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heniareth · 3 years

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I was really curious about what your opinions on the DAO companions are :) I know we have talked about some, but I'd love to hear more and about the others as well :D I hope it's ok to pose this as an ask :)

Sure! That sounds like a ton of fun. This might be a long one tho. Mind you, this is not the finished version of the answer. I'd like to link stuff and add a cut, but rn that's not possible. I'll update it when I can.

Edit: I have updated it ^^

Let's go alphabetically bc why not.

Alistair:

Sweet guy. So sweet. There was a moment when I was hard pressed chosing between him and Zevran (alas, Zevran won). Also, he's weirdly tall according to the wiki? How did I not notice that before?

Let's get a bit more serious now, Alistair is a great guy. The only reason he's not the hero of the story is because he doesn't want to. He has all the qualities of a leader: he's good at dealing with conflict (as evident with the conversation with the mage at the beginning. He gets where he wants to get without antagonizing the mage, but without allowing him to trample all over him). He's a solid tactitian and knows how to make allies (he suggests to use the Grey Warden treaties, after all). I bet if he was in the leadership position, he'd even not bicker with Morrigan. His moral code is pretty tight; some might say too tight, but I think it's less about the moral code and more about learning to judge people by their actions, not by the labels they fit into (Morrigan is a proud apostate and therefore bad. Wynne is a humble circle mage and therefore good). He also has a bit of a black-and-white way of seeing the world. I empathize a lot with Alistair, especially with his experience with the Chantry and his subsequent reluctance to deal with it. I really wish I had gotten to know more about concrete experiences he had during his training as templar, but he seems reluctant to talk about it (gee, I wonder why).

Since I've only played the game once, I haven't really picked up on Arl Eamon's abuse towards him, which apparently exists (Isolde, however... I mean, even if he were Eamon's illegitimate son, he's a kid, ma'am, he didn't exactly get to chose his parents. So that's so not okay). Alistair's way of speaking about them both, however, is either sign that he has not come within a hundred miles of acknowledging how much it hurt him, or that he's already gone through the whole process and has decided to forgive them. The latter shows a very strong character; yes, he relies on the approval and leadership of others, he has his issues, but he's already started working on them.

That being said, irl Alistair would be like a little brother to me. I'd tease him relentlessly (all in good fun and I promise to stop if it makes him uncomfortable, but he's just so teasable). I still wish the videogame gave him the chance to take important decisions for himself. But that, of course, would somewhat defeat the point of the game.

Leliana:

Another sweet, sweet person. Her singing voice is amazing. Her belief in the Maker inspires me (I'm a religious person and seeing religious characters represented in a positive light is Very Cool. It's also sometimes a source of discomfort, because the Church has done a lot of very messed up stuff and positive representation can sometimes veer into apologetics for things that should not be excused, but that's a whole other can of worms. The bottom line is that religious characters sometimes work for me and other times don't and Leliana works for me very much bc she's an outsider inside the Chantry).

Leliana is best friend material, tbh. I'd love to get to know her irl, discuss theology and philosophy and maybe even politics? She makes mistakes and has prejudices, but, tbh, so do I. And I do get the feeling that she tries her best to learn. From the times she intervenes in a conversation between the Warden and an NPC, she shows herself to be compassionate and open to the needs of others. What I get from her character is that she genuinely wants to help, which is something that I adore of her. I suspect that she sometimes has a hard time deciding wether she's a good person or not. She has killed and seduced and worked for a morally dubious person, and she doesn't show the same nonchalance about it as Zevran (though they both do discuss their line of work in very... professional terms). This is, however, more of a headcanon than actual factual canon.

I also very much enjoy her girly side, like her interest in shoes and dresses. She's one badass woman who also looses her cool about the latest fashions in Val Royeaux. I like that. Between her and Alistair, a non human noble Warden has as good a help to navigate the Fereldan court as they're going to get. Leliana is also, I can't forget that, clever and insightful. It'd be easy to write her off as the innocent chantry girl, but she's so much more than that. Her kindness is paired with foresight, I think. She knows that taking on the trouble to help now can go a long way in the future. I just have a lot of respect for her.

Loghain:

This one's gonna be short bc I didn't recruit him. He's an amazing villain and would probably be a great Warden as well. He reminds me of Denerhor from LOTR; once a hero/stewart of his people, ambition and desperation have driven them both down a terrible path. I have also only little idea about his past. People say he lost a lot, and I believe it wholeheartedly; it doesn't excuse the fact that he plunged the country into a civil war in the middle of a Blight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for short-sighted politicians. I wish he hadn't made himself regent. That's what I take away from his character.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention that really impressed me was his death. I had Alistair duel him (that was a rough duel), and then it kinda just jumped to a cutscene of my Warden nodding and Alistair executing him. That didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to kill Loghain, and less so in front of Anora. But what impressed me was that Loghain just accepted it. That takes a whole lot of guts. Compare that to Howe's death, and how he screams out that he deserved (more, probably, or anything but death) and it's crystal clear who the more noble of the two is. Loghain strikes me as very lawful neutral, and any neutral alignment has the particularity that it can be dragged towards good or bad, sometimes without the characters noticing it (which is interesting from a DnD perspective; neutral is often concieved of as just as stable as good or evil, but that may not be true. But that's a different post). Anyway, Loghain's death was impactful.

Morrigan:

I could kick myself for not maxing out her approval in the first play-through. I got to enjoy a bit of her friendship by the end of it and boy was even that little bit worth it. Friendship with Morrigan is something that is hard-won. It's all the more precious because of that.

Morrigan is full of paradoxes, I think. She's incredibly wise in some ways, yet also very short-sighted (”just kill them, don't solve their problems”. Morrigan, dear, I'm not going to gain a lot of allies if I kill everybody who poses a problem to me). She is so intelligent, but emotionally... not so. She knows so much about some things, and very little about the next. She's incredibly wilful and knows what she wants, but follows Flemeth's orders all the time through. She hungers for power and independence, yet craves closeness, but won't allow herself to have it. She asks you to prove yourself to her and is extremely critical of your actions, I think, because she's afraid. She bites the hand that feeds her because it might hit her next.

Like with Eamon, I haven't managed to catch the undercurrent of abuse that seems to permeate Flemeth's relationship with Morrigan. Except there are signs, because there must be something Morrigan is scared of and who has instilled all that rage in her, and that's Flemeth. Also, she clearly hates/does not care about her and wants her dead (unless killing Flemeth was part of Flemeth's plan as well? Hm.)

Morrigan is that one person who you are nice to, continuously, because nobody else is. And suddenly she becomes less cold. And then friendly. And suddenly you're asking yourself why everybody hates her, because she's a really good friend! I just wish the other companions came to a similar conclusion, especially Alistair and Wynne.

Oghren:

They did this man dirty. He has such great lines and I'm convinced he was a great person before Branka disappeared. He has that dwarven warrior spirit, and while he looks like Gimli, some of his most impactful lines remind me of Dwalin or even Thorin Oakenshield himself. He could be so noble had he gotten some character development, damnit!

Oghren as he is written is somewhat disgusting. I hate the lechering comments and the drunkenness. And still, I don't hate him because of those amazing lines he has when he's actually sober. It's frustrating and I'll give him that character development myself if the game won't. I strongly associate the song Whiskey Lullaby with him, bc that's how he would have ended up if the Warden hadn't taken him along (warning: the song talks about suicide and alcoholism). Like I said, they could have done such cool things with his character. As he is written now... it's just sad. Moments of lucidity drowned in alcohol and creepy jokes. As you can see, I don't blame the character for either. The alcoholism happens all too often irl. The creepy jokes... I put that one on the writers' tab.

I actually think Oghren could have been a great mentor figure (I know, I shock myself as well sometimes). Next to the Grey Wardens, the ones who know most about fighting darkspawn are the dwarves because they have to deal with them constantly. Especially a warrior caste dwarf like Oghren could have brought a lot of that invaluable knowledge to the team, especially since there are no Grey Wardens in Ferelden but two extremely green recruits. Next, you get the chance to give Oghren the command of the teammates you leave behind in the battle of Denerim with the reason that he has lead men into battle before. Where did that suddenly come from? Oghren should have been right up there telling my Warden that they were doing this wrong, that they needed more food (and booze) and a confident leader to keep the armies they've called together going. Oghren should have been able to tell my civilian city elf who got recruited into the Grey Wardens a six months ago how one leads an army. How one presents oneself to inspire confidence, how one doesn't crack under the pressure, how one gets the leaders of said armies (some who hate each others guts i.e. Dalish elves and humans) to work together. And, last but not least, Oghren could have had a great story about grief. This is a man who has lost most of what made him (and what he hasn't lost he's spilling down the drain with every mug of ale). This is a man who, if you take him into the Deep Roads, has to see what his wife did to his family, how his wife got absolutely obsessed, and can be forced to kill said wife or watch her die. All Wardens loose their home and families at the start of the story. It would really have rounded the whole narrative out if the Warden and Oghren could have recognised their grief in each other and hashed it out somehow. Such as it is, Oghren is a depressed drunkard and there is nothing we can do about that. I find that frustrating.

Rascal (a.k.a. Dog):

Best boy. 100/10. I wish we had gotten to see the reaction of the different origins to the mabari (because elves probably have a whole different experience with them from mages or humans. And dwarves just... I think they straight up have none? XD). Other than that, no complaints. The name Rascal was the one I gave my dog because you have to be a right rascal to survive what he did and play the pranks he plays. Smartest breed in the world indeed.

Shale:

Shale is one of those characters that I recruited rather late in the game, so I haven't had the chance to explore their personality and worldview, really. I didn't even get to take them to the Deep Roads (this will be ammended in playthrough nr. 2). As such, I don't have particularly strong opinions on them (or her? The wiki refers to Shale as 'it', but that sounds weird). But, because I know so little about Shale, I have a lot of questions. First, what were they like before they were a golem? Shayle, as she was called then, was the best warrior of her time if I remember correctly. Why did she become a golem? Was it to be able to eternally protect her people? Was the sarcasm the golem Shale exhibits also part of the dwarven warrior Shayle or did that come later (if for thirty years you have nobody to talk to but yourself, you better be entertaining. And I can imagine how it could make somebody terribly jaded as well).

Next, how attached is Shale to their golem form, exactly? According to the banter, they infinitely prefer it to a squishy fleshy form. If that is the case, however, why go to Tevinter to try and become a squishy dwarf again? It's not like that process could be reversed if they wanted to become a golem again; if Shale survives to the end of the game, the Anvil of the Void is destroyed and Caridin is dead. Was the whole spiel about their indestructible form a façade? It might have been, but not because Shale actually disliked their form. I think it would have more to do with the loss of their memories and with the very invasive experiments and alterations of Shale's body made by the mage Wilhelm. The loss of memories means that Shale is unable to remember life as a fleshy creature. They might be deflecting by pretending that they didn't care for that experience anyway because of the superiority of their golem form. The modifications made to their form by Wilhelm would have alienated them from their body. In light of this, it's significant that Shale asks the Warden to decorate their form with crystals.

All of this is, of course, pure speculation. I may have easily missed or forgotten details that would disprove the above thoughts. All in all, I like Shale and I hope we meet them again in DA4 (given that it's mostly set in Tevinter). It's a liking from a respectful distance, because Shale is tall and made out of rock and also way more experienced than I will ever be (they are literally the oldest member of the Warden's little Blight fighting squad).

Sten:

Sten is another person I'd keep a respectful distance from physically. That seems to be the what he would prefer, at least. I've enjoyed his character a lot, especially because he seems pretty clear-cut at first, but slowly lets the nuance of his person show (gruff and stoic, but then he has an eye for art, a sweet tooth and he likes cute animals). It's also very interesting that there's no moment when you learn "the truth" about him the way you do with Zevran or Leliana. There's no big reveal about his life under the Qun before coming to Ferelden. He says he was sent to monitor the Blight, but honestly? If neither Ferelden nor Orlais knew there was a Blight, how could the Qunari know? I think he's lying, and he takes his secrets back with him when he leaves Ferelden. And yet I think I know him enough to say that a Warden who has become friends with him has nothing to fear from Sten.

One thing I find very interesting about Sten is how he thinks. His conversation about how women can't be soldiers has been analysed a lot on this page I think. He seems to be arguing based on a different paradigma than the one the Warden has. He also seems to have a very clear-cut view of the world. What is fascinating to me is that, when arguing with the Warden and learning about their culture, he is not necessarily becoming more lax about his worldview. I think it's more likely that he is expanding his paradigma, the structure of thought through which he understands the world. I don't think that he is now convinced that women can be warriors as well. I think he rather understands that, in Ferelden, the relationship between occupation and gender is different than under the Qun. Which of the two he thinks is more right or more agreeable, I have no idea. I'm also not very interested in that. But I find it fascinating how he always seems to be looking on quietly, gathering data, classifying it and trying to fit it into his understanding of how the world works. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his original party was a scouting party to see how vulnerable Ferelden was at that moment to outside forces. One thing I don't understand with all of this is why he urges the Warden to meet the Blight head on. No smart soldier would suggest that, except if they are foolishly proud (and Sten doesn't seem like that kind of guy tbh). I get that the Warden takes way longer to gather allies than expected because they first have to solve all of their allies' problems. But surely Sten sees the need to have allies? Is he just that impatient? Does he have a death wish (à la, I lost my sword and am without honour, better to die sooner than later and in glorious battle)? Was he his group's previous commander and is he now having trouble following somebody else's orders? Or maybe it's his way to make sure the Warden knows what they are doing? To push them into becoming the self-assured commander their allies will need once they're all gathered? I really don't know. I like the last option best, however.

For me, Sten is my fellow, more experienced soldier. Like Alistair, he can potentially be the Warden's brother in arms, but he's definitely the older brother here. He probably doesn't take kindly to tearful confessions of how hard everything is, but I feel like he's otherwise a solid rock to lean on. I feel like the Warden can trust him to do what is necessary and count on him no matter what, especially after they get his sword back. His devotion from that point on is honestly so powerful.

Wynne:

Wynne was such a support for my Warden (except with the whole conversation about love vs. duty and that she may have to choose between Zevran and ending the Blight and that she should therefore break up with him. Wynne had a point. Astala was so not willing to sacrifice her relationship with Zevran. But the whole conversation came at a point where she was already so disillusioned that she blew up in Wynne's face (”can i please just have one (1) nice thing????”)). But all in all, Wynne is great.

She has a lot of flaws. She was very marked by her life in the Cricle and, for all her age, she has little experience living outside of it. She is also a conformist despite her strong moral core. In a way, her ability to find peace with her lot in life impresses me deeply because it speaks to a lot of strength of character. Sadly, however, strength can be ill applied and used to suppress. I think she has convinced herself that the Chantry is right under (almost) all circumstances to be able to rationalize the life that mages live. She's had her son taken away from her as a baby and an apprentice killed. Her reaction seems to have been to convince herself that this was right, or for the greater good (and now I'm thinking about the Guardian's question at the temple of Andraste's Ashes; are you wise or do you just repeat what others have told you? The answer is not as clear-cut as it might be). This is why she is so irritated by Zevran and Morrigan. By aligning herself with the Chantry, she is, in her eyes, good. Zevran and Morrigan are not; they do not conform to Chantry morality and they defend themselves tooth and nails against somebody who would try and convert them. This is something Wynne never allowed herself to do; she always did the "right" thing and it has cost her so much. I'm not saying she was right (it would probably have done her some good to rebel from time to time, and to trust her own gut instinct more), but in light of this, it hardly surprises me that she's so judgamental. She has to be, or she would be forced to confront all the evil she has not fought against all those years and all the hurt that has been caused to her by the very institution she protects (and thank God she only tries to argue and can appreciate it when people have found a good life outside of her comfort zone. If she tried to convince by force or, for example, drag her former apprentice back to the Circle... boy oh boy that would get ugly). If you think about it, Wynne really is a good example for what happens if you live by a philosophy of always choosing the lesser evil.

Something that I keep forgetting over her grandmotherly and dignified character is how damn powerful she is. She has escaped the carnage at Ostagar; HOW!? She protected those mage apprentices in the Circle tower for God knows how long. In the battle of Denerim, she wades through an army and comes out alive on the other side. The wiki lists her age at 40, I think, but that doesn't make a lick of sense unless 75 years of age are the Fereldan equivalent to 100. This lady, about whom people make grandmother jokes, did all that. It's impressive.

Zevran:

You know, I would really love to know what Wynne thinks about the events at Kirkwall in DA2. It might be a disaster for her, or it might pave the way for one last bit of character development. She certainly didn't want to return to the Circle after fighting the Blight. That may be an indicator of some change in her stance on the Circle of Magi.

Edit: I forgot that she is what the Circle considers a literal abomination! Holy cow, how could I forget that?? Anyway, her conversation about what being an abomination means is so... heartbreaking, actually. It's so tentative. So careful. "Am I an abomination? Am I the same thing that has killed my students? The same thing as Uldred? Am I lost and damned? Did I invite this spirit in? Is this my fault?" Like wow, Wynne is going through something huge right there. I love it. I have to continue playing the game to see what it ends up as, but it's fascinating and such a huge thing that she allows the Warden in on that.

Ah, Zevran, my beloved (he has stolen my heart so much it's not even funny anymore). He's funny, he's charming, he's so so loyal and it breaks my heart. Zevran is the one about whom I've read most meta: these three wonderful posts for instance, as well as this one about his possible lack of scars, and this one about his lack of freedom. All of these have influenced my opinion of him and they are great reads.

I have talked about Zevran with you before, so I'll just skip to the new stuff. I have come to conclusion that Zevran is an artist at heart. This is totally not biased by the fact that I also do art, but hear me out. One of his preferred gifts are bars of silver and gold. While those have the obvious utility of basically functioning as money (they can be sold to any silversmith or goldsmith and their value is pretty stable through time and in different countries), there's also this from his codex: "Zevran shows an affinity for the finer things in life—hardly surprising for an Antivan Crow—but his appreciation can be more poetic than he lets on. A simple bar of refined silver or gold, uncomplicated by a craftsman's hammer, is elegantly valuable." Tell me that is not an artist's eye that sees that gold and sees the beauty in it. Then, there's also the meta about Zevran the Seducer which I linked above and link here again. It talks specifically about how he lets himself enjoy the target and be seen in his enjoyment. Tell me that is not an artist's eye that beholds the beauty of something he is set out to destroy. Even his talk about his assassinations show this. He talks about it as an art, the way somebody would talk about the brutal intervention in stone that produces a sculpture. Yes, it's a rationalization of the act of killing and yes killing is still wrong. But he doesn't go on about it on a moral tangent the way Alistair or Wynne would (”this person was bad, killing them was necessary”) or even through the argument of survival like Morrigan would (”it was either them or me and it sure as Hell wasn't going to be me”). He talks about the pleasure of a job well done, of the satisfaction of striking the precise point and executing a plan to the perfection so as to minimize chances of discovery and to make a clean death possible. And pleasure in seeing and in doing, this I firmly believe, is absolutely fundamental for an artist.

My favourite part about my Warden and Zevran as a pairing is that Zevran precisely brings out that ability to take your pleasures as they come and to really savour them. Fighting the Blight is tough; it's so important to find good things amidst the chaos to stay sane. If Astala saves Zevran from himself by offering him a place to stay and a purpose, Zevran saves Astala from herself by keeping her from running herself into the ground trying to save the world.

There are some things I don't like about Zev. The incessant flirting, for example, sometimes makes me uncomfortable (it becomes enjoyable for me once the Warden and him are in a relationship, but before that? Nah, no thanks). I wish he would also leave the other female characters alone (and there's so many more shameless comments of his aimed at Morrigan, Leliana or Wynne than at Alistair or maybe even Sten).

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And that's my take on the Origins companions (this was rather long. Whew ^^' I hope it was still readable and that you enjoyed it!!) Thank you so much for the ask!! It's been a joy thinking about this. I was worrying at first that the less prominent companions like Sten or Shale wouldn't get as much content but... well XD

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thestarsanctuary · 3 years

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hi! I was hoping you could do a Bakugo, Midoriya, Todoroki and Kirishima (separate) with an s/o that has Tourettes, preferably they/them pronouns please. I hope you're having a good day <3

Of course! I was gonna take a break in the middle of my (unspoken) break aka me being lazy, but this request was so nice I- I had to 😔✋🏾 it was definitely the heart. It got me.

MHA BOYS WITH AN S/O THAT HAS TOURETTES

TW FOR ODD LOOKS AND STARES/BULLYING(ISH)

BAKUGO

Bakugo wasn’t really sure when he first met you about why your head was twitching or why you were repeating the sentences Aizawa had said sometimes, as he didn’t know you had tourettes. He never even spoke to you like the others did so you never had the chance to tell him until Kirishima did.

When you two started dating he started seeing patterns of when you would get to stressed and start jerking or spouting out random things you heard from youtube videos, he did his best to make sure you knew he was there for reassurance, whether it was a hand on your hand or just pure presence.

There were times when you would have ticcing fits and he would have to sit and rub your back and watch you, and in those times you realized he really was there for you.

He likes to do this thing where he rants on about things he doesn’t like to try and distract you- I’m not sure how he has so much he doesn’t like but every time it’s a new odd topic....sometimes it can literally be something like how he hates trees because when it’s fall he has to rake up the leaves and you have to say

“Bakugo they literally help you not die.” It really is a mystery sometimes how he’s so smart.

Sometimes you can be a bit upset with your tics. It’s not that you’re insecure or that you’re ashamed, but they’re difficult to deal with. The control that you could have isn’t there and that’s stressful in and of itself, and in those moments Bakugo realizes the best thing he can do for you - is make you understand that you are just like the rest of the class and the rest of the people in the world.

“Listen it doesn’t matter if you’re different because to me you’re still cool, you’re still funny, you’re still incredibly sarcastic and while I don’t enjoy that for the most part- you’re my extra regardless of whatever you feel. Get that bull out of your head.”

I mean, he wouldn’t date anybody less than the best.

MIDORIYA

Midoriya is the predictable character in the relationship. He researched about Tourettes and what he could do in times when you needed him, I mean he’s not perfect but he’d rather know something rather than nothing.

You tended to be the one who was more of a risk taker, and sometimes your tourettes got in the way of that- which could frustrate you to no end then causing harsher tics like hitting or yelling, and those were the times Midoriya tried to get anything too dangerous either out of your hands- or just out of the way so you didn’t get hurt, he was smart with it.

Other times he could be too much for you, almost treating you like a kid so you had to remind him that you know and understand precautions, but that you also want to live like everybody else and that is nothing short of your business.

You’re favorite activity with him was when he would help you study because he made it so fun for you. It could be hard to pay attention in class sometimes and do your work after school so Izuku would come over and assist you. He would make sure you guys took breaks and that you understood the topic at your own pace.

“Izuku can you like- give an example?”

“Well it’s just kind of- wait what is an example-“

In many situations Midoriya LOVED holding your hand, like he did it at any time, any place. It was something he thought wasn’t too much in public and it was reassuring for you both. When you’re tics got too much you could squeeze his hand, and other times when he wouls get anxious or something would happen he would squeeze yours. It was cute and handy!

There were instances when Midoriya definitely had his mistakes with your tics and how to deal with them but he was willing to take his time and learn because who would he be without his perfect person stayin’ by his side?

KIRISHIMA

Kirishima is probably the most sympathetic with your tics because he stay prepared for them. It’s never been like “Kirishima can you” but it’s always been more like ‘Kiri how do you always know’ and there’s never been an answer that he gave other than ‘I gotta stay ready for my lovely lover~’

Kirishima likes to do this thing where he goes “neck” after you have a rough day with your tics and with massage your neck for you or your back, depending on how your tics were. He likes takin’ care of you, and it’s not like he doesn’t know you can’t take care of yourself because hey, you didn’t get into 1-A by being a pushover.

Sometimes you’ve had times when people in school just aren’t all that accepting and Kirishima will clap back unprovoked.

“Sometimes I think about how sad you have to be to make fun of them and dang man, you got a therapist?”

Other times you’ll basically respond for him, like I said, you can DEFINITELY take care of yourself.

Whenever you’re in the car or on the bus on a trip in the case that you’ve gotten real excited (which is natural being around your boyfriends and your friends at the same time) he’ll play this playlist he made of your favorite songs and sing to distract you. Does he sing well? That wasn’t the question- but he does sing, only for you though because the other students keep dissing him.

He has a reflex of rubbing your back during free period or at lunch. I don’t think this is relevant but it’s something super adorable, and sometimes he just gives you his hand to look at and play with when you have anxiety as well to keep you calm.

Also irrelevant but other times he’ll facetime you before you guys go somewhere and ask what to wear because he wants to match with you, and it’s so cute because you could lie so hard and he’d believe everything you say.

You two are kinda a power couple like- you both can hold your own but also are such nice people, good job makin’ the rest of 1-A feel lonely guys.

TODOROKI

Todoroki is a simple guy. He doesn’t want to overcomplicate things for the most part because “why would I act like your guardian, if I’m literally your boyfriend” and that’s that.

He tends to try and keep you calm, as it’s something pretty simple for him, he knows a bunch of tactics for distractions or when those are obsolete, he’ll just sit there with you, and maybe rub your back or get a water bottle for when it’s done, he just never wants to do too much because he knows your capabilities, and he knows your limits.

He is also a large hand holder. Mostly because he doesn’t like the idea of PDA for the most part, and he doesn’t like leaving your side either, because you’re very comforting to him. It’s a given we all know he needs love and comfort please.

There have been times when people look at your because of your tics in public and Todoroki has had to give a little glare back because of the disrespect being blatantly put out. In rarer times you will both glare at the same time, those are the coolest moments of you as a couple.

Shoto doesn’t really care much for your tics only because he’d rather just make sure you’re ok then watch Avengers rather than treat you like a child if anything, and that’s because you told him first that you wanted a boyfriend not a babysitter (speakin’ facts) and at first he didn’t understand and he thought you didn’t want his help but soon understood otherwise.

Some cute things I like to think of are that he likes to put on your favorite songs when you’re anxious and try to dance for you. It’s not good- let’s start with that, because he’s kinda...stiff, but the attempt is absolutely adorable (and oh so funny).

Other things are he likes to call you cheesy nicknames when you’re cuddling because he likes your reactions everytime, because according to him, yeah he said it himself, you are very adorable when annoyed. Don’t @ me!

Overall he just loves spending time with you whenever he can, you’re truly a safe-haven for him.

EL FIN

Alright tourettes is a real thing y’all, so I didnt make this rainbows n cupcakes bc im sure that’s not always how it is.

If anything in this is offensive or too much for somebody I can take it down and re-do it! I’m not too sure how it is bc it feels kinda repetitive but we’ll see I guess, and thanks to the person who requested my day was fine thanks 😩✋🏾.

I also included some things I like to do (play with hands and listen to music) because i have anxiety and I known that can worsen tics and can also come with tics (a lot of ppl with tics have adhd, anxiety, or some sort of disorder along with it)

- SS <333333

#bnha #bnha x reader #tourettes #tourette syndrome #mha x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #bakugo katuski x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #kirishima eijiro x reader #eijiro kirishima #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #todoroki x reader #midoriya x you #midoriya x reader #kirishima x reader

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ppersonna · 4 years

Text

physical - pjm | m

lights out and follow the noise. baby keep on dancing like you ain't got a choice. so come on, let's get physical - physical, dua lipa

↳ summary- you cant seem to escape the sexy fitness instructor that seemingly is everywhere you turn. it’s enough to make you irrational.

↳ rating- explicit

↳ word count- 6.2k

↳ pairing- park jimin x reader

↳ genre- smut, fluff, comedy, fitness instructor!jimin, honestly this is pwp but with like 20% plot

↳ warnings- oral sex (m/f receiving) penetrative sex, sex in public, exhibitionism, spitting, slightly dom!jimin, jimin is v mouthy during sex, jimin is also a brat,

↳ a/n- hiiiii we back at it again. this fic brings me to 1 fic per member so i can finally feel good about repeats looloooolll also, this was very fun to write because i got to incorporate my love for exercise classes and my bias uwu. also jimin 100% would be the worst instructor to take a class from bc i would NEVER focus EVER AGAIN. pls feel free to message, comment, etc etc bc i love friendship. enjoy!!!!!

The sound of your spin shoes clipping into the pedals is like music to your ears.

You feel your shoulders relax as you roll them, warming and stretching the muscles of your arms and back. EDM beats play lightly over the impressive sound system, encouraging the riders to cycle to warm up for 45 minutes of adrenaline and heart-pumping cardio.

Spin class is one of your happy places. Group fitness classes give you a rush that solo workouts can’t compare to. You love the camaraderie, the support and the built in friendships. Plus, you love having someone at the front of the room tell you exactly what to do. So what, you’re a little subservient?

You smile at the ladies clipping into the bikes next to you, not knowing who they are but finding that everyone is friendly and wants the best for themselves and the group. It’s why you love these types of classes. Strangers become teammates.

You hadn’t bothered to check who was instructing today, having clicked on the class time that fit your schedule best. You hoped it was your favorite Hoseok, but had learned that all the instructors were just as good Hoseok was just so vibrant, he made you work harder.

The heat in your legs builds upon a low simmer, muscles warming for an intense class. A melodic voice sounds over the speakers, your instructor coming in and securing their place at the front of the room.

You take a moment to stop gaping. In front of you is quite possibly the most beautiful human you’ve ever seen in your short life.

He’s incredibly toned, wearing a tight adidas tank and second skin-like leggings. He clips into the bike on the podium and smiles at the class.

You’re sure you’re salivating. You curse yourself for picking the bike front and center today, now acutely aware how likely you were to drool over the instructor the entire time.

He notices your stare and winks before he adjusts his mic and speaks again.

“Good morning, everyone! I’ll be your instructor today. My name is Jimin and I’m happy to be here,” his voice is light and sounds like honey. It slithers down your skin and oozes into you. “Let’s get started at a quick pace of 90 rpm’s and warm up those legs!”

His dirty blonde hair glistens in the spotlight, thighs flex and ripple in his leggings. You’re frozen in your seat and it takes you four thumping heart beats to realize the class has started. Fuck. He will be the death of you. Nothing makes you lose focus in class.

You push your legs and begin, and he turns his gaze back on to you. It’s as if he lights a match and throws it on you, the way your body reacts under his stare. You wonder what it feels like to touch his chest, his toned arms. You bite your lip and pant, breathlessness unrelated to the exercise.

Class is torture. Everything Jimin says is a double entendre to your ears and you find your core aching and wet only 15 minutes in. Jimin looks perfect, up in third position on the bike, standing and hips pushed back. You can see his pert little ass in the mirror, and you want to cry. It’s beautiful, just like the rest of him.

“All right, let’s tap it back in 4, 3, 2, 1!”

Jimin pushes his hips to tap the seat with his ass, before standing back up as he pedals in time with the music. He looks delicious, sweat on his forehead. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and you nearly pass out at the sly smile curved on his face.

You attempt to do the workout but feel yourself faltering, missing the beat often. It frustrates you. Normally, you are at the top of the leaderboard, soaring above the others with your effort. Today you land near the bottom. All because of fucking Jimin and his perfect fucking body.

The arms circuit comes next and you are grateful for the reprieve from heavy resistance on your legs and a chance to sit and catch your breath. You grab the weight bar and hold it in your palms, ready to do bicep curls at the count of your instructor.

Jimin unclips from his bike and grabs his bar, before walking the length of the front of the room. He begins with the bicep curls and you choke. His arms ripple with the effort and his hands look so strong and veiny; your mind immediately fills with thoughts of his strong hands fingering you to completion. He counts out the numbers and winks at you again as you falter in your push and pull. You shut your eyes, avoiding looking at him, and focus on the curl of your arms.

It’s infuriating. You take pride in your fitness and find yourself most satisfied after an intense workout. This class has proven to be intense in a whole different manner, but you’re upset at the lost opportunity to push yourself and focus.

As your eyes flutter open again, Jimin moves to put the bar away and clip back into his bike. Only 15 minutes left. You can do this.

You definitely did not do it. The last fifteen minutes were pure torture. Jimin kept his monologue of encouragement going, but his voice was tinged with fatigue and he panted hard into the mic. Sometimes, during particularly tough resistance, he would add little grunts and “uh!”s to his countdowns. You felt your thighs tremble with each one, gasping at the fantasy of his grunts as he fucked into you.

Blessedly, the class ended and Jimin was leading the group through relaxing stretches to calm you down. It didn’t calm you in the least. You watch as he folds himself in half over the bike to stretch his hamstrings and you’re mesmerized when he stands on his bike to stretch his back out. You want to lick every inch of him, tease your tongue down every hard line of muscle you could see until it landed directly on his coc-

“Thank you, everyone! You did incredible!” Jimin cooes over the mic as he stands next to the bike. He bows slightly in reverence to the group, and the class is dismissed.

You’re not sure if you want to book it out of the room first or linger. You’re sure if he tries to talk to you, you’ll implode. Maybe you can leave in a crowd, while he’s talking to one of the older ladies sure to hit on him.

You pack up your water bottle and towel, patting the sweat on your face as you try to sneak past in a crowd of elderly women.

“Hey!” Jimin calls and you freeze. You look up to find the object of your frustrations smiling at you. Fuck. He was talking to you.

“Great job today,” he grins.

Little shit, you grumble internally. He knows perfectly well that you did dreadfully, coming in 12th place out of 15. A woman three times your age got first place, and it burned you more than you cared to admit.

“Thanks,” you murmur, awkwardly patting your face dry. You’re positive you look terrible. Red faced from exertion and arousal, sweating like a pig.

“You come here often, princess?” He asks as he walks closer to you. You find your breath catch in your throat and you’re unable to reply. He chuckles.

“Cat got your tongue?” His smirk is legendary and you want to slap or kiss it right off.

“I’m-,” you croak out, then clear your throat and steel yourself. “I come every other day. Sometimes more.”

Jimin can’t take his eyes off of you. He smirks again. “You should take another class of mine, doll.”

You blush, and you hope the already flushed color of your cheeks hides it.

“You could use the practice. Soon, you’ll get the hang of it.” He gives you a wink and leaves, leaving you stewing in anger and frustration at his words.

How dare he?! He assumed you were a novice! Your pride and ego burned. You were a regular! You always came in the top 3 of the class! It’s his fucking fault you couldn’t focus on class!

You grab your things from the locker you stored it in, change your shoes, and stomp out of the spin studio with only one thought on your mind.

The asshole, Park Jimin.

You avoided spin like the plague. You rationally knew he didn’t teach every single class there, but you couldn’t face it, face the place where he hurt your pride so quickly and turned your insides into molten lava.

You dragged your best friend Jungkook with you to yoga, a quick and heated vinyasa class. Jungkook was more of a weight lifting guy, but you had recently talked him into trying yoga, explaining the benefits of meditation and the stretching of his muscles and sinew would help improve his form. He caved and quickly found he liked it.

You spread your mat down on the warm wooden floor and let out a sigh. You had been looking forward to this class all week, and you were finally here. You ensured you were taking the class from your favorite instructor, Taehyung, when you booked you and Jungkook’s spot.

You smile at Jungkook as he settles himself into his mat, and you both begin stretching and chatting lightly before class begins.

The door opens just as you get into child’s pose, face toward the mat in between your thighs and arms stretched high above your head on the floor.

A silky voice, most decidedly not Taehyung’s, rolls over your body.

“Welcome everyone. I’m your substitute teacher today. My name is Park Jimin.”

Your head snaps up and you stifle a groan at the sight you’re welcomed with.

Jimin stands on the mat at the front of the class, directly in front of you, wearing nothing but long, lululemon tights that cling to his skin. Again, you chose to be front and fucking center. You can see the way his legs form in his leggings. His chest is bare, and you can’t stop staring at the defined lines of his abs. You want to cry.

He’s invaded your favorite spots twice now.

He recognizes you, startled for a moment, but quickly covers it with a wink in your direction. You let your head fall to the mat with a thunk.

The class is hot, literally. It’s 102 degrees Fahrenheit and you’re dripping with sweat. You move with precision through each sun salutation, ashtanga, and tree pose. The moves flow into one another, your favorite thing about vinyasa, and you pointedly avoid even looking at the instructor. You’re grateful you know all the moves by heart and can position yourself into them by memory.

You’re proud that you only falter a few times, heart stuttering every time Jimin walks by you to note your pose and call out the next position. You’ve never wanted to simultaneously fight and fuck someone so bad in your life.

It’s the final, relaxing poses of the class and you sigh with relief as you maneuver into sleeping swan. You slide out of down dog and slip your right knee between your hands, lean a bit to the right, and press your hips forward towards the ground. You can feel the delicious stretch in your hips and your eyes flutter at the release of tension. You lay down over your knee, allowing your arms to lay flat above your knee and press your hips down as far as you can.

It’s quiet, all you can hear is your breath. You see Jimin out of the corner of your eye assisting others push deeper into the pose, pressing his hands where they need the help. You gulp. Fuck.

You turn your head back towards the mat and focus only on your breathing and the stretch in your body. Jimin indicates to switch legs, and you do so effortlessly, sliding your left knee to the center and putting your right knee back.

It feels good to stretch, especially on your weaker left side. You inhale deeply and let it out as you try to push your hip forward more.

Suddenly, warm hands are on your lower back, right above the cleft of your ass. You bite your lip tight, knowing it’s Jimin, guiding you deeper. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Your breath catches as he presses down, humming his approval as your hips move with his hands and you gasp at the feel of the stretch. It feels even better going further than you could on your own. He laughs quietly through his nostrils, as he smooths his warm hands up under your shirt to rest on the skin of your back.

You feel as if you will explode. Just as your body reacts to his touch and caress, it’s gone and he’s moving to Jungkook to guide the weightlifter through his own pose.

The class ends and Jungkook smiles at you as you both lift from your ‘namaste’ bow.

“That was great!” He grins as he rolls up his mat. “Jimin’s a great teacher! We should take more of his classes.”

You silently cry, not sure your weak heart and pussy can handle any more of Jimin and his stupidly hot body and his ridiculous smile.

“Yeah, Kook,” you half-heartedly agree, not interested in divulging your sordid secret crush on the asshole who embarrassed you.

You’re packed up and exiting the room when the same familiar voice chimes.

“Hey, princess!”

You and Jungkook both turn around to see Jimin smiling at the head of the room. Jungkook looks at you questioningly, wondering why the instructor is calling you princess.

“You did good today,” Jimin notes. “You should come again sometime. We can make sure you’re really getting stretched out.”

Your cheeks flame impossibly red and you splutter. Jimin winks at you. This fucking asshole.

“Your hips seem a little tight. We can work on that.” He knows exactly what he’s fucking doing and you want to kick him in the dick just as much as you want to kneel in front of him to suck it.

“Sure, Jimin,” you grumble out before you drag Jungkook from the heated room.

Jungkook is all grins. “What was THAT?” He asks as you exit the yoga studio and head towards the subway. “He was basically asking to fuck you right there! How do you know him?!”

You pout at your best friend. “He doesn’t want to fuck! He just enjoys getting me worked up,” you sigh. “He was my spin instructor the other day, and he got me so fucking heated I nearly came in last place! In a class full of grandmas!”

Jungkook snickers as you both tap your metro cards and lean against the wall to wait for the next train.

“Girl, he was offering to help you stretch you out. He wants you.”

As much as it thrilled you, you couldn’t comprehend it. Jimin was ethereal. He surely had women throwing themselves at him. He simply enjoyed the teasing.

“Whatever, Kook. He told me I need practice at cycling. ME! I’m the goddamn spin queen!” The crowd around you watches you and you pale at the embarrassment. You lower your voice. “He just wants to see me fired up, for no fucking reason.”

“Okay, delusional,” he sighs, patting your sweaty head. “Believe what you want.”

You hmph in reply and watch as a train approaches to take you home.

You most definitely will believe what you want.

Jimin is fucking everywhere. If he’s not instructing, he’s taking the same fucking classes as you. Barre, Pilates, yin yoga, CrossFit. He’s always there and always taunting you with his perfect fucking body and teasing words and your fantasies of him drilling you into a mattress until you can’t talk.

You avoid group classes altogether. You can’t face him. Your fitness is suffering because of it.

You suck it up and go to the gym, the regular ass gym with no classes, and you’re determined to run a few miles on the treadmill and maybe get a good 20 minute lift in. It’s been too long since you’ve had the thrill of a good workout, the satisfying ache in your muscles. The gym will suffice. It’s missing the level of companionship that group classes provide, but it’s better than nothing.

You pop your earphones into your ears and click on some music, not caring what it was as long as it was quick, and press begin on the treadmill.

Running is easy. The strangers around you melt away and it’s just you and the treadmill. You love the way your heart is beating, sweat forming at your forehead. Finally. A good fucking workout.

All thoughts sweep away as you run, and your only thought process is on the push down of your feet on the treadmill belt and the pull up of your legs to lengthen your stride. The runner’s high was something you lived for, and you realize you should incorporate more running into your routine.

You don’t even pause for water, so wrapped up in the run's high that you don’t feel thirsty.

Your watch vibrates against your wrist, notifying you that the 60 minutes you set to run is up, and you slow your pace to a complete stop. You feel like you’re high. Your heart is racing and your body feels like it’s vibrating. This is what you had been missing in the weeks of unsatisfying classes. The flood of endorphins after a perfect workout.

You suck down some water, before removing your earbuds from your ears. The roar of the gym is loud, music and TVs and chatter from the gymgoers.

“You’ve got great running form, you know.” A familiar sultry voice is suddenly next to you, and your arms prickle.

You turn to gaze at the intruder and feel your body coil tight.

Park fucking Jimin. And his fucking ridiculously sexy smirk and perfect hair and godly body.

“Are you following me?!” You accuse. How the fuck is he everywhere you go!?

Jimin laughs out loud and leans against the treadmill next to you. “It’s not my fault you’re taking all my classes! One might think you’re following me.”

You scowl and push yourself off the treadmill.

“Hey, wait, don’t go!” he calls and grabs your arm.

You turn to glare at him. “You going to tell me I need more practice at running too?” your tone is harsh but you don’t care.

Jimin bites his lip and smiles at you. “Damn, is that why you hate me?” He asks.

“You told me I needed more practice at cycling! I'm great at cycling! Better than most!”

You’re aware that others are watching, but you can’t find it in you to care. You cross your arms underneath you, pressed up against your sports bra you deemed appropriate as a shirt.

“You looked like a beginner! I’m sorry!” He apologizes. “Hoseok told me later that you’re, like, one of the best! I have to reach out to the new riders! It’s mandatory!”

You suck your teeth, still unimpressed.

“When I saw you in yoga doing everything from memory, I knew you weren’t just some novice! I’m sorry for assuming, okay?” He sighs. “What had you so fucked up in spin, anyway?”

Your heart thuds to a skidding brake. There’s no way you can tell him the reason you sucked so bad in class was because you could only focus on how his cock would feel stuffed up inside you.

“I,” you falter. For the second time, Jimin has you stumbling over your words. “I didn’t feel well,” you lie.

Jimin snorts. “Bullshit.”

Your cheeks flush and you stay silent.

“You got distracted by me, didn’t you?” He smirks. You gape at the size of his ego. You wonder if his cock compares in size and then kick yourself for still thinking about his fucking dick.

“I’ll take the silence as a yes,” he winks as he throws an arm around your shoulder.

“You’re an arrogant prick, you know that?” You snark as you push his delicious, toned, silky arm off you.

“And you’re a selfish, competitive bitch.”

The grin on his face is shit-eating, and you find your blood boiling.

“You take that back!” You demand.

“Tell me I distracted you, that my presence fucked up the great ___, spin queen extraordinaire, and I will.”

All you see is red. Red, fiery anger. No. There was no fucking way you would let him win, revel in your shame in the middle of a crowded gym. You drag Jimin by his Nike tank top that shows almost 100% of his body, to the nearest ‘family shower’, pulling him inside and locking the heavy door behind you.

You push him against the door and press a finger to his chest.

“Fine! You did. You distracted me throughout fucking class,” you hiss. “All I could think about was sucking you off and seeing your lips on my pussy and riding your dick until we both can’t talk. Okay?! Happy now?!” You’re fuming, chest heaving with intensity.

Jimin's grin lights up ten times brighter.

“I thought the same things during class too,” he admits coolly.

Jimin has you speechless for the nth time. “What?” You breathe.

“When I saw you on the bike, I couldn’t stop staring at your tits and your lips. You looked so good. And then in yoga, that tight little ass was begging for me to spank it. While you were running, I was wondering what you’d look like cumming around my cock.”

He shrugs, the words rolling off his tongue as if he isn’t admitting he wants to defile you as much as you do him.

“Are you serious!!?” You squeak, heart beat thundering in your ears.

“100%,” he smirks and rests the back of his head against the door.

It’s silent for a beat as you stare each other down.

Fuck it.

Next thing you know, you’re launching yourself forward to press your lips to his in a searing hot kiss.

Jimin kisses back fervently, tongue swirling into your mouth as his hands wrap around your body. He finds purchase on your ass and squeezes it through the tight leggings.

You gasp and shudder at his hands roaming your backside. Jimin pulls his lips away and smirks. God, that fucking smirk.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

“Yeah?” You ask as you move your hands to the front of his chest. He nods. “You know what I’ve wanted to do for a while?”

He grins and tilts his head. “What, princess?”

You drop to your knees, tugging his adidas tights down with you. His cock springs free, and you gape at the enormity of it.

“Shit,” he hisses suddenly as cool air hits him. “That was fucking hot.”

You’re encouraged by him and you wink up at him, before you’re wrapping your hand around his length to give it an introductory pump.

Jimin rewards you with a moan, unabashed in his volume. He doesn’t care who the fuck hears you two, this is the hottest thing he’s done in his life.

“So thick,” you murmur. “I wondered how big it was.”

Jimin can’t reply, because your lips are latching onto his dick with fervor and you lick and suckle at his length. Jimin’s eyes nearly roll back into his head at the suction of your mouth.

“Oh, my god,” he gasps. “Y-You’re ridiculously good at that.”

You preen under his praise and continue, allowing his length to the back of your throat. You let him gag you, saliva and tears both gathering at the sensation and Jimin stifles a cry. Your hand comes to his cock as you pull away and take a harsh breath, wiping away the tears from your gag reflex. You stroke him quickly, loving the way his weighty cock feels in your hands. As you pump him, the tip of your tongue teases at the slit of his head and Jimin swears loudly.

“Fuck! Christ, gonna make me cum,” he’s whiny. It’s adorable. He purses his pretty puffy lips as he moans for more, more of you. “Such a good girl, shit, ahhhhh,” he gasps as you suck him into your mouth again.

It doesn’t take long, the sensation of your hot mouth and hand jerking him sends him flying and he’s cumming hot stripes down your throat. You feel you’re on cloud nine as you swallow his seed, sucking at the tip until he hisses from overstimulation.

As you pull away, you open your mouth and extend your tongue to show him you dutifully swallowed his cum, and he groans.

“You’re a fucking filthy little thing, aren’t you?”

You nod in reply, and Jimin grips your jaw in his hand, forcing your mouth to stay open.

You jerk in his grasp as he spits into your mouth; the saliva hitting your tongue. You’ve never been more turned on in your life. He releases you, and you swallow again.

“Kinky bitch,” Jimin cooes. “All for me.”

He pulls you up to stand in front of him, pressing his lips to yours again for another burning kiss.

It’s too short for your liking, as Jimin pulls away and manhandles you to sit on the sink. You’re obedient, smiling prettily. Fuck, you can’t believe it’s happening. You just sucked Jimin off, the same Jimin you’ve ogled and anguished over for weeks now.

“Let me see these tits,” he asserts as he tugs up the sports bra from your body. You comply, raising your arms up to allow him to pull it off.

He throws the bra to the floor and cups your breasts.

“Fuck,” he breathes as his thumbs rub across your nipples. You shiver from the cold air and the heat of his thumbs. “I jerked off thinking about these tits after spin.”

He lowers himself to lick at a nipple and you’re whining for more.

“Thought about pushing them together and fucking them like a pussy.” He bites down on your nub, causing you to squeal and jump. He soothes the flesh with a suck from his lips and languid circling of his tongue.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He smirks, eyes boring into yours as he roves your nipple with his delicious tongue “My kinky little whore wants her yoga instructor to fuck her pretty tits.”

You’re thriving, his words making your cunt ache. It’s dripping wet. You’re sure it’s leaking through the fabric of your leggings by now. Jimin being just as rough and filthy as your fantasies has you reeling.

“Yes,” you whine. “I want you to fuck your cock in my tits.”

Jimin hums around your nipple before switching to the other, ravaging it with the same attention as its twin received.

“God, you’re a fucking whore,” he whispers as he bites at your nipple hard enough to make you jerk in his grasp. “I love it.”

Your hips are moving against his body, desperate for friction where you need it most. It’s not lost on Jimin and he pulls off your tits with a pop. He marvels at his work. Your nipples are suckled fresh and red, perking and pebbling in the cold air.

“Mmm, does princess want some attention here?” He asks as he slides a hand down to grip your aching quim.

You gasp in response, shuddering at the feel of his palm against your core.

“P-please! Pretty please!” You beg.

He kisses at your breasts again, before he tugs your shoes and socks off, and pulls the leggings down your smooth legs and throws them to join the matching bra on the floor. He’s pleased when he notes you aren’t wearing panties.

You don’t care how you look, wanton and desperate. You spread your thighs wide, feet resting on the edge of the sink. Jimin gazes at you like you’re fine art, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

“Look at you,” he adores. “Spread out for me like a slut. And you’re dripping wet too, mmm.” He rubs a finger up and down your silky thigh.

“You’re such a good girl, aren’t you?” He grips your chin with one hand while the other continues rubbing at your inner thigh. “A good little bitch for me.”

You nod and gasp as his fingers skim impossibly close to your cunt.

“Do you deserve it, princess? After you were so mean to me earlier?”

You pout and shiver. “I’m sorry!” You gasp as his finger hovered over your pussy. “I’m s-sorry! I was j-just upset! I didn’t meaaaaaaan it!” His finger dips and taps at your clit, feather light, and you’re crying at the feeling.

Jimin shushes you, finger still impossibly light on your clit. “Hush, baby. I forgive you. You sucked my cock so well, made me cum so hard.”

The finger increases pressure slightly and you’re aching, trembling for more.

“Good little sluts get rewarded, hm? I think you’ve earned yours, princess.”

You’re not given an opportunity to reply as Jimin harshly thrusts two fingers into your cunt and fucks you furiously. Your moan is impossibly loud, loud enough you’re sure the rest of the gym can hear you but all you can focus on is Jimin, Jimin, Jimin and his thick fucking fingers thrusting into you.

He lowers down and licks at your clit, flicking it up and down. He watches as your body trembles, wails echoing off the tile walls.

“Mmm, my pretty little princess, so fucking wet for me.” He emphasizes with a kiss to your clit, before he sucks it into his lips. The tugging makes stars shine in your vision, nearly blacking out from how good it feels.

Jimin can feel that you are close, and as much as he wants to get you off with his fingers, he wants you to cum on his cock more. He pulls away from you, and you’re whining at the loss.

“Hush, princess,” he sighs. “Be good, no whining.”

You quiet immediately but still feel a throb in your core. He delivers a harsh slap to your cunt, surprising you and making you yelp. Jimin grins and kisses your lips.

“Stand up and turn around and face the mirror, doll.”

You move to comply, hop off the counter to turn and press your back against Jimin. You can see yourself in the gym mirror now. You look fucked out completely. Your tits are blooming red where he suckled at your nipples, eyes hooded and blown wide with lust.

Jimin’s lips tickle at your ear and he whispers, “This is what I imagined during spin class. Seeing you so fucked out and wet for me. These pretty tits marked by me,” he cups one, and pinches at the nipple. “My sweet little princess.”

His hand moves up to your throat, giving it a solid squeeze, and you shut your eyes. Euphoria. Pure bliss.

“That’s right, baby,” he kisses the shell of your ear. “All mine. Such a slut for me.”

You’re nodding, eyes still closed, as he removes his hand and pressed your head down towards the sink. You wiggle your ass and rub against his length, giggling at the feel.

“I want you to watch yourself get fucked by me. You’re gonna watch me ruin this tiny little cunt,” he grunts. “You’re going to watch what I fantasized about in every fucking class I saw you in.”

You realize you’re moaning loudly, the sound spilling out of your lips subconsciously as the head of his dick rubs your pussy lips. He hisses at the wetness, loving the way it slicks up his cock with ease.

“Eyes open, my love,” he orders gently when he notices you’ve closed them. They snap open and your gaze falls on him in the mirror. He looks so fucking good, so hot and feral. His muscles glisten in the light, a sheen of sweat from his workout and from the heat of your bodies pressing together.

He winks at you, the same one he gave you that fucking blasted day at spin, and then pushes into your tight heat in one go.

“Oh, fuck, Jimin!” you’re gasping as your walls stretch to accommodate him.

He grits his teeth for a moment, savoring the feel of your silken walls. “Told you we needed to stretch you out, need to get you nice and loose.”

You shiver as he remains still inside of you, but he’s quickly pulling out of you to impale you again. The sound of flesh slapping on flesh fills the room and you can hear the wetness of your cunt around him.

“Shit,” he moans. “You’re so fucking tight, unghhhh. Gonna ruin this little pussy, baby. Gonna make you never want another cock in you except mine.”

You believe him. You’re sure after this you’ll never even notice another man. Jimin has you wrapped around his finger, he has since the first day you met at spin.

“All yours,” you squeak through the thrusts, watching your tits jiggle. He notices your stare and roughly grabs at one, squeezing it until you reward him with a loud groan and the tightening of your cunt.

“That’s right. You’re mine. Ahhhh, wanna make you my girl, baby. Gonna fuck this little hole every night. You’d like that, huh?” You nod in reply, and he slaps your ass with his free hand. “Use your filthy words, bitch.”

You gasp at the sharp sting and splitter a response. “P-please! I want you! Only want you inside me.” You’re half coherent to the words you’re speaking, his dick is literally fucking you stupid.

He grins in reply, swatting your ass again. The pain sends a tingle straight to your clit and you squeeze his cock inside you, causing him to groan out loud.

“God, you’re so perfect. So fucking perfect for me,” he babbles. “Gonna fuck you in the spin studio. And at yoga. Gonna fuck you in barre while everyone watches.”

The high you’re feeling is unparalleled. You’re sure you’ve felt nothing quite like this, never been fucked so good in your lifetime. Jimin knows how to work you up, both emotionally and physically, and brings out the beast in you.

You can feel your release building, already so close from his incessant fingering and tonguing of your clit.

“J-Jimin!” You’re heaving his name, harsh pants signaling your oncoming climax. “S-so close!”

He becomes rabid, fucking into you at a pace you’re sure isn’t human. He angles his dick to hit right at your spongy wall, thrusting into your g-spot with ease, as if he knows your body inside and out.

“Yeah, cum for me, whore. Cum on my cock.”

It feels heady, feeling him thrust inside you and murmur such filth to you. He wants you and only you. The notion is as orgasmic as his cock itself. The tightness in your core builds, builds, leaning on the precipice of euphoria.

“Cum for me, baby, come on. Mark me as yours.”

His possessive tone is the last thing you hear before the waves of orgasm pound over you like a typhoon. Your cunt clenches and flutters hard around his dick and he’s moaning your name. You feel how tight you are, his cock stilling inside you as he reaches his own high.

“Oh, shit! Shit shit shit!” he gasps. “Gonna be full of my cum, baby! You’re mine!”

Hot ropes of cum coat your core, and you’re relishing in the feeling.

“My god,” Jimin sighs. He lets his softening cock remain inside you as he presses a kiss to your back.

“Is it too early to say I love you?” He jokes. Your heart flutters as you wiggle your ass.

“No, but take me to dinner first.”

He slaps at your red ass lightly, right where he spanked it before. His grin lights up the room.

“With pleasure.”

“Hi, welcome to class, I’ll be your instructor today. My name is Jimin. Let’s get started.”

You smile from your seat, front and center, and move your legs in time with the music.

The instructor catches your eye and winks at you.

Spin is even better now, if that’s possible. You spend your time in class with your deliciously sweaty boyfriend, who doesn’t go easy on you. He pushes you, makes you better and faster and stronger. He rewards your first place spots by eating your pussy until you cry.

Life is better. You’ve found your person, the one who will do everything with you, for you. He loves you, completely and fully. You’ve never felt more cherished in your long years of living.

Class ends before you know it, and you linger as the group meanders out to the lobby, leaving Jimin and you alone.

“Hey, princess,” he calls to you as you rub the sweat from your face.

You look up to see a sly smile on his face.

“You should stay back and practice. I think you need it,” he chides, teasingly.

Your heart skips a beat as he closes the door, barring you from exiting the room full of bikes, and approaches you with a leer.

“Oh, yeah?” You place a hand on your hip.

“Yeah, and I think I know just the instructor who can help.”

Jimin pounces on you with a kiss, and your giggles fill the room.

Life is better now, and it will get even more so. Jimin glances back at the podium as you scurry to get your leggings off, his eyes resting on the velvet ring box.

Yeah, it will definitely get better.

#maknaesmutsociety #kwritersworldnet #bangtanarmynet #btswritersnet #heartsforbts #bts smut #bts fluff #bts jimin #bts park jimin #bts fic #bts fanfic #jimin smut

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quietepics · 3 years

Text

♡ · 　INTRO.　 * . IV / ?.

oh lawd she comin. hi gang ! i’d like to introduce my new kiddo , layla blanco . she’s a granddaughter of tyche and eris , and she’s a bit chaotic but in a different way from theo . i’d say her chaos is calculated heheh . also this is a very quick and short intro but i just wanna get it out and done with bc im gonna be busy tomorrow rip anyway , hope you enjoy !

THE BASICS

name: layla cornelia blanco nickname(s): lay , lays . somebody pls call her lucky charm she’ll be so annoyed . birthday: april 13th, 1996 ethnicity: white latina ( argentine - british ) birthplace: california , usa gender identity: cis female sexuality: pansexual / panromantic powers: disruption ( eris ) / probability manipulation ( tyche ) mixtape: she’s my colllar ( slowed ) / gorillaz , people i don’t like / upsahl , daisy / ashnikko , walk you home / sir chloe , talk show host / radiohead character inspiration: nanno ( girl from nowhere ) , beth harmon ( the queen’s gambit ) , layla by derek & the dominos , veronica sawyer ( heathers ) , yumeko jabami ( kakegurui )

THE MUSE

layla’s parents met in nemean lion years before her birth ; a daughter of tyche and a son of eris , the two fell in love during their time at nl and though it’s been long since their last visit , the campus has been a second home to layla ever since she was little --- for safety reasons , of course .

from a very young age , layla knew that she was special . her parents made a conscious effort to make sure the girl never lost sight of who she was and what she could do , and to always use her abilities for good . her father was particularly cautious of that , seeing as his daughter had the same capabilities for discord as he did , and knowing how much trouble he caused during his first few years at nl . because of that , layla has never felt out of control when it came to her abilities ; in fact , it was quite the opposite .

while her father’s side of the family was a bit more troublesome , her mother’s side was incredibly fun ! ever since she was a child , layla found herself interested in everything that had to do with luck , probability and chance , which eventually led to her fascination with one subject in particular: gambling .

around the age of twelve , she began gambling around nl . at first , the bets were little and simple: a pack of gum , a snack from just dough it or a meal at jake’s diner , things of the sort . at worst , she’d use her disruption power to make the loser unable to control their gifts for hours , which might have led to a little trouble a few times . however , as layla got older , the bets started becoming a little more extreme , often including large quantities of money . naturally , people lost interest in the games , especially since they were going against a granddaughter of tyche , and layla decided it was time for a change --- so she left nl for a while .

during her time away from campus , layla made money . a lot of money . poker and any other form of gambling had quickly become her favorite pastime , mainly because of the thrill of betting and risking it all , except she never lost to anyone . not because she used her powers to win , as the mere thought of rigging the games angered and disgusted her , but because it simply never happened . it could be frustrating at times , especially after people in the business started digging up information of her .

years after making a name for herself in casinos around the world and in the public poker scene , people started learning more and more about layla , who’d kept her godly heritage a secret until now . eventually , information leaked about the girl and on how one of her grandmothers was the goddess of fortune , which resulted in people calling layla a scammer , removing all sponsorships and opening multiple lawsuits against the girl ( which didn’t end up terribly for her , but that didn’t help fix her reputation either ) .

half a year ago , after her little scandal and as means of keeping herself out of trouble , layla returned to nl for the first time in a long while . she’s been keeping herself busy by working in the business department , striking big deals that bring in money and “playing” with the stock market . she swears she’s never cheated or rigged any game in her life , but until someone or something is able to prove her innocence , you won’t be finding her gambling anytime soon --- at least not in the public eye .

MISC.

she is so , so smart . above average IQ , definitely one of the best students in nl history besides the athena kids lmao . oh , and she definitely loves to remind people of just how smart she is . kind of a snob tbh .

knows a lot and has dirt on lots of people . she’s literally one of those people who just ends up eavesdropping on accident and then laughs about it .

s t o n kS.

she can play any card game , and most classics like chess , checkers , even eastern ones like shogi or majong . on the other hand , she hates most “modern games”, except for monopoly and clue / cluedo.

she legit never rigged any of her games , not even when she was tired and bored from winning so much . in fact , there was a time she purposefully indebted herself so that the games would become more exciting --- after all , she needed money .

kind of a hard person to befriend ? she won’t approach you unless you’re doing something she judges weird or a waste of time , but she will engage into conversation if you seem “smart enough” . again , she’s a bit of a snob .

kinda self destructive but shhh lets not go there just yet

will prank people by messing with their powers without them knowing . homegirl’s been bored okay this is how she keeps herself entertained besides stonks .

GIVE ME ALL THE PLOTS ! i’d like for her to have an actual friend who cares about her well being and wants her to get her shit together ( and she obvious cares about them in return ), someone she simply Does Not Give a Fuff about and has no problem saying it, an ex lover / ex fling ( could be super interesting considering she was gone for a bit ig ) , some sort of frenemy , some “ healthy competition “ of sorts , anything and everything !

#nlintro

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zhuhongs · 3 years

Text

なんか私の想いが溢れ出した. i went out with some friends last night and every time i go out i always realize just how bad i am at communicating and how bad I am with people. (long meandering post under the cut. feel free to ignore its unfocused and long.. like 2k words under there)

I’ve mentioned this before but I don’t really talk much irl. I don’t talk, I can’t connect properly. Every time I’m out with people I just feel fundamentally, like… different. So a group of my irls friends plus me were going to the movie theatre and I personally really hate movie theatres. I knew we were going to one and prepared myself thinking “oh it’ll be fine bc you'll be with friends, just enjoy their company '' But god I really hate movie theaters. It’s been so long, i forgot how much I really really hated them. They’re so loud and bright. I’d much rather watch a movie at home but tbh I also just don’t like movies bc I can’t sit through them and I can’t focus and I don’t get invested easily and I need to be doing something with my hands at all times. To make matters worse, my friend's friend that I really don’t like came along. I just, I don’t like her. She’s just too loud and attention seeking and childish. Like she says things for a reaction, like rlly not okay things sometimes and I just can’t stand her. like we went to see godzilla vs king kong and then entire movie she kept YELLING "IF THEY DONT KISS I WANT MY MONEY BACK" and i was like... you are 21 yrs old oh my god.. this isnt ur tumblr blog in middle school. shut up. But here’s the thing, I don’t know how to tell her or anyone that. Like I just can’t figure out a good way to say it, so I put up with it. Things like this just make me feel incredibly annoyed. I always talk on here about how if I have an issue with anyone, I’ll just say it like an adult. But in face to face situations I just don’t know how to say things. Well I do know how to say it - it’d be easy. I just hate having to do it. Like I don't have to say the whole thing about how I don’t like her but when she says like “simp” when she’s nonblack I could just be like. “Hey don’t say that, here’s why” and I’m sure she’d stop. Yet I can’t bring myself to have that one moment of discomfort to tell her to stop yelling in my ear or stop saying things that make me annoyed. I feel useless in a way. ちゃんとできない。ちゃんと伝えない。During the entire movie I was thinking to myself that I’d rather be home watching a drama by myself and doing hw. I also hate going out for other reasons. I hate being seen. I hate my appearance. I know I don’t have to be pretty, I only need to exist for me. Like wow, I just have so many body image issues, and they all manifest heavily as soon as I go out in public.

But afterwards I changed my mind a bit. There was a moment where we were outside running around in the street and it reminded me of that one scene in AIB episode one with Chota, Karube, and Arisu in the street and I was rlly like… wow… maybe human connection really is good. It doesn’t matter if I’m pretty or good at talking, sometimes, to laugh and be silly wth others is all you need to make your night. Just one moment, just one person really is all it takes. We all went out for dinner afterwards and it was really really fun. I enjoyed it, there really is something about eating with someone that brings you closer to them.

The entire time though, I didn’t talk much. I don’t really know when to cut in in a conversation to a point where it feels right. I feel like by saying my piece I’m interrupting others just to say something that wasn’t really of any use. Really, I prefer silence with others. I’m bad at talking in social situations but I’m great at talking in classes and at work because of the context. Because I’m expected to engage there. The pretense is different. Like you’re supposed to contribute in those places. It’s acceptable to talk there. But for me, it doesn’t really feel acceptable to just share about myself like that in a social group setting. I wish I could always communicate like how I am doing here. It’s so much nicer online. I get to post my full complete thoughts without bothering any of you. My words can easily be disregarded and just flipped through. It’s passive. Posting is passive, talking is active. And sometimes, people don't really want to talk to others, they just want to say their piece. Like when talking about their problems, often we just want to say it and the act of saying those words is all we need. We don’t want input, it annoys us. I don’t like to cut in, and I can never find the right words to say. Even right now, none of this feels like it’s coming out correctly. None of my words feel like they’re coming out correctly nowadays, but this is the only way I know how to be. If I can’t post my thoughts on here, even if they come out crooked and ugly, I may never speak again. I have to keep talking, and typing, and trying otherwise I’ll never get any better. And I know it’s okay to do things wrong, but still, I can’t let myself do that. Again, I do fine when I’m at work and school. I’m functional, normal, you would never be able to tell how much is going on in my head. But in private, I may never speak again if I wasn’t spoken to.

When I was younger, around 12 or 13, I remember something a friend posted on my first online community. They posted, quite honestly, that they never wanted to meet anyone on there irl. No matter how close we are, it would never be the same IRL. I didn’t get that sentiment at the time. To me, why wouldn’t you want to see your friends everyday in person? That would be great. But I think I get it now. I’m afraid that if I ever met any of you someday it wouldn’t be the same. I’m not really the same in person. I’m bad at talking, bad at connecting. I’m not a proper person. But I feel like that’s okay. It’s okay to just exist on here as I am. While my friend was talking to me on our drive back to her place (we carpooled) she was telling me about her life. And she was apologizing like “oh I’m sorry I keep talking about myself” but quite honestly I was glad to just be able to listen. At some point my friend kept asking me what was up so I decided maybe I’ll tell them the arcane secrets of how I’ve been into guardian and how all the characters rlly hit for me for personal reasons. That was really the only thing I thought that was of note to tell her about. Really I don’t think I’ve done or felt much new since I last talked to her. But as I was trying to explain I just wasn’t doing it right. She just didn’t get it and trying to talk about something like that just made me embarrassed to the point where I just dropped it and tried to just say, “oh yea, you got it, that’s it.” and move along bc I didn’t think she’d get it. She’s the type that doesn’t really get how you can make meaningful connections online. So whenever I try to talk to her about certain things, it just doesn’t register. I’ve learned to choose my battles. I didn’t really think she wanted to get it. So I didn’t tell her. I tried telling her about stuff I liked in the past and I just always stop halfway through. I can’t communicate properly. I can’t speak in a way that I think is worthy of being heard. So I don’t talk. It frustrates me to no end. It feels like everyone else can do it so easily, that I’m the wrong one.

I had another friend from Uni message me about something and she was like “so what’s new with you, twin” (we have similar bdays and get along well so we call each other that) and tbh I just, didn’t know what to tell her. I had talked to her in a long time, so things had happened but nothing so easily said that I could just tell her over text. SO I just was like “work, school, yk how it is” and yea. I really am the one choosing not to let people in. It frustrates me to no end but I don’t know what a good starting point is ever. I feel like I should just send all my IRLS my long reflection essays next time they wanna know what's up. All the secrets to why I am the way I am are in there.

I’m scared of telling people how I feel about anything. IRL when I say something I often speak quietly, moreso like I’m only talking to myself. People often don’t hear what I had to say. And I don’t repeat myself. If it was something someone didn’t hear, in my head, that means that it wasn’t important enough to repeat. I’m afraid of talking and being misunderstood and never being able to be interpreted the way I mean. I want to convey all my thoughts correctly the first time. So i don’t repeat myself, not bc I’m mad at the person who didn’t hear me. It’s not about them, it’s about me. I don’t believe my words to be worth repeating. I don’t want anyone to stop the conversation for me. Just keep going, it won’t come out the right way anyways. I was taking a uquiz a week or so ago and one question was “what power do you want” and one option was smth like the power of comprehension. Which would make it so every time you spoke, that person would understand you the way you intended. That is the most ideal power for me to ever possess like it was unreal. I’m still thinking about that quiz. It was good.

I know that I’m worth being listened to and that my words are valuable enough to be heard but I don’t want to do that. I’d rather listen. I only like talking when it’s safe like it is here. I’m trying my best to get better though. I keep saying that I want to be a proper adult. I want to live right and without regrets and i really think communication is key to that. I’m trying. It’s hard but I’m trying. But still, I can only talk here a lot. I can’t talk any other way. I don’t tell my friends about my interests, it embarasses me to no end.

Being on here is comforting though. When I talk about stuff like this, I always see a lot more people than usual like my post. I feel like you can all relate. Really, people are more similar than not. We all have very similar burdens and pains and baggage. It’s comforting, I'm not alone. My words might be able to help someone. Because when all of you talk about the same things, i also feel seen and comforted and since we are so similar, then the same is true for the things I say.

But anyways, I did a lot of listening tonight, and it reflects the sentiment above. People are the same. I was listening to my friend’s friend talking about her mom earlier and the entire time, I really resonated with what she was saying. I got it. Her mom’s situation was really similar to my own mom’s situation in the past. And I was just amazed at how I barely knew this girl but I felt really similar to her. I saw her differently after learning all that. It was really a great thing. ANd on the way home, my friend was telling me about her life recently and some things andi really understand what she was going through. I didn’t say anything, because again, I don't like to interrupt. And when I try and be like ‘oh me too, it's the same for me too” I feel like I’m derailing. I know I’m not but I really think she needed to say her piece. So I let her. But the entire time, I thought about the things in my life that were the same as what she was feeling and it was beautiful. Life and human bonds are beautiful. Even when they are hard and messy and annoying, people all want the same things. They want to be loved and seen and understood. And in those moments when we feel seen, it’s worth more than any of those complicated feelings that come along with it. Not to be cheesy but wow… in order to reap the rewards of being loved, you really do need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. I was glad I didn’t stay home watching a drama. I was glad that I went out. No matter how alienated I feel from others, there’s still merit in being around other people. No matter how much others may misunderstand you and annoy you, they are almost always worth more than being alone. That;s because deep down, we’re all the same.

I’m not good at reminding myself that. As I said here, I don’t let people see me. I don’t let people in, I’d rather keep them out. I’m a picky, boring person. I don’t like people easily and I don’t tell them much. I stay inside my own head and I don’t like to come out. I was raised that way. But people are worth it. Communication is worth it, no matter how hard. It’s all worth it. I need to try harder so I can be a person who is able to see and enjoy more beauty in this world. I spent my hr long drive home listening to music and ruminating on these thoughts, trying to plan out all the words I wanted to say here. I don’t think I said any of it right. I’m not satisfied with how I write nowadays. But writing, talking, conveying emotions, all of these things are worth doing. So no matter how crooked and awkward it comes out, I will keep doing it. It is my goal.

#🐌.txt #i wrote this last night bc i had a lot of thoughts driving home and the entire time i was out but they didnt translate well to type #i tried fixing it this morning and its still just off and im sock at reading it so into the void it goes #honestly i could make a playlist to describe my emotiona better at this point but ill never listen to those songs again.. ita just the like #uesterdays vibe #anyways good morning tho.. im gonna make a cup of coffee and take a shower now #i love u all im glad ur here

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tiffgeorgina · 4 years

Note

what did you think of the new episode???

OH LORD i had a lotttt of thoughts on this episode, understandably. CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSIONS OF SUICIDE AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS POST (it’s a long paragraph). also obviously spoiler warning for 2x08.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

please reach out to somebody if you’re feeling distressed after this episode, or if you or a loved one is considering self harm or suicide. im always here if you need somebody to vent or talk to. i love you all and i would be devastated if anything happened to any of you.

anyways, episode discussion below:

-first of all, the corgina scene at the very beginning was PRICELESS. tiff and corkie had it DOWN until tiff lost her cool. i was DYING. casey wilson invented the word “fuck.”

-marcus/dawn and connie/mo double date. this whole scene had me CACKLING. marcus being such a comrade was not at all what i expected. the three-on-one connie smackdown i could not BREATHE. also includes classic moments such as “we’re doing black shit right now keith” and regina stealing every scene she’s in. also WOMEN xosha roquemore (connie) in dark lipstick is the best part of s2 prove me wrong

-also kind of out of order but dawn calling mo her best friend did not sit right... like in my soul. it’s like inherently wrong. so STRANGE to hear her say that.

-but connie sucks at being subtle lmfao dawn was not having any of that

-“i can’t vote. im a felon” just out of nowhere GOD. and the fact that that’s the first time dawn’s learning that mo went to prison is fucked up. i’ve never seen a woman want a man to shut up so badly, and i’ve never been so glad that said man did not shut up lmfao

-tiff and blair’s apartment looks so good yes god!! also this season keeps referencing blair’s parents and it’s kind of putting me on edge. especially since next episode is “blair [being] forced to revisit his past.” on another note, andrew’s voice in this scene is SO FUNNY. you can tell he’s a voice actor i think

-also like we knew blair was into older men but now we like know lmfao. the richard gere jokes had LAYERS these writers outsold

-ok blair&tiff’s relationship... yikes. i cannot tell what the writers want their relationship to be. are they unhealthy and toxic and bad to each other? or are they platonic soulmates and life partners? make up your MIND, showtime.

-DON’T INFANTILIZE THE CUP BYE KJDFHGDFKJ

-first blarris scene was TENSE. acting good

-the confirmation that roger has kids... i mean i suspected it from the moment tuc’s character was announced in september but it makes the ending so much more painful. i KNOW that’s the only reason why they pushed the fact that the harrises are parents in this episode, bc it was never confirmed earlier.

-i hate how funny michael hitchcock is. im trying to hate newell but im laughing. why are his lines so funny who wrote this.

-the sound design in this episode was a lot to take in. the music was intense asf and it stays intense throughout the whole ep

-keith cracking onto blair and trying to reconcile with him bc he’s feeling empathetic but blair shutting him down... can’t say keith doesn’t deserve it but i would’ve loved to have seen keith and blair just talk about being closeted and having affairs and shit.

-THE TRUMP CHILDREN LMFAOOOO they all look so smug the casting was great this ep

-mo shit talking connie TO HER FACE bc he knows connie can’t give up the act... fucking priceless i love to see it acab

-dawnroe physical contact hhhhh can you tell im rewatching this ep as i type this

-the wording on the “you’re with the FBI?” line is so perfect. bc it makes it totally sound like dawn’s onto mo and connie when really she’s just like “you’re siding with the FBI bitch?” highkey genius line

-posted this too early by accident oops. im still editing im not done yet lmfao

-MARCUS MO AND DAWN SAID ACAB FUCK YES

-ROGER GRABBING BLAIR’S HAND I AM ASCENDING. i knew about the hand holding scene there but i didn’t think roger would initiate it <3

-roger nearly kissing blair :’/

-LORD the trump children are little shits god

-daddy says it makes me look hot. you mean cute? ...no.

-oh GOD not this blarris scene. i like to believe that a gay person generally wouldn’t threaten to out another gay person on principle, but blair has shown how shitty of a person he's become all season. i hate it and it’s still ooc but i’ve seen worse on this show tbh.

-roger’s got a point, if he supports his campaign fund manager right off the bat, he’ll look like a total fraud and his career will be over. the fact that blair barely gives a shit really speaks to what his character has become. “fuck them” what a classic line

-ANDREW’S ACTING!!! his voice when he says “you use me” ugh i felt that in my chest. plus roger looking away after he says that... i mean god this cast is so talented

-blair snapping god. he’s got a point, he and roger have been dysfunctional asf all season. doesn’t justify threatening to out somebody AT ALL but finally hearing some emotion out of blair, a little bit of anger and frustration, it’s refreshing.

-does “who are you, blair?” count as a parallel to “who are you, pfaff?” from 1x01?

-blair outing roger to newell... yikes. again ooc and bad. blair’s a shitty guy but we’ve seen him have empathy before, even in s2. why would they make him do this i don’t get it.

-keith finding out about lenny is good. maybe something will finally come of this arc?

-parallel to 2x02 with blair mentioning his mom’s phrase, cool. probably gearing us up for more references to his parents next ep, culminating in a flashback to his childhood in 2x10.

-this scene where the trump kids are destroying everything is classic. you can genuinely tell that everybody there was having so much fun shooting that. idk, it’s nice.

-trump reveal HA what a great end to that scene

-keith coming by and fucking everything up... i mean i guess everybody KNOWS now. dawn/marcus is over (good) and dawn is probably right pissed at mo rn. but hey, fuck em all resurgence!!! ive been waiting for it and now it’s here!

-im scared, what’s connie gonna do? fuck cops

-“that’s a long way to go just to get a dig in” “it was a stretch but-” see what happens when you’re a narc? you lose your wit :/ sad! nice exit line from connie tho

-CW SUICIDE MENTION. ok time to talk about what definitely needs to be talked about. god this has had my chest hurting all day yesterday. i knew blarris would be outed eventually bc sho likes to milk every plot point for every bit of drama they can get out of it, but i did not expect roger to take his life. and blair finding him is just devastating. i said this on twt, but the fact that somebody could be so overwhelmed with internalized homophobia that being outed could cause them to commit suicide is so incredibly and deeply sad to me. i’ve been crying for a while over that fact.

im just. im really sad. i’ve connected so much with these characters over the past two-ish years and this is such a devastating turn of events. i have no words. it isn’t bad writing or ooc by any means, it’s just so extremely and incredibly sad. there are probably thousands of people who have been in roger’s exact position before, and the realism really hits me hard. i can’t put into words how overwhelming sad this makes me.

also pretty upset that this came as a COMPLETE shock to me and all my friends. we all watched on the sho streaming service, which did not have the “viewer discretion advised” card before the ep. the premier did, but the episode on the app did not. i really REALLY wish they had added that before i had seen the episode so i could prepare myself, even if just slightly. also wish they had added a suicide hotline number at the end.

seeing blair grieve his loss is going to hurt but it’s probably going to give us closure too. i think about this show all the time, and now thinking about it makes me so overwhelmingly sad. i sound dramatic but this show has been with me for so long. not being able to see much of blair’s reaction beside the initial shock has been haunting me. im so scared for what the future episodes are going to bring.

thank you for reading, i love you all <3

#suicide ment //#suicide #black monday #shoblackmonday #andrew rannells #slander #meta analysis #open mic night #anonymous

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unohanadaydreams · 4 years

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Can I have headcanons for Jushiro having twin boys with one being healthy and the other inheriting his condition. Would it be clear he favored one over the other? Does he feel guilt over one of his children being bedridden?

Anon, this has been in my drafts for a bit bc it was too sad to finish all at once. What did I ever do to you to deserve this tbh. There was a lot more I could’ve said but uuuuh it was getting super long. Now you all have to suffer through sad Ukitake with me!!

Jushiro Ukitake:

Upon learning that one of his sons has inherited the terminal illness he suffered from, Ukitake attempts to transfer Mimihagi with the help of Captain Kurotsuchi and a reluctant Captain Kotetsu. If it works accordingly, then that’s that; Ukitake sacrifices himself so his son will have a fair chance at life.

He would labor under moon after moon to construct note after note, trying to infuse his love and well wishes and hopes and dreams for his sons (AND siblings) into ink and parchment. There would be people he would entrust countless trinkets and gifts to. And somberly, he would extract promises from some of his fellow captains and underlings that they would look after both his children & siblings, in his name. (Ukitake can’t simply leave behind just ONE god parent)

It would be horrible and tearful and he would cradle his little sons, the children who make his hardships and struggles seem completely worth it, and sob before he had it in him to smile and coo their names. But, he would end his life to keep his twins living with one another and he trusts his twin in spirit, Shunsui, to say things he won’t be present to.

If he CAN’T transfer Mimihagi, he would be heartbroken, but he would do his best to spare his sons his sadness. More than anyone, he knows the weight of a parent’s sadness and frustration constantly choking the air around him, overpowering every success and accomplishment. Ukitake would try to mourn before his sons had the coherency to understand.

There is a guilt and tenderness that he shows his bedridden son that he can’t hide completely, of course. Who knows how long he will live, after all? How can he press his undying love into so few years? How can he give him the experiences he’ll never truly have?

Of course he gives more time to his sick son, who will not live to be an adult. Everyday he lives longer than Ukitake could without Mimihagi is a precious gift. There can’t ever be true fairness when one of his sons can’t run or swim or play the same as his peers, when each morning is held breath and a slow sliding door to learn if his child survived the night.

Ukitake would try to explain the situation as delicately as possible, would try to be as fair as he could, but there is guilt in going where one of his sons can not follow and giving one son what he can not give the other. He isn’t alone, though, even when the weight hunching his shoulders convinces him of the opposite; Shunsui especially is constantly there to help, pulling every shred of responsibility he usually shirks to be there for his dearest friend and little god children. His siblings delight in getting to know their little nephews, so happy that their older brother–who has always, without fail, taken care of them–has children of his own after years of fondly saying “aaah, it’s almost as though you’re my own kids!” to them.

His son, who escaped inheriting his father’s condition, would certainly inherit a sort of bitterness over it as a child. He would throw tantrums related directly to it. He wouldn’t fully understand. Why must he almost always play politely inside when neither he nor his brother want to? Why must family time mostly be in his brother’s room when all his brother wants to do is go outside? Where is his brother going that he can’t follow and why are his parents just letting it happen?

I don’t think his son would last much longer than he did, and would be gone at around 3 to 5 years of age.

He doesn’t lose his cheerfulness, though. He doesn’t become sullen and unmoving, even if, especially right after his son’s death, he struggles to keep his head above water. Even if his attitude wears more like a mask than real feeling.

Ukitake LOVES children. He writes for children in every Seiretei Bulletin, he has always doted on his siblings and the younger members of the divisions. He has always tried his best to approach life from a child-like sense of wonder and determination. Nothing in his life has ever made that untrue. He won’t forget his living son. And he won’t overwhelm the memory of his dead son with sadness and guilt.

What can not be forgotten is that Ukitake would always do his best to make his sons’ lives fun and fulfilling, even when the circumstances are hard, even when he feels like curling into bed and sobbing all day. He spoils and cherishes and is thankful for them–so incredibly thankful for them. It’s beyond belief to lose his son, it’s horrible to know while he lives that it’ll all be over within a few years, but he tries his best to give both his sons–and himself–wonderful memories of the time they all have together.

He would absolutely have both himself and his son (and his partner) in therapy sessions under Captain Kotetsu, because he’s a very emotionally intelligent man and understand that coping with this by himself would not turn out well and isn’t necessary and he wants his son to understand the same.

#jushiro ukitake #ukitake jushiro #bleach #bleach headcanons #bleach imagines #bleach scenarios #uuuuuuh this was big sad especially since while writing this little happy memory ideas popped up and made it hurt WORSE #anon i love this ask but also: BRUH

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advernia · 5 years

Text

push me off a bridge (to catch me as i fall)

a separate post for my ramblings for this fic!! it’s actually the longest thing i’ve written in a while, so i have a lot to ramble about haha;;

prelude

oh man... this started when two of my friends decided to go through edgar’s route at the same time AND also decided to go reacting to every single part of the route through burst texting AT THE SAME TIME, effectively flooding my inbox.... they were fully aware that i was at a seminar and unable to reply... now my inbox is filled with so much edgar screaming i cannot... (゜▽゜;)

screaming aside they were also very willing to read whatever drafts of edgar/mc i had available and this was their favorite!! thanks to them, i decided to finish this omfg... i’m actually so proud that i got this done but tbh it was getting so long that i had half a mind to let go of it already halfway through scene three haha... (;*△*;)

this has uh... some fighting scenes and tbh the first draft had absolutely none of it... this is my first time actually writing long(?) scenes and while i found thinking about them to be fun, putting them into words was some struggle??? like... i've been told that it looks okay but idk it feels clunky to me. oh well ＼| ￣ヘ￣|／

general stuff + war phase, baby!

initially this was only meant to be 3 parts + primarily focused on edgar/mc + with an unnamed mc as usual! but then since it’s an au of kyle’s route, i found myself wanting to flesh out the relationship of edgar & mc when set in a different angle + circumstances rather than just automatically implying attraction...

plus their relationship canonically starts off on the wrong foot in that route & edgar’s fully aware that mc isn’t exactly comfortable around him, so it really doesn’t sit well if i just... put them together, lol. so thus we have five scenes of them getting(?) closer!(???)

in short its a hella slow burn and not gonna lie, when i was writing their scenes i was like f i n a l l y... bless... ಠ ּ͜೦

one of the reasons i like kyle’s route is bc i actually got some feel of an actual war??? idk i think there’s so much plot that u can fill in with it, so i decided going for alternating scenes of the battlefield + med tent. while there's glimpses of the action going on, there’s also the sort of complimenting(???) or offsetting more emotional perspective of what goes on with the medics.

tbh i stared long and hard at the cradle map when formulating some tactics and i gotta say i had a hard time calming myself down bc...

in kyle’s route, the red army has the advantage and have pushed the black army as far back as to their bridge, which means that more or less they’ve occupied central quarter... but what dawned on me was... where the hell did the red army position their encampment from there???

was an encampment even necessary given that they’re like, in a really convenient area????? they probably could’ve settled themselves in some houses but tbh okay maybe it isn’t so noble of the reds to do (imposing themselves n’ stuff) + they have larger numbers so accommodating all of them is a problem but still... where’d they set up camp??? u see, when kyle + mc step out of the med tent it shows the forest bg, so... where??? on the edges of the central quarter area are where u can see them trees??? on the civic center roof?!?!

well... a decent answer is that they could’ve set up several encampments around the area to ensure their hold on the central quarter... it still raises some questions but honestly it makes a lot more sense... but if not and they really decided to camp out like one big happy family all together, then don’t even get me started on the possibility that the camp was stationed somewhere around here:

because doing that doesn’t have a single lick of sense omfg especially tactics-wise haha... that’s like... why would you do that... you’re wasting all your advantages... o h b o y... so you bet when i remembered that mc + loki had to pass by a forest to get back to the encampment + encountered ray & some disciples i was like... u m m... why???? if technically the reds took hold of the whole central quarter area then it actually isn’t necessary to skulk around in the forest?????? yes yes i know safety precautions + avoiding detection but... dood... it’s safer to walk in claimed territory rather than the unstable one ahaha...

plus the thing about the black bridge... uh... it's just said in the route that lancelot handles it through magic and that's all. but when i thought back on it oh my god... what did he do??????? how is he still standing??? how much of his lifespan did he shave off just to salvage that situation??????????? how is the poor boi alive?????????? the whole fucking bridge literally falls apart and that's a whole lot of chaos and people and AHHHHH!?!?!¿¿¿¿ if ur gonna make the bridge collapse (good thing they didn't think of disintegrate) it probably cost the magic tower a hefty amount but get rekt lancelot still saves the fucking day, what a king - he's practically got one foot in the grave already... this dood, seriously ಥ_ಥ

there were other things i noticed in the process of writing this based on the route events but i was like fuck it, let’s think on that another day and leave it as it is (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻ ily kyle but oh no my brain started reprocessing the other details of ur route

thinking about all that also made me think of other more stuff, like cradle economy + livelihood haha;; it’s stated in edgar’s route (well... it’s actually pretty obvious in other routes too) that the reds are richer than the blacks, so i went ahead and assumed that the former engages in something more lucrative like mining -> jewerly / raw material / mineral trade, while for the latter something more wholesome like agriculture. idk, it works. even moreso that the reds give off the whole nobility vibe while the blacks are simple and casual. even the bg screens of the red & black streets are polarizing.

then i also went over the rest of the chosen thirteen... while the reds show no obvious weapon variety (see: swords), i’d like to believe that they’re taught to be versatile enough no matter what the situation. plus, since they have the funding, i'd like to think they're skilled in magic manipulation, too. meanwhile the black army shows weapon variety, and i’d like to think that it’s because most of their recruits aren’t soldiers in the first place: they’re farmhands / hunters / village people turned soldiers, and it’s actually easier to let them go with what they know first before encouraging them or asking them to learn something new. thus axes and spears and possible unconventional stuff like caltrops.

crimson glory

one of the things i realized was in kyle’s route, mc isn’t exactly so buddy-buddy with the red crew in comparison to other routes. she gets minimal interactions with the four, and zero aside her relationships with the top three are rather... tense.

zero was the other red officer i was initially going to add aside from edgar & kyle, but i added all of them anyway. while they don't appear all together, all of them have scenes together with edgar.

the first edgar & jonah scene shows an obvious contrast - while he's being incredibly critical about it, jonah shows actual concern for the living situations in black army territory. on the other hand, edgar chooses to tease him about it, his joking more or less implying that he isn't that concerned / bothered about it at all. the game touches up on this sometimes, often with edgar commenting on how noble jonah is while jonah shows obvious distaste for edgar's callousness.

still, they work well together. personally i'm amused with a hc of mine that looking at how edgar fights / acts only spurs jonah to act more honorably while for edgar, being exposed to jonah's noble-ness more or less makes him curious to try being honorable from time to time lol. that still doesn't stop anyone from calling him the gentle demon tho ( ⚆ _ ⚆ )

tbh since edgar is obviously sneaky on other routes i wouldn't put it past him to casually pressure lancelot to tell him wtf's going on with this war when he gets the inkling that something's wrong. edgar goes about this subtly not-so-subtly and in the most polite manner possible. lancelot knows him far too well to take bait tho - he makes sure to speak carefully since he's probably knows that edgar's going to pick apart at his words for meanings + implications, so it more or less leaves edgar a bit frustrated since it's clear that lancelot won't tell him much. still, edgar knows when not to cross the line - even he's not so keen on getting on lancelot's bad side.

that aside, i'd like to think that edgar respects lancelot a lot as a person + commander enough that he'd truly risk his life for him on instinct like a true soldier would. while i think i could've done more on writing the gravity of the collapsing bridge scene, i liked the last bit where edgar + zero immediately worried for lancelot.

let's be honest here tho in some way or another all of the reds chosen worry about their king bc bruh... let us in bruh...

the scenes of zero & edgar in the end are also my favorite! it isn’t much, but enjoyed writing their relationship briefly. tbh i think edgar is one of those people under the sleep = most vulnerable = death thinking (no thanks to claudius), so the fact that he allows himself to drift to sleep twice in zero's company is a definite sign of trust. then again, he's injured but still ( ᐛ )و

edgar, idike, kyle

y’know even if this is an edgar/mc thing, i found fleshing out the kyle/mc relationship equally important which i presented in scene three. personally speaking, i’d like to think that if ever kyle didn’t fall in love with mc (on his own route???) he’d still be watching over her anyway since her struggle in the medical field + war reminds him a bit of his younger self after his brother's death.

which is why he doesn't intervene with that one soldier scene - he doesn't coddle her either when she goes into a brief shock. perhaps it's bc he knows so well what she's going through, he decides to let her handle it on her own. this was her experience, not his. and to be fair, she asked to go to the front lines determined but wholly unprepared emotionally. he tried warning her, she wouldn’t listen. now she faces the consequences - how would she go about it?

i decided to slap a name into mc this time to highlight the trust plot: idk if i got it clearly across in the fic, but in times of war + for someone who’s been trained to be suspicious / cautious of everyone like edgar; secrets are a surefire way to catch attention + breed distrust.

tbh he's hella aware that the secret around her name is most likely personal and nothing dangerous, but it's better safe than sorry - by making sure she understands that keeping secrets wouldn't be of any good to her + situation, he gets reassurance that she really is harmless. how bad + seriously she takes it honestly surprises him tho, but then again she's been going through other stuff too so it all piled up.

idike isn’t my in-game name, but it’s the given name i spoke of in this ask, haha! initially scene five has her saying her full name (with surname), but i thought it would be more fitting if i didn’t lol ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

i tried to incorporate a mix of the personalities of edgar’s!mc + kyle’s!mc onto idike, tho at first i was only shooting for the latter - i think it kinda works??? while somewhat composed and determined (kyle’s), she still shows some naivete in her (edgar’s), especially concerning the ways of war + how secrecy & trust work in times of war.

i found emphasizing on her emotional struggle important, since it should be a big blow for her who’s never known the terror of war. the game touches upon on it a bit (tho it's post-med tent scenes) and i wanted to expand on it further since there are so many possible angles to go about it.

the i can’t heal you if you’re dead line sounds like something like shiro emiya might say but lol no i just remembered this p3 manga panel (pg 24) - its been years since i read it and i still love that line and i integrated it here... i was trying to expand that one scene for a while but then i just left it as it is.

in the catharsis scene where idike airs out everything, the fact that edgar fails to empathize with her + focuses more on her emotional state rather than offering actual help (advice maybe, but i honestly doubt he’d do that) reflects that he's still looking at her as an interesting creature and not her as a person. part 5 hints that this may be slowly changing, seeing as he called for her all of a sudden.

... idike probably keeps edgar’s glove as a token of friendship or smth haha ooPSSS i forgot to bring that back ahahaha..... ヘ（。□°）ヘ

ooofff i guess that’s all i have??? a big thank you to whoever read both hot messes™ and by that the fic + commentary itself!!! do feel free to hit the inbox for any comments + questions + more brainstorming + general screaming haha! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

#rundown.txt #the last long fic i wrote was a 6k+ fe:if thing #that was 3 years ago whoooaaaa #apparently i went the extra mile for this one omfg

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elsaclack · 5 years

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Hi :) This might sound weird haha but I adore reading you talk about your writing, it's really inspiring and I feel like I learn a lot of things every time I read you talk about it (you know I'm a fan of your style haha). And anyways while I was reading your answer to your last anon, this struck me: "when i was outlining that chapter i think the only line i dedicated to the actual fight itself was “and then they have a crazy knife fight (good luck future me)”" and I wanted to ask you (1/2?)

(2/3?) do you have like any tips for writing a multichapters fic? I guess from what you wrote here you outline the whole thing before you start with it? Or it depends or the story and sometimes you just go with the flow and see where it goes haha? Do you mind sharing some of your writing process of multichapter fics? :3 Bc I tend to get "bored" really easily and if I don't finish something in one sitting I usually never ever finish it. But also I'd like to learn how to take my time sometimes

(3/3) and idk maybe learning how to properly "get ready" to write something long would help haha. I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense at all but yeah in any case just thank you for blessing my nights with your fics and killing me over and over with feels, I'm sure I said it before but you (and all of the amazing writers this fandom is blessed with) are a true inspiration!!!

you are SO sweet to me i die fhflkdsjf

i’m gonna go ahead and throw 100% of my answer under the cut because i haven’t even started yet and i know this is about to be. So Long. i am sorry in advance lmao

there are a couple of different aspects to this ask that i want to touch on so i will be as brief as possible but as i have proven twice over tonight alone, i am really not capable of that lmfao

i’d say first and foremost, the biggest thing you can do to help yourself in this arena is figure out how to best discipline yourself. which SUCKS it’s like the worst most mom answer ever but in all honesty, developing discipline in writing is what separates the “i could write a book” people from the people who actually do write books. everyone is capable of writing, but not everyone has the discipline or patience to do so. long-form narrative requires even MORE discipline than a one-shot (or even a long one-shot) because it’s like you said, it requires the author to come back over and over and over again to write new material and edit existing material and figure out a way to cohesively connect everything they’ve written into one consistent narrative, and some people have a much harder time with that than others do. there’s nothing wrong with that either way!! the world needs short stories just as much as it needs longer stories. but if you’re wanting to work on writing longer-form narratives, working out a way to best discipline yourself should probably be your number-one goal.

that kind of brings me to my next point (and also ties in part of what i was talking about in that other ask) - comparing your writing style, your progress, your everything to other writers will only lead to heartache for you. when i first started reading and writing for b99 i came across a specific author (who is now one of my dear friends) whose fics were just. next-level works of art. and while i read through just about everything she’d written for b99 and LOVED every single one of them, i found myself getting more and more down on my own writing, because i knew i’d never be able to write like her. but the more comfortable and confident i got in my own writing, the more i realized that it’s less about writing more like That Person and more about developing my own style (my favorite comparison to make between my writing and hers now is that hers are like beautiful and intricate fairy tales, and mine are more of a smokey back room at a bar where a guy is sitting alone at a table and he says “come here and listen to this story.” they’re both Very Different, and perhaps have varying audiences, but one is not inherently Better Or Worse than the other). all of this to say, if you’re working as hard as you can and being really disciplined but still find yourself struggling with writing a multichap, THAT’S OKAY!!! there’s NOTHING wrong with that!!! your writing, however short or long, serves an INCREDIBLY important purpose within the fandom as a whole and no matter what, there will ALWAYS be an audience for your writing.

so okay as for the actual Advice!!! i actually have a couple of steps that i usually follow prior to actually Writing the first chapter of any long fic i’ve written (or am in the process of writing...@king and lionheart yikes). i have yet to really find any consistency in how i think of ideas for multichaps - so far the idea every multichap i’ve written has come from a different source (which is actually kind of Frustrating for reasons i won’t get into). but basically once i actually have An Idea, i’ll take a day or two to kind of think it over and flesh it out as much as possible. if it really starts expanding in detail and an actual Story constructs itself around the idea, i’ll move on to the next step, which is to find a few trusted mutuals here on tungle.corn and say “heyyYYY CAN I YELL ABOUT AN IDEA I HAVE FOR A SECOND” and then spill everything i’ve thought of so far. usually i can tell if an idea will live or die based on these conversations - if the other person is Into It and we start sort of developing the world within the chat, i know it’s time to really sit down and make an effort to pursue the fic. in that case, i will go and copy&paste that part of our chat into a google doc and i’ll build an outline in a separate doc. i used to despise outlines and i would refuse to do them in high school, but once i got into writing as a hobby and i started pursuing longer narrative forms, i tried once or twice to write a multichap without an outline and i just forgot a lot of the details i originally wanted to include, which left me feeling really frustrated with myself and with my writing. i came to realize that outlines kind of a necessary evil, so in writing them i made them as fun for me as possible (i.e. the “good luck future me” line from the king and lionheart outline i mentioned lmao). now i love them and i have them open at all times while i’m working on writing a new chapter.

so i know that i started this off by saying that writing multichaps requires a special kind of discipline, and i stand by that, but also...writer’s block and real life responsibility and just plain exhaustion are all Very Real Things, and they take precedent over keeping up with a publishing schedule (if you’re so inclined to make one of those for yourself). when i started writing king and lionheart, i didn’t know at that point that i would be headed back to school in the spring, and thought that i would have all the time in the world to write. right around november, i realized that i would be going back to school - that’s about the time i took an unofficial hiatus from writing king and lionheart, because i knew trying to keep up with writing that fic the way that i want it to be written and all of the intensive and demanding coursework was going to kill me. taking a step back from posting and coming back to it later is okay. i know i talk a lot about feeling guilty for not having an update for king and lionheart (and the cancer au before it) but in all honesty i know that it’s okay for me to take some time and deal with my real life. and, you know, it’s also okay to lose inspiration for a while and to take a step back until that inspiration comes back. i think it’s that fear of not being able to take longer breaks between updates that scares a lot of people off from even trying to write a multichap - as the queen of procrastination, i am here to tell you that it is 100% okay to start a multichap and to take a break and come back to it when necessary!

writing a multichap is very much like running a marathon - it requires a different kind of energy than a 400 meter sprint or a 1k fluffy oneshot. it’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna suck and there are gonna be times when you’re ready to just quit writing altogether. but there will be parts that are really fun and really easy and you’re gonna get some really great views along the way - and at the end when you cross that finish line and you’re able to check that “complete” box on ao3 before you post the last chapter, you won’t remember the parts that sucked. trust me!! i wouldn’t write as many as i do if the actual shitty parts of the writing process negated the good things that come from writing it and sharing it with other people!

it’s also worth noting that just because you get bored with an idea doesn’t mean that you can’t pick it up again later!!! honestly the first 2 or 3 paragraphs of on your heart like a tattoo sat in my google docs for MONTHS before i randomly decided one day to open it and take a crack at finishing it, and to this DAY i’m still getting people regularly commenting on it. every idea has its purpose and its place, even if it doesn’t always immediately seem like it.

i really hope this helps and i’m sorry if it doesn’t!!! you are such a kind and wonderful person and i absolutely adore you

#em answers #nice people #guys i adore adele #seriously #writing advice #b99peraltiago

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madam-lit-nerd · 6 years

Text

OK BUUUUUUUT I don’t have enough high school Destiel in my life lately, so here...HAVE SOME HIGH SCHOOL DESTIEL!

So Dean transfers to Central High School at the start of his junior year, brand new and handsome with the sharp jawline and bright green eyes, and oh-so-mysterious with those brooding stares and leather jacket.

Cas, on the other hand, has been in the county’s school system since pre-school—same classes with the same kids for so many years. There’s nothing mysterious in the least about his wide gummy smiles and bulky sweater vests, always paired with askew glasses and perpetual bed head. Which, on some people would be sloppy, but on him, it’s all kind of...adorable.

Right off the bat, Dean’s earning quite a bit of attention from guys and girls alike, all staring at him with desire or glaring with jealousy. There are, of course, a few people who immediately try to ingratiate themselves to him, but he‘s met these kinds before—they always try to wiggle their way in, bathe in that new-kid spotlight with their too-bright smiles and too-loud voices.

And yet, between all the first-day, back-to-school outfits and makeup and hairstyles, all the flirtatious smiles and overt greetings...there’s one person who stands out to oh-so-cool, mysterious Dean Winchester: the disheveled kid with the gummy smile who grins at him from three lockers away and quickly tosses out, “I’m Cas. Lemme know if you need anything!” before rushing off to his next class.

A friendly interaction that’s not too overbearing is exactly what Dean needs, and he finds himself glancing over at that locker throughout the day, hoping for another moment. Turns out that, even though he never quite catches Cas at his locker, he does see him when he walks into the last class of the day (physics).

Cas already has several other students around him, laughing and joking as they discuss their summers, but as soon as Cas sees Dean, he pats the desk behind him in invitation. Dean smiles gratefully as he settles his long frame into the small desk, surprised yet grateful for the unexpected show of friendship.

They fall into conversation easily, almost as if they’ve been friends for years. But as Dean watches Cas interact with the other students who walk into the room, he realizes that this is just who Cas is, how he actswith pretty much everyone. He’s awkward and dorky, sure, but endearingly so.

Dean finds himself admitting that he’s kind of into music and maybe it’d be fun to be involved in a band of some kind. Cas smiles widely and tells him about Chuck and his band that meet in Practice Room C almost every day after school.

“They’re no Zep,” he admits with a little chuckle, “but they’re the only band we have here at Central.”

Dean blushes and says that he’ll check them out, earning another blinding smile from Cas.

After the final bell of the day, Cas walks with Dean back to their locker block, still as easy and engaging as ever. Dean can’t help but marvel at how many people pause to bid Cas goodbye, everyone from freshmen to seniors, top-rung athletes to low-rung nerds. And Cas is just as friendly and open with each and every one of them.

Once they’ve gathered their books, Cas points Dean in the direction of the practice rooms before heading off to his own Monday-afternoon club (something about recycling, from what Dean catches). Dean does find the practice rooms and the aforementioned Chuck, along with his fellow band members Gabriel and Cain and Crowley. He hears them before he sees them, and he’s surprised at how good they are.

He doesn’t know what to expect when he knocks on the door—in fact he’s pretty surprised that he actually works up the nerve to do so—but Chuck’s already heard from Cas, and immediately invites Dean to sing along with them for the afternoon. By the end of the rehearsal, they’re blending like they’ve been doing this for years, and Dean’s got himself a vocal spot with Aborted Apocalypse.

When Dean spots Cas in the hallway the next morning, disheveled and adorable in yet another bulky sweater, he tries to thank him, but Cas just waves him off with a simple “That’s what friends do.”

And, from what Dean observes over the next weeks, Cas is just as generous with...well, pretty much everyone.

First it’s the giant football player Gordon who runs up and scoops Cas into a giant bear hug bc he finally earned a B in his history class, all thanks to Cas tutoring him in his one free hour.

Then it’s the sketchy guy Sid who usually hangs out behind the gym celebrating April 20 every fucking day, shuffling up to Cas to mutter that he’s “got the stuff in his car.” At first Dean’s taken aback, bc he can’t help but wonder if Cas, well...but then it turns out that “the stuff” is the Tupperware containers that Cas used to pack a bunch of meals when he learned that Sid’s mom was in the hospital for surgery.

Then it‘s Bela sauntering up to inform Cas that their usual girls night at the movies will need to be moved to Friday instead of Saturday bc she’s been asked out on a date.

Then it’s Becky, a freshman who stumbles up sobbing bc her junior boyfriend broke up with her to ask Bela out on a date.

Then it’s some random sophomore asking Cas for a hug and a piece of chocolate bc they failed their world history quiz. Then the frickin school counselor stops by to ask Cas to sit in on an appointment with one of his friends (a term that literally applies to the entire school, as far as Cas is concerned).

And Cas—sweet, adorkable Cas who’s involved in so many extra clubs and volunteer groups on top of all this—just takes it all in stride. Dean can’t even begin to guess when the guy studies or does his homework, but he passes in all the homework that’s due and he aces all his quizzes (at least the ones that Dean grades).

When Dean finally asks Cas how he does it, how he manages to look out for so many people while still taking care of himself, Cas just shrugs and says something about “mom friend” before offering Dean one of the cookies he’d baked over the weekend.

It’s at this exact moment that Dean realizes that he’s falling for Cas. Pretty fucking hard. It doesn’t help that they’re spending more and more time together: studying for physics, hanging out at each other’s houses, binge watching Dr. Sexy, volunteering for events with the animal shelter (Cas’s idea). Cas will even sit in on the band’s rehearsals some afternoons and hum along as Dean flashes him funny faces and flirtatious winks.

And yeah, Dean tries dropping hints here and there, flirting and gentle teasing—everything that’s worked for him in the past. But, Cas seems oblivious? Honestly, truly oblivious. Whenever Dean flirts and tries to compliment his eyes or hair, Cas deflects and makes a joke instead. The couple of times that Dean asks Cas out, it’s misinterpreted as just . . . hanging out. It’s incredibly frustrating, to say the least.

But there are so many hints that maybe Cas does like Dean back? Like the way he always smiles so openly at Dean, with his entire face lighting up every time they’re in the same room. The way he goes out of his way to talk to him and spend time with him, no matte how many other people are vying for his attention. How he attends the band’s gigs once they start playing local venues...He even befriends Sam (which is a huge deal for Dean) bc they’re both in GSA. Which, that certainly sparked Dean’s interest when he heard, but Sam had to admit that he didn’t actually know if Cas was into guys, or just an ally.

It isn’t until Bela sweeps into an Aborted Apocalypse rehearsal on a Tuesday afternoon in November and shoves her perfectly manicured nail into Dean’s chest to ask, “Why the hell haven’t you made a move on Cas?” Which surprises Dean, bc he knew that Bela and Cas were close (an unlikely pairing, given...well, them. Apparently it went back to freshman year with Cas helping Bela through some family stuff) but he didn’t know that she’d take such an active role in trying to get them together.

He offers his entire list of excuses, from “Cas is the same with me as he is with everyone else” to “I don’t even know if he’s into guys.” Bela just rolls her eyes at every single one.

It’s only when she says, “You both can make up as many excuses as you want, but everyone can see how you’re into each other!” that Dean begins to consider the possibility that Cas might actually want him back.

But he still has to be sure. “Everyone can see?” he asks around the ball in his throat. Bela nods slowly, like she’s dealing with an idiot, and as Dean looks around, he can see the rest of the guys nodding along too, all with shit-eating grins. Well, fuck.

It’s then that he has to admit that none of his usual tricks have worked. And Cas is just so fucking friendly with everybody. Dean can’t believe he, of all people, is special to Cas.

Bela just rolls her eyes and drags Dean from the room to another empty practice room. She levels Dean with a stern glare as she threatens to “disembowel you slowly with my pinky nail if you so much as breathe a word of this to anyone, ever.” And then she tells him about Brady.

Apparently, Cas is gay, but his last boyfriend Brady (some dickwad who attends another school across town) spent the entire relationship actively convincing Cas that they shouldn’t ever break up because no one else would ever want him. And then when they did break-up, Brady blasted Cas on all the social sites, and at one point, even vandalized Cas’s car, spray-painting derogatory, hateful slurs across every surface. So Cas is understandably hesitant about starting a new relationship because of how Brady treated him.

But, the biggest reason he won’t let himself show interest in Dean is he still believes what Brady said. Regardless of how many people love and accept him at school and at home, there’s still a tiny part that thinks that he isn’t good enough. When Dean scoffs in anger and disbelief, Bela arches a brow and spells it out: unless Dean makes it super obvious that he’s into Cas like that...well, Cas will never make that leap on his own.

As Dean is just about to head back next door, Bela calls out, “He loves the Beatles, you know.”

Dean smirks back at her, “Give me some credit, Bela.”

That weekend, when Cas arrives at the little coffee shop the guys are playing (with Bela in tow), Dean makes sure to stop at their table before the show and compliment Cas on his new button-down. When Cas smiles up at him, blushing so prettily as he murmurs his thanks, Dean can’t help but brush his fingers over the back of Cas’s hand, sharing a long, soft smile before his giddiness carries him back up to the stage.

They start with their usual set—a couple songs that the guys had written before Dean joined, a song they’d all written together, a couple popular covers—all songs that Cas has heard before. But then, the last song before the break, Dean smiles right down at Cas as he says, “This next song is for my amazing best friend, who’s loved and appreciated by so many people...including me,” he glances down shyly as he admits, “Cas, there’s no one else I could sing this to.” He looks right back up into Cas’s shocked blue gaze, “No one else who I’d want to hold my hand.”

He nods to the guys behind him, and the bass line starts to thrum as Dean sings the first, low lines:

“Yeah, I’ll tell you something. I think you’ll understand, when I say that something: I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand.”

The tempo picks up as the others join in. “Oh please, say to me...you’ll let me be your man. And please, say to me, you’ll let me hold your hand. Now let me hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand.”

Cas’s cheeks burn a bright red, but he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from Dean—from his sincere eyes and kind smile—and Dean can’t bring himself to look away either. Everyone else, everything else, fades away. It’s just him and Cas as he sings the bridge.

“And when I touch you, I feel happy inside. It’s such a feeling that my love... I can’t hide...I can’t hide...I can’t hide.”

As Dean sings through the final chorus, he can see it in Cas’s face—the realization and certainty that Dean is singing this just for him.

When the song ends, Dean still can’t tear his eyes away from Cas. Chuck announces a short break, but it’s all background noise to Dean as he hops down from the stage and returns to his best friend. Their shy smiles match as Dean reaches down to intertwine their fingers together. Cas slowly stands and pulls Dean into a tight hug with his free hand, unwilling to release the hands held between them.

“I really do, you know,” Dean murmurs into Cas’s ear.

Cas pulls back just enough to let Dean really see his eyes. “I know. I’ve hoped, for so long, but I just...I couldn’t tell.”

Dean scoffs. “You couldn’t tell? You, who spends so much time looking out for other people—“

Cas rolls his eyes. “Yes, the mom friend.”

“Why do you keep calling it that?” Dean wonders, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Because that’s what I am,” Cas insists. “And no one wants to date the mom.”

Dean arches a brow. “Ever heard of Stacy’s Mom? Or MILFs? Or Mrs. Robinson? Or—“

Cas cuts him off with, “I get it, I get it.” He chuckles, brushing his nose against Dean’s. “I still don’t understand it, but I get it.”

Dean’s eyes drop to Cas’s mouth. “And you get me.”

“I do?” Cas can’t help but tease, but Dean chooses to respond with something that will erase all doubts. His lips meet Cas’s, somehow gentle and fervent and kind and sincere, each giving and taking at the same time.

When they finally part, to the sound of people clapping and cheering, Dean glances down at Bela and nods once. “Thank you.”

Cas looks down at her, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “This was you?” Bela just shrugs as she looks back down at her phone with a bored expression, “I was just so sick and tired of the eye-fucking.”

Years down the road, when Dean and Aborted Apocalypse have hit it big, Cas will use his sparse free time (you know, between his full-time job as a social worker and his classes to earn his second masters degree) to go see Dean and the others perform whenever they’re nearby. And every time Cas is at one of their shows, they play another Beatles song. But they never actually circle back around to “I Want to Hold your Hand” until the night Dean pulls Cas onstage to drop to one knee and ask him if he’ll hold his hand for the rest of their lives.

So I’ve kind of had this idea floating around in the back of my head for a while now (you know, high school nerds falling in love over music). I mean, I’d heard through the grape vine that Jensen could sing, but it wasn’t until I saw this video that I realized I had to write something with musician Dean. The song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was originally sung by the Beatles, but the version I picture Dean singing here is closer to this slow version from the Across the Universe soundtrack. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! As always, please like and share, as that is the lifeblood for us authors on here. Ok, byeeee!

#yeah i wrote something #destiel #high school au #teenager au #musician!dean #mom friend!cas #new student!dean #beatles music

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trash-the-tozier · 7 years

Text

Greyscale

Title: Greyscale

Length: ~10.8k words

Summary: Soulmates are what make the world vibrant, colors getting brighter and brighter the closer a pair of souls get to one another. In usual cases, the world starts off black and white and changes as a person travels, but for Mike, colors have always been there. Faint, but there, and that doesn't change until the night his friend Will goes missing.

Warnings: canon-typical violence, small changes made to the canon to fit better within the story

A/N: My sister and I were talking about the bond El and Mike managed to form over just a couple of days and she was like "they're soulmates obvs" and I just went !!!!!!!! bc I love soulmate aus more than I love life itself. This takes place throughout the entirety of season 1. also posted on ao3 here

Mike's world was always dull. Not by his friends, or his experiences; that's what made it all worthwhile. It was way the world looked. Everything was almost in greyscale, the colors just barely there, so nearly faded out that Mike had to concentrate to clearly see the saturation. If that was just the way it was, he wouldn't complain; he wouldn't know he could. But things looked muted. They felt muted. With fairy tales boasting worlds full of incredible sights, Mike couldn't help but feel frustrated. He supposed this was how it was for everyone though. That's just how the world was, is, and will be.

Except it isn't, as he comes to learn in kindergarten. They have a day learning about colors, the teacher bringing a color chart down from the wall and placing it next to her chair. They sit on the floor around her, looking up.

Each color is in its own row, ranging from incredibly dark to pale light as it travels horizontally across the poster. Mike reads each of the names, stopping at "orange" and "purple", having to sound them out slowly, like he's been taught to do when he encounters any other word he doesn't quite know yet.

"This is a color chart." Mrs. Anderson explains. "Each color is different, and they make up what the world looks like."

Mike nods in agreement. While it's a little hard to see, he can tell that "red" has this warmth to it that "blue" just doesn't have. Even at their darkest points, there's something inherently brighter about "yellow" than "purple".

A boy sitting next to Mike named Lucas raises his hand. He's frowning, his eyes still on the chart as he speaks.

"They're not different." He says. "They look the same."

Mrs. Anderson gives him a gentle smile.

"They look that way now. One day though, when you meet someone special, colors will show up. It's like that Hot and Cold game. Have any of you played that one? When you're trying to find something, and the closer you get, the 'hotter' you get, and the further away, the 'colder' you are? It's like that. The closer you are to your special person, the better and brighter colors will be. Life will take all of you to many different places, so a lot of you are too far away from your soulmate to see colors yet. But don't worry about it. Colors will happen with time."

Then it's Mike's turn to frown, his friend Will catching his eye and looking concerned by his expression. Mike doesn't understand. He can already see colors, even if it's just barely. Does that mean his soulmate is nearby? It has to, right?

He asks his mother about it that night as she tucks him into bed, confiding in her that he can already see colors a little bit, and that he isn't like the other kids in his class. She gives him a strange expression, a smile that he doesn't realize until years later is a little bit happy and a little bit sad.

"That is fantastic, Michael." She brushes his bangs back from his forehead, tucking some of his hair behind his ear. "She must live around here! In this state, or in this town, maybe."

Mike doesn't really get it. Sometimes, he would rather be normal, like the other colorblind kids in his class. Does it have to be a girl? They're all annoying and giggly, and Will says Jonathan told him they all have cooties. Mike doesn't know what cooties are, but he doesn't want any.

Dustin is fun and talkative, and when he joins their group in third grade, the rest of them become more talkative too. Mike ends up confessing about his color vision at a sleepover the following year (he blames it being late for making his tongue loose, despite it only being three minutes after midnight; that's late when you're nine years old) and despite trying to emphasize how faint the colors are, all of his friends bombard him with questions. They spend a few weekends riding around town to see if the color gets stronger or weaker, but if it does change it's not enough for Mike to notice. He likes that his friends know, though.

In fifth grade, Lucas starts asking him if his clothes match. Mike doesn't really know what he's talking about--"fashion, you know? looking good?"--and thinks it's kind of stupid, but he still tries to help. He’s usually just nodding or shaking his head at random because it's all still mostly grey anyway, feeling a bit bad sometimes when he realizes how much Lucas is taking his criticisms to heart. Will usually has a quiet question or two about soulmates, but Mike usually can't answer them. He may be seeing colors, but he's as clueless as everyone else.

He begins unknowingly taking comfort in the incredibly greywashed hues he can see, and as a result begins hating it when his family goes on trips out of state, or even out of town. He doesn't like it when the brown fades from Nancy's hair, or he can't see the blue in the eyes of his new baby sister, Holly. The limitation of his vision fills him with unease, even his dreams playing out completely in black and white, and he hopes for the sake of his soulmate that they don't feel as unsettled as he does when the distance grows between them and the colors fade away. He just hopes they know he'll return.

His first year of middle school is the first time the colors disappear. He's in the middle of class when everything snaps to black and white, and it's so sudden that he nearly falls out of his chair. He has to leave, getting shakily to his feet and running from the room, ignoring his teacher's angry voice yelling after him, and a concerned Dustin calling his name. His legs feel shaky and he doesn't even get all the way down the hallway, bumping hard into the wall of lockers with his shoulder and stumbling in an attempt to steady himself.

The disappearance wasn't gradual, as though his soulmate was moving farther away from him. It was instant, quick as a blink, and now Mike feels as though he's gone blind. He knows that colors don't disappear when soulmates fall asleep, so consciousness isn't the problem. It's more permanent than that. Farther away. It's as though his soulmate is dead.

The whole world sways and Mike feels himself sinking to the floor. Almost as soon as the thought hits him though, the colors are back, still dull, still as washed out as always but there, and Mike takes in a shaky breath.

"Mike!" Will's voice, calling his name, pulling him from his haze of hopeless confusion as his friends run down the hallway. They all crouch next to him, Lucas putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay? Are you going to throw up? You look like you're going to throw up."

"What's--" He looks around at them all, trying to reclaim his breathing. "What are you guys doing?"

"Worried about you." Will explains briefly. He catches Mike's eyes and holds them, and Mike knows he can tell how shaken he is. "What happened?"

"I... I was just sitting there, in class, and then all color disappeared. Like my soulmate was just gone. I thought maybe my soulmate died, or... Or something."

Dustin lets out a low whistle.

"Oh man."

"But it's back now. Colors, I mean. I don't know what happened."

He looks at them all, hoping for a solution, but a few clueless shrugs follow his eyes. Then their teacher sticks her head out into the hallway. She looks incredibly peeved.

"Oh, yeah." Dustin gives Mike a sheepish grin. "She wouldn't buy into the idea that all three of us needed to pee at the same time, but we ran out anyway. So we all have detention this afternoon for 'making a scene' to help you." He gets up, pulling Mike to his feet too, and despite himself Mike feels a small smile on his face.

Detention gives them time to think of theories, swapping them as they walk home together. Some of them are otherworldly or extraterrestrial--"no, his soulmate isn't an alien, shut up Dustin"--and by the end of it Lucas's idea is the most plausible, as much as Mike hates it.

"Maybe she's sick. Maybe she flatlined, but the doctors used those electric shock things to bring her back."

"Defibrillators?" Mike asks uncomfortably, the word long and clumsy on his tongue. He doesn't like the sound of that. He doesn't want his soulmate to be that sick; it sounds horrible. He can only hope it's a one time thing.

It's not. It takes nearly a year for it to happen again, but then it begins increasing in frequency. By the fall next school year, this "flatlining" is happening once or twice a week, and it terrifies Mike every single time. He always holds his breath, and if colors haven't come back by the time his lungs begin to burn, he starts feeling panicky. But the flatlining begins lasting longer and longer, and when a fifteen minutes one passes during lunch on Friday, Mike fears his soulmate might be gone forever. He hadn't realized how much he cared about having a soulmate until the threat of losing them came.

Three days later, Will Byers is declared missing. He rode out from Mike's after a D&D session and never came back. His bike is found, but he's not on it. He's nowhere to be seen. It's all surreal, Mike feeling as though he’s not even in his body when he hears the news, strangely terrified and disconnected. It’s almost unbelievable. The police question Dustin, Lucas, and Mike himself, but Mike feels like their answers don't help much.

The colors before Mike's eyes are noticeably brighter, fluctuating as he goes throughout his Monday, but he barely notices it. He's too worried; too distracted, though he does wonder if the two events are somehow connected. But the colors aren't disappearing, and either way there isn't anything Mike can do about it, so he focuses all of his energy instead on helping Will, to somehow find his best friend. He completely disregards both his mother's curfew and the police chief's orders and gathers up Lucas and Dustin, heading out into the night.

It probably isn't the best idea to go out into the woods in the dark, in the rain, alone--walking through the same spanse of ground that Will was last seen, as Dustin has anxiously reminded them five times now--but Mike knows it’ll be worth it if they can manage to find anything helpful. He’s squinting through the heavy raindrops and the flashlight beam can only go so far, Mike and his friends stumbling over roots and stray branches as they make their way through the forest. They try a few times to call out Will’s name but it feels useless, their voices swallowed up by the trees overhead and the whistling storm.

Then Mike hears something. It's faint but it's there and he tells his friends to shut up, standing stock still. It's the sound of a figure approaching, a jump in Mike’s chest when he realizes the figure is small like Will, thin and shivering. Then he turns and points his light at the silhouette, and his breath dies in his throat.

It isn’t Will. It's a girl, small and shaking slightly, soaked to the bone in what looks like nothing but a giant t-shirt. The shirt is so yellow that it has Mike stumbling back a few paces in shock, looking over the rest of her. She's pale from cold, her lips pink, the end of her nose bright red, her hair incredibly short and her eyes a dark brown. She’s the most colorful thing Mike has ever seen, as though she's the center of the universe, the crystal that all light passes through to fracture into pieces and color the world.

She's looking at him in the same surprise that Mike's sure is on his face, Lucas leaning close and whispering harshly into his ear.

“What the hell do we do now?”

“W-we have to help her.” It takes a moment for Mike to find his voice. “She's wet, and, and she's cold, and it's raining, we need to--” He reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder but she flinches back, and he freezes completely. “She needs help.”

His friends’ faces obviously don't agree, but they seem afraid to openly seem rude in front of another person, and don't say a word as Mike turns back out of the woods to their bikes. The girl is silent as well but she follows very closely behind him, just a step or two away. Dustin and Lucas don't talk to him either, though Mike does overhear Lucas asking what the hell it is Mike is thinking. Honestly, Mike isn't sure. All he knows is that he can't leave her alone in the rain like this.

They make it back to his house, entering the basement unnoticed, and as soon as Mike walks into the downstairs room he’s immediately assaulted with a wash of colors, browns and reds and greens and oranges all over the place in a mismatched hodgepodge.

Dustin bumps his shoulder to get past him, jostling him out of his surprise and back into action. The girl is still shivering, looking around the room with wide eyes, and Mike grabs a big tan coat laying across the couch, offering it in her direction. She just stares so he begins draping it gingerly over her shoulders and then she understands, pulling it quickly around herself. He gestures to the couch and she sits without question, the action more of a collapse than anything, and Mike feels worried for her. He looks over her again and sees that despite the reservation on her face she's clearly exhausted, her eyes downcast.

He asks the first logical thing he can think of.

“Is there a number we can call? For your parents?”

She looks up at him and Mike swallows. Her eyes are big and dark, the same color as the buzzed-short hair on her head. Of course, that's what Dustin asks about. He first asks what happened to it, then if she has cancer, and Mike is brought back to Lucas's “flatlining” theory instantly, asking the girl if she's in trouble. Then Lucas says something about blood, reaching towards her with a pointer finger. Remembering the way she flinched back when he tried to touch her earlier, Mike bats his hand away. They've all battered her with questions but she's barely moved, just sitting there, wide eyed.

“Stop it! You're freaking her out.” He tells Lucas. Lucas gapes at him.

“She's freaking me out!” He insists. After a bit more arguing and a rather offensive deafness test, Mike realizes that the girl is still in her soaking wet clothes. He rushes to get something for her, a pair of sweats that he hopes will keep her warm. She nearly takes her clothes off in front of them and Dustin completely flies off the handle, Mike realizing by the look on her face that she's doesn't know what's wrong. Somehow, she doesn’t know that girls and boys aren’t supposed to just change clothes in front of each other. It worries him a little bit, but he takes her quickly to the bathroom and tries to close the door.

“No.” Her voice is soft, but insistent all the same.

“Oh, so you can speak!” The words sound dumb as soon as they leave his mouth, but he can't help it. He’s too surprised. He’d nearly just assumed she couldn’t talk at all, but he’s glad she can. Her voice is nice, he thinks, but once he realizes the thought he shakes it away. He leaves the door open a crack and returns to his friends, where Dustin still hasn't put his head back on his shoulders and Lucas is nervous about the whole thing.

Lucas’s claims about an escaped convict and the looney bin make Mike upset for reasons he can’t really describe. When he reveals his plan to let the girl spend the night in his basement both of his friends turn on him in disbelief, but he doesn’t think it’s that crazy. Kicking her out into the rain isn’t even an option in his mind, and their parents would get mad at them if they tried to do anything about her tonight. So she has to sleep here.

Lucas and Dustin go home, and he sets up a little hideaway for the girl to sleep in, getting her any pillows or blankets he thinks she could want. Thankfully, he finds that his clothes aren’t too big on her, and she curls up in her alcove. She’s quiet and wary, flinching back when Mike reaches for her, and he berates himself when he draws his hand back. He should have remembered that touch makes her uncomfortable. But he just can’t help it; she pulled back her sleeve when he asked her for her name, and there's something etched into her arm.

“I’ve never seen a kid with a tattoo before.” He explains in apology. The ink on the inside of her forearm doesn't form letters, but three numbers instead. 011. Eleven. “What’s it mean, eleven?”

She meets his eyes, tapping her chest with a pointer finger, the action deliberate.

“That’s your name?” He asks, confused. People aren't named after numbers. Or, they shouldn't be. But she nods.

“Oh, okay. Well, my name's Mike, short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El, short for Eleven?”

She gives a small, consenting nod. El. It feels strange, like he just named her, but it's not as though she's a stray dog. She's a person, a girl, and she's spending the night in her basement. His friends’ disbelief of his plan hits him then, just a little bit.

It's horrifically past bedtime, and though Mike still feels wide awake, the girl--El, he reminds himself--probably needs to sleep. Whatever she’s been through, it’s taken a lot out of her. Mike gets to his feet.

“Night El.”

“Night, Mike.”

Her voice again, soft but steady, and when he hears her say his name, something about the world shifts. It’s as though something that was off is finally amended, and he feels it as his heart clicks into place inside his chest. Everything feels right.

It takes until he's laying in bed and staring at the ceiling to realize why. Because the world is completely in color now. Because she’s his soulmate. This is what having a soulmate feels like. Mike hugs his arms around himself, the feeling strangely comforting, and lets his eyes close.

The next day, El refuses to talk to Mike's mom. She flat out says no and doesn't get up, and Mike doesn't know what to do. Eleven doesn't want help. She's lost, homeless, with nothing to her name--a name that's a number, no less--and she doesn't want help. There's only one explanation Mike can think of, and it makes his limbs feel weak.

“You're in trouble, aren't you?”

It's barely a question, and she doesn't answer, just glancing up at him, but Mike knows he's right.

“Who… Who are you in trouble with?”

He hopes it's something small. She's in trouble with her parents, maybe. Mike knew a kid in third grade that got taken from his parents and moved out of state after a couple months of not being able to bring a lunch to school. The other kids didn't like him because it didn't seem like he wasn't able to wash his clothes very often either, and sometimes he had bruises on his arms, but Mike and Will would sit with him and share their lunches. Then he moved away to live with his aunt. Eleven is demolishing the Eggos he'd brought downstairs for her so quickly that it reminds Mike of that boy, and he hopes maybe that was it. Just that. But then she speaks, and his hopes are dashed.

“Bad.” Her voice is grave, barely a whisper.

“Bad? Bad people?”

He wants to help her. He wants to help her so much that his chest aches in a way he's never felt before, but first he needs to know what's wrong. She nods.

“They want to hurt you? The bad people?”

She shapes her fingers into a gun, pointing at her own temple, and Mike feels his stomach twist. Then, unblinkingly, she shifts the barrel of her gun to Mike's face instead, her fingers mere inches from his face, pointed straight for his throat. She meets his eyes.

“Understand?” She asks him, and he does. They can't tell his mom about her. They can't tell anyone, because the bad people want to hurt Eleven, and if they find out she's here, they'll hurt him too. They'll hurt everyone. Mike needs to keep her safe.

His mother calls for him, and it's time to go to school. He rides his bike about a third of the way there, watching colors fade slightly before he doubles back, skipping class to stay at home with El. Everyone has gone out so he lets her leave the basement, showing her his house and his things. He knows that she's only half paying attention to him as he talks about the stuff he's pointing to, but that's because she's trying to focus on everything around her at once as she looks around.

It's a bit strange to him, how fascinated and vaguely worried she is by everything, everything familiar that Mike calls home. It makes him wonder if she's ever had a “home” before. It seems impossible for her not to have, and he knows she couldn't have simply wandered around the woods her whole life, but still. He wants to know what happened to her, but he knows better than to ask.

It's strange for him too, though. He'd tried to keep it off his face that morning, teasing his sister as he wolfed down his food. He couldn't let anyone know he can see colors now, because his parents would have questions. But his house is so incredibly colorful. The furniture, the walls, the floors, and the trinkets that line the shelves are all little pops of color, instead of being so dull, and it isn't until now that Mike understands what Lucas meant about 'looking good’. The colors around his house are a mess, and he briefly wonders why nothing matches. But then El walks up to his father's La-Z-Boy, the thing muted despite his newfound color vision, and Mike hurries over excitedly, wanting to show it to her.

El likes his father's chair. It makes her smile when he reclines it and pops out the foot rest, nervous at first but nodding trustingly, the concerned expression melting into a smile when the chair rocks, and he has to smile back at her. Cute, he realizes, and this time he doesn't let himself shake the thought away. Her hair is nearly completely buzzed off, and her teeth are a little crooked in the front, and she's cute.

Mike has found a few people cute before. Holly could be cute, when she was sleeping or not screaming or something, but this is different. This is cute the way Alice from Science class was cute when she wore her hair in a bow for picture day, or the way Will is cute sometimes when he gets excited and smiles and jumps up and down. It's the kind of cute that makes Mike want to hold her close, keep her around and keep her safe. The different, good kind of cute. He likes that she makes him feel that way.

They're in his room, looking over his science fair trophies when she points to Will. It makes him a bit sick to his stomach to see the shocked, scared expression on her face when her finger touches the photograph.

“You know Will?” He asks. Maybe she saw him out, the night they'd gone to look for him and they'd found her instead. He tries to press her for answers, for anything, but they both whirl around when a car crunches into the driveway. His mom is home. El needs to hide.

The downstairs instantly loses itself as a viable option, so he drags her back into his room and begs her to hide in the closet. She's hesitant, and he promises not to tell his mom about her.

“Promise?” She asks in confusion.

“A promise is something you can't break.” He explains. “Ever.”

He isn't sure she understands but they're out of time, and thankfully she lets him hide her. He lies easily to his mother, who believes him to be too distraught to go to school, convincing her even after there's a loud bump from upstairs.

The sound has Mike confused, but that's nothing compared to how he feels when he goes upstairs and finds her on the floor, tears on her cheeks. She's upset and he doesn't know what to do, unsure of how anything could have happened in the time that he was gone, and he doesn't believe her when she says she's okay. He doesn't believe her even when she promises, but she gets to her feet, and doesn't elaborate. He doesn't hug her despite wanting to, knowing she probably wouldn't appreciate it. It makes his chest hurt, that same kind of hurt he felt when he found out she was in danger.

He didn't expect such a strong reaction from himself either, watching her curl up into a sitting position on his bed. He's a little scared by the pain on her face, feeling a surge of anger at whatever could have caused it. He shouldn't have left her alone, he thinks. She can't go back to the basement so they spend time in his room, Mike talking to her quietly, walking around his bedroom and exclaiming over all of the different colors of all of his things that he's never really noticed before.

“These colors are here because of you.” He tells her. “You can see them too?”

She nods.

“Colors.” She says, and Mike's heart swells, making a promise to himself then and there that despite what may have happened to her before she was found, he would never let her get hurt again.

Lucas and Dustin come over and meet her all over again, with her name this time. Mike tries to explain the situation about El’s knowledge of Will and the Bad People but Dustin is too baffled to listen and Lucas is scared, so scared that he doesn't listen either. He tries to leave but Eleven doesn't let him, slamming and locking the door. Slamming and locking the door with her mind, that is, and Mike is amazed. He can't do anything but stand and stare, blood running slowly down her nose, deep and red. It's the darkest color Mike has ever seen.

They talk about her powers, and about Will, and teach El the word “friend”. Dustin thinks she's really cool and Lucas doesn't trust her, and they decide to go out again the next day and look for Will after school, but with El this time to see if she can help.

But they have to go to school first. At recess Lucas teases Mike about El, laughing and saying he's in love with her, and while he's just joking, Mike feels conflicted. He doesn't know if he loves her or not. He feels as though he should, since they're soulmates and all, but love is such a big word. He knows there's something special about her, but isn't sure of much else. Either way, he doesn't tell his friends that she's his soulmate. It but feels too weird and embarrassing to let them know, and he genuinely doesn't know that he could get the words out if he tried, simply telling Lucas to shut up. Maybe he'll tell them when he figures it out and maybe he won't, but they're his best friends, so he knows that sooner or later they'll find out somehow.

Despite his promise to himself just the day before to keep Eleven from getting hurt, she gets hurt anyway. By him, no less, as Will's body is dragged from the water at the quarry. All of the false hope El had given him, about knowing Will and being able to find him is withering and dying before his eyes, and his chest hurts so badly and his eyes sting and Mike whirls on her, in too much pain to see her own surprise and confusion and try to understand what that must mean. And he yells. He yells at her, because everything hurts too much and he doesn't understand how she could do this to him. Because Will's dead. He gets on his bike and goes home, the vibrancy of the world fading around him as he makes it back, letting his bike clatter on its side in the driveway and running straight into his mother's arms.

He's still crying when Eleven comes home. He's on the couch in the basement, holding a pillow to his chest, his sobs having subsided to a slow stream of tears down his cheeks that are beginning to seem constant. Colors start coming back to him slowly and he knows that means she's on her way, closing his eyes and pressing his face into the pillow, unsure of how he's going to feel upon seeing her again. He opens his eyes just in time to see the room awash with colors, and then she slips quietly through the door. She's visibly upset, shaken and shivering and sitting down in her alcove.

“How did you find your way back?” He asks quietly. Despite it all, he feels bad.

“Colors.” Her voice is quiet and a little raspy, as though she's been crying too. They sit in silence, Mike able to feel it every time she looks over at him. He wonders what she's doing, or if she wants to say something, but she doesn't try, so he doesn't ask. He gets up, pulling out a binder he's kept of things Will has drawn for him, looking through, seeing the pictures fully in color for the first time. Will's colorblindness is evident, human characters having purple skin, or shooting green fireballs. Somehow though, Mike likes the pictures better this way.

Eleven gets up too. She takes his supercom, fiddling with it, the sound annoying and distracting. He tells her to stop but she doesn't seem to care, and it makes him angry all over again. He wants to explain himself but his words come out harshly, getting worked up and losing his message halfway through. Her eyes are wide and pained as she listens and a small part of Mike is almost glad of that, so full of hurt that he desperately wants to pawn those bad feelings off on another person. He turns back to the drawings, but then the supercom clicks again and Mike hears a voice. Will's voice.

Eleven’s nose is bleeding, the same as it did when she used her powers before, and Mike realizes that she wasn't lying. She'd never lied to him. Will was still alive, but they couldn't see him. They couldn't reach him. He could only be reached by magic, by whatever it was El was doing to the radio. And she needed a bigger radio.

They realize that for that, she needs to go to their school, and for her to even leave the basement she needs to look like a normal girl. They take Nancy's stuff, old stuff that Mike is pretty sure she won't miss, and the three of them do their best to make her look as normal as they can.

They don't succeed. She steps from the bathroom in her pink dress and blonde wig and she looks nothing like any normal girl Mike has ever seen. She’s different. Mike can't figure out what's wrong with himself because he just can't stop staring, and then a word comes out of his mouth before he realizes he's going to say it.

“Pretty.”

Because that's what she is. She's pretty, she looks so pretty, and Mike doesn't even care about the look Lucas is giving him when El offers up a small smile back. Then he cares very, very much, and tries to save face.

“...good. Pretty good.”

It doesn't work. But El goes to the mirror, looking over her reflection and murmuring the word quietly to herself, and she looks genuinely happy for possibly the first time, so Mike doesn't regret saying it.

Mike knows that the best way to keep his friends’ teasing at a minimum is to stop looking at El, quit staring at El, no, no, look anywhere but El, but he can't help it. They make it all the way to the AV Club room before being caught by Mr. Clarke, and Mike feels a little bit badly about lying to him, especially after Will's name is mentioned and he gives him that same strange sort of smile that all adults have been giving them since Will went missing. With a promise to be able to use the ham radio later, the four of them are forced into the gym for an assembly.

Mike doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be at a pseudo-memorial service for someone who isn't dead, surrounded by people who only now are pretending to care. Though not everyone is pretending. Troy and James are being loud and rude and laughing, and while Will may not be dead he's still lost and alone and in danger, and anger swells up in Mike again.

He doesn't really realize the weight of his actions until Troy is on the gym floor and the whole school is watching. But it's good that they are, because when Troy pulls back to deck him in the face he's frozen instead, and pees his pants in front of the entire student body. There's some laughter and chatter and Mike is amazed, turning around in time to see El catch his eye, smile the smallest bit, and wipe a tiny amount of blood from her nose, heading towards the gym exit. The word “stunned” doesn't even begin to cover how Mike feels, simply following after her.

They make contact with Will, and it's terrifying. Lights flash and they hear him crying out to his mom, but he doesn't hear any of their attempts to reach him. El’s eyes close and black and white starts closing in on Mike and he feels panicked, worried about her, reaching in her direction when the radio bursts into flame and everything stops.

He asks El if she's okay, but she's obviously not. She needs to get home, and with the help of Lucas and Dustin they remove her from the AV room as the sprinklers rain down on them and the fire alarm blares. Eleven can barely walk, her face pale, her eyelids fluttering, and Mike is so afraid for her, unable to properly breathe until they get her back in the basement and lay her out on the couch. Dustin suggests that she needs fuel, offering her some of his trail mix despite Lucas's protests that she's not a robot. But she eats all of the trail mix, even the raisins, and nods when Mike asks her if she feels better. Then it's time for some research.

Mike doesn't understand the point of dressing up in a fancy way for a funeral. When he asks, his mom doesn't really answer, saying that funerals are about being respectful and celebrating Will's memory. Mike knows that. But all of the memories he has with Will are happy ones, running through the woods and playing games and sharing secrets and eating junk food until they both have stomach aches. In not a single one of these memories is Will in fancy clothes, but his mother is distraught, so he decides not to argue. The funeral has Dustin completely unbothered, but the sight of the casket does get to Mike a little bit, with the grey rain and the grey sadness all around them, and he finds himself wishing Eleven was here with him. He would ask to hold her hand, trying to imagine the colors of the flowers around them at their full vibrancy to help him feel better. It works a little bit.

During the food and drinks, they find Mr. Clarke at a table and ask about dimensions. His answer is helpful, helpful enough to know they're looking for a gate, and he excuses himself to go talk to Will's mom. Lucas says he wants another cookie, getting on his feet, putting on his sad-about-Will face and walking back into the crowd of people. Lucas is best at doing the sad face, so good that sometimes Mike had to wonder if he's actually pretending or not. Dustin turns to him. He looks excited.

“This is crazy, Mike. Your girl can communicate across dimensions. Dimensions!”

“My girl?” Mike splutters, knowing his face is heating up and trying to frown the feeling away. They're not really supposed to talk about her outside of the basement, but Mike can't just let the statement stand. “Why is Eleven my girl?”

“She lives your house, for one.” Dustin points out, and Mike can't really dispute that fact. “You're the one that named her--”

“She already had a name, I didn't--”

“--and you can understand her, somehow. She says like two words at a time, and you guys have full conversations. It's like your brains are linked, or something weird.” He regards Mike for a moment. “Do you think she can use her powers to read your mind?”

The thought is a scary one, not to mention extremely embarrassing. He hopes not. Considering El’s powers though, he doesn't think so.

“Probably not.”

“Either way, I wouldn't want to play charades against you guys.” Dustin says. “Lucas and I wouldn't stand a chance.”

Mike tries to imagine that, playing charades with El. Playing any games with El, really. Eleven being their friend, attending their school with them and going out to the arcade or the theater. The thought of going to see a movie with El heats his face up again, but he likes the idea, too.

“She's our Mage.” Dustin says.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s our Mage.” He repeats. “She’s the Mage, You’re the Paladin, Lucas is the Ranger, and I’m the Bard. And we’re on a campaign to find our Cleric and bring him back from the Realm of Shadows.”

The simplification of the problem does help a little. Mike frowns.

“But we’re up against a demogorgon. We’ll need to roll a lot of twenties.”

Dustin shrugs.

“Sure. But with real magic on our side, I feel alright about it.”

What none of them expect is for a member of the Party to betray them. Mike doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t want to believe it. He should have noticed it though, he thinks, because El has been looking gradually weaker throughout the day, walking slower, her hand going up to her nose. He’d been trying not to watch her though, as part of his ongoing effort not to stare. But she’d misdirected their compasses and led them in a circle. Mike is angry and hurt, but he remembers back to the night Will's body was found, trying to push those feelings down, knowing now that there must be an explanation and that they just need to find one. All she can say is that it isn’t safe, looking at him pleadingly. She’s afraid for them, and doesn’t want them to go to the gate. But they have to.

Lucas doesn’t accept her answer, too frustrated and frightened to be patient and he's rough with her instead, and when he calls Eleven a monster and Mike sees the stricken look on her face, he can’t hold it together anymore. She doesn’t deserve to be attacked for trying to protect them. He tackles Lucas to the ground, but Lucas is stronger than him and soon wrestles his back onto the grass. Both Eleven and Dustin are yelling at them to stop fighting, then a scream splits the air. All colors blink before Mike’s eyes and Lucas isn’t on him anymore, thrown into the air and skidded across the ground and slammed into a slab of concrete. His body is limp and still and panic swells in Mike’s throat, running to him, he and Dustin trying to shake him awake to no avail.

“Why would you do that?” He shouts, whirling on El. She’s crying, fear on her face and blood coming from her nose, the color deep and as scary as she is. “What’s wrong with you?”

She just opens her mouth, no sound coming out, looking almost as though she can’t breathe. Mike turns back to his friend in need, trying to wake him up, letting out a breath of relief when he opens his eyes.

Lucas is disoriented, tears pricking his eyes as he struggles into a sitting position. He bats both Mike and Dustin off of him, getting up and striding away. Mike doesn’t want to let him go, still worried for him, but Dustin holds him back. And that’s when he remembers he yelled at El again, feeling sick to his stomach when he looks around and notices that not only are colors more grey than normal, but they’re fading fast.

“Where’s El?” He asks Dustin, who looks around too. The junkyard is empty save for the two of them, without even footprints to suggest where she had went. She’s just gone. They yell for her, searching until they have to go home, but Mike’s vision stays frustratingly grey-washed. He sleeps in the basement that night, lying on the couch with his eyes on the door, but she doesn’t come home like last time. Dustin comes over early the next morning to find Mike pacing in front of her alcove.

“I just… I can’t believe she didn’t come back.”

“She’s got to be close.” Dustin rationalizes. Mike nods a little. The colors are a bit brighter than they’d been before he met El, which means she’s in town, and closer than she used to be. But he feels guilty and terrible, absolutely horrible for yelling at her the way he had, her horrified expression etched into his mind.

“Mike, this isn’t your fault.” Dustin argues, as though reading his mind. Mike realizes he’s right.

“Yeah. It’s Lucas’s.”

“Wasn’t his fault either.”

Mike turns to him, wondering if his friend is joking.

“It wasn’t his fault?”

“No!”

Mike can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“So you’re saying he wasn’t way out of line?”

“Totally, but so were you!”

“What--”

“And so was Eleven!”

No. Dustin was not dragging her into this too.

“Oh, give me a break.”

Dustin purses his lips, taking a step forwards, his voice raised. He looks a little angry, but mostly exasperated at him for reasons Mike doesn’t understand.

“No Mike, you give me a break!” He exclaims. “All three of you were being a bunch of little assholes. I was the only reasonable one. But the bottom line is, you pushed first. And you know the rules: draw first blood--”

“No!”

As soon as Dustin says it though, Mike knows he’s right. He drew first blood, so he has to apologize. But he doesn’t want to. He’s not sorry. He’s mad at Lucas for calling El a traitor and a stray dog and a monster, he’s scared for El because he's supposed to keep her safe but she's still missing, and he’s mad at himself. He’s a little mad at Dustin too, for being so reasonable. But the rule is law, and Mike loves his friends too much to let himself be banished, so he agrees with Dustin’s plan to talk to Lucas and find Eleven. They’re outside, backpacks on and about to mount their bikes when Dustin fixes him with a look.

“What?” Mike has to ask.

“Why do you care about her so much?” Dustin asks. The question would have sounded rude, but with the way Dustin asks it, it doesn’t. He’s genuinely curious. “We’ve known her for like… A week, maybe. She’s cool and stuff, super cool, but even before we found out that she has magic powers you’ve just… I don’t know. Been like this.”

Mike looks down at his hands, his fingers curled around the handles of his bike. He swallows.

“She…” It’s not really embarrassing now, admitting it. He looks back up, meeting his friend’s eyes. “She’s my soulmate, Dustin. You know, colors and stuff.”

It obviously isn’t the answer he’s expecting and he stands there for a moment, his mouth slightly open. Then he blinks once. Twice.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Dustin slings his leg over his bike, his face set with determination.

“Let’s find her then.”

Mike asks Dustin not to tell Lucas though, especially if he’s still angry. And he is still angry, and it makes Mike angry too. While Dustin tries to be a moderator, Lucas still doesn’t accept his apology, shoving them aside and going upstairs, so they look for Eleven instead.

At Dustin’s suggestion, they try to use the color vision as an actual “hot and cold” gauge, like they’d been told about in elementary school, but it’s really difficult. Mike has a newfound appreciation for how Eleven had managed to find her way home before, in the dark even, because he can barely tell when colors change to be brighter or dimmer. A busted up shopping center has Eleven’s handiwork all over it, and that helps their search a little, but in the end, it’s her that finds them.

Troy and James find them first. The bullies chase them to the quarry, and Troy has a knife and he’s so, so angry. He holds the blade to Dustin, threatening to use it unless Mike jumps, and despite Dustin begging him not to, Mike knows he doesn’t have a choice. There are rocks below, the water dark and dangerous, and he steps off the edge and towards the abyss.

He’s only falling for a few seconds before the air seems to catch him. Colors are coming back, steady and sure, and he’s lifted over the heads of everyone, placed back down on the ground. He turns and there Eleven is, her wig gone and her skin streaked with dirt, stalking forwards with a near-deadly expression on her face. She dispatches the bullies easily and they run, Dustin yelling after them, but Mike barely notices; he can’t even describe how relieved he is to see her, happy and thankful and shocked all at once.

He’s looking at her, but she’s not looking back. Her eyes are downcast, and she blinks a few times, swaying on her feet. Mike realizes what’s about to happen a second before it does; saving him had weakened her, and she falls to the ground. They run to her, but by the time they reach her she's flat on her back, and there are tears in her eyes.

“Mike.” Her voice sounds almost broken, and Mike’s chest aches. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What are you sorry for?”

“The gate. I opened it.” There’s blood coming from not only her nose, but her ears too. Up this close, it doesn’t look scary, or dangerous; it’s a show of weakness, a sign that she needs help. She made herself bleed to save him. “I’m the monster.”

“No. No, El. You’re not the monster. You saved me.”

She searches his eyes at those words, her face screwing up again as a new wave of pain goes over her face, her eyes welling up and threatening to spill over. He places his hand on her arm. He needs her to understand that she isn’t bad.

“Do you understand? You saved me.”

He pulls her up from the ground and into his arms, pressing her head into his shoulder, holding her tight. Despite all previous misgivings about being touched, Eleven doesn’t pull away. She holds him just as tightly, and though they’re crouched uncomfortably on the ground, Mike doesn’t ever want to let her go. It feels right to have her in his arms, like he’s found where he’s supposed to be in the universe. Right here, right next to her, wherever she may be.

Dustin joins in, his arms around the both of them, and Mike feels Eleven swallow roughly, wiping her cheek on his shoulder and nestling closer.

It’s also Dustin that moves them back into action. Eleven needs to be cleaned up, and she needs food. They walk back to Mike’s house slowly, coming in through the basement. Dustin keeps staring at them, making a face at Mike and smiling, and Mike has to resist the incredibly strong urge to tell him to shut up. They go into the bathroom to wash the dirt off her face, and while Mike knows Eleven doesn’t need the help, he doesn’t really want to let her out of his sight just yet. He’s as gentle as he can be with the washcloth, and her eyes never leave his face.

“That’s better.” He says when she's clean, letting his arms fall to his sides. Both the makeup and the wig are gone, but she’s just as pretty as she was before, if not moreso. She turns to the mirror though, obviously missing them, her expression sad as she puts a hand to her short hair.

“You don’t need it.” He tells her earnestly, and she spares a glance at him.

“Still pretty?”

“Yeah, pretty.” He says, willing himself not to blush. “Really pretty.”

She looks back to the mirror, and thankfully, she smiles.

“El?”

“Yes?”

She’s looking at him now, with her big brown eyes, and he finds himself wondering if there’s a word prettier than pretty, because pretty doesn’t do her justice anymore.

“I’m happy you’re home.” He confesses.

“Me too.” She says, and she smiles again. When he meets her eyes he realizes that he wants to kiss her, but to his surprise, it’s her that steps closer. Nerves are welling in Mike's stomach the closer she gets, not much space between them at all when the bathroom door bursts open. They both jump, El turning to the source of the noise. It's Dustin, exclaiming that Lucas might be in trouble.

He is. The bad men are coming, and Mike knows that they're coming for Eleven, telling his mom to say he's left the country, because he's willing to bike all the way to Canada to keep Eleven safe. The bad men follow them in an army of big white vans, but they still manage to meet up with Lucas. Then a van turns up the street, coming right at them, and being so surrounded makes it feel like they're out of options.

Mike doesn't even have time to slow his bike down. He feels El’s grip tighten on his waist, his color vision flashing to black and white for just a second, the same as it did when El threw Lucas into the air. This time, she flips an entire van.

Time seems to stop as the giant vehicle soars over their heads. Even Dustin, who had been yelling near nonstop, falls silent as they watch it go, Mike's legs completely ceasing to work. The van lands with a deafening crash behind them, and they all look around at each other. Then El’s grip loosens, her arms weak around him, her head dropping onto his shoulder.

“El?” He asks quietly. She makes a small sound so he knows she's still conscious, and they carry on. The four of them make it back to the junkyard, dismounting their bikes. Mike is worried for Eleven, realizing how exhausted she must be from saving him twice in a row. Dustin is yelling again, completely in awe, Lucas's voice cutting him off. He kneels down next to Eleven, apologizing and placing a hand on her back.

“Friends… Friends don't lie.” She says quietly. “I'm sorry too.”

Then Mike holds his hand out for a handshake, and Lucas accepts it.

They try to formulate a plan. Lucas tells them about Hawkins Lab, insisting that the gate has to be in there somewhere. But there's no way to get in, what with the barbed wire fencing surrounding the place and the armed guards everywhere. They don’t really get any farther than wondering that on earth it is they’re supposed to do when a helicopter starts heading their way. The bad men are still after them. Scrambling in a panic, they stash their bikes under a rundown bus and dive inside, the helicopter passing overhead. They’re all fugitives now.

They fill Lucas in on what they had done. He offers Eleven a high five when he hears about her defeat of the bullies, but she has no idea what the gesture means, so they have to teach it to her. But they don’t come any closer to an idea on rescuing Will, and Mike has a hard time even seeing any viable options.

When the Chief and Nancy reach out to them, Mike decides to trust them. He doesn’t really know if the decision is good or bad, but as soon as Dustin starts pacing and fretting about Lando Calrissian, he begins to regret it, because now he has a weird fear in his stomach that someone is going to make it out of this with only one hand left. Though if this situation is really like Lando then he should be more worried about cryogenics, and now he has to shake his head to clear it.

Thankfully though, Chief Hopper comes for them. He takes them to Will’s house, where Nancy, Jonathan, and Will’s mom are all there. They have to explain everything, and in the process they find out that not only does Eleven know what the gate is, but she’s seen it. She’s been inside the lab. El tries to contact Will, as well as Nancy’s friend Barbara, but she can’t, and Mike knows why. She’s exhausted. When she returns from the bathroom though, she says she can find them in the bath.

They build a sensory deprivation tank in the middle school gym, and it’s arguably the strangest thing he’s ever done. Nancy asks him if he likes Eleven and he completely lies his ass off, but he can’t admit it to her. Besides, he’s pretty sure she’s lying to him about how she feels about Jonathan, so they’re even anyway.

When Eleven lies in the water and falls still, the lights flicker, spark, and Mike’s world plunges into black and white again. It’s like all those times it happened in middle school, the exact same feeling, that flatlining that had happened before. Except El isn’t dead, she isn’t dying, and it feels wrong for colors to be gone when he’s so close to her. He wants to touch her, to reach out and grab her hand, but he knows he can’t. He hates this, worry and fear all tangled up inside his chest, his breathing going shallow. They find out that Barbara is dead, and Will is in Castle Byers, but his voice is faint. Eleven begins to whimper, her voice coming out as desperate cries through the supercom, and Mike very nearly jumps in the bath to help her before El pulls herself out of whatever trance, or void she’d entered. She yanks the goggles off her face, her breathing heavy and her face already screwed up in tears, blood running from her nose as she holds tight to Mrs. Byers’s arm and cries.

It’s Lucas who breaks the shock and stillness that's fallen over all of them. He runs off and finds a towel for Eleven and they pull her from the water, sitting her down on the bleachers. She’s nearly too weak to hold herself up, but Mike is more than willing to offer up his shoulder and she rests against him, getting his clothes wet, but he doesn’t care. Lucas wraps the towel around her shoulders, and Dustin pats her sympathetically on the knee.

“Hey, El?” Mike asks softly. Not only does El angle her face up to look at him, but Dustin and Lucas look over as well. The question isn't going to be private, but Mike doesn't really care. He's too curious.

“Mike?” She prompts.

“When… When you're all in the upside down, or whatever… Is it black and white down there?”

“Yes.” She says. “No colors. I don't like it.”

Mike nods a little.

“When you do that, I can't see colors either.” He confesses. “It always scares me.”

“But colors are here.” She says. Her voice is gentle, and he almost laughs; she's weak and wet and shaken, and sounds like trying to comfort him. “Colors are with you, Mike.”

“Yeah.” He swallows, nodding. “They are with you.”

Eleven replaces her head on his shoulder, scooting a little closer. Out the corner of his eye, Mike sees Dustin grinning ear to ear.

“Wait, what?” Lucas asks. His voice is loud. “Eleven, she's… She's your… Your…”

“Yeah.” Mike says, before he can get the word out. Lucas gapes at him.

“No wonder you look at her like a lovesick puppy all the time! You are one!”

Mike can feel himself blushing.

“Shut up Lucas.”

“Mike and Eleven, sitting in a tree, k-i-s--”

“Shut up!” Mike exclaims again, because Nancy and Jonathan are walking up. Jonathan gives Eleven his jacket and the two say that they have something to do. Then they're gone, and it's just the four of them at the middle school, alone. Dustin goes out in the search of chocolate pudding, Lucas following after him.

“We should go.” Mike tells El. “We probably shouldn't split up. Besides, you can eat whatever Dustin finds.”

Eleven nods, musters up her strength, and gets to her feet. Her first step is wobbly and Mike reaches out to steady her, his heart pounding when she takes his hand. Dustin yells when he finds the chocolate pudding, and Mike leads Eleven down to a cafeteria table.

“Are you feeling any better?” Mike asks her. She gives a little half shrug, then fixes him a more curious look.

“What’s ‘putting’?”

Mike chuckles a little, a small, warm feeling in his chest at the question.

“Pudding, it’s… It’s this chocolate goo you eat with a spoon.”

Eleven makes a face, Mike realizing how gross the description was. He tries to reassure her that when this is all over, she won’t be reduced to eating junk food all the time. She’ll eat real food, and sleep in a real bed. His parents could take care of her. She’ll be able to come home like she’s supposed to, because Will will be back and they won’t be fugitives and she won’t be a secret anymore. She smiles when he tells her all this, about her having a proper family, with his mom as a mom and Nancy as a sister.

“Will you be like my brother?” She asks, and Mike can’t shake the idea away fast enough.

“What? No, no.”

Eleven doesn’t understand, and he gets himself tongue tied trying to explain.

“I was thinking… I don’t know… Maybe we can go to the Snow Ball together.”

“Snow Ball?” She asks back. He tells her about the cheesy school dance, and that you definitely aren’t supposed to go with your sister. You’re supposed to go with someone you like, and he likes her so, so much.

“A friend?”

“Not a friend.” She doesn’t understand, looking a little put out with how much he’s contradicting her. “Someone like a…”

He doesn’t know how to put his thoughts into words, the sense of belonging he has when he’s with her, the happy feeling that spreads through his whole body when her eyes meet his own. So instead he moves forward, across the cafeteria bench, and presses a kiss to her lips.

He’s got a whole garden’s worth of butterflies in his stomach when their lips touch, and he pulls back quickly, nervous for her reaction. She’s surprised, but she meets his eyes again and seems to understand what he was trying to say, a little smile growing on her face.

“Like… A soulmate.” He manages out. The sound of a car driving up reaches them and Mike assumes it’s Nancy, but when he goes to check, it definitely, definitely isn’t. It’s the bad men, and they have to run. Mike takes Eleven’s hand without hesitation and she holds it so tightly that he can feel how afraid she is, running through the dark school halls. They’re cornered, and just as Eleven said before the bad people are all holding guns, and all of their guns are pointed at them. Fear closes around Mike’s throat, Eleven gripping his hand even tighter, staring down the blonde woman in front of them. Colors flicker and begin to fade, and as they watch, blood begins to run from the bad peoples’ eyes. They drop to the floor all around them, dead, El’s hand ripped from his own as she falls too, her eyes closed, her body completely limp. Mike’s stomach twists and he drops to his knees next to her, because she isn’t moving, she isn’t waking up, and all the colors around them are going grey. She needs help.

“Leave her.”

The male voice is commanding, an older man stepping down the hallway towards them, completely disregarding the mass of dead bodies as he walks. Mike tries to defend Eleven, to tell him to back off, Lucas shouting for them all to eat shit, but guards jump them from behind, and Mike can only watch as the man sits Eleven up. He promises to take her home. Eleven knows who the man is, but she whimpers when he touches her, cradling her head in his hands. Mike thrashes, every fiber of his being fighting to be there, to help her, but the guard holding him is too strong.

“Bad.” Eleven’s voice is broken and weak, the word causing the old man to freeze. “Bad.” She begins to struggle weakly against him, looking over, meeting Mike’s eyes, looking exhausted and helpless. “Mike, Mike.”

Then the lights begin to flicker, and the demogorgon is here.

The guards all drop their grip as the creature bursts through the wall, pulling out their guns and firing and they spare no time, scooping Eleven off the ground and running. They make it to a science classroom in the back of the building, setting her down on a table. Eleven grabs for Mike’s hands and holds them tight, so tightly it almost hurts, despite how weak the rest of her is. Fear is coursing through Mike’s entire body so strongly that he feels sick, tears stinging his eyes. He needs to keep her safe. He has to. He can’t lose her.

“Just hold on a little longer, okay? He’s gone. The bad man’s gone.” He tries to promise her the future, trying to smile, and she smiles back just a little. Color returns to the room, grey around the edges but bright when he looks at her. “We can go to the Snow Ball.”

“Promise?” She asks. Her whole body is shaking.

“Promise.”

The demogorgon bursts down the door, everyone yelling as Lucas fires at the monster with the wrist rocket. It’s all flesh and teeth and death, advancing on them, and some part of Mike already knows that they can’t use rocks to stop it. It’s too big. It’s too strong. It’s going to get them.

Then it’s slammed into the chalkboard, screeching as it’s held down to the wall, and Eleven is on her feet, blood flowing from her nose as she advances towards the creature. She’s trying to save them, but she’s too weak; Mike can’t let her do something like this. He rushes forwards desperately but she flings him away and he lands hard on the floor, his back against the cabinets.

She reaches the monster before turning back to them, and there’s a sick dread heavy in Mike’s chest, because he can feel that no matter what, this won’t end well. He feels tears on his cheeks as she meets his eyes, colors fading around the both of them as El’s power drains her.

“Goodbye, Mike.”

The last thing Mike sees is her face, her scream echoing in his ears. Then his world snaps completely to black and white, and he’s left alone.

#myfic #mileven #mileven fic #mike wheeler #eleven #stranger things #soulmate au

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