed your arm to turn you towards him so you glared at him.

“No you listen..you suffered.. because of her, all your childhood you suffered, you were abused and bullied and arrested, you suffered Daemon but you grew up and you learned the right from wrong, you are a good man but it's not because you were raised like that because life gave you every reason to lose your way and go insane but you didn't ..you want to know why? Because you are a good man ..deep down..from here” you placed your hand on his chest right where his heart was so he wrapped his arms around you to hug you as tightly as he could.

“But not everyone responds to trauma the same way you did ..he never had a chance, he had no one to teach him good from evil. I get that but you have to remember that he chose evil..there's so much hatred in that man and your mother is the reason for that”

Your voice trembled as you spoke, you knew he'd have continued to hurt other women if he hadn't been caught. There was no saving someone like him. He was too far gone.

“I'm sorry darling I'm sorry.. I'll do right by you I promise..I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you” he mumbled softly so you clutched onto him and once both of your tears had stopped you pulled away from him to look at him.

“I need a shower…my skin is crawling after seeing him-” you said to him as you walked past him so he nodded.

You grabbed a towel and stepped inside the shower, you had left the door open, though you had no idea why. As you stood under the hot shower some of your worries slowly dissipated, the nagging fear you had when he was out there roaming freely in the world was gone for now and you felt so light ..

You gasped as you felt his fingers around your waist before he pulled you closer to his body, he was naked as well.

“Is this okay?” He whispered in your ear so you nodded and turned around, your fingers traced over his features as you looked up at him, that's when his fingers curled around your wet locks and he pulled you in for a kiss, you responded to the kiss with equal passion as your arms wrapped around him. Your tongue invaded his mouth first and he was taken away by the sheer intensity of the moment, he had been wanting to do this ever since he had brought you here but he didn't want to hurt you, he wanted to be patient but he really needed you tonight and by the looks of it perhaps you needed him again as well

“We need to talk baby–” you mumbled against his mouth as he picked you up and pressed you against the wall

“We will talk” he mumbled before his lips latched onto yours again so hungrily “I love you..i still love you as much as the day you had left..even more” he whispered between the kiss, making your heart flutter in response.

Maybe there was hope for you two, maybe things weren't as bleak as they seemed in the light of the day. Maybe you were ready now to walk two steps further and meet him halfway if he was willing to do the same... because at the end of the day having him by your side was much better than not having him at all.

Daemon was drenched in rain from head to toe as he walked into the restaurant to find you but they informed him that you had left just now, on the drive back home he found you walking yourself home at such late hours so he immediately asked you to get inside but it was as if you weren't even listening to him.

His heart suddenly felt heavy at the silence because he feared the worst, he feared that you were done with him now and there won't be any other chances.

As you both reached back home you stood in the middle of the living room and just glared at him mindlessly while he tried to dry you up with a towel. This is what made it so hard for you to just up and leave because when he was there with you he was everything but you had to acknowledge and accept the truth now.

“Scrappy-”

“I'm done..we are done..it's done okay?” your voice held no emotions whatsoever as you uttered those cruel words to him.

“Don't say that please don't say that” he immediately went down on his knees and began to apologize but he could tell that you no longer wanted his apologies, he knew he had broken his promises enough times to finally push you away from him.

“This is how it's going to be..for the rest of our lives..I'd wait and you won't show up..I'd wait for you to show up everyday, I'd always be the one waiting and waiting and i don't want to do it anymore”

You said to him as you walked past him and he was numb, so numb that for a moment this felt like a vivid nightmare that he hoped would end as soon as he's awakened.

“Y/n don't go please..” his words made you halt in your steps for a moment but then you were gone, you didn't look back, not even once.

The night of your birthday was supposed to change your lives but he wanted it to change for better, for once in his life he wasn't late because he was working himself to the bone, he was late because he was stuck at the jewelry shop, they had messed up with the ring he had chosen for you and he wanted it to be perfect, he was going to ask you to marry him that night but you didn't give him a chance.

You were done. You were finally done with him.

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Note : I hope the back and forth flashbacks aren't confusing. There's hope for these idiots

Taglist

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[puckpocketed]

caps fan here!

as follower of pld (the few, the proud, the courageous!), i was wondering if you had any thoughts about how he might fit in with our team, assuming he's going to be 1C with Ovi on the left and one of Wilson or Mangiapane on the right, and basically taking the former Kuznetsov/Backstrom spot on the halfwall on PP1. my thinking is that he can easily return to being a 60 point player just by the increase in ice time alone this coming season, and maybe even flirt with 70 if he has a triggerman like big O on his wing.

as someone who knows a hell of a lot more about PLD than i do, is that just wishful thinking because i'm a caps fan? what do you think?

The PLD Post, Part 2: mask-OFF

Hii!! (we are SO brave and SO correct). i am so sorry this took ages to answer, i was trying to decide how serious to be. I will admit, I was hesitant about going mask-off and hitting up the microstats and revealing that i do seriously think he can be better than he was bc that shit is kinda lame ESPECIALLY when defending a clear failhorse. but at this point any rep i have as someone with good opinions must be gone considering how many media scapegoats i've attached myself to (i got a fucking. c.gauthier ask the other day aslkjdkljas) so. mask is coming off. we've hit somewhere between well-considered manifesto and vibe check so . um. enjoy!!

I remain optimistic going from everything I've heard and from what you're saying here! But, big big asterisk. He absolutely needs to take ownership of his lack of engagement. when he speaks in media availability I believe him when he says he wants to change. The will to change is there, idk if it’s possible that any player would be satisfied with their performance being the way his was. There’s a lot that needs to be unpacked about his lack of production, the Character Issues, and what his role might look like going forward. You and any other Caps fan who reads this will have to tell me if the fit is right. Hockey talk below the cut lol!!

So before I start I have to say I know dick all about the Caps except:

You're dragging that old man (Ovechkin) to Gretzky's lawn (record) to set it on fire (break it before he retires)

Everyone is pining away for your very very injured 1C who is also Ovechkin's boybestfriend/perfect set-up guy/work wife

There's. intricate pre-game rituals?

So I'm not sure I can speak to how he will fit with your (our? i AM picking the Caps up fr given every acquisition/draft pick they've made) team with any depth or specificity. also i don't think i'd call myself a PLD expert. like. i just got here !! I haven't been following him since he was drafted or anything!! I have, however, consumed TOO MANY Kings games this past season and I can give you a broad look at what actually happened with them and why I think it didn't work out. I will not be making any overtures about being unbiased. My biases WILL slip through because I think Dubois is a sweetheart and I find the mental exercise of defending him fun <3 I’ll give you stats and observations and I will build a story that runs counter to what the prevailing media narratives say. While I stand by my opinions, they're also just one of many available interpretations of what happened.

character concerns

Everyone will be bringing it up at the first speed bump of the season, the first bad game he has. Please be prepared to have a crisis of faith and also be deeply disappointed in him. god knows I am, like, all the time <3 But... I always want to dig deeper when it comes to dominant narratives, because in following multiple teams I’ve become acutely aware of just how miserably Bad media can be at reporting on teams that aren’t their own.

I hear “Locker room cancer” accusations bandied about and I’ve yet to see anyone produce a primary source for this — podcasters, journalists, even people on nhl broadcasts will throw these words around so casually, assuming they’re correct because everyone knows the story. Some confounding factors in the character narratives arise when you scratch the surface. People who've worked with him speak well enough of him. Todd McLellan called him “misunderstood”, and had nothing bad to say about his character.

Matt Roy, who also just got picked up by the Caps, has recently said he’s a great teammate. MORE proof if you want to hear it directly, Roy went on Dropping The Gloves and had this to say about Dubois (transcript by me):

[on what actually happened] Honestly, I don’t know. I mean if you asked him he would say he had a down year. But it’s nothing like — I feel like the media paints this picture of him, and to me it couldn’t be further from the truth, you know. He’s a great teammate, he’s a great locker room guy, he gets along with everybody. So, in terms of all that I don’t know where the media is getting all this stuff. If I hated the guy I probably wouldn’t have come to Washington. He’s one of my friends on the team and I really think he’s going to have a bounce back year. I think he’s really going to be good for the team.

Matt Roy signed with the Caps of his own free will as an RD, a contested free agent in a sparse market, knowing Dubois was already here. He could’ve gone to plenty of different places. Why the hell would Roy sign here long-term, clearly wanting to play and win, if Dubois was as disliked as some pundits would have us believe??? Credible reports (and not just speculation) point to PLD’s other teammates liking him!! 

And here’s some propaganda; I direct you to this extremely sweet video where he gets asked about assisting on Akil Thomas' first NHL goal (and a bunch of other first NHL goals). He is so, so genuinely happy for Akil, who battled through injuries that set back his development for years. Just LOOK at his smile!! He can’t hold it back. (Others have said this but it looks like a little v. Like :> !!!! HELLO !!)

How does all of this happen when, supposedly, he’s a low-character asshole and a “locker room cancer”? It doesn’t line up for me.

On the other hand, I have seen Dubois cruise. He really can’t seem to bounce back from a poor start, and if you were just looking from the outside in, the scoresheet this year reflects this. The critique is fair; I’ve turned this over in my head enough times. there are less physically gifted, less skilled players, who are working so hard to stay in this league, and Dubois’ poor showing does feel somewhat like, idk, something I’d be mad about usually.

Here comes the “but”. Call this next bit the narrative section, because I’m showing my ass here: I think Dubois gets a lot of scrutiny because of his infamous Shift, which went a specific kind of viral, under the exact right conditions, and it has just. defined his career. And okay… I am not denying that the shift happened, but plenty of guys in this league have taken shifts off. come on. the season is long and they're only human. I’m not excusing it either! It was bad and he deserved his benching. Ideally, he one day becomes a player who always puts effort in. Working hard is one of my favourite traits in any player, and usually this would be enough for me to dismiss him as not worth being invested in.

and yet…. the reactions to his floundering performance feel so much like they’re about expectations as seen through the lens of The Shift. They’re calibrated differently because he went 3rd overall, and he's got this big body, the speed, the skill — it's the fact that he's got the tools and seemingly squanders them. All of this is amplified by the contract he's sitting on and his run of short-term stays on teams. Does he get this much scrutiny if he went in the 2nd or 3rd round? Does he catch this much heat for his low energy performance if that one shift clip hadn’t done all that damage? We’ll never know obviously but . I do wonder.

Final word on the character stuff is that we don’t know what truly went on in those locker rooms and i don't want to give more air time to baseless speculation. What we can examine is the hockey. The hockey tells the truth <3

the 23-24 la kings

Assuming the plan is to give PLD a look at 1/2C while he’s on the Caps, I think he’s a complementary type of player. The way he is right now, I don't think he can drive his own line or pull people up. He works with the calibre of lineys he's got and will produce the expected outcome. That sounds so obvious, but what I’m saying is I don’t think he’s capable of miracles like the best playmakers in the league, he's not about to make your guys look 15 years younger. In this vein, I look at his many first NHL goal assists as a symptom of what kind of linemates he was being paired with all season, and how unstable the situation was. His drop in point production IS more complicated than "he's just a piece of shit". From this article, the best summary I've seen of the Situation PLD was in:

LA acquired a player who had been a top-six center (and at times, winger) his entire career playing with established NHL talent. Yet after investing multiple assets to acquire Dubois and sign him to a significant contract, the team decided to put him in a third-line role where his most common linemate was a first-year NHL player who wasn’t expected to be on the roster in Alex Laferriere. Those two had a revolving door of wingers throughout the season. Moreover, Dubois’ most common on-ice teammates after Laferriere at 5-on-5 this season were Matt Roy and Andreas Englund. Gee, I wonder why he didn’t produce?

Context about Roy and Englund: Roy is a quiet but capable d-man who is defensively geared with a bit of offensive upside (j'adore. does things the right way and is very responsible and good. will throw hits but doesn't chase them or headhunt. I think playing away from the Kings’ more passive system will unlock more of his offensive potential. Matt Roy you will be SO good for the Caps I truly believe mwah mwah); and Englund is a leg weight/goon who, going by every single stat I can pull out, makes his d-partners Worse (with affection <3). Point here is neither of them being on the ice was particularly conducive to a lot of scoring chances.

As I said in my previous post, I think Dubois absolutely needs finishers. At some point there was hype around his shot but I didn't see much of that at all on lak? Eye test says: he was unwilling to shoot, and when he did shoot it felt like there was low/no commitment, no power behind it. Comments on his shooting called him “too deferential” at different turns. That’s just an insulting way to say a guy likes to pass and I truly think it circles back to the expectations thing. Would there be anything wrong with him not being much of a shooter this past season if he was another player? (Can't we just say he passed a lot this season without bringing value judgement into it? leave my failhorse ALONE!!!! like must a man score goals ,can't he be very very sweet and happy for the rookies he assisted ? wailing about it forever.)

More fun stats from that same article:

#1 on lak for passes that led to high-danger scoring chances, and scoring chances in general <- again, not a miracle worker. did not have finishers who could capitalise on these chances. its so fucked up what they did to my failwife

one of the best on lak in actually carrying the puck into the o-zone. (another reason i quite liked watching him!! transition forwards my BELOVED) everything I've ever observed about him off the cuff holds true here: he draws penalties this way, because he's fast and when he's locked in he is pretty good for controlled zone entries <3

Dubois had a career high in even-strength assists per 60, this is all in spite of his weird linemate situation and his reduced TOI and the power play mess (more on this later). he might have been deferring, but I truly think the lack of stability + good finishers, and ice time held him back from being more productive.

jim hiller

Building off that last point: even worse on the stability front, which I did allude to in the initial PLD Post, was what happened when Jim Hiller took over. You must understand one of the first clues that we were working with a different animal of a head coach is he was NOT afraid to line shuffle, and shortly after he found short-term success with that, they started running 11 forwards and 7 defensemen (you can see where it started precisely if you scroll back in lak lb because you'll find ME yelling about it LMAO). This shortened forward bench resulted in mid-game line shuffling, as in it was uncertain as to who they would be playing with from shift to shift. Hiller is on record saying he thinks it was beneficial, per this article:

It’s all about getting his deep forward corps engaged in the game. That’s sometimes difficult if you’re running four full lines and there are penalty kill or power play opportunities that alter the flow of the lines. Especially for the group of forwards who don’t kill penalties – think Kevin Fiala, Viktor Arvidsson, Quinton Byfield, Pierre-Luc Dubois – it’s an opportunity to get them extra shifts and engage in the game. “Some of our other players who don’t penalty kill, you know they can lose the flow of the game, so they enjoy it more I know,” Hiller said of having 11 forwards in action. “We’ve talked about it a lot. We really just think for our team, the way it is right now, that gives us an advantage getting those players more ice time.”

(and ok sorry to go off about my gripes with how the kings are run but .They were doing this into playoffs. This article was written during playoffs. god. CARL GRUNDSTROM, WHO HAS NEVER NOT PLAYED HARD, PLAYED 25 SECONDS IN GAME 2. all this while they were trying to get people 'engaged'. Idk. Maybe it did work for some players. I wasn’t behind that bench. But sitting one of your most energetic and committed forwards during a series in which you’re trying to come back from being down several games was a CHOICE!!!! also like what if you didn't double-shift QB. what then. And we all know how that series ended. lak coaching/management i am beating you with a pillowcase stuffed with bricks . <3)

Much was made of the Hiller takeover. I liked it at the time. In his first couple of media availabilities post-TM, Hiller emphasised bringing back "fun" to the game for many of the players who were slumping — and a reportedly tense locker room during the big skid that lost McLellan his job. It was all very Ted Lasso of him. Hiller also introduced a new way to rate Dubois for his performance every night, separate from the scoresheet. I made jokes about PLD's very special star-chart, everyone who knew about it was making jokes about it. This merit system was tailored towards communicating with Dubois what he did and didn't do well, and while no one ever went into depth about it we do know a few things:

It measured things outside of +/-, goals and assists, and was likely a score out of 5 per metric.

One of the metrics was about hits/physicality, another one was likely ‘compete’ levels.

He alluded to being measured on penalties drawn?? Or something??

Anyway it sort of … worked?? The change in Dubois was pretty immediate, the moment he was given some clear direction to work in. He played some of his BEST games of the year in the wake of this change. He got involved physically, he was not losing steam, he was drawing tons of penalties because he’s huge and fast and has good hands and IF he puts his mind to it he can truly be a transition monster.

CUE THE LINE SHUFFLING… imo, much of the progress made seemed to be lost, and the rest is history.

NOT saying Dubois is free of fault here. Needing that extra motivation to get physically involved is kinda wild, and I understand why for some people it’s a bridge too far. EYE am here for the laffs though and it's really funny that the communication came in the form of super special individualised performance evaluations/a glorified sticker chart. This is why he’s my temperamental desert flower. Wilting violet. Soggy kitten. <3 and for the record I truly don’t think I’d care if he put up 40 points per szn for the rest of his career. I don’t care because he’s a sweetie and the Bit i do when defending him is too funny. I don’t think I’d care if everyone was right about him — I just don’t actually think they are.

the power play problem

So okay, as per part 1 (my last email <3) we know Dubois thrives net front. It’s where he scored a bunch of his goals on the Jets. Every stat and the eye test supports this. So how come Lak had him stationed on the half wall doing jackshit, if he was on the power play at all?? I will admit I drove myself half crazy studying power play structures and watching LA Kings games back before coming up with a garbled, half-formed idea about how LA runs their PP. I was going to attempt to explain it here — had to do with Kevin Fiala and Dubois being lefties and how that's just an awkward passing sitch — but it turns out more than one person has had this thought and MAN I love being validated by actual hockey people. I fully thought i was making shit up in my head for a good week or two, and was seriously considering scrapping this portion . but it’s SO important for contextualising the production drop, so here goes !!

As early as September 2023 there was a story published about PLD’s role on PP1 — a place where he certainly should’ve belonged as a top-6 guy with plenty of ppg’s under his belt. From this article, which explains the issue very very neatly, and much more eloquently than I could ever hope to:

The addition of Pierre-Luc Dubois was a big one this summer; at first glance, he should be a great addition to the power play. But when digging deeper, the Kings might struggle to fit him onto the top unit. Dubois played mostly as the net front player for the Winnipeg Jets last season, the role Gabriel Vilardi often played for the Kings last season. So, it’s an easy one-to-one switch in that spot, right? Not necessarily. Dubois has all the talents to be an effective net-front player. He has the size and strength to battle in front, with the skill to effectively pop down low and create chances. However, his handedness is a big problem for this role. The Kings run their power play primarily on the left side with Kevin Fiala — Anze Kopitar when Fiala is hurt — which necessitates a right shot down low. When a right shot player pops out on the left side, there’s an easy passing angle for the half-wall player and more options for the player down low. Quick passing is key for a successful power and a left-shot can’t move the puck quick enough down low. They would have to either move too far into the corner or take the extra second to step out from and open up their body to create an effective passing angle. Time that would slow the power play down too much and allow the opposition penalty kill to get back into position. There’s also minimal shot threat from a lefty down low. We saw both Vilardi and Viktor Arvidsson frequently take the pass down low and quickly turn it into a shooting opportunity, something a left shot wouldn’t be able to do.

It then goes on to suggest 2 solutions that aren’t appealing at all:

Flip the power play entirely to accommodate Dubois net front. Not great as they dont have the players for that, and if they tried it they’d be hamstringing Adrian Kempe’s one-timer.

PLD on the bumper position. This one’s hard to swallow because that displaces Kopitar to PP2, there’s his position as captain and the optics of moving him off his spot.

In this article it is once again suggested that LA MUST flip their power play and figure out how to get PLD net front. In this article they point out how useless he was playing on the wall down the stretch, and how the only reason he seemed to be able to produce something was because he’d taken Kopitar’s spot in his absence. This article calls to attention Dubois’ worlds performance, where team Canada utilised him net front.

Big picture, the Fit

Do we see the problem here yet? It’s not the flat narrative I was sold by the national media, random assholes on twitter, and podcasters who don’t actually watch Kings matches!!!! Do we see how weird and messy and complicated it is, beyond “hey he’s just a sack of shit who isn’t trying hard enough”. Rob Blake himself has come out and admitted that they didn’t put Dubois in a position to succeed. And absolutely there was effort required on his end — a different player might have sucked it up and adapted to circumstances, a different player might never have needed that extra bit of communication, a straight up better player might have dragged his less skilled lineys up to a higher level. But the problem has always been two-fold: LA was trying to coach and manage a completely different player to the one they had in front of them and expecting good results; and Dubois was unable to keep competing with all he had in the face of that. I think both parties are at fault here. And I think, given the chance and the right circumstances, Dubois can hit 60 points again.

Okay, circling back to the big question of Fit. Will he be able to work with Ovechkin? Hard to think he could fail with one of hockey’s best goal scorers on his wing, if he does get a look at 1C. People who know the Caps better than I do, does this sound workable? Is Dubois going to be too difficult of a nut to crack for your coach? Your locker room?

And, of course, the power play issue. Maybe Dubois learns to be better on the half wall! Idk!! Maybe it was a matter of coaching and he thrives in Washington running your PP1 from there. For my money… I like him better playing net front or bumper. Do the Caps have the bodies to accommodate this? I did ask someone familiar with the Caps PP to explain it to me so I could try and figure this out but ouuuugh. My head is spinning. Someone smarter than me please jump in. I am TIRED . We don’t know what it will look like, what they’re planning to do with Dubois on the power play. You guys probably have a better idea about what’s possible than I do <3

Conclusion?

PLD is fast, big, a passing threat and a formidable net front presence when he’s given the opportunity and playing his A-game. As far as I can tell, his B-game is garbage </3 His poor performance is more complicated than people think and I’m pretty sure only the LA Kings beat reporters + the 12 kings fans on twitter know this. Most of them still dislike PLD anyway bc his low motor. I don’t blame them, I’m just more inclined to be forgiving because I love redemption arcs and I think he’s a good person. i would love to be wrong about his low-effort B-game LMAO but im trying to be realistic here. I want him to fit in and be embraced by the Caps so bad <3 Your coach sounds like he wants to help PLD succeed and is up for the challenge. The vibes from my friends who follow the Caps are always good, I’ve read through various tags and it sounds like a place that will take him in whether he likes it or not. I might be stupid but I believe in him !!! and I’ve laid out all the hockey bullshit for you to the best of my ability. Given all of this… do you think he’ll do well?

[lilpunkrock]

Black Silk

Status: One-Shot

Pairing: Jack Russell x Fem!Reader

Words: 4.8k+

AN: There is a heartwrenching lack of Jack Russell content on Tumblr, so I'm here to throw my hat in the ring. Enjoy a whole lot of fluff and, yes, sensual sniffing with everyone's favorite wolf boy.

Read my other Jack Russell works here and here.

Translations:

"Cautivante" — "captivating"

"Mi amada" — "my darling," "my love"

"Señorita" — equivalent of "miss"

"Lo siento" — "I'm sorry"

. . .

When you see the dark figure walking along the side of the bustling highway, you’re sure it’s for the first time. After all, you’ve been driving this route every day for years now; you know it like the back of your hand. In your swiftly moving car—hey, so what if you like driving six miles over the speed limit at all times, sue you—you aren’t able to catch many details. A dark outfit and mop of ruffled hair is all that your mind absorbs in the brief moment you have to gather information. As you fly past, your eyes linger on the figure in your rearview mirror.

Are they lost? Having car trouble? Homeless? Your heart clenches as you watch several other cars pass up stopping for the stranger in addition to your own. You’ve listened to enough true crime podcasts to know some core rules to live by. Sure, none of them explicitly stated, ‘Don’t pick up strangers off the side of the highway,’ but you felt you could gather as much from context clues. Still, as the figure’s form grows smaller in your mirror, you find yourself heaving a reluctant sigh. It’s unusually cold for late October—under forty currently, with a low of twenty-nine degrees expected tonight—and the sun will set in just a handful of hours. If you’re driving with your seat warmers on, you know the stranger must be freezing. You don’t think they were even wearing a coat. 

After you’ve pulled off the side of the road, you throw the gear in reverse to close the distance between yourself and your stranger. The figure stops in the glow of your red tail lights, anticipating your approach. When you’re several feet away, you throw the vehicle in park, grab your bottle of pepper spray, and slip out of the car before you can change your mind.

The face that greets you when you turn around is…endearing. Your stranger is a middle-aged man with warm-toned skin, a prominent nose, and a strong, square jaw. His salt-and-pepper hair looks like it’s been freshly touseled, complimenting the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw. His green eyes are wide as he stares at you, his pale pink lips parted in surprise.

Standing here with his startled eyes upon you, you suddenly feel incredibly awkward. Maybe he didn’t want to be helped. Maybe he was perfectly fine walking on the side of the highway. Then, a frigid wind whisks past you, cutting right through your cashmere sweater, and you decide no, there was no way. This guy was dressed in nothing more than a plain black crew neck sweater and dark jeans. It was impossible for him to not be freezing.

“Uh, hi,” you greet him awkwardly with a small, sheepish wave. “I’m sorry, I know this is really abrupt, but I just saw you walking on the side of the road and…aren’t you freezing?”

The stranger’s eyebrows jump upward in surprise. He looks down at his clothes as if wondering to himself, ‘Should I be cold?’ He lifts his head to look at you again. “Uh, no. I’m not, actually.” His voice is soft, lilting slightly with a distinct accent. He offers you a small smile. There’s something about the slight crook of his teeth on the upper left hand side of his mouth that melts the awkwardness from your bones. “I guess you could say I’m pretty warm blooded. I always run a little on the hot side.” 

You nod thoughtfully, though you really can’t fathom how he’s not freezing his ass off right now. “Okay. Well, why are you walking out here? Where are you coming from?”

“Ah, my friend and I recently moved here. I live just that way,” he explains with enthusiasm, pointing one hand toward the expansive forest sprawling off the side of the highway. 

Your eyebrows furrow ever so slightly. You’ve lived in this area all your life, have spent countless weekends walking the trails in those very woods. You know no one lives within them. Is he homeless, then? you wonder. Deeming it rude to pry, you instead respond, “Oh, okay. Well, is there anywhere you want me to take you?” 

The stranger’s eyebrows raise again, as if this thought had never occurred to him. “Actually, I was just walking to town to get coffee for my friend and I. Once a month we have a bit of…a, uh…a wild night, you could say. I was trying to get prepared before dark.”

You purse your lips, debating on how to give him the bad news. He definitely must be new to the area. “Well, I hate to tell you this, mystery man, but you’re moving away from town.” You point your finger in the opposite direction of where he was walking, back toward where you’d driven from. “Town is about twenty minutes that way.”

The stranger’s face falls at your words. Something about the tender disappointment in his expression reminds you of a kicked puppy. Your heart clenches at the sight. “Oh,” he says softly, seemingly at a loss for words. 

You offer him a friendly smile, seeking to lift his spirits. “I could drive you, if you wanted.” The words are out of your mouth before you even have time to contemplate them. What the fuck? the logical, true-crime-podcast-obsessed part of your mind hisses. Your pitiful heart pushes back, still insistent on helping this poor, coffee-needing, puppy-esque man. 

The stranger’s eyes brighten for a moment, glimmering a brilliant shade of grassy green. But then he lifts his hands, as if in apology. “That is very kind of you, señorita, but I must decline. I really need to be back before dark.” His voice is slightly anxious as he raises his hand to scratch behind one ear. 

Señorita. Your heart melts slightly at the word. Why were accents always so damn endearing? You shake your head at him. “Nonsense. If you need to be back before dark, that’s all the more reason for me to take you. You’ll never make it back in time on foot.” 

The stranger seems to weigh this hefty truth, nibbling his bottom lip in thought. The crook in his teeth peeks out at you adorably. Staring is rude, you chastise yourself, tearing your eyes from the sight. After a long moment of hesitation, he gives a slow nod. “Alright, you’ve got me. I thank you for your generosity.” 

You give him a wide, toothy grin, beckoning him back toward your vehicle. As he climbs into the passenger seat, you quirk an eyebrow at him expectantly. “No thanks needed, mystery man. I will, however, require payment in the form of your name.” 

The stranger gets to work making himself comfortable, burrowing his back into the warmth of the heated seat. He peers at you out of the corner of his eye at your question, watching you curiously. After a long moment, his lips draw into a slow smile. “Jack. Jack Russell,” he says quietly with a nod of affirmation. 

Your lips upturn slowly, mirroring his. “Well, Jack Russell, it’s nice to meet you. Now, let’s go get you that coffee.” 

. . .

The more you observe your new friend during your drive, the more convinced you are that his spirit animal would be a dog. Jack rides with his high cheekbone pressed against the window, his green eyes bright and curious. The radiant, warm-toned fall foliage passes by in a blur outside, along with birds, cars, and road signs. His eager eyes flicker about, taking in all of it in rapid succession. Your heart flutters at the earnesty in his gaze, the bone-deep contentment in his expression. If picking up this handsome, puppy-eyed stranger off the side of the highway was how you became the subject of one of your true crime podcasts…well, so be it. 

Several quiet minutes into your drive, you clear your throat quietly, seeking to break the silence. “So, Jack, where are you from?”

Jack’s gaze lingers on a small cluster of deer grazing beside the treeline before he draws his eyes to you. When he does, his gaze is all-consuming, attentive. Having grown up in a world with constant sources of distraction, the sheer intensity of his focus on you is startling. “I have lived in many places, actually. I typically do not stay in one space for too long. My work keeps me busy.” 

Your heart clenches slightly at his admission, and you mentally chastise yourself for it. Why be disappointed that he doesn’t stick around? It wasn’t as if you were liable to see him again, anyway. “Oh, I see. Well, what do you do for work?” 

A heavy pause. “I hunt monsters,” he says seriously. 

His words hang in the air for a long moment, suspended. Then, your abrupt laughter fills the car. Sure, the two of you might live in a world of spidermen, aliens, and tech genius superheroes, but you had never heard of any monsters. Jack gives you a cheeky grin, the quiet rumble of laughter in his throat joining in with yours. “Ah, a comedian, then,” you comment, shooting him a knowing glance. “And your friend? What do they do?” 

Jack’s eyes turn to the ceiling of your car, that warm grin still plastered on his face. “I suppose you could say we’re a traveling duo,” he says simply. 

You shake your head incredulously, a soft chuckle purring in your throat. You’re inclined to pry more, but think better of it. After all, you’d only asked for his name in payment for the ride, not his entire life story. “You said you had a wild night planned. What are you up to?” 

Jack’s olive green eyes turn to you again, dancing in the low light of the late-afternoon sun. His cheeks are flushed pink from the warmth of the car. “We’re going to…watch the moon,” he responds. 

Now, that one makes you deadpan. “Watch the moon,” you echo, eyebrows lifting in surprise. 

Jack only hums in response, affixing you with a closed-mouth smile and a self-satisfied gaze. His eyes twinkle in challenge, as if to say, ‘You don’t believe me?’ You pin him with a knowing look and a smirk of your own as you flick your blinker on, turning into the approaching Walmart parking lot. “Alright, mystery man, keep your secrets,” you say with a laugh. “We’re here. Let’s get you that coffee so you can get on to your…moon watching.” 

Pulling into the first parking spot you see, you turn off the car and exit it swiftly, Jack following quickly behind you. Though nightfall is a little over an hour off, you want to be conscientious of his need to get home before dark, especially if he was going to be trekking through the woods. As you walk toward the grocery entrance, Jack’s head moves on a swivel, taking in the sight of customers coming to and from the building like a kid in a candy store. Lost in thought, he nearly walks directly into an elderly woman pushing her cart toward her car. Jumping back just in time, he murmurs a sheepish, “Lo siento,” and bows his head in apology before shuffling after you. An amused chuckle rises up in your throat, and you trap it behind a smile. 

As the two of you approach the grocery entrance, you spy the familiar sight of a Girl Scout’s booth set up just outside. A young girl, likely not even ten-years-old, stands beside the booth, her scout’s sash displayed proudly over the thick coat she wears. She bravely steps forward as customers enter and exit the store to give her brief sales pitch. Your heart aches at the crestfallen expression on her face when customers respond with gentle denials. Your hand is dipping into your purse before you even realize it, your fingers clasping onto your wallet. 

“Hi,” you say kindly as you and Jack come to a stop beside her booth. She turns toward you quickly, all bouncy black curls and brown doe eyes. You give her a radiant smile as you hold out a handful of bills. “I’ll take a box of Tagalongs and Adventurefuls, please. And you can keep the change.” 

The girl positively beams at you as she accepts your money with tentative fingers. When she places the boxes in your hands moments later, you add with a wide smile, “Thank you so much. You have no idea how you just made my day.” 

Tagalongs and Adventurefuls in tow, you and Jack walk into the store with purpose in your step. As your eye searches for the aisle marker labeled ‘Coffee,’ you can’t help but notice Jack staring at you out of the corner of your eye. At first, you think it’s just a momentary glance, but when you still spy his face turned toward you after several seconds of walking, you turn to look at him fully. He’s pinning you with the same thoughtful gaze as he had in the car, all closed-lipped smiles and twinkling eyes. As if he’s collecting observations of you and bottling them up, studious impressions reserved for him and him alone. 

Suddenly acutely self-conscious, you give him a nervous smile. “What is it?” you ask, voice quiet with hesitation. 

Jack’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he dips his head to his chest, his eyes never straying from yours. “You are very kind, señorita. Helping strangers as you do.” His voice is soft and earnest, each word carefully crafted and caressed as they pass the curve of his pink lips. He seems to smile a little wider as he adds, “Myself included.” 

Your lips part slightly in surprise at his statement, heat flushing your cheeks in a rush. Was it hot in this Walmart or what? You’d need to tell a manager that the thermostat was a little off if you spotted one. “Well, I’m definitely not perfect, but the world desperately needs more kindness. I try to do what I can,” you say bashfully. Seeking to divert the focus of conversation from yourself, you fix him with a knowing gaze. “You seem like a pretty nice guy yourself.” 

Jack chuckles quietly at you, turning his olive green eyes to the aisle signs overhead. “You are too generous to this stranger, señorita. I try to be as kind as I can. I struggle once in a full moon, but I suppose we all do.” 

You giggle good-naturedly at his slip. “You mean once in a blue moon?”

Jack’s lips part slightly, his expression one of genuine surprise. However, it lasts only a moment. He quickly gives you a sheepish grin, raising a hand to scratch hastily behind his ear. A nervous tick, you supposed. “Uh, yes, right. Of course.” 

Within moments, you find yourself alongside the coffee aisle. You dip into it swiftly, Jack following only a step behind. You come to a stop in the center of the coffee section, a wide array of possibilities available before you. “So, what kind are you looking for?” you ask expectantly. 

Jack’s eyes rove over the options quickly, seemingly seeing everything and nothing at once. His dark brows knit inward as he admits, “I…I’m not sure. My friend, Ted, normally gets the coffee. I haven’t any idea what I am looking for.” 

Your eyes widen in surprise. If this man had no idea what type of coffee to get, there was only one way to proceed. “Black Silk,” you say matter-of-factly. 

Jack turns to you slowly, confusion pinching his handsome features. “Black silk?” he echoes, the words rolling off his tongue without recognition. 

You nod wholeheartedly, eyes imploring and earnest. If there was one way you could truly help this man today, it would be this. “Yes. Folgers’ Black Silk. The only option when it comes to purchasing coffee. Especially if you don’t know where to start.” You beckon him toward the shelves of familiar red containers. Your trained eye finds the black-labeled tub instantly, and you crouch down, grabbing the largest option with eager fingers. “Let me tell you, mystery man. This coffee right here? A life changer.” 

“Oh.” Jack’s eyes are wide as saucers as he looks from you, to the container in your hands, and back to you. One corner of his full lips creeps upward as he gazes at you in equal parts amusement and intrigue. “A life changer, you say?” 

You nod. 

“And you think I need the largest tub they have?” An adorable peekaboo from that crooked grin of his. If you didn’t stop staring, you’d be reduced to nothing but a puddle on the floor. Clean up in Aisle 20.

“Yes. You’ll thank me later. If you’re doubting me…” Your gaze sweeps the aisle on either side of you. It’s just the two of you here, alone. Your fingers make quick work of popping the lid from its place and peeling back a section of the Aromaseal within. “...then just smell it. I promise, all your doubts will be erased.” 

Jack’s eyes dance with amusement as his gaze flickers between you and the coffee. You hold your ground, a challenge portrayed in the slant of your smirk. As if to say, ‘Yes, this is a hill I will die on.’ After several moments of bated breath, Jack lowers his head to the lip of the container. Instead of drawing in a long inhale like most human beings, he sucks in several short, rapid sniffs in succession. In that moment, you’re signed, sealed, and delivered–this man’s spirit animal is undeniably a dog, without question. Shaking your head incredulously, you close your eyes and dip your chin to savor the aroma yourself. 

The first word that enters your mind as you draw in a deep inhale is ‘bold.’ The scent of the dark roast is rich and robust as it weaves through your senses, awakening them instantaneously. The aroma is intense, luxurious, alluring. Your mouth waters unbidden as you hold the scent in, savoring it, before exhaling slowly through your nose. You can practically taste the notes of dark chocolate and smoke on your tongue. 

Satisfied, you slowly open your eyes. When you do, you find yourself gazing into two pools of olive green. Jack stares at you over the container of Black Silk between you, his eyes thoughtful, watchful, attentive. There is a gentleness behind his soft gaze, something intangible in the supple curve of his lips and his vaguely knotted brow that is fond, affectionate. 

“Cautivante.” The endearment is spoken on a breath, so faint you’re unsure you truly heard it. Your eyes fall to Jack’s lips, now parted slightly with bated breath. Your heartbeat flutters rapidly in your chest, fast as hummingbird wings, making you dizzy. Your very flesh seems to sing under his enthralled gaze, your skin warm and flushed, your knees weak. Unable to pry your eyes from the softness of his lips, the dip of his Cupid’s Bow. Your own lips seem to hum under his watch, calling out to him, buzzing so intensely you’re certain he must be able to see it, to feel it. As if drawn together by an invisible thread, you see him inch imperceptibly closer, and you mirror him, the song in your bones growing louder and louder– 

Ca-thunk. The sound nearly startles you out of your skin, slicing clean through the tension of the moment. Jumping backward, you turn to look past Jack at a very uncomfortable-looking woman several paces away. It’s very clear that she had been aware of your little….moment and had been trying to grab her tub of coffee unnoticed. Sorry, she mouths with a pained grimace. She dips down to grab the container of French roast that she had dropped on the floor and scurries off without another word. 

Fuck, your mind groans as panic sets in. Your gaze reluctantly slides to Jack, expecting to find his face twisted in regret, mortification, or awkwardness. Instead, you find him still watching you intently, captivated, spellbound. His olive eyes drink in your features like a man starved of drink. The feeling steals your breath away. 

You watch as his lips part wider, as he draws in a breath to speak. A rush of white hot panic sends your heart leaping into your throat at the sight. What would he say? Nerves thoroughly fried, you weren’t sure you could handle it, good or bad. So you beat him to it, hastily blurting out, “So, did you like it?” 

For a long moment, Jack’s expression hangs suspended, still as stone. He scarcely breathes as his eyes rove over your features, searching. You give him an awkward half-smile, mentally loathing yourself and your painful awkwardness in matters of affection. Part of you wants to tuck tail and run as far away from here as possible, hoping to save some scrap of your dignity. A bigger part of you wants to take his handsome, stubbled face in your hands and press those blush pink lips to yours, throwing caution to the wind. 

But neither of those things happen. When Jack finally releases the breath he’s been holding, the sound is low, wistful. “Yes, I liked it very much,” he says quietly, his voice thick with an emotion you can’t place. 

You release a bated breath of your own. Regret fills the space it once occupied, cold and heavy. “Alright, then…Great. Let’s get you home to your friend.”

. . . 

The ride back from town is quiet. Well, quiet on the outside. The inside of your mind is utter turmoil, a cacophonous tirade of:

What the fuck were you thinking–

Damn that woman–

He’s still a stranger, you know. You never should have picked up a stranger–

His lips were so perfect, how the hell can he be so–

“Here will do.” 

Jack’s soft voice startles you out of your mental beratement so abruptly that you have to white-knuckle the steering wheel to keep from swerving. Your eyes flicker to the side of the road where you’re currently driving, a grassy hill leading down to the forest beyond. You look at him next, eyes settling on his clasped hands, the fingers that he’s been twiddling for the past twenty minutes. “Here?” you say, your voice quiet. “Are you sure?” 

Jack gazes at you out of the corner of his eye, his lips upturned in a small, sheepish smile. “Yes, I’m sure. I live just a couple miles from here. If I begin walking now, I can arrive home before dark.” 

Ah, yes, nightfall. Your eyes turn to the dipping sun, just barely visible over the treeline to your left. It paints the sky in gold and burnt orange, the clouds overhead dip dyed in radiant shades of pink and purple. Your heart clenches at the sight, at the thought that time is running out. You turn on your blinker and pull into the gravel off the side of the highway with a lump in your throat. 

The two of you sit in still silence for a moment as you shift the car into park. The air in the cab is thick with nerves, with words left unsaid, actions left undone. You nibble at your bottom lip anxiously, wondering what on earth you could say to cut the tension. 

Jack beats you to it. “It was lovely to make your acquaintance, señorita.” His voice is sweet and kind, his eyes wide and emphatic. He gives you a small smile. Your eyes drink in the sight greedily, committing it to memory. “Thank you for helping this poor stranger. You have a warm and generous heart. I will leave you to continue your night in peace.” 

Peace. Your heart knows no such feeling as his hand closes around the grocery bag between his legs, as his fingers clasp the car door handle. Your heart revolts as he pushes the door open and begins to step out of the car. Sure, this was all your fault. You’d known from the get-go that your mystery man wasn’t sticking around. He’d told you as much himself. But that didn’t change how outright wrong it felt to watch him go. It didn’t change how desperately you wanted him to stay, the lengths you’d go to see him again, just one more time. Moon watching be damned. 

“Jack,” you say suddenly, his name slipping from your lips like a prayer. Your mystery man’s posture stiffens slightly, followed by a slow, agonizing turn as he shifts to look back within the car, back at you. Swallowing the lump in your throat, your eyes rove over his face, searching, imploring. “Will I see you again?” Your voice is small, fearful, hopeful. 

Jack’s eyes widen at the raw emotion in your voice, a wealth of words said and unsaid. His green eyes search your face, picking you apart, reading you like a cherished novel. Whatever he finds within your expression, it prompts him to crouch down, reaching the front half of his body into the passenger side of the car. His earnest eyes do not stray from yours as he gently takes your right hand from the steering wheel. His fingertips are warm and lightly calloused as he lifts the sleeve of your sweater ever so slightly. His breath is hot against your skin as he nestles his nose against the soft flesh of the inside of your wrist. Slowly, he draws in a deep, long inhale. He holds the breath in his lungs, savoring. Your heart stammers wildly in your chest as you transcend several levels of the multiverse in the length of his breath. 

“Cautivante.” His soft lips brush affectionately over the flesh of your wrist as he speaks the word. Turning your palm over, he presses a gentle kiss to the back of your hand, his lips warm and plush. Dazed and flushed, you’re certain that your soul has left your body until he speaks softly, grounding you to the spot. “Do you wish to see me again?” His voice is small, fearful, hopeful. 

You don’t even hesitate. “Yes.” 

His olive eyes sparkle at your eagerness, mouth widening into a delighted grin, eyes smiling at their corners. Your heart melts at the crook in his teeth as he looks down at your hands, bashful, then back up at you again. His teeth tug at his bottom lip thoughtfully as he grins at you. “Well, if that is what you wish, mi amada, then that is what you shall receive.” 

And in the blink of an eye, he’s gone, with only the slightest lingering aroma of Black Silk remaining in his place. 

. . . 

Driving home from work the following day, you’re almost embarrassed to admit that you’ve spent more time searching the woods on the side of the road than looking at the road itself. But when you spot a familiar dark haired man standing off the side of the highway a half mile ahead, all sense of shame leaves your mind. You flick on your blinker in an instant, pulling over without hesitation. 

The first thing you notice about Jack is how bone-deep exhausted he looks. His salt-and-pepper hair is entirely unkempt, his eyes framed by dark, shadowy circles. You’re almost sure he’s wearing the exact same black sweater and jeans from the day before. Still, when he sees you approach, his face brightens like a man who’s just had his best sleep in years. Your heart swells three sizes at the sight. 

He throws the door open and dips into your passenger seat like it’s the only thing he’s thought of in the past twenty-four hours. “Hello,” he greets you adorably, face split with a wide, cheeky grin. 

You couldn’t hold back your laughter if you’d tried. “Hello,” you greet him in return. Your skin seems to sing in his very presence, heart fluttering with an intoxicating mix of nerves and anticipation. “Out of coffee already?” you joke. 

He gives you a knowing smile, eyes twinkling. “Sure, you could say that.” 

Your teeth pin down your bottom lip, trying to bite back a grin. “Well, that sounds like a serious problem,” you try to keep a straight face, to keep the bit rolling, but glee sneaks into your tone anyway. “We’d better fix that.” 

Jack’s hand slips over yours on the gear shift, his thumb kneading the backs of your knuckles affectionately. With his olive green eyes on you, you feel like you could do anything, go anywhere. His presence is a drug, so much more addictive than caffeine could ever be. “Indeed, mi amada.” His grin widens ever so slightly, giving you the perfect glimpse of that endearing crook in his teeth. Your lips hum in response, eager to kiss that sacred spot, to adore every inch of him. To keep that grin plastered on his face forevermore. “Lead the way.”

[wordsinhaled]

transmasc haircut woes ahead...

so i was growing out my hair again but it is starting to become annoying/a sensory nightmare this summer/doesn't feel like me/kinda gives me some dysphoria.

so i wanna give it the chop (again).

but the thing is i am. like. very intimidated by barber shops??? i live in a significantly queerer and more progressive city now than i used to which helps. but i'm still a tiny 4'10 pre-T transmasc person and i do not feel like i look like someone who "belongs" in a barber shop, if there is such a thing (i'm sure there isn't but the anxiety tells me there is).

i am sure i am overthinking it but being in like... a Designated Male Space feels quite scary. i struggle to even walk past florsheim's in the mall or have other men see me in the men's section of stores, if that gives you context on how scary all of this is for me. i have no idea what i think is gonna happen if i walk in there - like, anxiety brain says i'm gonna be gatekept out, people are gonna be like, "what are you doing here?" or "you're not masc enough to be in here," or whatever, i have LITERALLY no idea - and i'm sure i'm making a mountain out of a molehill and no one will actually be mean to me or bully me in a barber shop!

but the thing is i have like, no idea what goes on in there? and that's part of the anxiety, i guess. mind you, i know queer cis women go and get their hair cut in barber shops as well, so i guess... i also don't want to be read as that either?

i have gotten my hair cut before by a male hairdresser at a hair salon and it was a person my parents picked, a hair style my mom picked, and then he would dye my hair a Different Shade of Brown and my mom would give me frosted highlights or whatever at home, because she told me my natural hair color was boring and lacked depth. i had more or less zero control over the experience in terms of what i came out looking like. i was like... 23, 24 when this was still happening.

at one point, she took me to a consultation to get my hair chemically straightened (keratin, i think it was going to be) which would have gotten rid of my natural wavy texture, because i was "too lazy to put in the work" to do anything with my hair (because i wanted it to be short, most of the time, if anyone asked me). that was like, the one thing i brought myself to be able to say no to because. i didn't want to do that.

it took a while for my hair not to be processed to shit and to grow back in nice. but i fucking LOVE my natural hair color and texture and volume actually, it's beautiful, in my opinion, if i do say so myself. it's a lovely shade of brown and it's got amber/chestnut highlights in it in the sunshine and it has nice texture and it's soft. come pet my hair, basically.

anyway, sorry for the detour about Hair Styling Trauma but maybe this will help explain why the fuck i feel like i can't go and just Get My Hair Cut. lol, gotta love finally getting out from under the thumb of a narcissist and still having Shit Going On years later.

even up until the most recent time my hair was short, i have been going to hair salons (not barber shops) and i have been in that weird limbo of "girl asking for pixie cut," which is NOT the experience i want this time. every hairdresser i've ever had is always like, are you sure you want it this short? the last person who cut my hair was a pretty chill italian guy (like, came recently from italy, spoke italian in his shop, not like long-time italian-american type italian) who felt... probably the safest i've found because he was sort of relaxed about the whole thing and didn't get weird about it. but even with him, as close as i managed to verbalize what i want was to ask for something "gender neutral" because it felt like. incredibly scary to be like, "i do not want to look like girl. please do not make me look like girl."

he understood the assignment and is probably the one who would give me the best haircuts i've had. but even then it still sort of felt like i was... asking for it in a sort of weird adjacent-to-what-i-really-meant way and getting there by sheer coincidence of a person understanding the assignment vs like. please make me look more like boy. am not girl trying to look like boy. am not edgy girl with pixie cut. you feel me???

edit: also. i don't think that hair is inherently gendered one way or another, it's just like... the way that people tend to gender the process/different types and styles of hair that makes me uncomfortable and makes me feel misgendered. and like the perceptions of you that people have. and that a lot of the vibe is going to depend on how whatever individual haircut works with my face. and that when i go on T these things may also change. so i'm not trying to like... binary the hair but also... it's the dysphoria of how people talk to you/look at you/etc. at personal care places, you know?

i don't even necessarily want something with zero length, because my hair tends to look good when there's something there to style, but i just ... i don't want a Women's Short Haircut, you know??? at the same time i know that i have a Lot of Hair and people have fucked up my short haircuts before so i don't want a Bad Haircut either. i don't feel like i can do the same shit i always do again where i come in and sit there silently and slightly embarrassedly while i secretly hack my way into gender euphoria while the person thinks they're cutting a girl's hair.

anyway, what the fuck do i do and how do i not feel like dysphoria central during this whole process? what is a barber shop like? what do people talk about in there? can i just be quiet? is everything going to clock that i have not socialized with men like ever but want to? idk, do i lead with being transmasc? do i just bring sample photos of men's haircuts only and have a conversation about how they will work with my face shape? do i just say i am trying to look Not Like a Girl? that seems. incredibly terrifying. i would bring a queer friend to chill me out, but i haven't made any here yet to be able to bring.

asdjdjfj if u have read this far thank you and sorry for being a hot mess !!!

[tangledinink]

Chapter Eight of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is up! The Hamatos talk to some extended family in hopes of getting some answers... but they mostly get more questions. Read on ao3 or below the cut!

[ prev ]

"Mikey."

Hm...?

"Mikey!"

Couldn't they tell he was sleeping right now...? He was having a really good dream... Just... Five more minutes...

"MIKEY!"

Ah! Okay!!! He was up!

Mikey kind of squeaked in surprise, flopping down on his bed a lot harder than he was expecting. In fact, he hadn't been expecting to flop down on his bed at all. And what was Leo doing in his room? He kind of blinked, a bit dazed for a moment, staring at his brother.

"... Did something happen?" He asked after a second, still a bit out of it. What was going on? He had been dreaming, he remembered, which was not unusual for him. He dreamed almost every night, for as long as he could remember. He and Dad had been cooking together... They were making something, but he couldn't remember what now, the dream already fading away, retreating to the corners of his mind... But he had been so excited, and his dad had...

Oh. Right.

Dad wasn't here. Dad was missing. Mikey's expression dropped as the memory came back to him, and he lost Dad all over again, all the grief and anxiety and fear coming crashing back. 

He hadn't enjoyed dreaming as much lately.

"Uhm, yeah something happened!" Leo all but shrieked, his eyes blown up wide. "You were floating! And glowing!"

Mikey blinked slowly at him. "... What?" He said after a minute. "Uhm. Leo. Are you okay? And... what are you doing in my room?"

"I don't-- I-- that's not the point!" Leo snapped, his face flushing dark as he scowled. "The point is that you were doing spooky magic stuff in your sleep! Which is definitely not normal! What the hell is going on?! Did you do that on purpose?! Are you possessed by a demon!? I told you to stop going on that Reddit forum!"

"What?" Mikey gawked, his brows furrowed. "What are you even talking about? And what Reddit forum?"

"The one with the guy! And the pan?"

"... The hundred coats of seasonings guy?"

"Yeah! That one!"

"You think that the hundred coats of seasonings cast iron pan guy possessed me like a demon?"

"I'm saying that that kind of behavior is clearly of the devil!!!" Leo cried. "I mean, come on! A hundred coats?! And also that you were definitely floating a second ago!!!"

"Uh..." Mikey frowned a bit, his brows furrowing. This was... not really in-character behavior for Leo. Was lack of sleep finally getting to him? He did seem pretty convinced about this whole 'floating and glowing' thing, and... well... things had been kind of weird recently. His mind wandered vaguely back to his notebook, may it rest in pieces, and he bit the insides of his cheeks.

But floating? Glowing?

"Do you think maybe you were dreaming, Leo?" He ventured after a moment, tilting his head to the side.

"What?! No! I was not dreaming! I mean-- I was, before, but I mean, I wasn't during that part! I woke up! I swear!"

"Are you sure?" Mikey said, doubt beginning to creep into his voice, despite his best efforts at keeping things level. "'Cause, I mean, I know we're all kind of stressed..."

"Look, I know what I saw, okay!" Leo insisted. "Everything was... orange! It was like you ate a bunch of freaking fireflies or something! You were in the air! And, like, okay, yes, maybe, I had a crazy dream also, and I guess I must have sleepwalked in here, which is weird but that doesn't mean-- I know what I saw! There's no way I imagined that, Mikey, there's just no way--"

Mikey listened for a while, all droopy-eyed, still half-asleep, before he slowly scooted over to the far side of his bed, pulling open the covers for the other.

Leo groaned loudly in frustration, dragging his hands down his face and glaring at him for a moment. Mikey was afraid he was gonna have to argue, which he was not awake enough to do, before Leo finally climbed into bed with his brother, all grumpy and indignant as he did so.

"This is not over."

"Mmhmmm..."

"We're not done talking about this, Miguelito."

"Mmm..."

"I know what I saw. And this is not an admission of wrongness, either! I am doing this for your sake!"

"Leo. Shut up."

 Leonardo grumbled loudly, rolling over onto his side, the two of them comfortably back to back under the covers, but thankfully, for once, did as he was told.

---

“Dad,” Leo whispered excitedly, hoisting himself up onto their father’s bed by the sheets. It took a few tries, but eventually, he managed to get himself up there, scrabbling up to the surface and scooting across the mattress so that he could shake his dad’s shoulders. “Dad. Dad!!!”

He watched his father startle slightly as he was awoken, his eyes bleary as he stared at his child, mouth agape. “Hm…? Wha…?”

“Dad! It’s really important.”

“Wha… what is it, Blue?” Dad mumbled softly, smacking his lips a few times, but still rolling over in bed so that he could face his son properly. “What do you need?”

“What comes after seventy-nine?”

His dad blinked slowly, fighting to keep his eyes open. “What?”

“What number comes after seventy-nine? I forgot.”

Dad mumbled softly, taking a moment before he finally responded. “... Eighty. Like how eight comes after seven, remember, my son…?”

“OH! Yeah! Eighty!!!”

“Yes. Eighty.”

“I was counting the stuff on the fish poster.”

“Mmmm…”

“‘Cause I couldn’t sleep.”

“Mmm-hmmm…”

“And ‘member, ‘cause, you said, uh, you said before that if I couldn’t sleep, I should try counting stuff? So I was counting all the different things on the, uhm, the fish poster, with the shark on it. That’s my favorite poster. It’s better than the basketball one, even. Donnie agrees. But, and, and I was counting it and I got all the way up to seventy-nine!” Leo declared proudly. “But then I forgot what came next. There’s still more stuff on the poster.”

“Mmmm… very good, Blue…”

“Yeah,” Leo said, beginning to pull some of the covers aside. His dad grumbled a bit, but his eyes were already closed again. “I’ve never counted up that big before all by myself.”

“Very impressive…”

“Do you think I can get to a hundred?” Leo questioned, burrowing in with his father, pulling the blankets back up over both of them. “All by myself?”

“Mmm-hmmm…”

“Donnie can count to a’hundred. And then even higher than that!”

“Mmmm…”

“I wanna do it, too,”  Leo whispered, curling up small, tucking himself up against his Dad’s side and clinging to him slightly. His feet were kind of cold from the walk over, so he pressed them up against his dad’s legs to warm them back up. “It’s gonna be so awesome…”

“Mmmm.”

“... Dad?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you think there’s a whole hundred things on the fish poster for me to count? Or will I run out? ‘Cause I don’t know exactly how many is on there. Just that it’s more than seventy-nine.”

“Leonardo…”

“Uh-huh?”

“Go to sleep,” Dad mumbled tiredly, wrapping an arm around his child, squeezing him tight. “I am sure things will work out. Right now, just sleep.”

---

April was not expecting to get jumped before she even made it to the breakfast table. She wasn't exactly excited about it, either, stumbling a bit as Leo grabbed her by the arm, yanking her down the hallway to literally corner her. Hey now, wait a minute-- this had been her plan!

"April, something's wrong with Mikey," Leo hissed fervently under his breath, his eyes narrowed into slits, and April's heart fell into her stomach.

"What happened?!" She immediately demanded, her eyes wide, a million possibilities flying through her head. Oh god, she knew she should have kept a closer eye on him-- she knew he was more upset than he was letting on and yet she still--!

"I caught him floating above his bed last night. And glowing! Like the freakin' exorcist or something!"

April's expression rapidly shifted.

"Okay, I know you did not just give me a heart attack for no goddamn reason Hamato Leonardo."

"What?!"

"This is not funny! I thought something really bad actually happened!"

"I'm being serious! Come on, April, you have to believe me!"

"Uhm. Okay. Well, first of all, let the record show that I do not have to do anything," April scoffed, placing a hand on her hip, giving the other a rather unimpressed look. "Second of all, while we’re here, let the record also show that I also do not appreciate you picking a fight with my mom yesterday!"

"ME?!" Leo gaped, his brows raising up. "I didn't pick a fight with her! She picked a fight with me!"

"What! She did--"

"Look, this is so not the issue! April, I'm being serious! I saw Mikey floating last night! It was freaky! He was sleeping and he was just, like, hovering over his bed! And I don't know what to do! If I tell Raph, he's just gonna freak out, and you know Donnie will never believe me!" He begged.

April narrowed her eyes. 

"... When's the last time you slept?"

"Oh, come on, April!" Leo groaned, throwing his head back. "I slept last night! I swear! Ask Mikey! I really, really did!"

"Ask Mikey?" April echoed. "Leo, what were you even doing in Mikey's room to begin with?"

"That's. Uh. Well, that's beside the point!"

"Leo."

"This isn't about me--"

"Leo!"

"Okay! Fine! I don't know!" He groaned, wrinkling his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "I don't remember, okay? I think I was sleepwalking or something, but I really was awake for the Mikey part! Something for real weird is going on with him! Remember when his notebook caught on fire?"

"I thought you guys said that that was a cover story," April said, pursing her lips. "And I hope you know how this sounds, Leo."

"I do, and I know, but now I think... I dunno, maybe it actually happened? I mean-- I just-- I dunno how else to explain this stuff, April! You saw Dad disappear too! You know that wasn't natural, I know that you saw it."

"Look, Leo, I know that you're under a lot of stress, and you don't always sleep very well..."

"April. Please," Leo pressed again, his voice tight and his eyes wide. "Come on. I don't know how to deal with this on my own. I need your help."

April sighed softly, her shoulders slumping a bit as she examined the other's expression. Why did he have to look so goddamn sincere and pathetic...? That just made this so much harder!

... But, as much as she hated to admit it, he... did have a little bit of a point. She had run the scene through her head about a million times now, and she still had no idea what she saw. Yoshi and the intruder had been right in the middle of the room, and then they just weren't. How did something like that happen?

 "... Okay, fine," she relented, frowning as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Let's say I believe you. Which I'm not saying I do! What are we supposed to do about it?" 

 Leo gave a sigh of what might have been relief, pursing his lips slightly. "I dunno," he admitted. "But something weird is going on. So I think we're gonna have to do some digging..." He scrunched up his face. "... And that means we might have to get Donnie on board."

"I thought you said he'd never believe you," April said, knowing that he wouldn't.

"He won't. So we're gonna have to be... creative," Leo said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "C'mon. Let's go."

"Uhm, no? I'm getting breakfast first."

"Ughhh. Seriously? Fine. Breakfast, and then let's go."

Ooh, April was gonna kill this boy. Though she was, admittedly, a lot less inclined towards violence once she had a wildberry poptart in her system. Reluctantly, she followed Leo upstairs to the third floor to rap on Donnie's door. Leo cautiously peeked his head inside, creaking the door open slowly.

"Heeyyyyyy, Donnie...? You up?" The two of them peered into the room where they found their brother, hunched over their computer. They barely even turned to face them before they began signing.

'Leo, if this is about hacking Mrs. O’Neil's phone again, I already told you, you would still have to get parental consent to go on air, you're a minor--'

"What?!" April yelped. Scratch that last part about feeling less violent, she was going to strangle him. "Leo!--"

"HAHAHA, Donnie, I have no idea what you're talking about! This is completely unrelated to that other request that I definitely never made of you!" Leo laughed loudly, swinging the door the rest of the way open and darting his way inside before April could smack him, flitting over to his twin's side as if that might protect him. April growled softly, swinging the door shut behind her as she followed him in. They were so lucky that she was making an effort to be extra nice to them.

'Okay, then, get out of my room?' Donnie suggested dryly, turning back around, their hands returning to their keyboard as soon as they had finished signing, eyes immediately back to their computer screen. Or, computer screens, rather. They had at least five monitors pinned up, all of them doing different things as Donnie tapped away, staring at the glowing screens intensely. April didn't even wanna try to follow whatever the hell they were trying to do, nor think about how much sleep they had been getting recently. At least some. She knew from past experiences that he was not capable of pulling actual all-nighters without his brain turning to straight-up mush. He’d get all loopy and confused, and it was admittedly pretty hilarious, but not very effective. He could, however, get away with two-to-three hours a night and come out the other side functioning, but cranky. She suspected this was the current situation. 

"Well," Leo began, leaning over the desk slightly. April watched Donnie's eyes twitch with annoyance. "We were just wondering, uh, if you had made any progress with your... whatever it is you're doing?"

'No,' Donnie responded coldly, bristling as he glared at their screen. 'If I made any progress, Nardo, I would have told you by now. I haven't found any leads online, I haven't been able to track Dad's smartwatch, I haven't found him on any security footage,' Where was he getting security footage feeds? Actually, nevermind, 'or anything else that's helpful, okay? I'm doing my best! If you have a problem with it, why don't you--'

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy! I'm not trying to critique or whatever!" Leo defended, putting up his hands. "I was just thinking, uh... what if… we went through some of Dad's stuff?"

Donnie all but growled, like actually for-real growled, giving Leo a look. Every time they had to stop typing to respond to their twin, they looked just a little bit closer to a crime of passion. 'I just told you, I'm going through Dad's stuff.' They pressed, their ASL sharp and choppy with frustration. 'I've already gone through his social media, through all his files, his emails, I've been through his phone--'

"No, no, I mean, like..." Leo hesitated a second. "Like, his physical stuff. Like... go through his room."

Donnie paused. He frowned a bit, looking Leo up and down suspiciously.

'Why?'

"I don't know. I just. I think maybe we might find something," Leo pressed. "I mean, we've tried everything else, right? Maybe there's something useful in there."

'Dad wouldn't want us looking through his stuff. The police already looked anyway.'

"Oh, like he'd be tickled about any of the rest of this situation? I think Dad would want to come home!" Leo said, raising a brow. "Maybe the police looked, but those guys are idiots, and we haven't. What if we find something, Donnie? Something actually helpful?”

Okay, that was a pretty good argument, April had to admit. Dee could be pretty hard to reason with once he had made up his mind about something and emotional appeals very rarely worked. But... April glanced over at Donnie out of the corners of her eyes, biting the insides of their cheek. She knew Donnie missed their dad. All of them did. Of course they all did, and it wasn't like Donnie missed Yoshi any more than their brothers did, that's not what she meant, but...

 Donnie hadn't spoken since he had gone missing. They barely left their room, barely ate, barely slept... All of them were having a hard time. Donnie just... didn't always deal with change and stress that well. This was the longest Donnie had been non-verbal in years, and just...

All she meant was that having some sort of a lead instead of repeatedly banging their head against the wall up here by themselves might be good. And she was sure Donnie knew that, too.

'Fine,' Donnie relented, pushing their chair away from their desk so they could get to their feet, visibly wincing as their joints no doubt protested after being in one position for so long. 'But if I end up mentally scarred, I'm gonna be annoyed.'

---

Donnie was tired.

They were no stranger to exhaustion, either. They found that it was a common companion. Sure, they were an athlete just like their brothers, and capable of plenty. They rarely found themselves winded or out of breath. The amount of activities and commitments that filled their calendar had always felt reasonable and manageable to them, though they recognized that it would be enough to overwhelm many. Coding marathons and long study sessions didn't bother them.

But sometimes they were just... fucking tired. They hated how quickly they tired as compared to their brothers, but it had been this way their entire life. They'd go to a sci-fi convention, and Donnie would enjoy himself, they'd be happy to be there, but they would just... get so fatigued so quickly. Even with their headphones on and their brothers nearby, even with a carefully planned itinerary of their day, they would still always find themselves exhausted halfway through their trip and lagging behind. Mikey, Leo, and Raph were always raring to go, thrilled at the chance to take on the next thing, and he'd be trudging behind them wishing he could lay down and just take a nap. God forbid they have any change of schedule or inadvertent last-minute plans; then he'd be worn down even quicker.

 The world was a lot to take in. Emotions were a lot. And processing it all took so much out of him. It was frustrating. Especially when they knew they weren't the only one wearing thin right now. They knew full well that everyone was having a hard time. They knew that Leo wasn't sleeping, that Raph was running himself ragged worrying about everything... which was exactly why they had to keep going.

There had to be an answer somewhere. Some way to fix this. Everything had an answer. People didn't just disappear. 

Their dad had to be somewhere. This was just a fact. All he had to do was figure out where.

... Which was proving much more difficult than he had anticipated.

 Usually, he was not one to be dragged into Leo's stupid schemes or plots, but at this point, they were running out of other options. Nothing else they had tried was working, so... desperate times, desperate measures?

And going through their dad's room was certainly a desperate measure.

It wasn't terrible, but it... definitely wasn't clean either. Donnie made a face as the three picked their way in, closing the door behind them and flicking the light on. God, why was there so much dirty laundry all over the place?! Note to self, figure out some kind of solution to avoid this in the future. A modified Roomba, perhaps? Ugh, whatever. Focus.

"Where do we start?" April said, wrinkling her nose and looking around the room.

"I dunno. Just... start going through stuff, I guess. Look for anything weird. There's gotta be something useful," Leo mumbled, stepping forward, beginning to thumb his way through old magazines stacked up on the dresser.

"Are you sure about this, Leo? This feels sort of... wrong," April said, kind of wrapping her arms around herself, clearly having second thoughts. Donnie couldn't say they blamed her. There was a sort of 'ickiness' to this whole thing. They felt a bit like a child going through their mother's purse.

"Look, if either of you has a better idea..." Leo huffed. As Donnie, unfortunately, did not, they got to work, quietly wishing they had brought their gloves with them as they began sifting through their dad's stuff. 

For the most part, they were quiet, only occasionally speaking up (or signing, as the case may be,) to ask a question or grab the others' attention. It wasn't as if there wasn't anything interesting to be found in here, either. There was. There was plenty of interesting stuff. Thus far, the group had uncovered at least one Lou Jitsu body pillow (ew,) a bunch of paperwork that their father had seemingly neglected to actually fill out and submit yet, ("Are these tax forms?") the evidence of at least three crimes that they had thought they had properly disposed of, ("Why is he hiding this from us!? What does he have planned?!") and about a gazillion snacks that he had squirreled away in various hiding places in his room. But, so far... nothing useful.

 "Hey... what about this?" Leo asked after a long period of silence, no sound in the dimly lit room aside from shuffling.

Donnie, who had just been preparing to break into their father’s nightstand, glanced over and gawked for a moment.

'His altar? Seriously, Leo? It's not bad enough that we're rifling through the rest of his stuff, you want to tear apart that, too?'

"I'm not gonna hurt it! But we might as well explore every option!" Leo insisted, shrugging, trying to look casual. Donnie didn't buy it for a moment. "Plus, like... look at this stuff. Some of it is kinda weird, right...?" He mumbled, beginning to grab a few trinkets off the shelf. "Here. Look at this." 

Donnie frowned, but he made his way over anyway, accepting the item Leo pressed into his palm. It was some weird necklace he had never seen before, carved out of porcelain or something, with these symbols painted along the front and sides. It was very pretty, and Donnie was certain if he did his research he could find a fascinating cultural history behind it, but...

None of that was gonna help find their Dad.

Donnie was going to protest, but Leo was already passing a new item into their hand, waving April down with a, "come here, come look at this," and Donatello sighed, resigning themselves to their current position. None of the things Leo had handed them, however, meant anything to them. They were just... things. Things that Donnie could research, sure, but what use could that possibly be here? These were just knick-knacks! They grit their teeth as they sorted through them, growing more and more irate. They were just silly items that their dad collected for sentimental purposes, they had no meaning, there was no secret here for them to unveil, and no way that it was any help in--

Their fingers brushed against a folded scrap of fabric, and their eyes locked on the pattern of red thread sewn along the inside.

Donnie froze.

They recognized that pattern. Setting the other objects aside, he carefully unfolded the fabric, (What was this? An obi?) running his fingers along the seams of it. It was a fairly simple emblem, a circle with stripes running through it like the spokes of a wheel, smaller circles inside of each part. He swallowed hard, leaning in a bit closer. He... recognized this. He had seen it before. Where had he seen it before...?

"... Donnie?" April said, sounding kind of far away. Donnie ignored her. They were busy.

They absolutely racked their memories, pulling desperately at every neuron in their head, reaching into every fold of their mind, trying to figure out where he had seen this, because he knew he had, he was certain of it. This meant something, but he had no idea what. He just... felt like it had to be important. So why couldn't he remember?

Come on. Come on. This is important. I can feel it, they hissed internally, gritting their teeth. 

"Dee? Did you find something?" Decline call. Busy right now. Stop talking. I'm trying to focus. 

We need to know this. I need to be able to understand this. Come on, stupid brain, work! Dad needs us. I have to know this. So tell me what this is! I swear I know--

All at once, the room lit up with a violet glow, this dazzling gleam flooding the room for an instant. They could hear something rattling in their father's closet. For just a moment, some sort of shape, made out of light itself, began to stitch itself into his hands, around his fingers, around the obi he was holding.

Donatello gasped loudly, dropping the fabric like it had burned him and leaping back. The light disappeared all at once, fading away like it had never been there in the first place. All three of them gaped in silence for a moment. The air crackled with leftover energy, lingering like smoke after a fire.

Eventually, however, Leo found his tongue again, whipping around to face April.

"I told you!!!"

---

The restrictions of his new working conditions were... challenging. Not insurmountable by any means, but they did, admittedly, make progress much slower than he would like.

Much slower.

After a period of 'laying low,' he had of course made another visit to the Hamato household, intending to repossess his experiments, Lou Jitsu or not, but was frustrated to find a powerful mystical barrier had been placed over the apartment. At his full power, Draxum was certain he'd be able to break through, but in his current state, it was... an obstacle. He had been forced to retreat and reevaluate. 

He should have known that Lou Jitsu would seek reinforcements to keep him out. He curled his lips a bit at the other's cowardice, hiding away rather than facing him, but it didn't matter. They couldn't stay inside their little palace forever. Sooner or later, he knew he would be able to catch them outside of the protection of their home and reclaim what was his. They would join his side willingly once he spoke with them, he was sure.

In the meantime, he prepared.

He had already drafted about three dozen different tests he would want to run to measure how well his initial experiment had fared over the past fourteen years or so. It was obviously less than ideal that they had spent so much time in uncontrolled conditions, and that they had been under the influence of Lou Jitsu rather than himself, but… still. They existed. That was enough. The data he could gather alone would be invaluable. He had spent a great deal of time collecting all the various materials he would need to examine things like cell growth, mutation capacity, and any number of other biological factors. Humans hardly had the quality of components available to them as compared to what he could find in the Hidden City, but... it would have to do. He couldn’t risk showing his face in the Hidden City right now.

The torturous part was the absolute breadth of resources that the humans lacked.

Hunched over a make-shift desk he had fashioned, deep in his likewise make-shift sewer laboratory, he snarled in frustration, balling up his fists around stacks of papers and uncompleted checklists. Every lab and pharmacy he broke into, he never found everything he needed. Human technology was so primitive… Not to mention their dismal grasp of alchemy. And every item he was unable to procure he would be forced to fabricate, which would use up precious mystic energy, which would only lead to him falling farther and farther behind in his timeline--

How long could he afford to wait!? Every day, the prophecy loomed further over his head. He could feel the breath of danger hot on the back of his neck. He had already wasted so much time, and here he was, his goal literally within his sight, and yet…!

He swept the papers from his desk with a violent thrash of his arm. It was childish, he knew, and he would only regret it later when he had to clean it all up again, but it made him feel better in the moment. He sighed deeply through his nose as he watched the lists slowly flutter back down to the ground, his shoulders slumping slightly…

Only to pinch his brows together and frown when the papers… instead began to flutter behind him, all whisking away in unison, darting unnaturally past him.

“What the--?” 

Draxum had just barely turned, glancing behind him, when the cool violet light behind him blossomed into a full-blown sigil, pulsing firmly to his back and promptly beginning to swallow him whole. Draxum gave a surprised shout as he was sucked inside the magickal door, writhing as he did so, clawing desperately at the air. But he had nothing to hang onto, and in mere moments, the doorway he had been forced through blinked shut behind him-- leaving only the doorway up ahead.

He only had seconds to prepare himself. But he already had his feet beneath him as the portal spit him out somewhere new, his head whipping up immediately to face whoever dared summon him here.

“What’s going on? Who brought me here?” He spat, every muscle in his body tensed and angry, ready to fight. He had no idea where he was. Some human alleyway, it seemed, sad and dark and wet as they typically were. He was almost convinced he was alone before he heard a gravelly cackle bounce off the walls, the echo sounding like pebbles scraping across sand. Two bouncing red flames emerged from the darkness, and he tensed, baring his teeth in a silent warning.

“Is this the sheep guy?”

“Be cool. He’s a warring warrior scientist.”

“Sweet! Triple threat.”

Were they talking about him? As if he wasn’t even there-- who did these fools think they were? Underestimating Baron Draxum would be the last thing they ever did.

Draxum rose up to his full height, clenching his hands into fists and glowering at the strangers. “I will end both of you,” he snarled. His power may be weakened, but it was still plenty enough to destroy these two interlopers. If they thought summoning him with this silly party trick was all they would need to apprehend him and collect a reward from the Hidden City Police, then they were sorely mistaken.

“Easy, easy,” the smaller of the pair bade, extending a hand outward. Draxum narrowed his eyes. “I think we just might share some of the same goals… Like taking care of that pesky Lou Jitsu. And those odd children of his,” he hissed, tightening his hand into a fist.

Children?

Right. Of course.

His turtles. Beneath his skin, his temper flared, sharp and spined, scratching against his muscles angrily. He wasn’t inclined to trust any strangers, especially given his current circumstances, but… 

He supposed it was possible he might be able to find a use for these two. They were competent enough, at least, to summon him here, and he was hardly in an advantageous position at the moment… he stood to gain ground.

Draxum frowned deeply, narrowing his eyes. Perhaps he would hear them out.

“I’m listening…”

---

"Oh, HANG ON NOW--"

"Mikey--"

"No no no! So, let's get this straight. When I tell you guys that my notebook caught on fire--"

"Mikeeyyyy."

"Then I'm crazy, and also lying and covering up a cigarette addiction, apparently--"

"Michael. Come on."

"But when YOU guys tell ME that Donnie has glow-stick bones--"

"That's not what I said."

"That's reasonable?!"

"Okay, fine!" Leo sighed loudly, holding his hands up in defeat. "I will concede that, maybe, possibly, there is a slight chance that actually I was wrong about the fire thing, and also you were totally telling the truth. We are oh so very sorry, Miguel. I mean. Even though you really can't blame us…"

"BOY, I swear to GOD--"

"But this is serious! Donnie really did glow! And so did you last night! I saw you. Stop trying to deny it."

Mikey sighed loudly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Okay, magic fire is one thing, but I’m pretty sure I would have noticed if I could float! And glow!”

"Okay, look. Regardless, something weird is obviously going on! I could believe one of us just totally going crazy and starting to have weird hallucinations or something, but all of us!? We're not all just imagining things! There's something going on, and there's an answer in this chest! There has to be!"

Raph frowned a bit, not looking entirely convinced. "Are you sure, Leo? I don't think Dad would want us going through his stuff."

"Dad isn't here!" Leo cried, throwing his arms in the air. "What about that don't you guys get?! Do you guys wanna figure out what's going on and how we're gonna get him home, or don't you!? There's no way this magic stuff isn't involved somehow!"

As his brothers continued to argue, Donatello ran his hands over the length of the dusty wooden chest they had dragged out of the very back of Dad's closet. It had been all tucked away inside of a box, underneath a bunch of old clothes, mostly theirs from when they were kids. Hidden-- like Dad wanted to make sure no one found it. The same symbol that was on the obi was on the front of this chest. It looked absolutely ancient and was clearly handcrafted, locked shut with a golden padlock, and absolutely tempting the shit out of Donnie. 

"What do you think, Dee?" April nudged gently, leaning over next to him. "Think we can get it open?"

For the past four days, Donatello had been all systems go, full steam ahead. He had barely slept, didn't want to eat, didn't want to do anything except claw at the wall in front of them, trying to find a way to save their dad. And so far, nothing worked.

But now here they were. With this chest in front of them. A lead, finally. Even more than that. Something... interesting.

For days now, Donnie hadn't felt much beyond numb, anxious, helpless. 

Right now? He was curious.

"Yeah," Donnie said after a second. His throat felt a bit rough, a bit sore from being unused, but that was okay. "Shouldn't be too hard."

This alone was enough to stop Raph in his tracks, and Leo absolutely beamed, immediately moving to join Donnie's side. "All right! Dee's got this. If anyone can pick the lock, they can!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Donatello responded smoothly, pulling his bag off of his back, unzipping it and beginning to shuffle through its contents. "I've never picked a lock in my life," they added in, pulling out a small toolkit and cracking it open, immediately getting to work on the golden lock in front of them. "And anyone who indicates otherwise is clearly confused and does not have any evidence to back them up, meaning their testimony will not hold up in court. Especially considering I have four counter-witnesses right here who can attest that I would never engage in any such behavior, and in fact, we were elsewhere at the time of the crime..."

The padlock was open within forty-five seconds. Nice, new record.

Donnie could feel all four of their siblings leaning over their back, all wide-eyed as they pulled the chest open. Usually, they would get annoyed, but this was too big of a moment to fuss over. And inside, they found...

Paper.

Raph frowned a bit. "Is that it?" He questioned. "It's just... paper."

"Just paper?" Leo scoffed. "I'm sorry, what did you say? Did you say it’s just paper? Obviously, this is important paper! What's it say, Dee?"

"Wow, read the paper we found? What an innovative idea. Great plan. What an impressive pair of strategic minds you two have. Truly leaders of our generation..." Donnie muttered dryly, rolling his eyes as he moved to grab the long scrolls of paper folded up inside the chest.

And the moment he touched it-- "Whoa."

Before another question, comment, or sassy remark could be made by anyone in the group, a bright blue light burst from the scroll in Donnie's hand, overtaking them all in a shimmering, mystic glow. Mikey yelped in surprise, jumping behind Raph, who, at the same time, leaned closer to Leo, Donnie, and April, his hands moving over their shoulders, as if ready to yank them back. Donnie just barely resisted the urge to drop the paper altogether.

Mikey was, admittedly, not the only one to shriek when about a dozen ghostly blue figures burst into the room around them, encircling the group, manifesting in a cloud of gentle mist. 

"Greetings, young Hamatos," one of the figures spoke, their voice soft and echoing, yet seeming to transmit straight into Donnie's mind. He swore he wasn't hearing it with his ears at all-- this was a direct transfer. "It is an honor to be in your presence. What wisdom do you seek?"

The entire group stared for a minute.

"Oh. My god," April finally bit out.

"Dad had people in his closet!? This whole time!?" Mikey yelped, his eyes wide, having half climbed on top of Raph at this point.

"Fascinating," Donnie whispered, leaning forward to swipe his hands through the man a few times, amazed to see that it passed straight through. "They appear to be holograms? Or perhaps projections...? The polygons--"

"Dee, I know that science and logic is, like, your whole thing, but I think we're kind of past that," Leo scoffed. "It's obviously not holograms."

"Please stop doing that," the figure in front of them said, and Donatello scowled, reluctantly pulling his hand away from where it was doing passes back and forth through the hem of their robe. No one let him have any fun.

"Okay, so... these guys know us," Raph ventured, narrowing his eyes almost suspiciously. "Then... who are you?"

"We are the ancestors of the Hamato Clan," the figure spoke, pride filling his voice as he gestured to the many people filling the space, all draped in identical robes-- all sporting the same circular symbol. "Our spirits inhabit the sacred scrolls of our bloodline in order to offer guidance to those who remain on earth and bear our great destiny."

"Destiny?" Leo echoed, raising a brow. "Wait wait wait... So, you're, like... our grandparents."

"... No," the spirit said after a moment. "We're a little bit older than that."

"Okay, so, like, great-grandparents?"

"Hang on, what about this destiny stuff? What destiny?" Raph barked. "Look, this is all goin' a little fast! First, we find out that magic is, like, a thing, which I'm still sorta hung up on, and there's ghosts in Dad's closet, and now you're sayin' there's a Hamato destiny? 'Cause, uh, we're Hamatos, and no one ever filled us in on that!"

"Yes!" The spirit exclaimed, and the fog still filling the room seemed to lift with his voice, rising up to match his excitement as he swept his arms up. "The Hamatos are the bearers of a great duty to all of humanity-- it is the Hamatos alone that guard the safety of the earth against a great, ancient evil, and ensure it never rises to power again. As direct descendants of the bloodline, it is your divine purpose to--"

"Are we sure this isn't a movie prop?" Donnie stage-whispered to his siblings. "'Cause, like, this kind of sounds like the plot of a movie, right?"

"I mean, he's kinda got a point..."

"We are not movie props!!! This is an ancient tradition--"

"Okay, well, that's all well-and-good, very cool, uhm, love the special effects," Leo cut in. "And I'd love to discuss this great evil thing some more later, but can we maybe take a rain-check on that one? 'Cause we've kind of got a situation right now. Any chance you guys know where our dad is?"

The movie prop blinked slowly at them, keeping quiet for a moment. "... You want to rain-check your divine purpose?"

"Yeah. Can you maybe help us out in finding our dad first, and then we'll do all the rest of it? 'Cause it seems like humanity is doing, like, mostly fine? Except for maybe the part that posts on internet forums about reality TV. And, like, Republicans. But that's all obviously gonna be a huge undertaking to correct, and priority numero uno is our Daddy, please, so do you think you can, y'know... help us out?"

Mikey, Raph, Donnie, and April all nodded fervently.

"Your father has already fulfilled his purpose in producing heirs," the movie prop responded, their voice suddenly cold. "Though he may have rejected his duty, in continuing the bloodline, he has allowed the hope that the Hamato Clan brings to live on. It is now your great honor to take up the mantle and--"

"But where is he?" Mikey chirped. "He's missing."

"Okay, look, we are not exactly omniscient, we don't just know that kind of--"

"Then can you help us find him?" Raph pressed. 

"You are already years behind on training, your ninpo--"

“Our what-po?”

"We can talk about that after we find our Dad," Leo scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "We're not just gonna forget about him!"

"Traditionally, Hamatos are not raised by their parents, so it is not really--"

"What?!" Mikey wailed. "What kind of tradition is that? That's so sad!"

"It is a great sacrifice--"

“Sacrifice?” Mikey echoed shortly, his eyes widening.

"What do you mean sacrifice?" Raph demanded, moving closer to their youngest brother. “Sacrifice what!?”

"This is all starting to sound kind of fishy," April accused.

“How do we even know we can trust these guys?” Raph added in.

"Are you going to help us or not?" Leo cried.

"Is that why we don't have grandparents?!" Mikey whimpered.

"Hamato Yoshi can no longer be considered a priority for--"

Donnie dropped the scroll back into the chest and slapped the lid shut.

--

"Dad?"

"Yes, my son?" His father hummed, glancing down at his child, picking at stones on the ground at the bus stop. He had long given up trying to get his kids not to pick stuff up from off the street; so long as they didn't put anything in their mouths, he was content. 

"Are we challenging kids?" Leo questioned, glancing up at his dad with side eyes.

Their dad frowned a bit, pausing whatever show he was watching on his phone and pocketing it, leaning forward to rest on his knees and look at Leonardo properly. "What makes you ask something like that, Blue?"

"Uhm," Leo paused, frowning a bit and looking to the side. "Samantha's mom, uhm, she was saying to the other moms the other day, after swim practice, that we were, uh... That we were ‘challenging kids…’ And that 'you couldn't pay her to deal with what he does,' and also she said she would tear all her hair out."

His dad hummed thoughtfully, nodding as he listened to his son speak.

"First of all," he said. "Of course you are challenging! There is no such thing as a child who is not challenging. I promise you that Samantha will have all sorts of challenges in her lifetime! Children are not meant to be easy. Children are meant to be children. And there is nothing wrong with being challenged. It makes life exciting."

Leo wrinkled his nose. "Okay," he said. "... Do we have more challenges than other kids?"

His dad laughed aloud. "I do not know!" He said. "I have never tried to raise any other children but you four. Thank god. But I can tell you that you are no more challenging than I was as a child! That is for certain." 

Okay, that made Leo smile a tiny bit. 

"Second of all," his father continued. "Even if you were the most challenging children in all the world, I would still never trade being your father for anything. I did not become a parent and expect it to be easy! And there is not a single thing in all the universe that could convince me to give up even one of you."

"Not even the new plasma-screen TV that they have at Target? With the super super big screen? The one so big it curves?"

"No, not even the super big TV they have at Target," his dad laughed, ruffling Leo's hair. "And if raising you boys is challenging, it is the best challenge I could have ever asked for. I must be a very lucky man indeed."

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite sure.”

“Even when Donnie takes apart the remote controls?”

“Yes, even then.”

“And when Mikey puts paint in his pockets?”

“Yes, even when Mikey puts paint in his pockets.”

“And even when Raph and I fight over who gets to get on the subway first?”

“Yes, Blue.”

“And even when we tear the gutter off the roof ‘cause we were trying to climb up to the balcony?”

“Yes, even when-- wait, what!? When did you do that?!”

“Nothing. Nevermind. I love you too, Daddy!!!”

---

All five of them had been lying in various states of unrest or depression about their father's room for about ten minutes now.

"I can't believe there are magic spirits in your house, and they're all completely useless dickheads." April was the first to break the silence.

"I concur," Donnie muttered sourly, wrapping his arms around himself. "I'm going back to not believing in magic."

"How can they just write off Dad like that?" Mikey sighed deeply. "Because he has kids to carry on the ‘Hamato Destiny,’ he doesn't matter anymore!? What kind of a deal is that? And what even is the Hamato Destiny? They never said!"

"I dunno," Raph said, hunching his shoulders, staring up at the ceiling with a scowl. "But whatever it was, Raph didn't like the sound of it..."

He couldn't help but wish they hadn't opened that dumb box in the first place. 

All his life, he had been the biggest brother-- the brother who was the biggest. It was his job, obviously, to look after his little siblings and make sure everyone was safe. Sure, there was some leeway there, obviously. Letting Mikey dart out into traffic because he saw a dog on the other side of the street? Bad idea. Grab him. Letting Leo attempt to grind his skateboard down five flights of stairs with railings that weren't even connected? Also a bad idea, but would be really funny to watch, so we’ll let that one slide. He had been the biggest brother long enough to know this stuff! He knew what kind of stuff was actually dangerous and what wasn't, and what the best way to keep everyone safe was.

How was he supposed to protect them from this "Hamato Destiny" stuff when he had no idea what it was? And hadn't even thought that magic stuff was a thing until about twenty minutes ago? He had been pretty much sure, like most reasonable people above the age of nine, that magic was like, definitely not real. Now he was kind of feeling differently. 

He wasn't sure if he liked it.

Every time he thought about it, it made his skin crawl. What the hell was it that was creeping around in their own damn shadows? And how long had it been there with them none the wiser?! Was there danger inside the strands of their very own DNA? And how the hell do you protect someone from that?

"Do you think it's bad?" Mikey ventured, glancing up at Raph from where he sat on the floor, propped up against the side of the bed.

"Well it definitely didn't seem good," Raph huffed, tilting his head a bit so he could glance over at his little brother. "Blah blah blah, bare a great destiny, blah blah blah, guard against evil-- that don't exactly sound like a picnic! And why else would Dad skip out on his ‘duty’ or whatever? I mean, there's gotta be a reason he never told us about any of this!"

"You think that's why he never wanted to talk about his family?" April said, frowning a little.

"Well, from what they said, I'm not even sure if he actually knew his family. Apparently, Hamatos don't raise their own children," Donnie scoffed, crossing their arms over their chest. "So clearly he's already broken from tradition there."

Silence fell over them once more. Raph fidgeted uncomfortably in place. His stomach hurt, he noted dully.

"Should we try talking to them again?" Mikey suggested after a bit. Leo scoffed loudly.

"They didn't exactly seem excited to help us out, 'Angelo."

"Yeah but, I mean, maybe we can convince them!" Mikey argued. "They’re our family! And it's sort of the only lead we've got. I mean. Okay, so, there's a Hamato Destiny, and also, magic exists, I guess, and, uh, maybe some of us have it...? Which is super cool and all! But... I'm not sure how it's gonna help us find Dad."

Dammit. He had a point.

"... Do you think that guy in the mask was just, like... actually a goat man?" Donnie said after a second, and Leo all but gasped, sitting up sharply.

"Holy SHIT. I didn't even think about that!" He cried, clutching his own head. "But he probably is, right!? Instead of being a stalker fan or whatever? And that's how they disappeared? He's... like... a magic thing!"

"So new theory is that a goatman kidnapped Dad?" Raph ventured.

"Well, if there's magic goatmen or whatever other kinda creatures are kind of on the table, right?" April reasoned. "I mean, there are ghosts, I guess. So it'd make sense if there's other stuff too."

"Do you think there's unicorns?"

"Mikey, so not the priority right now."

"Right. Sorry!"

"Alright. So. To summarize. Goatman kidnapped our papa for unknown reasons, magic exists, allegedly, which I'm still not entirely sold on for the record--"

"Dude, you literally started glowing purple--"

"And also the Hamatos have a very rich and magical history, a divine destiny, and fucked up childhoods," Donnie continued. "... How do we make any of that work for us?"

Everyone quieted for a moment. It was a great question.

"... Research?" Leo suggested weakly.

"You all are going to make me deep-dive satyrs, aren't you," Donnie sighed very deeply, letting their head fall back down to the floor with a dull thump. "Right. I'll start on that. Mikey, you make friends with the Hamato ghosts."

[ next ]

[blingblong55]

Nothing much- John Price

Based on request:

I had a kinda angsty to fluffy idea and thought you'd be great I writing it (I love reading your angst). So the reader doesn't have the greatest of parents, they'd yell at them when ever the reader got hurt instead of helping them. Fast forward, now the reader struggles revealing their injuries to the 141 During a mission the reader injures their arm. Theyre successful in stitching up the wound but is having a hard time wrapping it. Then one of the guys walk in, they help them and have a sweet heart to heart (I'm thinking either Ghost or Price would be a perfect fit). Sorry if this is kinda hard to understand it's been a long day and my mind is all jumbled lol

GN!Reader, fluff, angst, father figure!Price

Life is not always the easiest or most understanding, sometimes we are born into families that without much love or care raise us. The lack of care and love would be shown when parents would yell at you rather than help treat your wounds. One small cut they knew you accidentally did on yourself when you were jumping rope and they'd yell or make fun of you because how dare a child have fun without thinking of the consequences first.

The team had been sent on a simple mission, with nothing too much to worry about and no heavy planning. On the way out of the last building you cleared, a civilian holding a knife for their own protection mistook you for the hostiles, they stabbed you and when they noticed you were the ally they apologised and ran away scared.

You walked out of the building, and you held your shoulder, pretending you were sore as you kept pressure on the wound. No one knew about such a wound and all you could do was keep a straight face and walk to the extraction point. Ghost and Gaz talking about some weird building they went into and making some rather hilarious comments. Soap and Price talking about their plans for the weekend and you separated from the team, hoping they would not notice your sudden quietness.

By the time you all made it back to base, you walked quickly to your room, blood staining your black vest and some blood loss making you dizzy from time to time. You took your vest and shirt off once alone in your room. Medical kit on your bedside as you hissed and bit your lips while cleaning such a wound. In times like this, you can feel your family judging you, and criticising you for getting injured. Always the clumsy one whom they hated.

Price without any knock walks in, "Knew it.." he ushers out. Cigar in hand while the other holds his bucket hat. Part of you felt like he would yell at you, and criticise you for something that wasn't entirely your fault.

"Sorry," you mumble. Always apologised because you knew best when your parents would yell at you. "Hey, no need to, I'm sure this isn't your fault," he sat next to you, taking a look at your shoulder.

"How'd it happen?" he was always so soft with you, never being too cold or strict because without you saying much you told him your life story. To others outside of his team, he was a strict, rude and cold Captain. He began to clean and close the small wound, something he had to learn to do since most of the men he worked with were bound to get injured on the field.

"...Why didn't you tell me about this?" part of him asked to make some conversation but the other part knew to not force you to go to the med bay. He had tried with Ghost before and he knows a man like him is stubborn and doesn't give trust for free. Ghost was also a reason why he learned how to clean and close minor wounds.

"I did this, so no one should help."

"That's what they told you?" he asks once more not wanting to push the boundary. All he received was a small nod. He sighed and put a bandage on the closed wound. "Well, I'm not them, don't place me in the same category with them...I care Grim..I really do.." he places a hand on your other shoulder. You look at him, teary-eyed. "Price?"

"Yes, kiddo?"

Oh, the sweet words he always gave you. "You are better than them," you referred to your parents. "So much better that...you make me feel...safe..so safe that it's scary." He wipes the tears that roll down with soft delicate touches. This was the same conversation he once had with Ghost when he too was scared of how much affection and care Price had given him.

"You'll always be safe with me, kiddo...always" he kissed your forehead and patted your thigh. "Rest and tomorrow I'll check that shoulder, good night, r/n"

"Good night, Price"

[isekai-crow]

Dungeon Meshi Ep 2

The beautiful bouncy animation is soooooo good. So much sakuga and love has been put into this anime is so apparent from the very first scene.

ALSO MAN. THE FOOD and also FAT APPRECIATION IN THIS SHOW.

Not only are there characters of all sizes and body weights, with no body shaming to be found whatsoever, the fact that the wiki has everyone's BMI recorded, and there is a strong light shining on needing to eat full meals to function, and that your cravings mean your body is lacking something and you should listen are all great and important things, and I love that this show is highlighting all that.

And then there's fucking Laios.

Bless this man.

This is a lovely episode about book smarts vs street smarts, and both having their place, and that we are always learning new things.

And also lots of screaming.

Episode Spoilers Below the Cut

First off, good on y'all for fighting against the Basilisk, that was very cool teamwork with Senshi and Laios. Makes for some cool screen shots.

But Also.. This man is DYING of poison. And Senshi has the remedy, looks this man in the eye and is like, yah, nah, I'm using this for dinner.

Thankfully dinner is the cure. BUT FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Y'all PLUCK and ROAST a whole ass chicken that's the size and probably the weight of a roast pig... That's at least 10 hours of cooking, I'm sorry, that man dead lmao

lawl SUPER DEAD.

Next is Marci's experiment.

She's a little bookworm who trusts what she's learned in her classes and has to do things by the book! I love that she's not all talk though. She takes her time to set up and plan it, and executes it perfectly! She's just fine!

Juuuuuuuuust fine.

This whole after scene is delightful. I LOVE THIS SHOW. They're such a lovely little found family. Marcille being forced to be honest with her partners because she's been brain fried is good for a Tsundere, and them being reassuring to her is such a.. TTwTT lovely relationship.

THE CHICKEN IS THE TAIL. WHAT IS THIS SHOW I LOVE IT.

The other shining stars of this episode are Chilchuck and Senshi.

Poor Chilchuk, he's just a stressed out little halfling guy trying to keep his friends from dying, and not having to eat Roast Dwarf.

Senshi is full "I Will Cause Problems On Purpose" and "This Is Fine" all in one.

Capybara was like THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!!! When Senshi just.. straight up had his finger in the boiling hot oil. Dwarves -> Forges -> Hot things are fine (・ω・)

perfect temperature reading. my brain often tells me to do this and I'm so glad I don't.

I love the ingenuity of using the traps to cook! Sasuga Senshi for the idea and Sasuga Chilchuck for making it a reality!!

I also appreciate that I will NEVER BE COOKING ROAST GIANT BAT, but that I'm getting a "Kewpie 5 Minute Cooking Style" recipe walk through.

Throwing in a screenshot here cause Capybara noticed how sweet it was that the Chilchuck's burnt kakiage was also lovingly drawn into the presented plate.

THE ENDING LINE QwQ

Bread can't replace meat. Nor can meat replace bread. But when they're together, they're more delicious. Both Food and People remain the same. Dungeon Meshi.

A lovely quote to wrap up the episode. The final bit could be taken a bit ominously (people are also dungeon food) but for now I'll take it with a grain of salt. (badumtsss)

[namis-gf]

HELLO NAMIS GIRLFRIEND 🫡🫡💥💥💥💥💥 would love to request some general mihawk x reader hcs !!!!!!! gn or masc reader if you please ^_^ love him and his bigass unblinking eyes . thanks in advance !!!! 🧡🧡🧡🧡

hi hello anon!! this was rlly fun to work with, i think mihawk and a silly little creature is truly the dynamic ever.

summary: meet-cute turned meet-ugly on kuraigana island. collective hc thing about awkward!mihawk and a gn!reader who doesn’t know when to shut up to save their life.

word count: 580 words // 0.5k

cw: none!

with roronoa zoro returned to his captain, and perona’s soul floating far from her body as usual — dracule mihawk is perhaps a little lonely. while it's something he wouldn't admit, or truly let bother him in any way. but it is strange, the lack of noise and clatter around the castle. at first, he takes the opportunity to relax. read more books, lounge around, train every once and a while.

the routine is boring. he feels as though he may crawl right out of his skin. however, one morning, he discovers a surprise. on the way back to his makeshift training grounds, after feeding the many monkeys with swords, obviously — he finds an intruder.

and, well, maybe that isn't exactly the right word. you're young, have an androgynous air about yourself, and are currently hanging from one of the bear traps perona set up on a whim. he has to stifle a laugh, albeit small, since he'd warned her that roronoa would most likely fall victim.

but it isn't his ward, back from travelling already. he cuts you down from the tree, and offers a gloved hand. you get to your feet with a grin, looking him up and down.

"ha! i didn't actually think i'd find you here," you laugh, bending forward a little to catch your breath.

he only stares back, blinks once, and then twice.

"i just mean- uh, there are a lot of rumours, you know! when i was travelling around the neighbouring islands, they told me this place was haunted."

mihawk sighs. tourism, one of the most dreadful crimes of all. maybe even worse than piracy, or men with red hair who don't know when to stop talking. you remind him of one in particular, which doesn't help his already souring mood.

"i am not surprised," he says, tone measured, "many fear the unfamiliar. kuraigana is home to no phantoms, or vampires for that matter."

you can't help the smile that spreads unwillingly across your face. the barkeep at the last inn you'd slept in had indeed spoken of a vampire lord. "heard that one through the grapevine, huh?"

that stare is back on you again, and the moniker 'hawkeye' is starting to make way too much sense. "i beg your pardon?"

"don't worry about it," you snort, waving a hand in dismissal. "but i do have a favour to ask, you mind if i stay over for a bit?"

"..."

"listen, i have a good reason, okay?" you plead.

"and that is?"

"well, i may have taken something kind of important. from someone important. by accident, obviously, i'm totally not a pirate. i don't believe in piracy at all," you explain, gesturing to the ocean far behind you both. "and honestly, the guy seemed pretty mad, so i kinda just uh-"

"i get the feeling that if i let you continue on like this, we'll be here all day," mihawk says, before turning abruptly and heading back toward his original destination.

you run after him on a whim, expecting either rejection entirely or the cool steel of the sword he has strapped across his back. "hey, hey, wait up! i thought we were getting to know each other!"

"no time for that now," he replies, doesn't even turn to check you're following. "if what you say is true, i suppose leaving a poor mouse out to be eaten alive is unbecoming of a warlord."

"whatever you say, mr captain warlord sir."

"..."

"sorry, sorry! oi, watch it-"

FIN

happily ever after. he only kills u a little bit

[bentleysbeetle]

Hey Beetle, my front tyre is flat and I'm out of miracles for the day. The guy from the repair shop wants to charge me £47 to change both tyres, because they don't have the same brand as my back one in stock. Now, I think I can get away with cycling with two different tyres, but it would be better if I found a repair shop with the same tyres instead. What do the cards say? Would really appreciate the input.

@totally-a-sheep

//Beetle secretary again: I am still translating seeing as Beetle has not un-become a cat since last reading//

Oh no!!! Hi Luc!! That sounds tough, I got my tarot cards as quick as I could!!! I'm doing a simple read for you, 3 cards. The 1st one is the past, the 2nd one is the present and the 3rd one is the future.

First you got the two of swords!! They have their points up so that probably means 2 punctured tires!!! but you actually got it upside down, so that means before you had two NOT punctured tires. Which I think is true. Right?

UM. THE SECOND ONE IS DEATH. THAT MEANS YOU ARE DYING D: Maybe... Oh gosh..... Maybe you had an accident when your tire went flat and now you have a concussion and you're going to die :( I'm so sorry Luc I love you so much I'm gonna miss you

Okay uhhh... In better news, there is a knight with a wand, and he's on a horse! But he's upside down though... Ummm... I think he means travel, since he's on a horse, and the wand could mean it's a magical journey? So you are going to NOT have magical travel. You will have very little travel, and the travel you will have is bad. So whatever your intuition is telling you to do about this: DO THE OPPOSITE!! OR ELSE YOUR BIKE WILL BE HORRIBLE! and maybe you'll continue dying!!!! :(

Um... Please don't die!!! Wear 3 helmets maybe?? I love you! :(

//Serious reading under the cut!//

//Alright. Let's get on with it Luc, here's your more serious answer.

A two of swords in reverse usually means suspicion. It's like, lack of trust, treachery (my booklet mentions in partnerships specifically), and you know, be careful of people looking out to manipulate you. This one fell out as I was shuffling the deck, FACE UP. It was the only card to do this. I think this is a sign. Your tire going flat was NOT a coincidence. This? This was SABOTAGE. By SOMEONE YOU TRUST!

The second card. Oh my god okay it's a lot different than it sounds. It signifies change, things ending and beginning, hindsight, it represents opportunities, the card represents a necessary end to something. Your tire was meant to go flat, Luc. Because now? Now you have all these opportunities. You could have a dual tired bike, like some cursed version of a penny-farthing, you could get brand new fancy tires, or you could go back to usual! The world is your oyster, and this is your sign to make Oysters Rockefeller. Or Oyster Omelette. Whatever squeezes your lemon. This is the start of a new tire era, Luc.

Okay, I wasn't TOO off with the travel stuff, because the knight of wands represents creativity and progress! However, in reverse it represents... Falsehood, and lack of progress >:O! The knight of wands is someone who will talk a lot about a project, but do nothing about it! He's a representation of judging people by their actions, and not their words. Now, I'm taking this as a sign that you should probably be a bit wary of the people from the various repair shops. This first guy for example, why didn't he give you a discount because he didn't have your brand of tires in stock? That's not *your* fault! Covering a small expense like that is totally a worthy investment, after all next time you need a tire change you'd know that guy has your back! Instead you have to pay more?? Consider your options here! Consider your options and go to someone who actually sounds trustworthy! Hope this helps <333