#like he clearly was in a VERY bad space mentally and it felt weird to not have his POV

[kay-wren]

I'll Come Running - R.C. - Chapter 39

*** Rafe drove away from JJ's house in a panic once he realized that Jessie really was gone and JJ really didn't know where she was.

Rafe couldn't contain his emotions, leaving him no choice but to pull over. Rafe stared out into the space of the dark road in front of him, only lit by the night sky. All the realization hit him at once as his lips quivered and he narrowed his eyes, trying not to let the tears spill out.

He almost hit Jessie. Over a simple conversation that she was totally justified in having. She wanted him off the coke. But she started it right? Rafe thought that argument was childish. He felt nothing but childish after the temper tantrum he threw at both Jessie and JJ. Rafe wondered what was wrong with him, he had been angry before, but he felt a new sense of helplessness... like he was spinning out of control and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Rafe finally let it all out. The sobs were ugly and reckless as he lost control of his breathing. Rafe had nobody there to calm him down, only the voices in his head.

Be a man. Men don't cry. Rafe heard his father's voice. The same words he heard when he was ten years old, and from that point forward. The words be a man plagued him everyday of his life. Those words were enough to make him dry his eyes, wipe his face, and somehow go completely numb inside. Ward always had that affect on Rafe.

Deciding not to let Jessie have any more of this night, Rafe called the only person he knew could fix this, but fix was a strong word, it was more like putting a bandaid over a bullet hole. Rafe didn't care.

"Man, what do you want? It's too late for this sh-"

"I'm coming over." Rafe interrupted Barry, who sounded less than thrilled.

"Man you were just here?!" Barry replied annoyance and disbelief. "Are you already out?!"

"Not yet, but I will be." Rafe responded with numbness that chilled even Barry through the phone. Rafe simply hung up and Barry knew it couldn't be good.

Barry did the only thing he could think to do: call Jessie. Him and Jessie had a very odd relationship, one that was constantly moving and changing, one minute she would be a smoke buddy, the next minute a buyer, and the next a bitch. It all depended on each other's mood, but in a weird way, Barry always felt bad for Jessie. After all, Jessie only started buying for her father, eventually letting it trickle into her life as well, and now Barry had a front row seat at watching the drug trap another man that Jessie cared about.

Barry called Jessie over and over again, to no avail. The fact that she didn't answer really concerned him, his mind began to wonder to the worst possible scenario, especially with Rafe being so... unpredictable at the moment.

Barry blew up Jessie's phone, every passing ring only adding to his worry, until he saw Rafe pull up. At this point Barry was just plain mad, knowing that Rafe must've had something to do with Jessie not answering her phone.

Barry was anxious to meet Rafe right in the middle of the yard, not letting Rafe come to him like he usually does.

"What the hell, country club? Why your girl ain't answering her phone?"

"Shit, I don't know man. Just leave me alone." Rafe mumbled as he put his hand in Barry's face and walked right past him towards the front door of the trailer. Barry couldn't believe the balls Rafe had on him at the moment, clearly not caring about anyone or anything. It was only a preview of the facade he would adopt for the next four years.

"You don't know? Bullshit you don't know Rafe! You know damn well where Jessie is! You better not have sent her into hiding until the bruises heal-"

"I didn't touch her, okay?!" Rafe screamed, not being able to take the mental gymnastics any longer. "And I'm not bullshitting you... I don't know where she is man!" Rafe explained still heated. He finally looked down at the ground then back up at Barry with more sadness behind his faded eyes. "She left."

"What the hell does that mean, she left?" Barry asked, trying to adopt the same demeanor of not caring, even though he clearly did, at least in a "she's my best customer" kinda way.

"She left. Are you slow or something?" Rafe laughed maniacally as he furrowed his brows and walked closer to Barry. Rafe had no regard for his life any more, and at this point he was looking for a fight— another defense mechanism he would become very familiar with over the course of the next few years.

"No I'm not slow you piece of shit!" Barry mouthed back as he shoved Rafe back. "You're just being vague as hell and it doesn't sound very convincing."

"Well I'm not worried about convincing you." Rafe whispered with a twisted smile. He began to look off into the dark distance. "I'm not worried about convincing anyone." He explained with a dark glint in his eye that Barry hadn't seen before. "So you got more coke or not?" He asked, this time a little more in touch with reality.

"Yeah..." Barry trailed off as he was trying to read whatever Rafe was fantasizing about behind those eyes, he was unsuccessful. Barry just walked inside, looking over his shoulder, feeling like Rafe could easily kill him quickly and quietly with the way he was acting.

"Take your shit and leave." Barry snapped as he took the money from Rafe.

"It was good to see ya." Rafe said as he turned and walked away with a smile Barry couldn't see.

Rafe climbed back into his truck and sped off, pulling out his phone to call the only other person on this island he could count on. 

"What the hell, man? Do you have any idea what time it is?" Topper's voice sounded through the other line. 

"Yeah, yeah, man, whatever. Hey, party at my house tomorrow night. My parents will be out of town. Invite anyone. Party of the century man." The line went dead for a couple seconds. 

"Anyone?" 

"Anyone." 

- - - 

Music was blaring. Bodies were taking up almost the entire first floor of the house. If there was one thing about Topper, he knew how to throw a rager. Kooks, tourons, even pogues were at the Cameron's that fateful night. But Rafe said anyone, right? At that point Rafe didn't really care, the more people the better. Every person was just one more distraction for Rafe Cameron to forget about the one person he wanted to see there. To say it didn't work was a lie, it did work, and that's what threw Rafe into four years of sex, money, and drugs. The parties, the drugs, the fights, seemed to be the closest thing to numbing the pain. 

Rafe made his way around to everyone at the party, slapping his friends on the back and saying hi to everyone he could. The smile on his face was bold, but not the same one he used to beam when he had his Jessie around. 

"Dude, you were right. This is the party of the century! I'm pretty sure some girl is topless in the pool right now." Topper laughed as he met Rafe in the kitchen to pour himself another drink.

"I knew it would be, thanks to you." Rafe replied as he squeezed Topper's shoulders. "But hey, the real party's upstairs." Rafe trailed off with a smirk and a raise of his eyebrows. Topper searched Rafe's bloodshot and watery eyes for a semblance of what that meant, and he thought he had a pretty good idea. Up until tonight Rafe was decent at hiding his coke addiction from his friends and family, Jessie really was the only one who ever saw it, and for good reason. 

"Dude... what do you mean?" Topper asked with a hint of worry to his face. He figured Rafe's newly disheveled and reckless state had to be tied to whatever he was referring to upstairs.  

Rafe didn't reply with words, only a swift nod of the head as if to say come with me.

The sound of the party faded into the distance as Topper followed Rafe up the winding wooden staircase, to be met with a new smell, one that replaced the smell of sweaty bodies and alcohol and was replaced with a smell of skunk and other substances. Topper had a feeling he knew where this was going. 

Rafe opened the door to a spare bedroom, smart enough not to let anyone use his room for such activities. After all, his room was a mess anyways, he hadn't cared to clean it ever since Jessie left. He had let himself go in just about every way possible, and his room was no exception. 

Topper was met with a sight to behold, plenty of people doing lines right off the glass table and  enough weed to go around for the rest of the night. 

"Dude," Topper harshly whispered as he pulled Rafe's shoulder so he would face him. Topper looked less than impressed, and Rafe didn't look too fond of the judgement Topper was so clearly giving him either. "Are you insane? W-What you're into hard drugs now? Is that why Jessie left?" Topper snapped with furrowed brows. He had never seen Rafe so wild and careless, the kook king was typically anything but those two things. 

"Don't" Rafe snapped back with a little too much force, he stopped himself from laying a hand on Topper as he withdrew his fist and let his hand hang loosely beside him. "... talk about Jessie, okay? She's gone. And this night isn't about her." Rafe mumbled with a sly smile, trying to play it off like he didn't almost just pummel his best friend over speaking the name of the love of his life. He had successfully managed to dodge those questions and those feelings tonight, and Topper clearly just ruined that streak, making Rafe feel like he definitely needed a line now. 

Considering the newfound mix of emotions Rafe was feeling, he did just that. He went over to the glass table, not bothering to pay anyone considering it was his coke and lined up the white powder just right before taking a quick drag and sniffling soon afterwards. Topper still couldn't believe his eyes, he genuinely thought he was dreaming. 

"Okay, seriously," Topper began as he rubbed his head, "did someone slip something in my drink or did you just do coke right in front of me?" Topper asked. Rafe just stood up from the couch and laughed. 

"Dude, you're not hallucinating. And you need to chill, it's just something to take the edge off." Rafe replied as he patted Topper's shoulders. 

"Why're you doing this Rafe? Why're you throwing your life away? You know that's where this leads, right? You're starting to act like a po-"

"Shut up, man!" Rafe corrected Topper as he gave him a swift and forceful shove. Rafe gritted his teeth as the words left his mouth, clearly fed up with the accusations. 

Rafe already felt his life had been thrown away, and that was long before Jessie ever entered the picture. Rafe got dangerously close to Topper, this time looking him dead in the eyes with his chest moving rapidly and his blown pupils looking strait at Topper's normal ones. 

"The rest of my life is going to be filled with kook dinner parties, kook business deals, and all other kook shit. For just one night, I wanna have a little fun." Rafe said through anger, doing a great job at disguising the hopelessness he had been feeling since Jessie left, the same hopelessness he had when he met her that night at the Island Club, the same hopelessness that Jessie so effortlessly relinquished him from. 

Whether it was through fear or pity, Topper received the message loud and clear, only nodding his head, not daring to peel his eyes away from Rafe for one second for fear of what he could do to him. Rafe noticed one thing in particular about the past 24 hours. Barry and Topper seemed to look at him differently, with a newfound fear-no, respect- for Rafe Cameron. Rafe thought maybe this is what his father was meaning all those years, maybe this level of reverence was what Ward was trying to instill in him, and he just never found it until tonight. Rafe started to relish the way everyone looked at him, like he held all the power in the room, like he was unstoppable, unapproachable, and untouchable. He loved it. 

What started as a night meant to mask the heartache turned into a lifestyle of commanding the room. 

[strawbrygashez]

P1 DUDE X (FEM) READER X P3 DUDE

HEATER (Part 2)

👻 second part!!!!!!! This is also pretty long but enjoy or whateva I guess!! Sorry if any errors!

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“I don’t like this. Can you guys stop with the joke already? You win or whatever. I just wanted somewhere warm for the night” You looked genuinely a bit exhausted by all this and Dude, finally seemed to get the obvious hint to fill you in. He sighed and looked over to the other Dude who was just looking at the ground. “It’s not a ‘joke’. Believe me or not there is..multiple versions of me. Tons of other ‘Dudes’. I really don’t know this one. But I can assume he’s a really fucked up even more mentally deranged version of me, and some other ‘Dude’ must love messing with him if he’s that terrified of me. If you don’t believe me I can’t help you that much. Sorry.”

Did he really think you were that gullible? What was he getting out of making all this up besides the chance to see you go along with his whole made up story and to be able to make fun of you once they decide to drop the act. Which sounded like a very ‘your’ Dude thing to do. You gave another glance to the other Dude who still hadn’t really reacted to what Dude was saying, and then back to your Dude. He wasn’t showing any hints of a grin or being on the verge of breaking into a fit of laughter either.. and he was usually really bad at hiding the fact he was messing with you most of the time. He seemed to catch on to the fact you were trying to find some hint of him enjoying what was currently happening right now so he cleared his throat before setting his drink down onto the small table next to the couch.

“Look I really am telling the truth, okay? I wouldn’t lie-” he suddenly cut himself off with a stupid chuckle and grin “Well, okay I would lie to you if it was for your own good. But I’m seriously telling you the truth here..” his smile faded some as he decided what to say next. “I’m sure if you stay around me longer..you’ll probably end up meeting more of these loser wanna-be me’s. It’s kinda always random when one of us shows up. I don’t really know why it happens to be honest but you should know by now weird stuff always happens when I’m around, right?” Well, he did have a point there at least. A good amount of the time you guys hanged out together, some of the weirdest opportunities would present its self to Dude and he had told you strange stories of jobs and events that he’d been a part of but for the longest time you’d thought he was just the kinda guy to exaggerate or likes to tell tall tales but with Dudes persistence with this story and the fact this other guy probably really couldn’t have pulled off that good of a ‘act’ earlier without Dudes explanation being true…..Damn. Being around Dude has truly effected you because you are starting to believe something as crazy as this…

“Well..I guess you’re kinda right. But if I find out you’re really just messing with me, you won’t hear from me anymore” You warned Dude (in your heart you knew deep down even if this was a joke, you probably wouldn’t be able to never speak to Dude again. Lord help you). Dude gave you a sweet grin again before ruffling your hair. “Good thing I’m telling the truth then. Wouldn’t know what to do without ya.” He teased. You felt your heart race a little at that but before you could say anything, the other Dude finally looked up Dude and spoke up. “T-there really is a lot of other mes?” You felt kinda bad for almost ignoring the fact that this other Dude clearly was battling with his own worries and doubts of his own right now. Dude removed his hand from you and faced down to him before giving a snarky reply, “What? You finally trust me now? I’m not gonna mess with your hair too if that’s what you want.” The tone made the other Dude slightly frown and look down at the couch space in between you and him with a huff. Dudes comment probably was gonna spiral him down into being scared again so you, yet again had to remind Dude to be nice. Which made him roll his eyes but listen none of the less. “Fine. Yes there are others of us.” Dude said before thinking to himself for a moment and added, “and none that I met would probably hurt you. You probably just got unlucky and only have ever met a real shitty one so, yknow. You can calm down now, alright?”

Even though he said that in a slightly irritated tone it seemed good enough to make the other Dude look up again at him and relax just a bit more. You knew he probably wouldn’t be able to fully trust him for a while, from what you now know you understood why but you were just glad that everything didn’t feel as tense as before. “Fine but…I got my own gun on me so.. don’t try anything..to me or her.” The other Dude replied as he adjusted his glasses. You had to admit it felt kinda nice that this guy seemed to worry about you though he had thought you’d broken into his house. Way too many misunderstandings had happened tonight. Dude chuckled and took another sip of his own drink. “Wouldn’t dare.” He sarcastically replied as he went to go put his now empty mug away.

The other Dudes eyes fell onto you once Dude had walked away as your eyes met his. That’s when you noticed something, even though you assumed all his shaking had been from fear, he still was shivering some as he watched you. That’s when it hit you that he had been outside in the snow storm, running from whatever. How he didn’t freeze to death out there or how he was able to let alone run in all that snow was unknown to you. “Oh, are you cold?..you can have this I really don’t mind.. though it might be cold now.. I could make you a new cup.” You offered as you held out the drink Dude had made you. You hadn’t drank out of it anyways with all this going on. He however shook his head no and gently tried pushing it back toward you. “No thanks..Im fine really. Im kinda cold but I’m used to it. You need it more than I do probably.” He replied. That wouldn’t settle it for you though. You knew he had to have been suffering out there since it was supposed to have been in the negatives, so you stood up and placed your mug down.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make you your own cup. So we would have all had one, okay?” You said with a grin. It looked like he was about to deny a cup again but your Dude chimed in. “Nope. Sit back down. I’ll make him one.” You looked over at him as he went to yet again look for another cup. “I’m perfectly fine making one myself, Dude. You already made me some.” He just gave a shrug at that before replying, “Don’t care. Sit down. I’m already over here.” Ugh he could be such a hard head. You sat down anyways, giving a look to the other Dude about your Dudes behavior. He only just watched you in silence again. Maybe that should have been something you got creeped out by but you got the feeling when he was silent and just looking at something when interacting with someone, he was just thinking to himself or of something to say and boy, was the next thing that came out of his mouth something alright. “Are you his girlfriend?”

A heat washed over your face at the sudden question (while unbeknownst to you, your Dude suddenly got that cold freezing feel again like you’d both had when the other Dude burst in) and you dared not to look at your Dude to get…some kinda conformation? You knew you and your Dude had something going on for sure but both of you still hadn’t really set anything in stone...and Dude didn’t really made a big move on you yet. Though it hurt you a bit to think about it, really all that could be going on between you and Dude could just end up being a friends with benefits type of situation for all you knew so you just managed to answer honestly though mumbling, “N-nope. We’re just kinda friends I guess.” you picked at a loose thread in your pajamas pants, looking away from either Dude as your face continued to burn.

Though you couldn’t see it, the other Dude looked over to your Dude who was just standing there looking off into nothing. Jeez, for a guy who pretended to be so brazen and masculine, he couldn’t even ask out a girl he obviously had a thing for. And that thought was coming from the most mentally unwell Dude there was. Noticing neither of you were probably gonna start acting normal until he did something himself, he tried to give you a reassuring grin. “Oh. Sorry for asking I guess. I don’t have a girlfriend either! So maybe all of us Dudes don’t.” The other Dude said in a attempt to calm you down. Your Dude also noticed your uncomfortableness with the situation so he tried to regain all the confidence he could before he sarcastically said “Man, I wonder why you don’t have one.”

Feeling as though your Dude didn’t take the other Dudes question to seriously or to heart as you did, you forced yourself to look back up and grin at the man in front of you a bit. “Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll get one one day. You seem kinda..cool.” You said. Now this time, neither of you noticed your Dude looking over to both of you with a…certain concerned look in his eyes before quickly focusing back to his task at hand. The other Dude shook his head with a little chuckle. “Nah. Probably not. Too much going on with me.” He replied to you as he looked over to a window near by. The snow had seemed to have picked up even more in speed. It would be one hell of a walk home for him…wherever that even was if this wasn’t his home.

You followed his gaze over to the window and watched as the snow fell. “Jeez. I don’t think anyones going anywhere for a while now.” You pointed out with a chuckle. The news said it was going to be bad, but this bad? You hadn’t imagined it would. Oh well at least maybe your Dude would have to finally relax at home and stop getting into weird, possibly dangerous situations for a bit. The man next to you got up and walked over closer to the window as he nodded. “Yeah. Just wonder where that fucker went to.” Oh yeah. He’d mentioned someone or something following him earlier.

“Who?” You asked, not really thinking of if it would open another can of worms or not. He didn’t answer you for a bit. He just stood there, presumably scanning his eyes around the area before he finally stood back enough to close the raggedy curtains. “I guess the ‘Dude’ who fucks with my head. It…or he, didn’t look exactly human though out there. But it was heading right for me. Those red eyes..fuck. Those keep me up at night.” He answered, looking no where in particular until your Dude walked up to him with a drink in hand. He grinned as he handed it out toward him. “Damn. Sounds like fucking with your head isn’t the only fucking you two have going on. Tell me more about his red eyes?” Dude teased with a fake dreamy flutter of his eye lashes. This made the other Dude frown but take the drink out of his hand rather roughly, some drops falling to the floor. “Fuck you. Did you do anything to this?” He asked as he looked down into the hot beverage.

“No dipshit. I already said I’m not gonna hurt you. Lighten up would ya skippy?” Your Dude said before taking a seat next to you. “And no more hot chocolate for the night. I’m not some stay at home house wife who makes-” you shoved him before he could go on. “I TOLD YOU I COULD-” “Yeah. I know I know. Just shut it would ya?” Dude joked with a grin at you getting ‘upset’ with him. The other Dude watched you two as he took a couple sips. To be honest he was kinda glad he did get the drink after all. He should really pick some stuff up to make his own cups of hot chocolate once he got back home..right. Back home.

“Well.. I guess, uhm. I should figure out how to get back home soon.” He awkwardly interrupted you and Dudes little rough housing (more like shoving and light smacking) match. You looked away from your Dude to him, your grin leaving as you realized he was perfectly fine with the idea going out in that snow storm. You didn���t even feel the need to ask if what you were gonna offer was okay to Dude before you spoke. “You can’t go out in that! Stay here for the night. You probably wouldn’t be able to make out where anything is anyways out there.”

Dudes grin also left once those words left your mouth. “Huh? Y/n you know this is my house right? He decided to barge in.” He said with a sudden seriousness. “Oh cmon Dude. Just look how bad it is out there though. And wasn’t someone following him? You saw uh..how scared he was. No offense other Dude.” You rebutted. The other Dude slightly shook his head with a grin. “None taken.” Dude grumbled and looked at both of you, still not convinced. It wasn’t his problem that this Dude had a obsessive Dude following him. Not at all. But you decided to say something that would reallllly change his tone. “If you let him I guess I would have to sleep somewhere else in the house for the night.” You said, making sure to add a little bit of a flirty tone to the end so he’d connect two and two. Somewhere else? Where else could you slee- OH. His bed.

Like you assumed, this got him to give a big ol’ smirk and suddenly cave in. “Well when you put it like that. Sure. The fucker can stay.” Dude announced, more than ready to share a bed with you as he stood up before holding his hand out for you to take. You couldn’t help but grin either both because you found Dudes reaction silly and you also had one more thing you wanted to spring onto Dude last minute. You took his hand and stood up. The other Dude looked just slightly uncomfortable at the major flirting undertones going on right now but gave you a awkward smile and a..thumbs up? As he made his way to the couch. “Oh. O-okay. I’ll just sleep here on the couch then I guess. Thanks.”

“Mhm. Let’s go y/n. I promise my bedsheets are clean! I had to clean them last week since Champ-” you decided to interrupt him now. “Wait..one more thing." He still kept his excited grin as he gave a “hm?”. “Can he share the bed with us? That SpongeBob blanket didn’t do a good job at keeping me really warm.”

Now BOTH of them looked at you like you had grown a extra head. The other Dudes eyes doing that unnaturally wide thing again but you didn’t feel the need to retract what you said. “What?…huh” He dumbly responded. “I’ll join you if he can come with. I said-” Now Dude cut you off. “No I know but- UGH” he looked up at the ceiling, like he was silently praying for you not to actually want that but knowing you probably wouldn’t budge and that this would maybe at least still let him have his arms around you…fuck it. Sharing the bed with some fucking weirdo would be somewhat okay he guesses as long as you’re next to him in it. He sighed and looked at you both. “Fine. Whatever weirdo. Just keep your hands to yourself, other me. If I feel a hand…” he glared at the other Dude. “N-no I mean I-I’ll probably be fine right here-!” He suddenly started to become red and man was it a lot more noticeable on him than your Dude. This other Dude definitely didn’t leave the house that much with how pale he was.

“It’ll be fine. Please? Also it could be for like…yknow if that one guy comes back. We both are here to protect you.” You tried to convince him. It wasn’t that you were attracted to both Dudes….okay maybe you were slightly attracted to this other Dude..which is probably okay because they are all the same guy??? Right? But you were also genuinely worried about him for a couple reasons. Luckily the promise of protection seemed to sway him into agreeing..though he was on the same boat as your Dude of thinking it was a tiny bit weird..but oh well. “F-fine..okay. I-I’ll just sleep at the end or something..” he finally said as he got up and went over to you both.

As you all made your way to Dudes bedroom, Dude mumbled in a mocking voice “oh but Dude your heater is on”

———

Note: I left the ending slightly ambiguous bc 🤷‍♀️!!!!! BUT I would like to imagine it ends with the reader & Dudes all ending up in a cuddle pile..that y’all prob don’t talk about until a couple days later 💀

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #47: "Self-Medication" | November 23, 2009 - 12:00AM | S04E06

Season four continues with an episode that is really good!!! Like, one of the better ones for sure. Like, there have only been a couple episodes I’ve felt blah about, and even those aren’t too bad.

In this one: Dr. Venture goes on a boyish adventure with a bunch of other former boy adventurers. They all belong to the same therapy group, which also consists of Action Jonny, two Hardy Boys style guys who clearly murdered their parents and got away with it (ala the Menendez Brothers, who didn’t get away with it), a tubby ex-Wonder Boy, and a cute little robot child. Somebody kills their therapist and they need to go to the local strip club to investigate. 

Meanwhile: Hatred is having withdrawals at the movie theater with Hank and Dean. He’s out of the medicine what makes him not want to touch little boys (sexually), and starts having a panic attack. He abandons his post and locks himself in the panic room. That’s it! That’s the episode! Rusty and a bunch of losers wander around like it’s a Richard Linklater movie and Sgt. Hatred has a mental health crisis. Like, I literally have been sitting here thinking to myself if there was an A story and these were just the B & C stories.

But the thing is: this episode is hilarious and great and I’d put in the pantheon of “very good episodes”. And this episode has Seth Green in it! You’d think I’d be too pissed off at him to not overlook this, but I did! He plays the jockier of the Menendez/Hardy Boys. His brother is played by professional virgin Jon Hodgman. Brendon Small reprises his role of Action Jonny, who is definitely, legally not Jonny Quest. Patton Oswals plays a former Wonder Boy, one that didn’t get murdered by the Monarch (he probably just got fucked by him). This wonder boy is based on the actor who played Robin in the 1940s Batman serials, who grew up to be a middle-aged man with weird hair. The Ro-Boy is a parody of AstroBoy, and he’s voiced by Jackson Publick. He’s famous too, he’s just, you know, the creator of the show and not a guest star. 

Stuff I will mention now: 

I love all the scenes with the therapy group. Great collection of characters. The therapist with the racist “native” puppet is so funny, I love the “chemical dependence” line. 

There is a nice-sized slur in this one, and it’s followed up with Action Jonny saying a crass joke about giving a guy’s wife herpes. His hit-you-over-the-head phrasing of “after I put herpe in there” was a Brendon Small ad-lib and improves that joke tenfold. 

There’s a deleted scene where we see Rusty’s brown friend jump into the pool during the flashback scene, when Rusty is being forced to undergo talk-therapy with his abusive father. That’s why you see him swimming around in the finished episode. I wondered about this. It turns out he jumped in that pool first. 

The commentary has a big long section cut out of it. Jackson and Doc actually record a little thing to replace the missing audio, explaining that they had to edit something out of the commentary. Have they ever said what that’s about? 

MAIL BAG

Did you enjoy the Oscars? Who on adult swim would you give the awards for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture to. You can do others if you are feeling frisky but I don't want to bowl you over.

i don't respect acting or actors and I don't think we should encourage them. Best picture is uh, Kentucky Nightmare, directed by Space Ghost. I didn't like the Oscars, I didn't see any of those films :(

I'm watching Delocated again thanks to your blog and I was loving it until there is a scene where Jon says "If tea is what he wants then T is what he's gonna get" and then he holds a big letter T. I thought that was just so stupid. Like I thought I was watching Sesame Street. Put the letters away.

You don't like Sesame Street?? What do you like??

You're invited to hang out with three of your favorite adult swim stars. The catch? You have to hang out with Andy Merrill and he brought his favorite board games. You must play with Andy to have access to the other celebs. Do you?

I really do think that questions like this are meant to make me look FOOLISH, as if I like to sit around having childish fantasies of playing Cards Against Humanity with Brak. Well, I have a non-childish answer, maybe the most adult thing I've ever said, as a matter-of-fact: I would do it, but I would pick only hot sluts and have sex with them in front of Andy while he whined about being married in a Brak voice. What do you think of that you gay little ho

I was re-reading your Saul of the Moleman writeups and wow, what an awful show that was. My friend insists that Gerhardt Reinke's Wanderlust is good. I think there's no chance because this guy is a clown. Tell me for him that it sucks too. Please. Even if you don't believe it. Bend the truth for my advantage.

You know what I haven't really watched it but for you? Sure: that show sucked, and that's the reason I turned it off before the first commercial break of the first episode. Sorry, but Saul is a gay little ho

Any plans for Oscar's Big Night?

It was rather quiet, but I appreciated their minimalistic approach this year.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

This Dark Thing That Sleeps In Me - a Magnus Archives AU, Chapter Nine

This is a DARK AU; it is not a kid-fic, though Jon is young. Bittersweet ending ahead.

Spoilers for the whole show, though this is very much an alternate universe.

Gently, she said, “And sometimes, the information in books is wrong—even contradictory.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. What was it supposed to be like? Well, he didn’t know. It was probably good he didn’t. The more he learned, the more danger he was in from Jonah. But the less he learned, the less sure he was of what he had to do.

How do you eat an elephant? his past self said, piping inside his head. One bite at a time.

That worked. The next bite was dinner and pleasing Jonah Magnus. He could do that.

AO3

------------

Apparently, knowing that she would be reborn did nothing to assuage Martin’s sorrow.

Jon sort of got it. She wouldn’t be the same person. She’d have no memories. Whatever relationship they’d had would have to be rebuilt. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying, because he couldn’t help feeling like this was somehow his fault. He’d chosen to be reborn; he’d triggered whatever this was. This was his fault… but he couldn’t explain. 

Martin didn’t think it was Jon’s fault, clearly, but Martin also didn’t seem to have a lot of mental space to give Jon right now.

This was... this was bad for Martin. All of this was. To be the only one (apart from Jonah and Oliver) to live through his friends’ deaths, again and again, and have to start over from scratch. Jonah made Martin go through this grief over and over. You are about to pay off all the effort I put into you, Jonah had said, and then assigned him to watch Jon. 

Was that somehow his fault, too? Jon felt sick. 

Martin wept for a while. Then he staggered to a speaking tube in the wall and managed to send orders down the pipe. Apparently, everyone heard, and understood, in spite of his weeping, because then, it got crazy.

People swarmed in to clean the place. All the webbing was removed, and the body taken by the Flesh for preparation for burial.

Corruption moved in, but only lightly—so that all the blood and bone and bits were disintegrated, rotted a thousand years in an instant, decomposed down to dust. Eye moved in, making sure the place was fully clean, that nothing remained of Annabelle or her corpse or the strange power that had slain her. Tim moved in to take Martin in his arms and cry together. Sasha swept the whole room with some kind of weird torch, its electric beam purple, and pointed out some spots the Corruption had missed. Mike was hard on her heels, and when she took a moment to cry, she leaned into his chest to do it.

There was more. There was more fuss, more mayhem, more discussion. Jon didn’t catch most of it. He was ignored. They were all in such a rush that no one even saw him unless they tripped over him, and that happened several times before he figured out he needed to sit in the corner, rather than anywhere near the center of the room.

From there, curled up, he watched as all evidence Annabelle had ever existed was swept away from this place. Everyone was shaken; a few people cried. But no one expressed shock. No one swore revenge. No one reacted in anger.

Sasha and Mike finally returned and sat on Martin’s other side. She and Tim leaned in, arms around him, compressing his grief. Mike sat slightly to the side, uncertain; finally, he put one hand on Tim’s knee. Tim eyed him, then put his hand over Mike’s. It was a concession of some kind, some important door being opened, but Jon didn’t fully understand it.

He had never seen affection like this. He’d never imagined it could exist. It was beautiful. He considered it as clearly as he could; considered who Martin was, and who his friends were. (Love. This was love.) Jon knew he’d never engender affection like that. He ached.

He also knew Martin would have to say goodbye to all these people again and be alone while they were born and grew up again. Jon ached more.

And what if one of them wasn’t reborn? What if they were lost? Annabelle was right. All of this was broken.

The floor was finally clean; all signs of horror and home had been swept away. Jon stayed completely still. And Sasha stood, and Tim stood, and they pulled up Martin between them, and Mike stood closer to them than he yet yet. The four of them left—and though Martin glanced around, just a brief look, it was obvious to Jon that no one saw him there. They left, and he sat there alone in an empty floor.

He wondered how invisible he could be. He wondered if he could do it to the point that he could wander around this tower without being seen even by Jonah.

It is wise to be afraid of Jonah Magnus.

He didn't doubt it. “What is this crown, anyway?” he asked his past self who’d supposedly made the thing, but got no answer. Everything Annabelle had said had been true. He knew it, and not just because Martin had trusted her completely (giving deniability, being a good friend.) This horrible thing had happened, and Jonah had believed Martin innocent. 

So. So, he had a quest. He had to steal and break that crown. He couldn’t tell anyone, or ask for help. If anyone knew, Jonah Magnus might read it in their heads, and then he’d kill them.

Jon had been alone all his life. Loneliness didn’t bother him, but right now, he felt it most keen. This was so much. Such a big quest. “What am I going to do?” he said.

Silence was the only reply.

Exhaustion had its way. Jon fell asleep in the corner, curled over his knees, and slept for several hours.

#

Something tickled his ear, and he jerked away from it. A large spider dangled there, suspended from a long, thin web. 

He hadn’t expected that. There hadn’t been a lot of spiders in Amherst’s house; Jon suspected the creatures Amherst made probably ate them.

This thing seemed to be staring at him.

“Hi,” he said. “Your timing is grand. If you’d been here earlier, they probably would have squashed you.”

It waved at him.

He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes. “Did you just wave at me?”

It did it again, one of its eight legs cheerful, its eyes all looking right at him.

The questions started at once. He couldn’t help it. “Do tower-spiders do this regularly?”

The whole body turned back and forth, an emphatic no .

His heart leapt. Jon sat straight up, squinting to see it better. “So you’re special.”

Another wave.

“You’re not Annabelle’s somehow, are you?”

It put its two front legs together and waved them with great drama.

Jon rubbed his face, rubbing away the tracks of his tears. “Did she send you?”

Another leg-nod.

“Are… are you here to help me?”

Nod-nod.

He had a spider-friend. That was amazing.

Jon sniffled, wiping at his eyes. He wasn’t alone, after all. He held out his hand. The spider climbed onto it and up his arm without hesitation or fear. He could crush it so easily, yet it trusted him. Something in Jon’s heart warmed. (You aren’t alone, his past self said.) “Should… what should I do now?”

It made a sort of shrug gesture, or as much as it could with the limbs it had.

“Right. Well. Oh, shoot—what time is it?” He stood. “I’m supposed to have dinner with everyone. Will Martin be in trouble if he doesn’t have me there?”

A definitive nod.

He had a good idea where Martin would be, and headed for the stairs. (You aren’t alone. That changed it all. How could that simple fact hold so much power?) “Do you have a name?” he asked the spider.

Shrug.

“I think you should have one. Names are important.”

Shrug. 

“I don’t know why. I just know they are.” He considered. “How about Arachne?”

The spider somehow gave him a dry look.

“Too on the nose, huh? Which you don’t have.” Jon giggled. 

The spider sort of wriggled. He thought she might be laughing, too.

“All right, all right. How about… Annabelle Two?”

And the spider nodded.

Well, that was easy. “Okay, Annabelle Two. Here’s our job. If Jonah Magnus decides to kill me, I think he can. Right?”

Nod.

“So I need to make him happy with me.” Jon considered the people who’d raised him, how he’d learned to please them enough to leave him alone. He swallowed. “This is going to really be awful, isn’t it?”

A nod.

Jon sighed. “Fine. A little humiliation for the sake of good people isn’t so terrible, is it? No. I can do this. It’s worth it to save the world.”

The strangest feeling hit him as he walked the many steps toward Sasha’s lab. He felt like his past self was pleased with him. Jon wasn't just sitting still, paralyzed and unhappy. He was choosing. It felt good. “Thank you,” he said out loud. Too young to be stiff even after sitting on the floor for so long, he walked right out of the room and took the many, many stairs required to reach Sasha’s lab.

#

They were all talking in there when he arrived, and without a shred of guilt, he listened at the door.

Martin sniffled. “That means a lot. Thank you, Mike.”

“Sure,” said Mike. “I mean, least I can do when it’s all over.”

“We’ll all need to make an appearance at the funeral, anyway,” said Sasha. “I don’t know why he’s gotten all suspicious, but this can’t be safe. Everyone needs to be on their best behavior.”

“Fuck him,” said Tim.

“Tim!”

“No. I mean it. He made Martin cry. Fuck him.”

Martin’s laugh was weak. “Tim, it’s… it’s fine. Not the first time. I mean, I’ve known him for a long time.”

“Don’t care. Fuck him.”

“You’re funny, but be careful,” said Sasha. “He normally puts up with all that sort of thing, but today, he's clearly not. Annabelle…”

“That was betrayal, though, wasn’t it?” said Mike. “The report is she actively was plotting against him, somehow.”

“I don’t know,” said Martin softly. “I don’t know what was going on—she’d not let me know anything about it. And Jon…”

“That poor kid,” said Sasha.

“Poor weird kid,” added Mike.

“Where is he, anyway?” said Sasha.

Martin sighed. “I don’t know. Must’ve ran off after Jonah…”

“Can’t blame him,” Tim muttered. “I mean, shit.”

“But we have to find him!” said Sasha. “He’s not safe!”

“Safer than anyone else would be,” Martin said. “Nobody can see him.”

“I don’t want Jonah mad at you for any reason,” said Sasha.

“He won’t care that much,” Martin said.

“I think he will,” said Tim. “Something is weird about all of this. Maybe Jon’s his illicit love-child, or something?”

Everybody laughed.

“Nnnno,” said Mike finally.

“Yeah, that’s not… no,” said Sasha.

“Still,” said Mike. “Should find him. Not a good risk, pissing the Heart off right now.”

“You don’t have to get involved,” said Martin miserably.

“We love you, Marto,” said Tim. “Sorry. You’re stuck with us looking out for you, even if that means tracking down a runaway ghost-child who could be Jonah’s bastard kid to make sure Jonah doesn’t blow you up!”

“You guys,” said Martin, starting to cry again, or maybe laugh. “You’re the ones who keep leaving. I’m just… I’m…”

“Loved?” said Tim.

“Loved,” said Sasha.

And after a moment, very, very quietly, Mike said, “Yeah. That’s about right.”

Oh... Martin was loved.

That was so good. So important. So much, and if Jon listened to any more of this, he was going to cry, too. He opened the door.

Everybody jumped. They were seated on the floor against one of Sasha’s cabinets, all leaning into each other, a proper pile of puppies.

“Oh!” said Martin. “Oh, gods, I’m so sorry—where have you been? I… I fucking left you. Jon, I’m sorry.” He clambered to his feet.

“It’s fine,” said Jon. “I took a nap.”

They all stared at him. “Where?” said Sasha.

Jon didn’t know how to answer that, so he shrugged.

“Fuck. Napping in the house of horrors, completely unmolested,” muttered Tim. “Right. Dibs is active now. We won’t let him out of our sight again, right?”

“Definitely, not,” said Sasha. “At least not until we know he’s safe.”

“I’m safe,” said Jon. “I’m sure of it.”

“This place isn’t safe,” said Sasha. “It’s one thing if you’re with us, but…”

“Need some help watching him?” said Mike.

“That would mean sticking around even more,” said Sasha. “Won’t Oliver mind?”

Mike shrugged. “It’s different in the Mountain. Got a lot more freedom than you lot do. Besides, it’d help, right?”

“It would,” Martin said.

“Then I’ll watch him. For free.”

“You’d do that?” said Martin.

“Yes. For you.”

Martin looked… Jon didn’t have words for how Martin looked. Wet-eyed flushed, staring, needy, warm, intense—he shook it off. “We should get ready for dinner,” he said. “Sorry, Jon, but we all have to dress up for it. It’s ridiculous.”

And in a moment of wild inspiration, Jon said, “Can I bring my spider?”

They all stared at him. “What?” said Mike, finally.

Jon held out his arm. Obediently, the spider crawled out from under his hair and onto his hand. “This is Annabelle Two,” he said.

Now they all stared with mouths dropped.

“What… what is that?” said Tim.

“A spider,” said Jon.

“It’s, uh. Trained?” said Martin.

And again on inspiration, Jon lied. “Yes. I taught her in my attic. She hides in my hair.”

Mike grunted. He’d know that was nonsense; he’d dunked Jon, and flown him through the air, and a spider would not have survived. But Mike stayed quiet.

You’ll owe him for that, warned Jon’s past self, but he didn’t care.

“Annabelle Two?” said Martin, his voice tight. “That’s… that’s very nice, Jon. When did you name her?”

“Today.” That wasn’t a lie, at least.

“Time,” Sasha warned, taking off her weird goggle helmet thing. 

“Fuck,” said Tim, heading for the door. “See you upstairs.”

“I’ll join you,” said Mike.

“Don’t know if that’s wise,” said Tim.

“What’s he going to do? Kill me?” Mike snorted. “And ensure Oliver Banks comes to mope around his pretty, shiny court?”

“No, you’ve got a point. I just don’t want Marto hurt anymore today.”

“So keep me safe, handsome," said Mike.

Tim snorted. “Charming,” he said, then grinned.

“So are the Heart and the Will equally balanced, then?” said Jon. “In power, or something.”

“Basically,” said Martin. “Come on, we’ve got to get dressed.”

“Then why do the textbooks never talk about this Oliver Banks?”

“Because he doesn’t care about fame, and Jonah does,” said Martin.

That fit. And, like before, it made some tiny, strange part of himself furious.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. What was it supposed to be like? Well, he didn’t know. It was probably good he didn’t. The more he learned, the more danger he was in from Jonah. But the less he learned, the less sure he was of what he had to do.

How do you eat an elephant? his past self said, piping inside his head. One bite at a time.

That worked. The next bite was dinner and pleasing Jonah Magnus. He could do that.

He would do that.

And then, he’d figure out what his next bite would be.

chapter ten

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread      

The Reckless Kind

YA historical fiction set in Norway 1904

a girl who doesn't want to be married off, but instead live with her best friend and his boyfriend together as outcasts

& they attempt to win the village’s annual horse race to secure enough money to start a new life

disabled characters, queerplatonic found family

[noodyl-blasstal]

I’m coming to terms with the fact that I might like you enough to play this stupid board game you’ve been explaining the rules to for twenty-eight minutes now. And god save me, I listened to all of it??? (i'm pretty sure it's 24?) and blupjeans?? thankie !!

Thank you very much for this one! Shout out to Goosebumps: One Day at Horrorland.

Prompt from @juicywritinghoard Prompts for Fun and Profit which can be found by clicking here.

Barry was attaching the ‘Giant Pond Horror’ to a turntable as he spoke enthusiastically, trying not to gesture too wildly and repeat the ferris wheel incident. Wait, no, the ‘Wheel of Fear’ incident. Lup kicked herself mentally for remembering this detail, that was at least 10 minutes ago. She should not have memorised the names of the components of this dorky game, and she definitely shouldn’t know that Barry needed the Alligator Pond Dialler right now. She handed it over all the same. Barry broke his stride to thank her, and clipped it into place.

“Okay, so just the Doom Slide left to go, we’re almost ready!” Barry grabbed a cardboard skull outline and waved it in her direction while making vaguely spooky noises. Lup giggled, then mentally berated herself for encouraging him. 

Barry put the skull down and started pushing the cardboard slide together. “So I’ve already explained that you have to get the ticket cards, right?” He asked. Lup nodded, more eagerly than she’d ever admit.

“Right, well you also need to get your ride tokens to show you’ve been on them. Oh, and there’s some weird gender stuff, but I changed it to “punk” and “goth” because, you know, I was going through a phase. So anyway, you move one of your people depending on the spinner, but we can go through that a bit more when we’re actually playing, I think it’s easier to explain when you’re actually doing it. You can move any direction, but you can’t double back in the same turn, and when you’re on Horror Bridge or the Doom Slide you can only go forward.” He clipped the last pieces of the slide into place and secured it to the board, adding the big skull at the top.

“Wait, you had a goth phase? Barold! I need the photos!!” Lup was overjoyed. There was no reply. “... a punk phase?” She prodded. Barry stared hard at the wall above her shoulder.

“Anyway… There’s a try again space if you get knocked off,” he ploughed on valiantly.

“Goth Barryyyyyyy” Lup teased, under her breath.

“Oh, if you spin a 2 you can start on a ride!” Barry was clearly grasping for other things to say now and Lup felt a bit guilty. She decided that kindness was more necessary than rowdiness right now (she’d find the pictures later…) Lup nodded encouragingly, and he was off again, it was adorable.

“...blank spaces mean nothing, nice and simple!” Barry chuckled to himself, the dork. “If you get one of the ones with a G on it, you get to take a card. We’ll go through them as we go as well, although I know I’ve talked a bit about what they do.”

Barry looked so happy that Lup couldn’t help but smile. It was infectious. Barry was always so shy, so to hear him talk about this so passionately was lovely. She didn’t realise how much he could light up - he forgot to hold himself as stiffly as usual, and a smile was plastered across his face. No holding back. There were no barriers here, and she loved it. 

There was no denying that Lup had only agreed to this because she felt bad. Taako had snorted and immediately dismissed it when Barry proposed playing a board game. Magnus and Merle had jumped ship as soon as Taako announced he was going out instead. But the way Barry’s shoulders slumped, and the look of dejection on his face? It had been enough to make her dive in and offer to play without considering that it meant Paying Attention to Extensive Instructions (which was usually her least favourite hobby). 

“Only one person at a time on Doom Slide or Horror Bridge…” Barry tapped his chin, trying to work out if there was anything else to tell her. “... and this is where you get to release the skulls!” He added.

“Wait, I get to what now?” Lup asked, interest very much piqued.

“...and if you can hit someone hard enough with the Giant Pond Horror that they go into the other Horror’s mouth then some other stuff happens, but we’ll get to that when we’re going.” Barry continued. 

“I get to punt you off a bridge into a hell beast’s mouth?” Lup asked, starting to get Barold’s enthusiasm. “...and throw skulls at you?” She was smiling just as enthusiastically now.

“Only if you have a certain card and I’m on the Horror Bridge or the Doom Slide.” Replied Barry, sounding more cautious now. He suddenly paused and she saw him clam up again, smile locking itself down. She saw the moment when the doubt overtook him and the backpedalling began immediately. “Sorry Lup, I’ve probably gone on a bit too much here, we don’t have to play.” Barry flushed a deep shade of red and looked frantically around the room. “We could, er, we could watch a movie, or you can go find Taako and the others? Yeah, you’d probably rather be at the bar, right? Sorry, I shouldn’t have kept you here.” Barry was stammering now, she could practically feel the panic radiating off him. Oh no. Lup didn’t want this, she didn’t want Barry to feel like he was a joke, or that she was pitying him. Sure, maybe she agreed because of pity, but he’d been talking about this game for the last (Lup surreptitiously checked the clock,) twenty eight minutes, and she’d listened to every word. He made it sound so interesting that she was actually excited to play? She wasn’t exactly sure when that happened, but Barry was endearing - his enthusiasm was infectious, and gods help her, she wanted to smack his goth into a hell beast with a Giant Pond Horror.

“Barold,” Lup placed a hand firmly on his shoulder and looked at him until he stopped apologising. “I’m here because I want to be here. Chagirl doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to, and right now, she wants to kill your goth ass with a fucktonne of skulls on the Doom Slide. Let’s go!”

Barry stared at her for a minute, searching her face for some hint of a lie. He didn’t find it. “Okay Lup, let’s go.” He repeated, solemnly, handing her some tiny cardboard figures.

[tobesolonely]

aura

A/n: Hi everyone! this is a tad bit different from the things i usually write (I think) as i wanted to switch things up a little bit. I’m kinda nervous to post it so pleaseee please let me know your thoughts! As always please enjoy!! thank you to everyone who beta read for me btw :)

summary: witch!y/n can see auras and harry is blue

my ko-fi! thank you :)

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Y/N has always been able to easily empathize with others. She could see others' emotional energy— their aura— and this made it easy to know exactly what they were feeling. Not only could she see auras, but she could take away anyone’s emotional turmoil just by touching them.

One of Y/N’s most vivid memories from her childhood was when her best friend came to school one morning in tears over the death of her pet fish. When Y/N leaned in to give her a hug, she felt an overwhelming heaviness overtake her body as soon as they made contact. Upon pulling away from the hug, her friend’s demeanor was completely changed. Instead of being sad over the death of her fish, she was able to instead reflect on all the good times she had with him. Her friend was fine for the rest of the day, but Y/N was left grieving over a fish she never even owned.

Y/N went home that day, confused. How was it that her friend was so easily cheered up just from a hug? Was that all it took for Y/N to make others feel better? If that was the case, she decided she wanted to be a ‘Professional Hugger’ when she grew up. As time went on, Y/N learned that she didn’t even have to hug others to rid them of their mental pain. The slightest touch from her instantly made anyone she came into contact with feel better.

It took a few months for Y/N to realize it was her touch that healed others. Sure, that mental anguish then became hers to carry, but how many people could say they could heal someone just by touching them? If that was the price she had to pay, then so be it. From that point on Y/N made it a point to help anyone she could. 

As Y/N got older and her skill with this power grew, she learned to redirect the painful energy elsewhere so she didn’t always have to sit with it. It worked some of the time, but it was something she was still learning to master. Y/N wasn’t always successful in doing this, though. While whoever Y/N touched went about their day feeling great, she would experience their emotions so intensely that she felt as if she were coming down with a cold. Y/N dealt with it in silence because the way she saw it if she was blessed with this gift, she had to be selfless and put it to good use. Y/N was a firm believer that all the good she put out would come back to her in another life at least ten times over.

It was difficult for Y/N not to touch everyone she saw whose aura reflected sadness, anxiety, or worry. She tried to stick to only doing this to people she knew, but there were some instances where Y/N encountered someone who was just so clearly unhappy that she could not help herself. 

For example, right now. 

Y/N immediately sensed this stranger’s emotional turmoil as soon as they entered the space. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday. Y/N had the longest, most physically demanding day at work and the last thing she wanted to do was go home and cook. Even though she had just gone grocery shopping two days prior, she stopped by her favorite Thai place on the way home. Y/N was in the middle of ordering when their presence quite literally took her breath away, causing her to stumble over her words. 

She turned to look over her shoulder at the person who was so greatly distracting her and locked eyes with the most pitiful looking stranger she’d seen all day. The first thing Y/N noticed about him was his hair. It was unruly, like he had just gotten out of bed. She also noticed how tall he was–– if he had just a couple more inches on him, he would’ve had to crane his neck to enter the establishment. Upon making eye contact with Y/N the man quickly looked down at his shoes, twiddling his thumbs. His aura was a mixture of indigo and dark red when Y/N looked at him. Anger and sensitivity.

“Do you still need a moment?”

The voice of the cashier breaks Y/N out of her analytical thoughts of the stranger standing a few feet behind her. She nods, re-situating her purse on her left shoulder. 

“Uh, please. He can go ahead if he’s ready.” Y/N gestures behind her and the cashier nods, asking the man behind her if he was ready to order yet. He steps up to the front counter, eyes trained on his feet as if he couldn’t walk without watching every step he took. 

His energy was intense and Y/N wasn’t sure how much longer she could ignore it. Something about him was reeling her in— his aura wasn’t looking too bright at the moment, but she could just tell it usually was. She felt compelled to take away his pain, and she hadn’t spoken a single word to him yet. While he was placing his order, Y/N internally debated on whether or not she should “accidentally” graze his arm when they walked past each other. Would that be weird? What if she wasn’t able to redirect his negative energy elsewhere? While she did love to help whenever she could, some people’s emotional baggage was just a little too heavy. She didn’t know him. For all she knew, he could be a killer!

He turns back around once he’s finished ordering and stands by the entrance, out of Y/N’s way. The pair lock eyes again as Y/N makes her way back to the counter to order. Once again, he quickly looked away from her. Y/N’s trying to ignore the annoying nagging feeling she gets when she wants to help someone, but it’s unrelenting. She makes up her mind that once she’s done, she will approach this stranger to get a better read on his emotions. 

“Nice weather we’re having today, isn’t it?” She cringes at her choice of a conversation starter and hopes he doesn’t notice. Y/N folds her hands across her chest, forcing herself not to reach out to him. He nods.

“Lovely.”

The tone of his voice causes Y/N to wince. It was sharp and short. He was clearly not in the mood to converse. Although Y/N knows this, she continues on.

“I love this place. I think I come here at least twice a month–– what’s your go-to order?”

The man turns to fully face Y/N this time, his aura now more red than blue. He was beginning to grow annoyed with her small talk. 

“Green curry and stir-fried vegetables.” He doesn’t ask Y/N for her order, so she takes this as her signal to stop speaking to him. The bell above the door jingles, signaling another persons’ entry. Their aura is shining gold–– Y/N would not have to interfere. 

Y/N moves away from this man, deciding not to speak to him anymore. She was getting better at accepting the fact that no matter how much she wanted to, it was impossible to help everyone. As he collected his food from the front and turned to leave, not sparing Y/N another glance, she silently hoped that whatever was wrong with this man would not last.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Harry was in a funk. There was no denying it, and he was over feeling so terribly. He hadn’t been feeling like himself for far too long. It seemed like everyone wanted something from him when he had nothing left to give. Jeff had set unrealistic deadlines, his mother was upset with him for not calling enough, and he was exhausted from constantly traveling and waking up in a new time zone. Harry needed a break.

Harry’s mind wandered to the pretty girl in the Thai place. She seemed inquisitive. She was very curious about his go-to order, and she was standing a little too close for his comfort. Harry was surprised when she didn’t ask him for a picture. He wasn’t trying to be cocky, but nearly everyone he met asked him for a picture–– he was Harry Styles. However, it was almost like this girl didn’t know who he was. She didn’t seem starstruck in the slightest.

While Harry was waiting for the light to change, it dawned on him that he may have been a tad bit rude to her. He noticed her happy expression drop when he shut her down, but he didn’t feel like talking. He liked to move from place to place as quickly as he could in the off chance he got recognized and it started circulating on Twitter. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a little bad. She was sweet like honey–– or so it seemed. In their brief interaction, she bought him comfort.

Harry wanted to turn back around and go back to the restaurant to check if she was still there. What would be the point, though? She would most likely be long gone by the time he made it back over there, as she did order immediately after him. Harry’s torn out of his thoughts when the cars behind him start honking, and he realizes the light must’ve turned green. He decides not to think about the confrontation anymore. 

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

The world works in mysterious ways. 

Y/N was sure she’d never encounter the grumpy man from her favorite Thai restaurant again but yet here she was in another situation that involved take-out and him. His aura was dark indigo this time. Stress? Isolation? Y/N didn’t know, but she wanted to help him. In her eyes, there was no reason for anyone to be down this badly. She just wanted everyone to be as happy as she (almost) always was! She takes a deep breath before approaching him.

“Hi. How are you?”

Harry was absorbed in a text conversation involving his manager and stylist when a sweet, familiar voice interrupts him. 

“I’m okay, thank you. Yourself? Also, we’ve spoken before, I believe.”

She nods, a troubled look on her face. “We have. At the Thai place. How are you, though? Really.”

Harry was beginning to find her a bit strange (but still incredibly gorgeous, even more than he did before now that he got a good look at her face). Why was she so concerned with how he was feeling? Was she going to ask him for a picture or not? As Harry opened his mouth to again tell her he was fine, the desire to tell her how he was really feeling came over him. So he did.

“Honestly? ‘M exhausted. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and my manager wants a lot from me. I think I jus’ need a break.” 

He radiated red. Anxiety? Anger?

“What do you do for work?” Now it was Harry’s turn to wear the troubled look.

“I don’t mean this to be rude, but you’re serious?”

Y/N nods, reaching out to place her hand on his shoulder. Just as quickly as she touches him she removes her hand, and she’s almost certain he didn’t even feel her touch. She notices him let out a visible sigh of relief, his aura changing from a red to a pale yellow. Optimism. Positivity. This causes her to let out her own sigh of relief. 

“You’re feeling better! That’s great.” Y/N was not able to redirect his negative energy as the restaurant was too crowded and she didn’t want to risk putting it on anyone else, and she was feeling him. He was stressed, overworked, and anxious. Y/N just wanted to go home and nap, no longer in the mood for the food she just ordered.

Harry decided she was definitely odd but in the most endearing way possible. “How do you know I’m feeling better? Wait, am I feeling better?” Y/N watches as he works through his emotions, his aura ranging in color before settling back on pale yellow. 

“Are you?” Y/N knows the answer to this of course, but she wants to hear him say it.

“I think I am. I’ve been feelin’ horrible all week but saying how I felt out loud to you automatically made me feel better. Kind of weird, but I won’t question it. Thank you for asking…,” Harry scrunches his nose, a distasteful expression on his face. “I don’t think ‘ve gotten your name yet.”

Y/N gives him a small, forced smile. “I’m Y/F/N Y/L/N. It’s nice to meet you. I’ll be seeing you around, I think.” Before Harry can tell her his name she’s gone.

And she didn’t even grab her food.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Y/N felt like she had been hit by a ton of bricks. How one person could carry around all this emotional baggage was beyond her, but she wanted it gone. Immediately.

There was a spell Y/N kept on hand for times like these. Times when she couldn’t redirect the negative energy before it got to her. Times when it was just too much to carry. Y/N had regretfully done this spell more times than she could count and was an expert at reciting it from memory. The vile was open and ready to capture the negative energy that would shortly be leaving her.

Y/N works quickly to complete the process, unsure of what time her roommate would come barreling through the door. She had caught her doing things she deemed strange one too many times (she thought her roommate almost figured out who she really was when she caught her having a full-on conversation with her cat, Sapphire, once). She was beginning to run out of excuses for her “unusual” behavior. Y/N mutters under her breath, willing the energy to exit her.

She notices right away when it leaves her. She feels lighter— like her usual self again. She guides the energy into the vile and immediately seals it, hurrying into her room to lock it away. Y/N kept a box in her closet that she only opened if she had to. It was her Pandora’s Box, in a way. Nothing bad would be released into the world if she opened the box, but if the viles’ were opened then the bad energy she trapped would be re-released into the world, finding its way back to their original owners.

Y/N feels like she can breathe again once she bolts the box. She hoped that whatever he was doing, wherever this man was, he was still feeling okay. 

Also, for his sake and everyone’s around him, she hoped he got a break.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Y/N was on Harry’s mind. 

Something about her was magnetic. He wished he’d gotten more information about her than only her name, but she left him in such a hurry he could hardly process their conversation. Harry felt like a madman! He searched ‘Y/F/N Y/L/N’ on all social media platforms, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. It was dumb luck that he had ran into her twice in such a short time span, and he hoped good things happened in threes and he would see her again.

He was almost certain that Jeff thought he was losing his mind.

Harry tried explaining his interaction with Y/N first at the Thai food spot and again when he was getting Greek food, but Jeff thought Harry was so sleep deprived he was imagining things. 

“How did you see a beautiful, young woman who didn’t freak out or ask for a picture? Doesn’t make sense. You’re Harry Styles.”

“That’s what I thought!” Harry exclaimed wildly. He holds his phone up. “I’m thinkin’ she really doesn’t know who I am, though. I couldn’t find her on any social media platform. It’s like she’s off the grid or somethin’.”

“No social media at all? A little weird, isn’t it?”

“It’s fitting for her. If you met her then you would understand what I meant,” Harry felt the need to defend this alluring stranger who took away his pain just by listening to him speak. “Look at me, Jeff. Don’t I seem so much better than I was jus’ a few days ago?”

His manager couldn’t deny that Harry’s mood (and attitude) had done a 360. He didn’t complain about being woken up early and he happily consented to do not one, but two interviews.

“I mean, yeah? I guess––”

“Thanks to her!” Harry cuts him off. “I’m telling you. I need to see her again and thank her for whatever she did.”

“How are you going to do that?” 

Harry leaned back against the counter in Jeff’s kitchen, mulling the question over. It was a valid one. How was he going to do that? He already tried to no avail to find her on social media. He hardly knew anything about her. All he knew was her name, that they seemed to have a similar taste in food, and that she went to the Thai spot at least two times a month. 

That was it.

In one last effort to contact Y/N again, Harry planned to go to the Thai food place, pray the cashier who was working when he went in earlier this week was there, and leave his number with her. It was a risky move, probably not the smartest thing he could do, and Jeff would for sure drop him as a client if he knew Harry was doing things like this. Harry didn’t care. Phone numbers could always be changed, and he was desperate. 

If Harry couldn’t contact Y/N, he would wait for her to contact him.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Y/N was confused.

She stopped at her favorite Thai food spot (sooner in the month than anticipated, but she had another long day), ordered her usual, and was about to leave when the sweet cashier who was always there insisted she takes the piece of paper with ‘HARRY’ followed by a phone number scrawled on it.

“For me?” Y/N was confused. Something like this had never happened to her before. I mean, does it happen to anyone?

“He insisted,” the cashier warmly responds. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back–– knew you would soon enough.” Y/N’s face flushes at this and she makes a mental note to start cooking more.

“Well…,” Y/N trails off, not sure what to say. “Thank you? I guess I’ll give him a call and let him know you’ve done well.” The cashier’s aura shines pink. Affection. Love.

“You should. Take care!”

Y/N leaves the restaurant with the crumpled piece of paper in her sweaty hands, eager to get home as soon as possible. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something told her not to disregard him. His reaching out was a sign–– and Y/N did not ignore signs.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

“She hasn’t called me yet.”

“It’s been five days, Harry. She probably doesn’t eat Thai food every day. I can’t believe you did something so fuckin’ stupid…”

Jeff’s reprimanding fades into the background as Harry drifts off into daydreaming about what it would be like if– when- Y/N finally called him. Would she find him obsessed? What if she thought he was stalking her? Harry decided that when she called, he would immediately clear things up. He’d thank her for her kindness (his trademark) and see how she was doing. She left the Greek food place so abruptly when he last saw her that he was under the impression something was bothering her. Harry wasn’t sure what he could do to help if something was troubling her, but he could at least extend a listening ear to her as she did to him.

“Harry, are you listening?”

“What was that?”

Jeff shakes his head at Harry, an amused expression on his face. “Man, I hope she calls you soon.”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

The phone rang three times. After the third ring, his gruff voice came through the other end of the phone.

“Hello?”

Y/N sharply inhales, suddenly growing nervous. “Is this Harry?” Silence. Y/N was preparing to repeat herself when he spoke again.

“Is this Y/N?”

Now it’s Y/N’s turn to be silent. Harry says nothing, awaiting her response. “Well, it is. You sound familiar–– how do we know each other?”

“Now that ’m actually able to talk to you, it sounds a bit silly…” He seems unsure of himself. “Promise y’won’t laugh at me?”

“I promise.”

Y/N says it with such conviction that Harry believes her, and it gives him the confidence he needs to proceed. “I was havin’ a hard time a couple of weeks ago. I was in line to get some falafel and you asked me what was wrong. What was really wrong.” Y/N says nothing, so Harry continues.

“I told you I was exhausted from work ‘nd wanted a break. That’s it, y’know? But I immediately felt better afterward. I’ve actually been feelin’ great ever since. I jus’ wanted to thank you, is all. I know it sounds weird and it’s probably all in m’head but I feel like talkin’ with you was just what I needed.” Harry’s rambling, nerves finally catching up to him. She was gorgeous and he was afraid she would think he was insane. 

“I’m glad to hear you’re still feeling better, Harry. That’s great.” Y/N’s voice is gentle and soft and to Harry, hearing her speak was just as comforting as getting a hug from his mum.

“I’m also really sorry that I was such a dick when you tried talkin’ to me the first time at the Thai spot,'' Harry feels embarrassed, stumbling over his words. “Not sure if you remember but I was just havin’ a shit day. I thought you were gonna ask for a picture and I just wasn’t in the mood.”

Y/N doesn’t say anything and Harry winces, certain he’s offended her when she starts talking again. 

“That’s okay. I know you were having a bad day.” 

“How did you know I was having a bad day?” Again, Y/N pauses before answering. 

“Well, I didn’t do anything to you for you to be so rude to me. I knew it had to be a problem involving yourself.” Harry notices that Y/N speaks very slowly. It’s as if she considers every word before she speaks. He’s intrigued by her. 

“That is very true.” Y/N doesn’t say anything so Harry takes it as his cue to keep talking. “I’m sorry if me leaving my number at the restaurant creeped you out. I hope you didn’t feel obligated to call me.”

“Not at all. I’ve actually been wondering how you were doing since we had our encounter at the Greek place–– that doesn’t creep you out either, right?”

Y/N was hypnotizing. Harry was infatuated. 

“Not at all.”

“Can I ask you something, Harry?”

“Course.”

“Why would I want a picture with you?”

Harry had to get to know her.

“Do y’wanna grab coffee sometime?”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Something was definitely different about Y/N–– Harry just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. To begin, she truly had absolutely no idea who Harry was. At first, he thought she was just messing with him, but he quickly realized she was being serious. Y/N said she had “heard of” One Direction, but she never listened to the band’s music. Harry supposed that could account for her being unaware as to who he was. Maybe he wasn’t a “household name” like Jeff always said he was. 

Harry was also right about her not having social media. When he asked Y/N why she didn’t use it, she said she preferred to occupy her time with more substantial things. She didn’t elaborate, and Harry didn’t ask. She was however very interested to learn what a big social media following Harry had. He tweeted the word “Do” and they watched as the internet went wild trying to decipher what he meant. He even started trending worldwide for it. It made sense to Y/N after that why Harry was so intent on not taking off his sunglasses and beanie.

Y/N was having a great time analyzing his aura. 

She noticed that whenever someone glanced in their direction, his aura briefly turned red. Anxiety. When Y/N attempted to make a joke, it turned pink (she chose not to analyze that too much). Mainly though, his aura shone that beautiful, pale yellow that Y/N loved to see the most. Harry was doing well. He was happy. Y/N would not have to intervene today.

She couldn’t explain why, but she felt obligated to help him. Even though his energy made her feel so terribly last time, she would’ve still taken away his pain if he was blue without even thinking twice about it. Why was she so drawn to him? Y/N wasn’t sure what it was about Harry that drew her in, but she knew she would do anything to help him. Anything to see him happy.

Unbeknownst to Y/N, Harry felt the same way.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Y/N missed Harry terribly.

She wanted to call him–– just a brief conversation to see if he was doing okay. He mentioned when they last saw each other nearly two weeks prior that he was going to be very busy in the coming days, and she wondered if he still was. Harry told Y/N that he loved his job (of course he did!), but being so busy sometimes really hurt him. Not just mentally, but physically as well. 

She longed for him.

Y/N searched through her call list for Harry’s number and immediately tapped it, listening closely as it rang. She was about to end the call in defeat when Harry answered at the last moment.

“Hello?” He sounded tired, under the weather.

“Harry,” Y/N begins. “I haven’t heard from you in a bit and I just wanted to see if all was well. How do you feel?”

“Hi Y/N,” Harry perks up slightly, but he still sounds a bit congested. “‘M not sure if you can tell from m’voice, but I’ve got a cold.”

Although Y/N wishes with every fiber of her being that she could rid Harry of his cold, she cannot. However, she can make sure all is well with his mind. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she pauses for a moment as she usually does, hoping Harry can tell how sincere she’s being on the other end. “How do you feel though? Are you still feeling happy?”

“Jus’ feelin’ not the greatest again. I’ve been stuck in my house with this fuckin’ cold and haven’t seen anyone in days.”

“I can come over.” Y/N doesn’t think twice before offering. If he had to suffer physically, she at least wanted him to feel okay mentally.

“I don’t want to get you sick. It’s okay–”

“I don’t mind, really. I’ll keep you company.”

Harry doesn’t say anything and Y/N’s sure she must’ve creeped him out. They don’t even know each other well and here she was offering to come over to his home and keep him company while he was sick. She’s about to rescind her offer when he lets out a loud sigh.

“My manager might kill me if he finds out I did this… but sure, let me give you my address.”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

As soon as Harry got off the phone, he sprung into action. His home was a mess. There were crumpled up tissues all over the floor beside his bed, a sink full of dishes, and he’s pretty sure every bathroom in his house was a mess. He opted to not have anyone over to clean up after him as he didn’t want to risk getting anyone sick and man did it show.

He quickly gathered up all the tissues and threw them into the bin in the corner of his bedroom, surveying the rest of the mess before deciding he and Y/N wouldn’t be spending time in there, anyway. He was going to focus on the mess downstairs, instead. He loaded his dishwasher and record time and used disinfectant wipes on every surface he could in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. He then surveyed the bathrooms and cleaned the one with the least amount of mess, closing the doors to the other ones. He would worry about those some other time. 

Harry was nervous to have Y/N over. He was just nervous to be around her in general. He missed her over the past couple of weeks but he opted out of contacting her, terrified that he was a bother. After Harry finished cleaning in record time, it dawned on him that he didn’t really have any food prepared to offer Y/N. If she was coming over to his house just to cheer him up, the least he could do was offer her something to eat. Harry hated doing things like this, but he was desperate. He texted his assistant and asked if they could drop off some food from the Greek place he and Y/N liked, making a mental note to find out what other places she enjoyed eating at for next time.

Y/N gets to his house much sooner than he was anticipating.

He rushes to his front door, looking through the peephole before opening the door. Y/N has a big smile on her face and looks absolutely gorgeous, as she usually does. She has a huge water bottle in one hand and a tote bag with the phases of the moon slung over her shoulder. He’s never seen it before and thinks it’s lovely.

“Hi,” Harry says breathlessly. “Thanks for coming. Uh, come in please.”

Y/N smiles and takes a small step forward, crossing the threshold of Harry’s home. She thought it was incredible–– and rather clean. “What can I do to help?” 

Harry was getting used to Y/N’s straightforward approach to things, so he’s not phased by her question. “Jus’ you bein’ here is great, honestly.”

Y/N can see that Harry’s aura is that deep indigo that she’s not fond of, but she wonders if he can work through it himself before she steps in. “So it’s just your cold that’s got you feeling down? Can we sit down and talk about it?”

“Sure. Also, not sure if you’ve eaten yet or not but I’m gettin’ some food dropped off for us.”

“That sounds great, I haven’t had dinner yet so thank you. Can we sit?” Y/N doesn’t wait for Harry to answer. She makes her way to his plush couch in the adjoining room, walking through the place like she’s been there before. Harry loves it.

“I think I told you the gist of it on the phone earlier,” Harry says, settling onto the couch beside her. He leaves some space in between them since he doesn’t want to risk getting her sick, but he wishes he was closer to her. “I’ve been feelin’ down ‘cause I’ve been stuck in the house with this cold. S’not fun.” Y/N hums in understanding. Harry notices that she reaches out her hand to him slightly and then quickly retracts it, but he doesn’t mention it. Y/N says nothing, just continues looking inquisitively at him. Harry doesn’t feel uncomfortable under her gaze–– he stares back. 

“Something’s making you feel nervous. What is it?”

Harry isn’t surprised that she was able to figure out there was more to what he was feeling than just loneliness. How was he supposed to tell Y/N that she was the reason for his nervousness, though?

“It’s nothing. I promise.”

“I don’t think so.”

Harry scratches the back of his neck nervously. “How are you so good at reading me? S’like you’re inside my brain, Y/N.” He lets out a little chuckle after saying this but quickly stops when he realizes Y/N isn’t laughing along with him.

“You’re just easy to read,” she cooly responds after a second. “Why are you so nervous? Do you have something coming up for work?”

“Not really…” 

“Then what is it? Something going on with someone in your family?” 

Harry was quickly realizing Y/N wouldn’t drop this unless Harry gave her an answer. He silently hopes for the best before answering her. 

“It’s you,” he mumbles, shifting around uncomfortably on his couch. “You make me nervous.” Y/N watches as his aura changes from red and blue to pink, and his cheeks flush slightly. 

“Why do I make you nervous?”

“You just do.”

“Why? Have I done something to hurt you?”

Y/N was so painfully oblivious that it was cute. Harry was quickly realizing that his heart doubled in size every time he talked to her.

“No. Quite the opposite, actually,” Harry reaches in the pocket of his sweatpants for a tissue, facing away from her while he pauses to blow his nose. “You’re so… you’re jus’ very interesting. Mesmerizing, really.”

Y/N feels her skin heat up at Harry’s compliment. His aura is still shining pink, the brightest pink she’s ever seen since meeting him. She was sad to see there was still quite a bit of indigo and red, though. “Thank you. That’s very sweet of you.”

Before Y/N can stop herself, she reaches out to grab Harry’s hand. Immediately she feels his energy transfer to her and without thinking, Y/N flicks her finger out of force of habit. The beautifully potted Pothos that Harry has sitting on his television stand instantly droops, leaves turning brown and wilted. 

Harry’s completely perplexed.

The first thing he notices is that he’s feeling better. Great, even. He feels as good as he felt after the interaction he had with Y/N in the Greek food place all those weeks ago. The next thing he notices is that his gorgeous Pothos, a plant that is nearly impossible to kill, is dead.

And it was all Y/N’s doing.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

please let me know what you thought!

[luimagines]

In lieu of what happened yesterday with Wolfie... may I raise you with Bunny Legend?

He despises the form. Why, of all the things he could have been, had to be a bunny? A tiger or even a dog would have been better than that a fluffy, weak... pink mammal! It's not fair that Twilight get a cool one instead of him, which is completely stupid since he is one of the oldest, and far more seasoned in salt of the group. On top of that, how dare he stealing your attention like that!? How is he supposed to make a move if Twilight is always hanging around you as Wolfie? He wants you to be the only one to hear how he feels about you...

...And, maybe, is also because he is terrified of you turning him down, the ache in his heart would be worse than a stab with Twilight watching him get rejected...

But this is why he have been named as the "Veteran" and not something else; he has dealt with a lot of situation before with far less objects at his reach to help him, but he always manages to get through it. He's very cunning and is quick to think on his feet...

...Or at least, almost all of the time he is. Erring is most common when you aren't at your most calm, isn't it?

Legend admits that he acted out of desperation: you had him at his wits end! But it's hard to feel frustrated with himself when you are nuzzling your face on top of his head, little squeaks of happiness and a high pitch voice while you baby talked to him, gussing about his very soft fur and really cute vest. You even called him handsome! You never do that when he is in his human form, you don't even spare him a glance when he rolls his sleeves, making a big of a show of flexing his arms, stretching out and pushing out his chest and arms back, all so you can see how muscular he, too, is. But the only thing you do is oogle at Twilight-- as if he isn't enough of a menace to him-- and that idiot of Mr. Captain when they wrestle together, shirtless. He just wants your pretty eyes on him, those plump lips, cherry from how you are bitting them, shamelessly devouring the two men with your gaze...

...Ugh, just pay attention to him, okay!? He will shower you with all the love and adoration you deserve and more! So please, direct that intensity to him, and only him.

A poke to his furrowed brows broke him out of his mind. Legend cautiously looks up at you. He mentally kicks himself as he is met with your worried eyes, the last thing he wanted was for you to feel any type of negative emotions, so that glint spurred him on rubbing his furred cheek on your free open palm, wanting to change the expression out of your face. It seem to work, you opened your eyes more and even giggled a little before scratching under his chin with two of your fingers.

"Got lost for a second there, buddy?" You whisper. Even if your tone was soft, the vibrations travelled from your chest pressed against the back of his small form engulfing it in a warm and pleasant feeling.

Legend closed his eyes and let all of his weight rest on you, not that you minded, of course. Being the sunshine that you are, you giggled cutely once more and tugged him closer to you, to the point of almost being curled around him. It was a rare sensation; he felt protected for once instead of being the one providing said feeling, he must admit that it was quite comforting, but Legend will forego ever feeling like this again in exchange of you being safe forever, you will always be his priority.

"Hmm..." you pecked his head. "Y'know, you remind me of someone that I like a lot"

His long ears fell flat on either side of his head as his heart stilled.

Like a lot...?

You... already have someone that you hold dear?

You seem to miss how his body grow stiff between your arms as you continued in drowning him in affection. What used to be a delightfull experience, now, it hurts him more than any wound he have ever sustained in his life, more than any burn from fire lizards or the cold, prickly bite of exhaustion of his tired body as he dragged himself through every and more corners of Hyrule.

Your hands played with the small tuff of fur on his head, but Legend's mind was far too gone to properly feel the touch. In its place, his heart dropped and shattered, somehow still beating as he felt the fastening Thumping in his stomach. How foolish and naive of him, to ever believe that he got an opportunity with you. Even the people that you two are travelling with can barely stand him, and they are supposed to be the same person.

Is he really that despicable?

"It's actually funny."

Funny how stupid he is, isn't he?

"He came back a few nights ago, very upset."

Well, that guy clearly doesn't now a thing about suffering. He isn't the one getting his heart demolish while in the arms of the love of his life like him.

You pinched the tip of his left ear and softly lifted it up. "He came back with his hair the same shade of pink that you have! In my opinion" you lean down a Little, as if you were about to share a secret "He looks very cute like that. A shame He will never let me say that to his face..."

Pink? Like the rose tinted glasses he have been wearing all this time-- Uh? Hair?

Are you... Please, don't give him hope like that. He can't take another loss in his life, because if you don't mean it, he would be devastated for good.

He felt your body shifting a little before you let go of him to instead hook your hands under his armpits, slowly lifting him up then turning around his body so now the two of you can be face to face. His tiny nose twitched as you leaned in a poked the tip of your own nose to his pink one, rubbing a little before you leaned back again. Legend layed his pawns on top of your chest, eagerly following your movements when he saw you opening your mouth to continue, he didn't want to miss anything that you are about to say:

"He is a big dork, with an even bigger ego. Very handsome too and... Ugh, Legend, why you have to be such a cactus all the time?" You finished with a tinge of frustration in your voice.

In a normal scenario, he would have argued about that last statement, but he couldn't because of two good reasons: one, he is still in his dark world form, it would be very weird if this bunny you found in the Forrest acted as if it was personally insulted by your words. And second...

You actually like him.

Him, With all of his flaws and bad attitude, you still found and assigned a space in your heart for only him, Legend.

Just as how down he got, his spirit raised up again with vigor, his heart soared from the dark pit of grief that held it a couple of minutes ago taking its rightful place at the peak of the shrine dedicated to your whole being. He didn't even noticed that his skin was ice cold until a burst of heat shot from his feet to the tip of his ears that acted as a catalyst as he threw himself towards your chest, his body felt light as a feathe, he tried his best to fight off the desire to laugh or shout out this waves of overwhelming energies.

Oh, how your chuckles were like the tunes from the most rich instrument in the entire universe being played by the goddesses themselves, more revitalizing than any potion or fairy pond.

"Do you think I should say something, buddy?" You returned his hug.

Legend furiously nodded his head, not think if it will appear weird that he could understand you. You squeezed the tiny bunny between your arms before putting him at arms length:

"Thank you, buddy. Somehow, now I have the confidence to talk to that prickly bitch--"

"--A PRICKLY WHAT???"

...Uh oh.

Even the common noises of the Forrest fell silent at his outburst.

Legend didn't had a second to try and amend his mistake as, suddenly, his vision was thrown into a spiral; everything looked blurry and the wind on his fur was a clear indicator of how hard you launched him away from you. He felt slightly proud at you quick reaction time but...

...No amount of fur can soften the crash on the hard forrest floor, just his luck that he didn't fell on the conveniently batch of dry leaves right beside him. It hurt, not as how bad his heart was hurting, but painful nonetheless.

He just really hopes you won't tell the group about the weird, pink bunny that can talk, or else he won't ever heard the end of it from Sky and Twilight.

-----------

AND IT'S DONE CKSKFJEJCUC IT TOOK ME A LOT OF TIME JUST TO SAY "Legend tried to pull a Twilight and got yeeted out of existence"

I think that Legend has self esteem problems! With what happened in A Link to the past, it's hard to overcome a whole nation hating your guts when you only wanted to help.

You really just said "If no one will provide me with Legend simpage, I'll do it myself"

I'm grinning so much right now. I ended up biting my lip a bit harder than I intended to because I almost screamed at the end when he finally spoke up.

The whole time I was like "But Legend can speak? Why is that not- Oh that's why."

Also, describing how Legend tries to peacock as he stretches to catch the Reader's attention *chef's kiss*.

[akaashisupremacy]

Moments of Courage

Summary: Osamu Miya is a difficult ex to have. When your paths cross endlessly, you try to rebuild your relationship. Will there be second chances? Or just more broken hearts?

HQ Masterlist || Multi-fandom Masterlist || Read it on A03

Osamu Miya  x reader  

“Are you leaving this party because of me?”

Osamu calls you out from the tiny hallway of your friend’s get together. After locking eyes with him, you did your best to subtly scamper towards the door.

“You don’t have to go. I can leave if it’s making you uncomfortable.” he assures.

You shake your head, “You can stay. I’m not having that much fun.”

You begin shuffling through the coat rack to look for yours. You’re desperate for anything to cut the time talking to him, talking about him. The only guaranteed way for this to stop is to leave.

“Are you hiding from me?” he asks almost rhetorically. His brows are gently raised.

“Yeah, obviously,” you retort, “I don’t want to be seen by you or with you.”

Osamu Miya is your ex. After over a year of dating, he decided to end things with you in a small cafe far off his onigiri stall.

“I’m too busy,” he claimed, “You deserve someone who could give you more time.”

You reasoned out that you didn’t mind not spending so much time together. His job was time-consuming. You understood that.

But Osamu was unsettled. You didn’t mind cheering him on from the benches waiting for him to finish up work. You liked seeing Osamu do things he was passionate about. And yet he felt unsettled, because he knew this was the type of work you would not engage in.

Osamu pressed on, “I’m sure you’ll find yourself someone more worldly, more sophisticated in the city. I don’t want to prevent you from meeting someone like that.”

Something dropped at the pit of your stomach. Your mouth was ajar. He’s really trying to break up with you. It’s no secret that you preferred the city and Osamu the countryside, but neither of you seemed to mind. You’d both make the time to visit each other. You made it work.

You remember barely touching your drink. Listening to him talk was like having a ton of bricks dropped on your back. The sunlight pouring in from the glass window suddenly felt prickly.

“I just don’t think we’re a good fit.” he swallowed, unable to look you in the eye, “I think someone from the country, someone simpler and more traditional would be better for me.”

You don’t miss the yearning in his voice, the dreaminess for someone who was clearly not you. He’d always tease that you were a true blue big city girl. You liked the tall buildings, the noise and the fancy department stores. You thought it was a point of endearment, but apparently not.

It’s been almost a year since you last saw him. He looks so unaffected it irks you.

“I broke up with you respectfully. Why are you mad?” he scratches his head.

It takes all your self-control to not slap him across the face.

“Because you hurt me! You’ve hurt me so…so…much.” your voice hitches before you can catch it. This is so humiliating. He’s clearly moved on from you.

Tears start pouring down your face. You quickly hide your eyes behind your coat.

“You’d eventually realize that I’m not right for you.” he murmurs, “We’re too different.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me.” you snap, clenching your fists, “So is this is it? To make you feel better you’re going to date a small town girl to solve all your problems.”

“Well, Kita did introduce me to someone lately.” he unironically replies, “She works in her family ryokan (inn) and we work similar hours. I think we’ll understand each other more than we did.”

Your eyes narrow.

“There’s no point staying in a relationship that I can’t make time for. Why can’t you understand that?” he snaps back.

It is one thing to be left for someone else and another for him to dump you just because. Somehow you feel like you lost even if you didn’t even have competition. He simply didn’t want you.

Your face contorts into an angry frown.

You slip on your coat and grab the door. “Man, you are a terrible ex. Do you know how it hurts when you tell me how wrong I was for you?”

When Osamu regains his cool, he tries to reach out to you, “I didn’t mean it that way…I didn’t feel good that I could make time for ‘ya and so I let the relationship go. Because i don’t know…—“

“Well, this is all just theory anyways.” he says, “I haven’t met Kita’s friend yet. We haven’t gone out yet, just the two of us.”

You do a double turn. “What?!?”

“Yeah, we’re working all the time but we haven’t made the time to meet.”

You break into a laugh. He stands stunned and confused.

“You know what? You stay behind. You left the last time. I want to be the one to leave this time.” you sigh, closing the door behind you.

You don’t turn back to see the look on his face.

————————————— Osamu mostly works in the countryside which means that you’d be less likely to run into each other in the city. It’s easier for you to keep your mind off him and focus on your current life.

So when you see him in the corner store in place of a small fried chicken stall you used to frequent, you’re visibly shocked, appalled even.

“What are you doing here?!” you jump back, “What happened to the fried chicken stall that was here?”

Osamu looks left and right, making sure no approaching customers can hear your dialogue.

“I run this stall now. Kawaneshi-san retired. It’s a great location. I’m literally in a crossroad between a shopping district and some schools. The rent isn’t too bad and it’s a very busy location.” he answers in his usual no nonsense tone.

You make a mental list not to pass by here again.

He recognizes the look on your face, “Have I just ruined your usual route for you?”

“I thought you were a country boy.” you avoid answering him.

“Even I need to make a living.” he snorts, carefully arranging umeboshi-flavored onigiri in his display case.

Sure! All of a sudden working in the city becomes important after he breaks up with you!

You roll your eyes and curtly walk away. You got here first. You love this city. You refuse to let some onigiri-making man ruin your everyday route.

The days roll into weeks. You stick to your route and diligently ignore Osamu each time. After a while it stops feeling weird that he’s there. You feel like you’re slowly taking pieces of yourself that he broke.

It feels so good to start to be whole again.

———————————— Your newfound peace with Osamu is interrupted when he calls you out of the blue one evening. He calls to tell you that he’s sick and that he needs help running groceries. The nerve!

“Don’t you have anyone else?” you groan. Hasn’t he made friends with some other shopkeepers?

“I have no one else. There’s only you.” he coughs through his words. He tries to explain that one of his few friends is out on bereavement.

You let it go. He clearly doesn’t have anyone for today.

You find out that Osamu lives in the apartment above his stall. The space is rather small. He shares his home with some of the equipment and supplies from his store.

He must hate it here. Osamu always loved wide open spaces.

You open the fridge to find it totally empty. His sink has a few empty bowls from his earlier rice porridges. You understand his desperation. He had nothing to eat.

Moved by his situation and the little compassion for him that remains in you, you sigh and begin chopping up some vegetables to make a nutritious broth. You add in some mushrooms and root crops. While the soup boils, you prepare rice and some pickles.

The faster he recovers, the less you have to interact with him.

When you bring him a tray of food in his room, he is equal parts surprised and confused.

“You can cook?” he clears his throat.

“No, Osamu.” you roll your eyes, “I eat all my food raw.”

He sits up and sniffs the aroma of your food through his clogged nose. He dips a spoon into the soup to sample his first meal of the day.

“I mean you can cook well, like a proper home cook.” he says, his eyes wide with awe. He quickly takes a few more sips and starts on his rice.

“I’ve never known.” he croaks, turning to you.

“You never asked,” you shrug, “And you like to do the cooking yourself. You probably assumed I can’t cook, because I’m not as passionate about food as you are.”

He quietly eats and looks away to confirm the truth in your statement.

You sigh and take a nearby basin with some towels in it. “I’ll leave after I bring the basin back.”

——————————————- Something changes in your relationship with Osamu after that incident. He starts to greet you when you walk by and sometimes offers you onigiri from his store.

You always insist on paying. He doesn’t always take it.

“You’re here to make a living.” you say as you push money into his hands.

In between these exchanges you start to ask about each other again. How are you doing? Was today busy? Stuff like that.

Slowly and surely, you two were rebuilding your relationship ground up. But it was tough. Neither of you went beyond these interactions. Maybe things are just meant to stay that way.

One late evening, the last customer for the day disappears out of Osamu’s line of sight when he heads into the back to start cleaning up. He’s about to start pulling down the rafters when you suddenly show up at his counter.

His face expresses his surprise.

“If it’s too late, I can just go.” you gesture sheepishly.

He’s always surprised when you come here on your own volition.

“It’s not,” he denies, “I was closing up too early anyways.”

You pick out your usual onigiri flavors and quickly pay up. As soon as you turn your back, Osamu stammers at you.

“I-I’m cooking up some stuff at the back. Do you want to stay and eat? Think of it as a return favor for the other week.” he refers to the episode of his sick day.

You’re caught off guard but you slowly nod your head to agree. You hadn’t had Osamu’s cooking in a while and it was getting quite late. He opens the door for you and you follow him towards the back of his shop.

In a messy plastic table, you see an array of salads and pickles with different kinds of miso soup laid out. You feel almost intrusive, even more than last week.

You set the table. Osamu fetches hot rice.

It feels unnecessary for you to be here especially if he is with someone else. You do your best to keep your mouth shut. This is a friendly return of favor.

Osamu notices how unusually quiet you are. He chats you up about work. He tries his best to be animated and show interest in your latest project. He asks about your coworkers and your work environment. Were you having fun? Do you get to eat on time?

For dessert, he brings out mochi wrapped in leaves.

“It’s made by the girl I was telling you about.” he remarks, while clearing the dishes.

“Oh,” your heart sinks. You get up and leave, feeling humiliated by your naivety. Of course he’s with her. You feel stupid for even hoping.

You’re about to walk out when he comes back in. “Apparently, she’s been secretly in a relationship with another chef in her family inn. They recently got married and are hoping to start a family soon. She sent these down to inform me. I suppose that solves the problem of having to see someone outside of work—”

He sees you standing. Confusion runs through his expression.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Just stretching…” you lie.

You want to shoot yourself in the foot in embarrassment.

When realization dawns on him, Osamu looks crestfallen. Any energy left in his body abandons him. He sighs, resigned.

“It’s ok if you want to go,” he nods, “Or if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

He bites his lip and looks down on his shoes. The room is still and pregnant with silence.

“I really am just stretching. My hip feels wonky from sitting all day.” you insist with some renewed energy. You grab hold of the pot on the table. “Also, can we get some more hot water? Tea would be nice with the mochi and it’s kind of gone cold.”

He offers to make another pot, relief evident on his face.

“I’ll go heat up the water.” he walks to the kettle, “Are you sure you want dessert?”

You sit back down.

“Yeah, I want to stay.” you murmur. For once you don’t go running to the door.

He glances at you, content, a small smile creeping on his face. ——————————————————

Atsumu, Osamu’s twin brother, always finds himself in his brother’s kitchen every time he visits. He doesn’t mind too much though. It gives them something to do when they catch up.

“Samu, you can’t still be moping around your ex!” Atsumu exclaims. He’s washing Osamu’s dishes as his brother prepares for their meal.

“I’m not ready to get back out there.” Osamu waves dismissively.

Atsumu flicks some water his way. “You’re just not open to seeing someone else.”

His words clearly prick Osamu who throws flour into his face. Atsumu dodges right on time and flicks some flour right back.

Some flour grazes Osamu’s sleeve. He sighs and dusts himself.

“It’s tough, because I’m working all the time. This job doesn’t pay too much and it’s not glamorous. Who’d wanna date someone like me?” he murmurs.

“That’s why you gotta date around to find out!” Atsumu emphasizes, “Maybe you’ll even find someone who might help you with your business when you get married.”

Osamu obstinately shakes his head. “It’s not as easy as you think.”

Atsumu dries his hand and carefully observes his brother. He puts his towel down onto the kitchen counter and raises his brow, “Or maybe I should just give you advice on getting back together.’

As if right on cue, Osamu slams his hand down onto the counter, “I hate that we still haven’t gotten back together. This is killing me!”

Atsumu chuckles in satisfaction. He’s hit the nail right on the head.

“Why has nothing happened yet? I’m already in the city!” Osamu continues on, “They can cook too! Did you know that?! I wish we can skip to the part where we can settle down.”

He vigorously gestures in frustration.

“I cannot! I just cannot move on until I know I’ve given everything to make this work and yet every time I see them all I do is offer them food!”

Atsumu places his hand on his brother’s shoulder, “You need to be more strategic about it. Here’s what you need to do…”

———————————————————————————

Osamu takes a deep breath before knocking at your door. He holds a bag of onigiri in one hand and whatever courage he has in another.

One knock, then another. He hasn’t been this nervous in a long while.

When you open the door, his ear picks up on a male voice inside your house. Combined with your expression, he realizes that he’s come at an inconvenient time.

“I brought you something.” he tries to smile despite the sweat pooling, “I made you lunch. I just wanted to make sure you were eating. We don’t have to talk. I just wanted to give this to you.”

He tries to look past your shoulder, attempting to glimpse at your guests.

“Are you seeing someone else by any chance?” he blurts out, “I want to clarify before I make any more free deliveries.”

You frown. “That’s none of your business, Osamu. You should leave.”

Your frankness pierces something within him. He hadn’t expected to be rejected so quickly.

Osamu’s eyes widen and his mouth drops. He quickly gathers himself before he gets disheartened.

“I want you to give me a second chance. You loved me so deeply. Maybe you can find love in me again.” he says quietly.

“I thought I was too much of a city girl for you,” you retort, despite lacking an edge in your voice. You notice his hands tightly clutching the plastic bag.

The noise at the back seems to melt away. It’s like you’re back in that party, standing too close to each other near the coat rack and the door.

“Maybe you’re not.” his shoulders gracefully go up and down.

You shook your head wryly, “Osamu, I haven’t changed. I like my job and the city. I’m not the life and business partner that you’re looking for. I’m just a customer and we should keep it that way.”

“I can stop if you like.” he offers meekly, putting his hands behind his back.

“Yeah, you should. You’ve hurt me so much.” you cover your mouth with your hands while you try not to sob, “There’s nothing to go back to.”

“I’m sorry I ended things the way I did.” he looks away, “Seeing you walk by me every day feels like penitence…“

You close the door before he says anymore.

Osamu gazes longingly at the door. It’s only now that the full weight of losing you sinks in.

—————————————— “How’d it go?” Atsumu calls to check on Osamu.

Osamu sucks in his breath, his palm pressed on his temple. Atsumu braces himself, this doesn’t sound good.

“They had someone else over.” Osamu is seething in frustration and angry tears.

“Calm down. Were they alone? Or was it a friend group?” Atsumu ’s mind races. He sifts through the situation in an attempt to placate his brother.

“Yeah? No? I don’t know.” Osamu snaps, “They told me she didn’t want to talk about it. Your advice sucks!”

Osamu walks most of the way home. When he catches sight of his store, he curses. He had left his damn bike at your apartment complex! The universe is not giving him any breaks today.

He sighs and continues towards his store. He had a friend watch it while he was away. He’ll have to come pick up after he closes the store.

Throughout the rest of the day, he tries to push you out of his mind. By the time he closes the store, he is bursting at the seams with anticipation to make his way back to your apartment.

Before he sets off, he sees your figure wheeling his bike towards him.

“You left your bike.” you breathe out. You fish something out of your pocket and toss him the key to his bike lock, “You left this in your lock too.”

“Every time you see me, I just look dumber and dumber.” he sighs in exasperation.

You can’t help but burst into laughter at his candidness. He perks up a bit. He hasn’t made you laugh in a while. Of course he’d rather have you laugh with him than at him. Still, this was a start right?

"Did Atsumu put you up to this?" you chuckle, handing the bike over.

“Yeah, how did you know?” he asks dumbfounded.

“I just do.” you scoff, “It’s not like you to show up on people’s doors.”

He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, “Sorry about that. It won’t happen again. It was a moment of weakness.”

Your eyes lower, framing the sad expression that sets into your face, “Yeah, it better not. I’ve moved on.”

You turn around to walk away. In a brief moment of courage, he cups his hands around his mouth.

“I’m not ready to move on from you and if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” he calls out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taglist: @itstheee-ha-chan @kaizumi @holaaaf @glxar​

Comment or message to be added to the taglist! I’m definitely making a part 2!

[sugawaraxo]

safe place

warnings: reader comes from an abusive household. will include both physical and verbal abuse.

characters: tadashi yamaguchi, satori tendou, tobio kageyama, tetsuro kuroo

request: hii!! can i request scenarios with yamaguchi, tendou, kageyama, kuroo (and maybe akaashi 🥺👉👈) with a crush on a girl who comes from an abusive household and how they would confess/help her? thank you sm🥺💗

an: i’ve been writing so much smut lately that writing fluff felt weird bahaha, but i hope you enjoy it! :)

yamaguchi

- there has been a dramatic shift in your personality since tadashi first met you

- and he notices it instantly

- though you pretend to be, you’re no longer the cheerful and bubbly y/n you once were

- and yamaguchi hates seeing you this way 

- so he debates whether he should bring it up for a long while, not knowing exactly what to say

- but when you show up to his house one day, shaking harshly with tears pooling down your face

- he knows something’s terribly wrong

“hi y/n.” tadashi says with a big grin as finally he opens his front door after hearing his doorbell ring a couple times. that smile quickly drops and forms into an expression rich with concern. his eyebrows furrow and his eyes widen as he takes in your appearance. you’re shaking violently and breathing heavily. your eyes are bloodshot from all of the tears that are quickly rushing down your face, dripping silently onto the concrete of yamaguchi’s front step as you avoid eye contact with him. you’re not quite sure why, but you’re embarrassed about crying in front of him. so your eyes stay locked on the bland grey of the concrete ground beneath you as you wait for tadashi to say something. 

“c-come in. it’s super cold, you can tell me what’s wrong inside.” he says sweetly, reaching out a hand for you to grab. he leads you into the kitchen, watching as you take a seat on the counter. then he grabs a kettle from the stove, pouring you a cup of tea with the water he was boiling before you had shown up on his doorstep. you two remain silent as he does so, neither of you being quite sure of what to say in this moment. so you let the stale silence consume you, only the delicate sounds of yamaguchi pouring the cups of tea filling your ears. once he’s done preparing your tea the way he knows you like it, he walks over to your spot on the counter and hands you the mug.

“careful, it’s really hot.” he informs and you smile softly at his concern. you take a small sip of the tea after blowing it to cool it a bit, sighing at how warm it makes you feel. tadashi always makes it so perfectly for you and you can’t help but feel extremely safe in this moment as he stands next to you silently, though his eyes are asking for an explanation. 

“my mom yelled at me again, but it was worse this time.” you sigh, tears starting to sting your eyes again at the recollection of your previous screaming match with your mother. 

“about what this time?” yamaguchi asks, locking his eyes with yours. his demeanor is soft but his gaze is harsh and you can tell he’s upset that this is happening again. 

“all i did is forget to wash the dishes and it led to her screaming at me that i’m a lazy, good for nothing piece of shit who leeches off of her for food and shelter. basically the usual spiel of how i’m useless and just take up space. how she wishes she never had me because then she’d have one less problem to worry about.” you explain, attempting to choke back the sob forming in your throat. you don’t notice since your eyes are focused on the mug in your hands, but yamaguchi’s own orbs are brimmed with tears. he sets his mug down on the counter beside you and moves between your legs so that he could be as close to you as possible.

“hey, look at me.” he says, but you refuse. you hate having him see you like this. it’s only happened once before and you swore it wouldn’t happen again but here you are, sitting on his kitchen counter while forcing yourself not to break down in front of him. after you disregard his request, he takes matters into his own hands. 

he cups the sides of your face timidly with both of his hands, them still being warm from holding his mug. he lifts your head so that your eyes meet his and you feel your heart flutter a bit. you notice the tears that have yet to leave his eyes, resting there but threatening to spill over at any second. instinctively, you reach up to wipe the tears away as you see them finally fall and he smiles a weak smile at you.

“you’re not useless y/n.” he starts “you are so, so special whether your mom sees that or not. i truly hate that she doesn’t. because if she could even just see a fraction of the most mesmerizing sides of you that i get to see everyday, maybe she would change. or maybe she wouldn’t. despite what she thinks, i know how genuine and kind you are. i know how beautiful and selfless you are. you’re far from good for nothing, i hope you know that. and if you don’t, i’m more than willing to help you realize just how incredible you really are, because i love you. i love you a lot y/n, and i hate seeing you so upset. so i’ll do whatever i can to make it better. i promise.” yamaguchi confesses. tears are streaming down both of your faces at this point. this is everything you need to hear right now and then some, and you feel completely at ease with yamaguchi’s words.

“i love you too tadashi, thank you so much. god, i love you.” you coo before lightly grasping the back of his head and pulling him down for a kiss. your action catches him off guard at first, so he’s a bit timid in terms of kissing you back, but after a few seconds he catches the rhythm and kisses you softly.

“you can stay here if you want, for as long as you need.” he offers, giving you a shy smile.

“i’d love that.” you smile back. 

tendou

- you and tendou have a very playful friendship

- always play fighting or teasing each other and whatnot

- the typical ‘we like each other and everyone around us knows we like each other but we’re completely oblivious so we don’t know we like each other’ type friendship 

- one day the two of you are at tendou’s house at the kitchen table “studying” (which really means “fighting”) as per usual

- tendou playfully hits you very lightly, not even a toddler would have been fazed by the slight shove

- but you wince roughly at the touch

- and tendou gets suspicious

“i barely even touched you, what’s up?” tendou asks for what seems to you like the billionth time. 

“it’s nothing, i was messing around. just drop it.” you huff, growing annoyed at tendou’s persistence in finding out what the issue is.

“the look on your face was clearly not a joke y/n, tell me why it hurt so bad? what aren’t you telling me?” tendou pushes and you’ve just about reached your limit.

“i said it’s nothing so just please stop fucking asking, ok?” you snap, though in the process you lift your arms to cover your face in aggravation. the motion raises your shirt a bit, allowing tendou to catch a glimpse of the huge dark purple bruise spread across your ribs.

“y/n. what the hell happened? that looks terrible.” tendou whispers, the shock of what he has just seen revoking his ability to speak out loud. you catch his gaze locked on your stomach and quickly remove your hands from your face, not even realizing that the movement had lifted your shirt. your face flushes to a sickly shade, all life leaving your body as you realize you can’t lie your way out of this anymore. you have never in your life had someone look at you with as much concern as tendou is now looking at you with, his eyes scanning your face dumbfoundedly as he anticipates your answer to his question. you sigh heavily, mentally preparing yourself for the draining information you’re about to tell.

“well um. i got into a disagreement with my dad.” is all you can manage to get out. you planned on explaining more, but just bringing it up makes your stomach curdle with fear and you feel as though you’re about to vomit. tendou notices and rests a comforting hand on your thigh, rubbing it in small gentle motions.

“he hit you?” tendou asks softly, trying to better grasp the situation.

“well he was drunk and i had an attitude with him, so he got a little worked up and ended up pushing me over. i fell and hit my side on the kitchen table on my way down. but it was just an accident, it’s ok. i made him upset and he pushed me. i just lost my balance is all. it’s not his fault.” you find yourself trying to defend your father and you don’t even know why. you know him pushing you wasn’t an accident. you falling and hitting the table was, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that your father just grunted at you as he watched you sob on the floor in agonizing pain before going back to his previous spot on the couch and finishing off his glass of whiskey. but you don’t want to tell tendou that. 

“y/n no, that’s not ok.” tendou’s voice breaks and your heart breaks with it. “accident or not, no man should be putting their hands on you like that. better yet, your own father. is this the first time he’s done something like this?” tendou asks, attempting to keep his voice steady but failing.

you shake your head no and tendou sighs, shaking his head in dismay. 

“i need to get you out of that house y/n. i’ll figure something out.”

“no satori, it’s fine. i’m fine. i can hold my own.” you argue.

“i’m not denying that you can, but i’d feel like the most terrible human being on earth if i let you go back there and something else ends up happening to you. so you’re staying here. my parents and i will figure out a way to take care of any legal actions that need to be made, but until then you are staying here and i will not let you argue with that.” tendou states firmly. although his words are firm, you can see in his eyes that he’s hurting for you. you couldn’t argue with him even if you wanted and luckily, you don’t want to. 

“thank you tendou, that means more to me than you’ll ever know.” you say.

“you don’t need to thank me, i care about you too much to see you get hurt. i want you right here with me so i can know you’re ok.” he says, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to your forehead. you melt at his sweet gesture, and suddenly feel like everything will actually be ok. 

kageyama

- kageyama is very attentive and tends to notice things about you that the typical outside viewer wouldn’t pick up on

- like the way you’ve been spacing out whenever he speaks to you

- or the way you flinch whenever someone slightly raises their voice around you

- the way your eyes look tired and lifeless lately, despite the huge smile you may be carrying on your face

- he has a hunch that he knows what’s going on, so he pulls you aside after his practice that you sat and watched while doing homework to talk 

“hey y/n, can i talk to you for a second?” kageyama asks as he walks to your spot in the stands. you frown up at him, not really sure what he would want to talk about, but you shrug with a quick ‘sure’ and let him lead you behind the gym. you frown again because this is where he takes you whenever he has something serious to tell you, or when either of you are having a really bad day and need to express your emotions in private.

“what’s up?” you ask curiously, searching his eyes for any sort of hint of what he’s about to say.

“that’s sort of what i want to ask you. what’s up with you lately? i mean, you’ve been pretty good at hiding it, but i can tell something’s going on with you and it’s not good. i just wanna make sure you’re ok.” he says softly. you contemplate telling him what’s been going on at home, his gentle expression seems so caring and genuine. it’s difficult for you not to just open up to him and let him in. but you’re scared of what he might think or how he may react, so you bow your head down to avoid eye contact and mutter,

“it’s nothing really. school has just been a bit stressful is all.”

“you’re lying.”

“what?” you ask, lifting your head to meet his gaze once more. to you, your performance was believable. but kageyama’s been your best friend for the past two years now so he’s become somewhat of a master in knowing whether you’re being honest with him or not.

“you’re lying. what’s really going on?” he asks. he’s looking down at you with his deep blue eyes drowning in concern. you can tell he won’t let you leave without hearing the genuine truth, so you decide it’s for the best not to lie anymore.

“my mom hit me the other day and we haven’t really talked since.” you explain sadly, tilting your head down again. kageyama sighs at your confession because his hunch is correct, and he hates that it is. “we were arguing as usual, but this time she umm, she got a bit too carried away.” you continue. kageyama physically feels his heart break for you. he’s always known how terrible your relationship with your mother was from his first few weeks of knowing you. you would constantly tell him all the awful words she spewed at you in the heat of your arguments, and he was always there to comfort and reassure you afterwards. but it was always verbal, never physical so he wasn’t quite sure if him stepping in to try and help would do any good or just make matters worse. but hearing that it’s now escalated to physical harm makes his stomach ache.

“i’m so sorry y/n, i should’ve helped when i first heard about how she was speaking to you. that should’ve been my first sign that something like this would happen. i feel terrible for not doing anything.” he let’s out, his head now bowing along with yours.

“hey.” you say in an almost whisper, lifting his head up by placing your finger underneath his chin. his tear glistened eyes meet yours and you can feel the guilt radiating from his body which makes your heart shatter. “none of this is any of your fault. you did help me, ok? you’re the only person i’ve ever even told any of this to and you have always been there to comfort me when i do. you’ll never realize how much that means to me tobio. i appreciate you so much.” you explain.

his eyes jump back and forth between yours as he absorbs everything you just said. then his eyes glance down to your lips and linger there for a moment. yours do the same to his, both of you mentally questioning whether or not you should just go for it. eventually the pressure of the moment pushes you two together and your lips graze tenderly. kageyama’s hands find their place on your hips as your arms wrap behind his neck instinctively. the kiss is sweet and filled with so many emotions. most importantly, it’s filled with love. a kiss that you both have been craving for so long yet never had the guts to pursue. and finally, you’re able to give in. after a few moments you pull away, flushed and flustered a bit yet completely content.

“you can stay at my place tonight. we can figure out how everything will play out once we get there.” kageyama says as more of a question than a statement. you just smile and kiss him again in response.

you’re slightly worried about what the future holds, but having kageyama by your side will forever ease your nerves.

kuroo

- though kuroo can be a bit of a tease sometimes, he’s also immensely caring for those that he loves

- you being one of the people that he loves beyond words

- though he hasn’t confessed it yet

- means he’s very protective of you and would do anything to keep you from getting hurt 

- he’s always been your rock, and you his 

- so when he finds out that your parents have been emotionally damaging you

- he gets fairly upset

“jesus, i look so disgusting.” you say in what you think is a joking manner while looking at yourself in kuroo’s closet mirror. but the way kuroo’s head snaps up from his phone to give you a glare, you can tell he didn’t take it as a joke. 

“why are you always talking about yourself like that?” he frowns.

“like what?” you respond dumbly, knowing exactly what he means but really not wanting to embark on your trauma right now.

“you’re always referring to yourself as if you’re the grossest thing in existence and it hurts me to hear you say those things. is there a reason why you feel like that?” he asks, sitting up straighter on the bed to get a better view of you in the mirror. you sigh and turn to face him, walking over to his bed and sitting on the edge of it. 

“yeah, i guess there is a reason.” you admit, looking down at your hands as you fidget with them.

“well, what’s the reason?” kuroo asks. you look up at him nervously. you told yourself that this is something you would always keep to yourself because you don’t want to bombard others with your issues. but there’s something about kuroo that makes it immensely difficult not to just tell him everything. maybe it’s the way he fully listens to you whenever you have something to say. it’s like nothing and no one else around him matters but you and whatever you have to tell him. he always makes you feel heard and validated. important. something you never get at home. 

“it’s just my parents i guess. no matter what i do, i’m never good enough for them. i’m always trying so hard to impress them, make them happy. but all i get in return is being yelled at and told how much of a disappointment i am. do you know how hard that is? being the best version of yourself that you can possibly be and still not being enough for the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally? it hurts so bad kuroo, and it makes me feel like i’m nothing. so that’s why i’m always talking about myself like that. because it’s how i see myself, as nothing.” you tear up. hot tears begin rolling down your face uncontrollably as soft sobs leave your body. kuroo completely softens at your words, moving closer to you so he can wipe your tears with the pad of his thumb. he pulls you closer to him, your head tucked into his chest while his large arms suffocate you in his warm embrace. 

“i’m so sorry y/n. words can be so damaging, especially coming from your own parents and i really wish you didn’t have to go through that. because now you don’t even see yourself the way you should see yourself. the way i see you.” kuroo says, trailing off a bit on the last line. “i think you are the most captivating person i have ever met and probably ever will meet. every time i’m around you i just can’t help but feel this sharp pang in my heart which i can only assume is love. because i feel it when you’re gone too. you’re unbelievably amazing y/n, and insanely beautiful too. please don’t let your parents destroy that for you, although i don’t think they ever could.” kuroo finishes. 

you lift your head from his chest and look into kuroo’s kind hazel eyes as he looks back at you, flashing a small smile. 

“that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me tetsu.” you smile “and i love you too.” you finish causing kuroo to immediately go red. he was somewhat hoping you would have forgotten or missed his accidental love bomb, but how could you? you’ve been waiting to say the words yourself for who knows how long, so your heart almost couldn’t take it when it slipped from kuroo’s lips. 

“thank god.” kuroo laughs lightly, “now what are we gonna do about your parents?” 

“completely forget about them?” you joke, though in the back of your mind you’re somewhat serious. 

“i was thinking confront them and put them in their place, but that works too.” kuroo chuckles before lightly grasping your chin and kissing you. you’ve never felt happier nor safer than you do in this exact moment. 

[cheekygreenty]

Little Witch - Part 20

The Darkling x Reader

He carried you to your bed that night, gently slipping off your kefta and taking out the uncomfortable hairpin in your hair while you slept like a baby.

Zoya had barged into his office earlier and mentioned that you were swarmed with duties so naturally he did was had to be done and took it all on himself for that day. Your door felt no vibrations from knocks after Zoya left and the 'accidental dozing off' turned into your full night sleep with Aleksander by your side yet again.

You were furious as you woke up, to say the least. Your enraged muttering breaking Aleksander's sleep as you whipped out from under his arm and out the bed. You only dared to shoot him a look of displeasure before you slammed the door shut as you left. He barely registered your body running around the room, nevermind the nasty gaze sent his way

'Good morning to you too'

****

'Is everything in order?' You were still fixing the kefta belt as you approached the head of guards.

'Yes Deputy. We've been letting performers in for about an hour now and it's all going smoothly.'

'No requests to see the Sun-Summoner?'

'Plenty, but we've taken care of them just as Zoya Nazyalensky told us to.' He curtly nodded, tilting his head in the way of the prison-holding cells.

'I'm glad to hear that.'

As you went to see how Marie's kefta was coming along, you found the room empty and her nowhere to be found, the seamstress looking equally as confused as she entered the bare room. You caught Genya heading for the Vezda suit out of the corner of your eye and called her name loudly.

'Marie is late to her kefta fitting, like very late. Do you have any idea where she is?'

'I think she may be with Alina, I'll be sure to fetch her' she said and waltzed away from you.

'Genya wait!'

'Yes?'

'When you get Ms.Starkov ready, give her this ring' You dug around in your pocket for the metal ring and handed it to the red-haired Tailor. 'Make sure she's wearing it.'

'Of course Deputy.'

You watched her white kefta diminish behind the doors and sighed loudly, going down the mental to-do list of the morning. I'm already tired.

*****

'Have you seen the Deputy?' Aleksander asked Ivan as they headed for his chambers.

'Last I seen she was helping conduct perimeter checks with Fedyor.'

'Good.' He wanted to see you in your winter fete kefta, silently hoping you chose to keep with the black but he knew he was being greedy. He can't have both you and Alina.

'Get her for me, I need to speak to her.' Ivan nodded and turned back around in search of you, clearly displeased at the task.

Putting his lust for you away, Aleksander returned to a working state of mind. He needed to speak to you before the fete started. It was essential you heard what he had heard from the Grand Palace.

He retreated to his chambers and began to get ready for the fete until a certain someone entered the room unannounced.

***

'Deputy Y/L/N, the General wishes to speak to you.' Ivan was at your door with a glum look on his face as a team of ladies tended to your hair and face.

'Now?' You laughed but he only shrugged. You rolled your eyes and signaled for them to finish what they were doing and let you leave.

The ladies frowned but stepped away, clearly dissatisfied. Not only did they get a late start due to you chasing Alina and Genya down on the Palace courtyard, but now they had to finish early too. You had yet to change out of your kefta and into the fete's outfit but for now, you ignored your appearance.

All that mattered to you was that the evening went smoothly and without security threats and if the General requested to see you, you would be there to discuss whatever had gone wrong. This is Ravka after all, something always goes wrong.

'I'm coming, relax your frown for once.' You joined him at the door and walked silently alongside him to the Darkling's quarters. The Palace was buzzing with life as foreign ambassadors took up residence in the rooms and servants prepared the spaces with brimming luxury. Ravka needed to display its strength and wealth today and if it meant meticulously counting the fresh roses in each room, that was what was had to be done.

Although your demeanor showed a relaxed and posed facade, you were very stressed. You hadn’t gotten enough sleep recently and given your extreme training schedule before you arrived at the Palace, the amount of time you spent using them now, or lack thereof, had managed to dwindle you mentally. You were hanging on by a mere thread.

Ivan knocked on the door for you before moving away to the side. You didn't wait for his response and just walked in but stopped short when you looked ahead. The Sun-Summoner you had scolded not even 30 minutes ago was standing in his quarters, looking like a deer caught in headlights. He stood next to her looking equally as red-handed. Realization flooded you that you had interrupted an intimate moment between the two summoners. You cleared your throat, trying your best to act normal.

'You requested to see me, General.' His head tipped up at your collected demeanor, wondering whether you felt the tension too.

'Yes, I did' He moved around to the table, walking past Alina who decided it would be best she left and got ready. You smiled at her as she left, muttering some pleasantry about seeing her at the fete but deep inside the jealousy began boiling in you despite your attempts to rationalize it.

'Y/N -'

'Let's not talk about it. Please.' Your voice was a whisper, a strong contrast to the voice Alina heard. 'I agreed to the plan, I have no right to argue with you.' You feebly smiled. His stare was pitiful on you but he did as you asked.

'I need you to speak to the Queen when she arrives at the Little Palace.'

'Why?' Your face contorted into an expression of confusion and disgust, quickly forgetting about what just happened.

'My intel tells me she is in awe of you. Genya overheard her speaking to one of her aids about you and a possible position for you in the Grand Palace'

Your eyes widened at his words. You had been tolerating the Queen like a toddler, giving into her whims and tantrums in hopes of her staying calm, not in hopes of being whisked away to work for the crown.

'Are you serious?'

'Yes'

'Saints' The weird headache was back, settling into the back of your head like a dull drum.

'Listen to what she has to say'

'Do you think I would accept whatever she has to offer? You'd be a fool to assume I would even consider it.' He turned away from you, displeasure obvious on his face.

'I just ask that you entertain her. And would it really be so bad? Whatever it may be, it would aid our course substantially-'

'All I ever wanted and needed were my Grisha, Aleksander. That's why I came back, not for the Lantsov Crown.'

'I'm not forcing you into anything Y/N. Just listen to her.' His voice was soft and gentle like he was lulling you down from an outburst but you knew he was plotting, taking every advantage he could grasp.

'Alright.' you sighed, still processing all the information at once. The Queen, The Fete, The Grand Palace, Alina, and Aleksander. It was clouding your mind like a fog. 'I should go get ready' Your mind was bursting at the seams with thoughts and speculations, you needed to have some alone time and you prayed to the Saints 20 minutes would be enough to put yourself at ease.

He reached out for you but you were already moving to leave, leaving him hanging in his chambers with a look of sorrow on his face.

Your feet dragged you to your chambers with little energy but much heaviness. The Summoner blue gown and kefta hanging on the door were glued to your gaze as you debated even going to the fete.

Within a span of 10 minutes, Aleksander had somehow managed to overwhelm you to the point of a lingering breakdown. You weren't sad or angry or jealous, you were overwhelmed, your mind was blank yet full and it made you want to cry. The stress of the last couple of days did not help either.

But alas you got yourself together, wiping the lone tears away and putting on your fete attire. It was heavy and comforting, like an armor ready to be destroyed as you entered the battlefield. The foreign diplomats were to meet you today and bring word back to their home countries about the Witch, the Deputy Commander of Ravka's Grisha Army and you would look the part too.

You held your head high and radiated the most powerful energy you could muster while you walked to the makeshift throne room before the official start of the fete. She was sitting there next to the King looking every part of a Lantsov Queen.

The crown settled on her head nicely and looked to be of perfect fit as you approached her, curtseying and making pleasant conversation. It was draining to listen to her empty stories in anticipation of what you knew was coming. In a shocking reality however, you had no idea what she was really thinking and neither did Aleksander, or Genya, or anybody.

It wasn't until she grabbed your wrist tight in her hold and made you kneel next to her in the empty room did you freeze and crumble beneath her. The King was watching eagerly with his head held high and a smirk on his face. In that moment all you were was their subject and she was the Queen, commanding a commander. You were no General, or Grisha, or high ranking officer. You were simply a girl who held their eyes for too long. A girl who was not simple but regal.

It was nothing short of debilitating. The facade crumbling and crashing to the ground with silent thuds while the words stuck in your head like a pulsing bee sting.

'We wish for you to marry my son, my dear Nikolai'

--------

Part 21

Shockerrrrr I know but don’t worry for those who haven’t read the novels, I will not be introducing Nikolai as a character. Maybe I will when I decide to move this to AO3 but not as of right now.

Taglist (tell me if you want to be added to the Little Witch taglist!!)

@theonelittleone @searching-for-gallifrey @0-artemis @lostysworld @xceafh @fire-in-her-veinz @patdsinner33 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @wizardwheezes @aleksanderwh0r3 @tomhollandisabae @hotleaf-juice @justmesadgirl @exo-1204 @houseofdupree @oberonpascal @eireduchess @lunas1x1 @adoringb @grisha-of-shadow-bone @rosiethefairy

[demonslayedher]

Hello! I don't know if you've been asked about this before but I love your analysis and reflections and I'd love to know all your thoughts about Zennezu if you don't mind 👀⚡🎀 Thanks so much for this blog!! 😊💝

Thank you again for your patience, as well as your comments on my fics and stuff in the meantime (even on Bird Fic, kya~ thank you <3). All my thoughts, hmmmmn…. Well, clearly I am a fluffy ZenNezu shipper and ship-content creator now, but I sure didn’t start that way. This may be long and rambling and mixed between analysis and personal taste. (Actually, it turned into almost 4000 words.)

So. First a little background. I usually am not much of a shipper. The very few OTPs I have all ended in horrific tragedy, and when romance is a big focus of something I’m otherwise enjoying I usually end up not paying much attention to it in favor of all the other elements I like. This is so much more the case when you can tell they’re going to wind up happily ever after. So what happened to make me so soft and fuzzy about the Kimetsu ships, when I otherwise usually don’t have an appetite for happy fluffy romantic endings?

Three major factors: 1. I’m obsessed. 2. I love these characters and want to see anything and everything about them. 3. Romance wasn’t actually a big element at all in canon, so it left me with an appetite and curiosity for it.

Even though I figured from long ago that ZenNezu would be end game, initially I was somewhere between indifferent and put-off. As much as I love Zenitsu, and I acknowledge that Ufotable the added the “run around and chase Nezuko” bit and removed the part with Zenitsu adoringly talking to Nezuko through her box, and as much as he can be defended for being lonely rather a pervert, the fact still stands that his level of appreciation for girls makes the characters around him uncomfortable. His most cringe-worthy lines at the Butterfly Mansion are all straight from the manga, and even though he was easily one of my favorite characters by the end of my initial watch of the series, I was very put off by his “girls are all queens” surface-level comments and more disturbing pleasure he took in the presence of girls (especially when he could physically interact with them), not to mention his pathetic introduction bothering a complete stranger and displaying that he doesn’t actually take girls’ feelings into consideration.

All this made me inwardly groan, feeling bad for Nezuko, figuring they were going to wind up together because she’s a saint who can find the patience to deal with someone like that, as he clearly wasn’t going to be desirable to any of the rest of the female cast. Enjoying the series well enough despite this, it didn’t bother me terribly much, pairings happen, whatever, I have a history of ignoring them. But one day, well and deep into caring about this whole cast like they’re all my children, I realized something. Isn’t… isn’t it cute how they both get their strength from taking naps? W-wouldn’t it be cute to see them innocently take naps together? Naps to protect each other? Oh. Oh-h-h-h-h. Oh dear. Oh no, it’s cute. Oh no. OH NO.

And that was how my warming up to this pairing started, it very quickly grew into “I love these children and I want them to be happy, being with Nezuko will make Zenitsu very, very happy, I love seeing him happy, happy Zenitsu” but was still a little reserved about Nezuko. Zenitsu was going to make her happy, right? It wasn’t just going to be a case of Nezuko having gotten fond of him over the course of everything they’ve been though, he is actually going to be her taste and make her heart go “kyun” right? Oh Nezuko, oh saintly Nezuko…

Let’s take a moment to pause here and think chronologically, though, as well as analyze their personalities and tastes. Neither of them are particularly picky, we can start there. Aside from fussy busy-bodies like Aoi, as long as it’s a girl, any girl is Zenitsu’s type. He’s desperate, and he’s painted the whole of girl-kind in pretty similar, not always realistic rosy colors. Even though he’s been used and abused by so many girls in his past, it’s his desire to believe that each new one he meets will fit that rosy imaginary color he paints over them that he chooses to let himself be duped, because he really is that lonely. I’ll give him that, sure, he’s a healthy young man with an interest in physical touch, but his dream in Mugen Ressha gives a good indication of what he’s really looking for: companionship, someone who likes spending time with him, someone who will find him useful and believe in him and look to him for protection, someone who likes him enough to spare him the physical intimacy of simply holding his hand. This is all an extension of what Zenitsu desires as whole, hoping he can better himself enough to be reliable and valued in general. Picturing it in the form of a significant other is one very vivid way to focus all those feelings, resulting in that rosy ideal which Zenitsu probably knows in his heart of hearts is too good to be true. That’s why he probably doesn’t think he’s ever going to find it, and therefore why he’s all over any slightest chance of attaining it.

My gosh, if being abandoned over and over isn’t enough, the fact that none of the girls he dated in the past were ever willing to even hold his hand hurts so much.

Nezuko, though, grew up in a secure family with a good relationship to observe between her parents. She probably always envisioned growing up to be like her mother, the quintessential “good wife, wise mother” (a phrase coined later on in the Taisho period to idealize the traditional roles of a woman). She cooks and cleans and sews and the first fanbook even tells us she was good at using an abacus, so she can handle family finances like a pro. Her traditional values probably made her tastes pretty standard, hoping for a reliable protector, but also someone who might be as kind as her father and her brother. But as for what makes her heart go doki-doki? The extra comic at the end of volume 3 tells us that she does long since have a type, it’s a person who’s like a Hisha.

Hisha: a chess/Shougi piece that can move an unlimited number of spaces in horizontal and vertical directions, and is crowned a dragon when it enters enemy territory.

So, yes, this is the part where we all smile and point at Gotouge and say, “I see what you did there, Wani-sensei.”

I find this reassuring; it tells me that Nezuko can find her heart squeezed at how cool Zenitsu is instead of just coming around and liking him because she was flattered by his affection and learned to see how nice he is and stuff. There are plenty of nice Demon Slayers who are strong and cool protectors, but that ZING that Zenitsu has (when he’s asleep) is something that can make her heart race. I’m all for this. I hinge so much of my ZenNezu feelings on this Hisha comment.

The second fanbook states that Nezuko initially had trouble sorting out her memories, and because Zenitsu gave her two such different impressions, it felt like memories of two different people, but over time the memories overlapped to form one complete person. We could say that she and Zenitsu had two first meetings.

Initially, when she was in the box, her little demon heart did go doki-doki; it was the first time a boy besides her brother had protected her, so even though Oniichan is Number One in her heart for the general duration of canon, this encounter was sure to leave a flattering impression. However, when they met face to face that night, he was just some confusing dandelion yelling and screaming about weird stuff, and then he was just a confusing (and possible bothersome) dandelion wanting to hang around her and give her flowers and stuff. It’s anyone’s guess just how “there” Nezuko was at this stage, as she does seem to gain back more of her own will and thought processes over the course of the series, rather than being guided by very, very simple rules to govern her behavior.

Zenitsu feel in love at first sight, and the second fanbook tells us he asked Tanjiro about her human personality, seeing as she wasn’t fully there. He was initially doubtful that anyone so perfect as Nezuko could exist and figured Tanjiro must had been biased and therefore exaggerating, but can we blame Zenitsu for being a smidge guarded? He’s been let down a lot, after all.

We know from Taisho Secrets and side novels that Zenitsu spent a lot of time with Nezuko during their long recovery at the Butterfly Mansion. Even how much more thought we see Nezuko display in the Train arc, she probably underwent a lot of mental development in this time, and my guess is that due to how much he interacted with her, this is probably when Zenitsu went from being a strange dandelion to a strange companion. She probably focused more on the goldfish and the pretty flowers (which he did take her to see!) and any flattering mention of her brother, though. Zenitsu, I’m relieved to say, seemed to genuinely care about what would make Nezuko happy instead of selfishly assuming something like “she likes me too, she wants to marry me.” But knowing Zenitsu, he probably assumed that her willingness to spend time with him was an indication of being willing to talk marriage once she was more herself again, though.

Let’s pause here and put on our Oniichan goggles, though. Early on, Tanjiro has to insist to just about everyone that Nezuko is still her own person with her own thoughts and feelings. Being a demon has taken a lot of her freedom to act on her true nature away from her, but he knows she’s still in there and he treats her like an equal human being. He had to watch over and over as people see his sister and only think, “demon.”

And then there’s his friend Zenitsu, who looks at her and thinks, “girl. Girl! Girl. Girl. Sweet girl, adorable girl, best girl in the world.” And maybe that’s a little bothersome, but yes, someone gets it!! Someone understands! Even though Tanjiro’s initial concerns are keeping Nezuko from being bothered by unwelcome advances, as long as Zenitsu is willing to respect that Nezuko is not entirely able to speak for herself now, he seems pretty approving of Zenitsu (provided Nezuko decides she likes him back). I’d like to think there was an unspoken promise between bros on what boundaries to follow. Besides that, Tanjiro believes in Zenitsu a lot more than Zenitsu believes in himself, so Tanjiro probably wasn’t worried about the “strong protector” role a future husband should fulfil. Or at least, Tanjiro doesn’t seem concerned once he gets to know Zenitsu, he’d have rejected Zenitsu flat-out on that first meeting. Zenitsu, you are so lucky Tanjiro is so forgiving.

However, for as much as Zenitsu sees Nezuko as “GIRL!! Girl, girl, girl!”, he’s still got his rosy vision that conveniently clouds out any disturbing realities. She is, after all, a demon.

This is something Zenitsu never actually had the chance to struggle with, and I would have really liked to see him challenged by that reality a bit more. He never witnessed Nezuko’s berserker mode, nor did he ever see her struggle to keep from eating someone, he wasn’t even awake to watch her fight like a violent animal/angry toddler on the train. Had there been a scene of Zenitsu forced to face how terrifying she had potential to be, it would had really sold his commitment to Nezuko specifically, instead of only Nezuko as his most likely girlfriend candidate.

On the train, Nezuko has the good fortune of seeing another side of Zenitsu, getting one hell of a doki-doki moment. As she’s gaining more self-awareness back, it probably made those doki-dokis more complex too. While I understand there wasn’t a good opportunity to fit in the pace of the story, I love that Taisho Secret of her concerned about him before he wakes up. Instead of him just being that boy who shows her pretty things and says nice things about her Oniichan, this is when he starts becoming something a little more unique among all the people whom little demon Nezuko has bet and who have been nice to her.

In the months that follow, we don’t get much deviation from this slow development. Zenitsu’s feelings toward Nezuko don’t really change at all, but there’s another thing about this ship: neither one chose the other over anybody else. They sort of just came together, Zenitsu gets hooked on one girl at a time, but what if someone had come along with an interest in him? At what point would he had given up on Nezuko? Probably pretty quickly, if someone was serious enough about him. It wouldn’t have been a break up either, since he was still in the pursuing stages (might be more of a break-up conversation with Tanjiro, who had been tacitly supportive).

Actually, for most of the remainder of the series, the affection that Nezuko and Zenitsu build for each other is done when they’re apart, dwelling on their thoughts of each other. For Nezuko, we see this come out after the Swordsmith Village arc in her sunlit elation to see him again, and her efforts to greet him. She very clearly recognizes him and is happy to see him, a big difference compared to how she was more elated by the sight of a fishbowl before. In Zenitsu’s case, this deepening of his affections and running away with his thoughts and feelings results him declaring once and for all, this is her. He’s found her. This is the girl who he will be committed to his whole life, in his heart she is already his wife.

When human!Nezuko is gaining her memories back, her first impressions are of the boy showing her pretty things and giving her flowers, someone who probably has a crush on her, rather than thinking back to someone who she may have had a crush on. (Those cool impressions probably hit her later, I’m assuming, given the stress of the moment.) Romance is not immediately on her mind, though she does quickly recall having friendly affection for this boy for has always been so sweet to her. And Nezuko, handling his surprising level of affection gracefully, helps Zenitsu off the battlefield while he’s in terrible pain (though she probably was too, my poor girl, that fight with demon!Tanjiro was so rough). But honestly, not only is she probably too overwhelmed by everything to think much about romance, but she probably doesn’t take Zenitsu very seriously initially. She knows he’s got a tendency to overexaggerate, and it’s nice that he’s so sweet to her, but since he acts all fluffy and silly around her she probably thinks he’s not being that serious either. Furthermore, she’s got a lot of people to suddenly care about, Zenitsu has a lot to contend with for trying to get special attention. Hell, Zenitsu was probably awake and causing a racket while she was frantic with worry that comatose Giyuu might die. While she did remake Jiichan’s haori to fit Zenitsu’s later, see spent her time in the hospital mending Giyuu’s haori (Nezuko, baby, doesn’t your hand hurt though!?). While Zenitsu was swept up in happy “Nezuko is human now, we’re totally gonna get married” feels, he probably didn’t even notice that he was only one slice in a very big pie of memories that Nezuko suddenly found in her lap and had to slowly chew and digest.

So… this brings us to the extra post-canon comic in the second fanbook, which I initially did not like very much back when it came out in February. I’ve come around a lot to it, but what really hit me at first was “oh no, Nezuko really is only going to accept this marriage because she’s a saint, he’s not being desirable at all.”

But, treating it with a little more patience and sympathy for Zenitsu… he’s just gotten what he’s always wanted, of course he’s going to stop striving a bit and get blissfully carried away in it. And Nezuko, the ever sweet, isn’t going to stop him.

Some of the other commentary in the fanbook states that Zenitsu, for a time, found himself terrified of how girls could be sweet to his face while hiding their true thoughts about him. But, finding that Nezuko was not at all two-faced, he nearly “died and went to heaven” as the exaggeration goes. He doesn’t like to work hard in the first place (but does, because it will make people like Jiichan proud), so getting away with being spoiled is too big of a temptation to resist. Nezuko is sensitive to what makes the people around her happy or uncomfortable, so she never makes any request of Zenitsu. She’s so grateful to have their new little family that her happiness is everyone else’s happiness, she doesn’t really desire a heartthrob romance, even if being a wife and mother is an eventual goal. And, without being under any pressure to make someone proud, Zenitsu gets swept away and indulges.

Thank you, Tanjiro, for putting a stop to this.

He’s still rooting for Zenitsu, since this is his friend and he knows it would make his friend happy to wind up with Nezuko, but he’s setting himself up for failure, or setting Nezuko up to be cheated out on a good match at this rate (if she were to accept out of being nice). Very, very thankfully, Zenitsu responds well to pressure. By this point Nezuko has gotten so used to sweet but indulgent Zenitsu that he seems she totally accepted that his Hisha side didn’t exist anymore, if it even existed in the first place.

Good for Zenitsu asking for her response a year later (when they’d be getting to the legal marriage ages for the Taisho period anyway), he knew he still had shaping up to do to earn her affection. And Nezuko probably needed time to build some admiration for him again, since the doki-dokis were so gone. Even if he couldn’t use that super cool Thunder Breath anymore, it would probably catch her attention to see him strive again, to put effort into being manly, specifically for her. It wasn’t just the Thunder Breath that gave her doki-dokis, it was the Hisha knight-like attitude too, whether asleep and acting on his inner potential, or awake and bravely defending her based on his own goodness and faith.

I hope that in their married life, Zenitsu will retain that sort of manliness in being a provider for her, even he does get indulged a lot at home.

Now for how this plays into some of my fanwork and headcanons:

You know how I said all my OTPs were tragedies? Yeah, I love a good dose of angst. I did start writing a single-scene fic one time of injured Zenitsu desperately trying to cover Nezuko from the sun while waiting for Tanjiro to find them, and in Nezuko’s panic about the sun she starts losing her self-control over her appetite, and Zenitsu is forced to confront that the girl he loves could very easily kill him. I never finished it, though, and it was embarrassingly self-indulgent.

For my big favorite AU of a monster fanfic, I did add more ZenNezu on the massive edit, because by this point I just enjoy ZenNezu so much that I wanted more of it. But!! What I really like about working with it in this fic is that there’s a conflict: Demon!Tanjiro. In this canon divergence, Human!Nezuko and Zenitsu get to interact more than they ever did while she was a demon, and they both already have affection for each other, but the lingering fact that Tanjiro is technically their enemy gives me some tension and angst to work with.

Yes, I wrote a One Shot of Zenitsu and Nezuko as fresh new parents, but it was a bit of a dark dive into Zenitsu’s feelings of inadequacy. But domesticity comes with some inevitable fluff anyway, and likewise it felt embarrassing indulgent, and I can’t write fluff without a little bittersweetness. M…maybe the reason I’m not a shipper is because I’m easily flustered???

I’d like to think that Zenitsu got a desk job that he worked hard at because he wants to be a provider, and Nezuko does find his hard work attractive. I headcanon it was at an electric company, because hahahaha, electricity. I’d like to think he had a long career in that company (and although his colleagues know him for having a bit of an extreme personality and being obsessed with his wife, they sometimes catch glimpses of a very, very strong side of Zenitsu—like, scarily strong), and that when he’s old and retired in the Postwar Economic Miracle, he buys a fancy camera to take pictures of Nezuko (instead of “say cheese” it’s “Thunderclap and Flash!”), and he takes Nezuko to Paris because that’s the romantic thing to do. Also, I don’t like moustaches as a rule, but I totally approve of old man Zenitsu having a fluffy moustache.

World War Two, though… I’d like to think that if his job had him in the city, he was extremely reliable when it came to protecting his family in case of bombing. I’d also like to think that this was when the Kamado family moved to the city, because Nezuko was worried about Kanao and her nieces and nephews, so Zenitsu made sure they were all together. Inosuke might had taken the opposite route and taken his family to the mountains to shelter out there in the wild.

AAAAHHHH, listen to me being so self-indulgent with headcanons, I pride myself on sticking close to canon in my fanwork, I will never produce this, AAAAHHHH, I’m embarrassed~~~~I---I’m not a shipper! No! I don’t have a shipper’s bone in my body! Who needs romance, it means nothing to me, I don’t get swept up in happy fantasies about young newlywed Zenitsu and Nezuko, really I don’t, I take what canon gives me and I stick with it, I’m here for bromance and comradery and fights to the death, I—I don’t need disgusting fluffy feelings, ew, ew, no, really-----ahhh, too flustered, too flustered, too flustered, no, no, no, no, no, no, WHEN DID I BECOME A SHIPPER, nnnnnnnnhhhhjjjj

Which is all to say that Zenitsu and Nezuko as a pairing really grew on me, even though it is essentially a fluffy happy pairing that only got surface-level interaction and was never seriously challenged. It’s got some shadows lurking in there, especially diving into Zenitsu’s heart, but in general this was a slow build-up of mutual affection between two characters with pretty simple desires of their own, and most of all, a desire to see each other happy. That makes it a good comfort ship.

And they’re both are sleepyheads, hNNNGGGHHHhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH

[flower-slut004]

Sociopath

(( Might make this into a series not sure yet))

Summary: Who would’ve thought that the BAU’s very own YN was an unsub as well as Luke’s partner?

Note: Purple is lyrics/ Not gender-specific/ Italics is a flashback / Blue is YN as well as lyric change.

The feelings I caught.

Luke couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. YN LN, the person he grew to love was sitting in front of him covered in the blood of their victim.

He thought back to the day where he met them when he was confused about his feelings every damn time they were around, and the day where he realized he fell for them. Hard.

“Damn it....” Luke groaned as he slammed the phone down at his desk. “Normally I’d look away since it’s usually not my business but you slamming the phone caused me to spill my water....so...spill” they joked as they cleaned up.

“Sorry... it’s really not a big deal. I don’t know why I acted out like that....” Luke remembers as he apologized that day by helping them clean up the mess.

“Clearly it is for you to slam the phone... so I”m going to ask you again Alvez.... what’s wrong,” YN asked with an intimidating look.

Luke should’ve taken that look as a hint something was wrong about them. It was like a light switch went off inside YN's head.

Luke remembers how he felt uneasy after receiving that look. He mentally slapped himself for not doing anything but he didn’t he was already infatuated with them.

“There isn’t a kennel available for Roxy this week and everyone I know is out of town...I can’t take her and I hate leaving her alone” Luke sighs as he admits what’s been eating him.

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed when he heard YN muffle a laugh. It soon turned into an eerie laugh as they kept apologizing.

“I’m sorry I should feel offended right now” YN wiped a fake tear from their face. Luke’s face scrunched up “I’m sorry what?”

“You said everyone you know is out of town right? I’m not out of town. I’m right here” YN answered back in a bored tone. “I’ll take care of her, plain and simple” they shrugged.

“Wait....you’d really do that?” Luke raised his eyebrows. “Of course, I adore animals. It wouldn’t be a problem” YN confessed.

Luke knew it was dumb but in a moment of stress with Roxy. He fell in love with YN and their oh-so-kindness.

The time that I lost

“Five years....we’ve known each other for five years and been together for those two years...” Luke’s voice shook with anger as he stared down at YN.

YN stayed quiet with a Cheshire cat grin as they laid their head in the palm of their hand.

Luke’s nostrils flared as he began to grow angry at their silence. “Well?” he slammed his hands on the table.

“Five years we’ve known each other and been together for those two years. It took you this long to finally realize...I thought I was dating BAU agent” YN mocked as they looked over to the two-way mirror to admire their work.

“Hey” Luke snapped his fingers “I wasted five years on you” he snarled

“No...you wasted five years not saving those people.”

Yeah I feel ashamed

Luke was taken aback by their comment. He didn’t know what to do. He just felt like screaming until his face felt hot.

He always thought YN was a little odd but took it as their quirk. He squeezes his eyes shut at the thoughts of all the victims he could’ve saved if he just snapped out of his puppy dog love for them.

“You really didn’t find it weird that I would come home late? Or how my nails were always trimmed to the brim? Or when-“ YN was cut off by Luke storming away.

“Hey hey....” Penelope tried comforting him as he entered the other side.

“I...We could’ve saved them....” He rasps out to the team.

Embarrassed with rage,

“Luke I know it’s not easy but don’t blame yourself....” Emily sighs.

“No....no no It’s my fault. It’s my fault those people died because I was too in love with them to see it. I was too oblivious to YN. God damn, I’m a freaking BAU agent. I should’ve known” Luke kicked a chair at the last part.

“They tricked me.....they humiliated me. I never thought YN would do something like this” Luke lets out a shaky breath.

“They tricked us all, We never thought they would do this either. You’re not the only one who feels this way” Rossi speaks up not taking his eyes away from YN.

Rossi grimaced as he saw YN making faces at the mirror “I know you’re out there” they sang.

“You know, talking behind someone’s back is a coward move” YN teased knowing how to push Luke’s buttons.

The other night your mom passed away.

The team just got a call about the whereabouts of the serial killer they were hunting down. It didn't take Luke another minute to realize it was YN"s mother's house.

He informed the team as he rushed out of the building and went straight to the cars as the rest followed.

As soon as they arrived at the house, everyone jumped out, Luke being the fastest he ran to the door and didn't take a moment to knock.

Kicking the door down, the BAU team was met with horror. Yn's mother was laying on the kitchen floor with stab wounds. The knife was still jammed in.

The team felt sick to their stomachs, not knowing how to tell YN when they get back from "training" in Boston.

And it was weird that you just went about your day and didn't even shed a tear.

When YN arrived to the building the next morning, they felt eyes on them. All eyes were on them giving them sympathetic looks.

YN hated that, they hated the looks they were receiving. They wanted to shout from the roof tops what they have done. They wanted fear out of them, not sympathy.

YN always wondered what it felt like...to feel bad about something. To feel sad for someone or to cry for someone. They never understood that part of emotions.

Lost in their thoughts they didn’t hear Luke’s voice calling out to them. “YN” Luke spoke louder as he placed a hand on their shoulder.

“Hm? Sorry I’m not in the right mind space right now” They sighed. Luke felt guilty knowing he was about to make their day worse.

“Let’s talk in private..” He motions over to the empty conference room. YN followed along with a deep sigh.

“YN....last night we got a clue about the unsub....” Luke spoke up. YN tried covering their small grin, thinking they figured it out it was them all along.

“YN....the unsub was at your mothers house....YN.....I’m sorry but your mom died...” Luke rasps out in a shaky tone. He loved their mother, she always welcomed him with open arms.

“Oh....okay” YN nodded feeling uncomfortable at the sight of Luke’s tears.

Luke’s eyebrows furrowed “Okay? YN are you okay? Your mother is dead” he wipes his face.

“I heard you the first time, life happens. We gotta move on. Cmon let’s go see what Penelope has for us”

Luke remembers that day clearly, he still hates himself for this day for not noticing that big red flag.

I feel bad, you don't feel bad. Sad, you don't feel sad.

With that memory refreshed in his brain, Luke went marching right back in and towards YN.

“Oh goodie you’re back. I missed you” YN smiled as they eyed them up and down.

“You didn’t bring a tranquilizer didn’t you?” they teased as they saw Luke turn red.

“I’m done with this whole situation, I’m done with you YN....yes...I feel sorry for the victims families. I feel sorry for myself for ever falling in love you. Most of all. I feel sorry you don’t feel bad.” He huffed.

“I feel sorry that you look at how you left your victims to the point of being unrecognizable and you don’t feel bad about it.” he slams the photos down.

Luke leans over the table closer to you “Damn....I feel sad you’re not going crazy after killing your mother” He shook his head as he leaned back.

YN couldn’t help it, looking at their artwork and seeing Luke’s face. They bursted out into tears.

Luke grew more furious “What.” he yelled

“All this time...I just wanted to feel something....seeing you in anger....made me realize. I finally feel something” they giggled.

“Bet you didn’t know I was a sociopath”

[odos-bucket]

Protective Batbros, a subsidiary of my Protective Batdad series

Tim is sitting alone.

It was something Dick had made note of shortly after arriving at the gala. There are people scattered around at various tables, but even more people milling about and socializing. Before he can do more than smile and nod to the newest Robin, a small group of WE investors draw his attention into a dull conversation.

Dick talks with them for a little while, then makes his rounds throughout the big hall, mingling with various acquaintances, and sampling some hors d’oeuvres. By the time he’s back to where he began, he notices that Tim is still sitting by himself. Or, he amends, maybe someone else has been by and gone again?

Tim ’s posture is perfectly straight, and he isn’t looking around. His expression is neutral, but not blank like he’s spacing out. There are appetizers on his plate that he clearly hasn’t touched. One of his hands is folded in his lap, the thumb of the other hand is rubbing methodically at the polished handle of a decorative spoon. Dick makes his way over to take the seat beside him.

“Heya, kiddo.”

“Dick!” Tim’s face lights up when he sees him, if only for a moment, which makes Dick’s heart light up as well, as he pulls the kid into a one armed hug.

He makes a brief mental note of how tightly Tim clings to him in return, then files the observation away to analyze later.

He doesn’t like how little they’ve seen Tim around the manor recently. His parents have been in town for the past week and a half, which throws a bit of a wrench into their nighttime escapades.

But it’s a good thing, he reminds himself. Tim doesn’t get to spend nearly enough time with his parents; it’s good that they’re around. Dick feels a little guilty for thinking of them as an inconvenience, even though he’s pretty sure Bruce does too.

Dick leans back into his own seat, but keeps an arm resting on the back of Tim’s.

“How’s it going?” He asks.

“Okay,” Tim says with a shrug, expression and posture already returned to their neutral state.

“Been kinda boring without you around this past week.”

“Yeah, sorry. My dad likes to know where I am.” He begins to rub his hands together, then seems to realize what he’s doing, and forces himself to return to the subtler motion of worrying at the silverware.

Dick nods, watching his hand.

“Must be nice having them around for a while.” He is being supportive. He needs to be supportive.

“I- yeah. It’s great…”

Dick looks at him with an open expression, waiting for some clarification.

“They’re not like around around,” Tim says. “They still work. But it’s nice when we get to have dinner together. And Mom says that maybe we can try to have a family game night before they have to leave again, if there’s time…”

Dick resists the urge to ask when that will be. Tim sees right through him.

“They’ll be leaving for Norway before the end of the month.”

Dick isn’t sure what the appropriate reaction to that is, and his expression sort of ends up stumbling into a grimace. He glances down to keep it concealed, and Tim is kind enough not to draw attention to it.

“I’m sorry they’re not staying longer. But it’ll be good to have you around again.”

Tim nods absently. An uncomfortable expression flits across his face, but vanishes quickly.

“Tim, are you feeling okay?”

At first he just gets a noncommittal noise in response to the question, then after a minute Tim wrinkles his nose, and glances around the room.

“It’s loud.”

Dick nods. He hadn’t really been attuned to the noise level himself. It wasn’t especially loud by Gotham aristocracy standards, but he could see how it might be annoying to someone who was bothered by that type of thing, or just wasn’t particularly used to it. Of course, Time would be used to it though, so that didn’t really factor in here.

“I might have some headphones in the car,” he offers. “They’re not noise cancelling, but they might help. Do you want me to go gram ‘em?”

Tim’s expression shifts, and he eyes Dick, like he’s trying to decipher something about him.

“This isn’t exactly an appropriate setting for headphone,” he says after a minute. “I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“I don’t think anyone here who’s sober enough to notice whether or not you’re wearing headphones is going to feel slighted if you are.”

Tim shrugs stiffly. Dick glances to where his hand is still fidgeting with the flatware, and feels a spark of concern that he might just rub a hole into the pad of his thumb.

“Why don’t we step out for a sec?” He suggests.

“Because it would be rude?” Tim offers uncertainly, not picking up on the rhetorical nature of the question.

“Just for a minute,” Dick insists. He doesn’t like how uneasy Tim is here.

Tim glances around them cautiously, twitching slightly as the band hits a particularly high note, then turns his attention back to Dick and nods.

They head out through the front doors. And while a few people glance at them as they leave, no one hinders their exit.

Outside, Tim seems to finally notice the blister he’s been wearing into his thumb all evening.

“Does that hurt?” Dick asks.

He doesn’t get a response at first, as Tim is frowning down at the finger with apparently intense concentration.

“It’s ugly,” he says after a minute. “I used to pull at the skin around my nails. It never hurt badly, just looked weird.”

“I think Bruce keeps bandaids in the car. I’ll go grab you one.”

“That’s-“ Tim begins.

But Dick is already halfway down the wide outdoor staircase. He doesn’t want to leave Tim along for long if he’s been by himself all night, but figures he probably won’t miss much in the forty five seconds it should take him to get to the car and back.

He finds bandaids, and a set of earplugs in the glove compartment. As he dashes back to the main entrance, he acknowledging that the round trip may have taken closer to sixty five seconds, but figures that’s still pretty good.

When he gets to the top of the stairs Tim’s talking with a woman. Or rather, he’s holding very still and being talked at, by a very unhappy woman, who it takes Dick a moment to recognize as Janet Drake.

“-Don’t know what could possibly have made you think it was appropriate to come out here in the middle of a party. We came back to the table and you were gone! People were asking about you too, and what were we supposed to tell them?”

“Hi,” Dick interrupts, as loudly as he thinks he can get away with, and in a deliberately upbeat voice. “I’m so sorry! I had to get something from my car, and asked Tim to come keep me company. I thought we’d be back in before anyone had a chance to miss us.” He dips his head apologetically, and looks back up with a bashful grin.

Mrs. Drake seems completely caught off guard, looking rapidly between Dick and her son, whose gaze has been mostly focused on a spot behind her right ear. After a minute she manages to force some composure into her expression.

“It’s not that we mind you borrowing him, Mr. Grayson-Wayne. It’s just coming back to the table to find that he’s not there, you understand-“

Dick waves off the rushed explanation of her concern.

“I’m sorry to have worried you.”

She studies him for a minute. Dick isn’t sure what she’s looking for, or what she thinks she’s seeing. But he matches her scrutiny, and forces down the thought that he does not like this woman.

She looks away from him quickly enough, clearing her throat.

“Come, Timothy.”

Dick slips the bandaid and earplugs into Tim’s suit pocket as he follows them back inside, and squeezes his shoulder once there’s no longer a plausible reason for them to be going in the same direction.

He then proceeds to spend the rest of the evening maneuvering himself to keep the Drakes in the periphery of his line of sight, keeping an eye on his little brother. Because Tim can handle himself in this environment, but Dick knows he doesn’t like it, knows that all the sound and bright light gives him a headache. And they’re all a little nervous in crowds. And he knows intellectually that the chances of anything really bad happening tonight aren’t actually all that high. Even so, he needs to look out for Tim, because what if no one else is?

It’s almost too hard to think about. Dick has given himself permission to be a little overprotective, feeling like he has a pretty damn good reason to be. But the thing is, Tim’s not really supposed to need it. Not all the time. Not here. He has a family. Dick has always felt a little guilty for resenting them, but watching the Drake’s go the rest of the night without saying more than a stray word or two to their son makes him wonder if maybe he has the right.

He doesn’t know their situation, not really. But he knows what he sees and he doesn’t like it.

“Can we make sure Tim’s family’s at the same table as us the next time we have to go to one of these?” He asks Bruce later that night, asks as if they themselves aren’t already Tim’s family, even if it feels wrong to imply.

Bruce hums a distracted agreement, and Dick thinks he must see it too.

-

Not that it matters especially, but I kind of picture this happening in the same continuity as this story, but maybe a couple months beforehand (or maybe just a couple of weeks if you want the Drakes to be on the same visit).

Hope you enjoy!

[taexual]

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (16)

     jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: angst

words: 6.6k

     chapter sixteen

Despite deciding not to make your already uncomfortable situation even more awkward by discussing your kiss, Jungkook could not stop thinking about it the entire drive back to your dormitory. Actually, he’d been thinking about the kiss nearly every moment since it happened, but with you in the car next to him, his thoughts became clearer. More defined. More vibrant.

If he’d have closed his eyes – not a good idea for someone who was behind the wheel of a car; but it wasn’t like Jungkook was above entertaining bad ideas – he swore he could return to that moment when he had you underneath him on his bed, your mouth against his, right before his mother knocked on the door and interrupted you.

What would have happened if she hadn’t knocked?

“You okay?” you asked suddenly, the question startling him.

“Hmm?” he nearly swerved off the road, answering you in a high-pitched voice, “yeah. Why?”

“You just inhaled really—nevermind,” you changed your mind – it was better to stay quiet all the way home. But, aware how weird your question seemed without any explanations, you mumbled under your breath, “thought you were suffocating or something.”

Jungkook hadn’t realized his breath got caught in his throat every time he remembered kissing you, but it made sense; his body needed to give up every other activity—no matter how crucial for his survival it was—in order to make enough space in his mind to fully immerse itself into the memory.

The memory was so important to him because, based on the way you shifted closer to the door and further away from him in his car, he could tell that even the lingering possibility of bringing the kiss up made you close off. So the chance of it happening again – him, getting you to lower your guards down enough to allow another kiss – was so slim, it was incredible he hadn’t given up yet.

“So, I take it you won’t make it to my gig this Friday, then,” Jungkook said when he entered the campus, nodding at the barrier guard through his window before turning to look at you to show you that, no, he wasn’t going to try to get you to talk about last weekend, but also, no, he wasn’t going to completely let this go, either.

“No,” you said with a quick glance his way, the barbecue at his father’s company written in red letters in your mental itinerary. “Not this Friday. Sorry.”

He thought this over – “this” Friday meant that next Friday still had an opening. He liked these odds.

“Text me if my dad gets too crazy, yeah?” Jungkook asked as he pulled into the parking lot of your dormitory. “I’ll make sure to reply with tips on how to get him to leave you alone.”

“No, you’ll be in the middle of your performance,” you said – expressing your appreciation for his concern by giving him a warm smile – and then dismissed him with a wave of your hand, “I’ll find a way to handle it.”

Stopping the car right in front of the entrance – but not shutting the engine off which was, both, terrible for the environment and also not a very smart idea socially, considering that people were already watching your every step, and they were absolutely going to hear Jungkook’s car – he turned to look at you with a very determined expression on his face.

“If you don’t think I can find a way to include answering texts in my set list, I have news for you,” he said and you thought he was joking – just being reassuring – but the look in his eyes told a different story.

Your smile widened despite your protests. “Alright, noted. But don’t worry about me. Just let me know when you’re done with your gig.”

Jungkook – who’d never had to report his whereabouts to anyone before – found himself nodding eagerly.

“You too,” he said. “I mean, text me when that whole social gathering is over. I can drive over there to take you home.”

“No,” you protested again, “you have an after-party to get to. I’ll make my own way home. Don’t worry—”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he countered, using your own argument against you, “I will come get you out of there early if you’ll need me to. No matter what I’m doing.”

The look on his face was resolute and, for a moment, you considered that perhaps this was his way of showing you that he didn’t want you to go to the company barbecue at all – especially not when he couldn’t be there to supervise and make sure the real story of your relationship remained well hidden behind the tale you’d created for his parents – but then, Jungkook looked down and refuted these thoughts.

“Thank you for doing this,” he said. “My dad already had that look on his face – the scowl he saved for me only – because he’d been expecting me to refuse to come all along, but then you… well, you softened the blow.”

“I didn’t soften it much if he still looked at you like that,” you said, lowering your eyes just as Jungkook raised his.

“No, you did. I’d have gone home, thinking—no, knowing—that I’d let him down yet again,” he said, “and that often has interesting consequences—”

You raised your eyebrows. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Right. But now I get to go home and worry about you being there alone with my family and their colleagues, so that gives me something else to occupy myself with.”

You could have insisted that you weren’t a damsel in distress and could figure out your own way out of a tricky situation if you had to, but you chose to let him have this one. If thinking about this kept him out of trouble while you were out of campus and, possibly, unable to reach him in time, then so be it.

“That’s hardly a better way to spend your time, but if that’s what you’re into these days…” you replied with humor and Jungkook – who could tell that you were only saying this so you’d stop going back and forth with him – forced himself to smile.

“You’re rubbing off on me,” he said. “I’m starting to develop this need to constantly be in control of everything.”

Your mouth opened in genuine surprise and then – almost comically – opened wider still, when you decided to add a more dramatic effect to your reaction, so you could conceal the fact that the portrayal of you, as a control freak, had honestly upset you. 

But you couldn’t express your feelings out loud because, admittedly, he was right, you did like to be in control of your surroundings. Shamelessly so, too, because you didn’t think it was wrong to know about everything that involved you.

“That’s not good,” you said. “We can’t both be in control. We’ll clash.”

“If we do, I hope it will be as epic as Harry versus Voldemort.”

You snickered at this, the tension in your shoulders lightening. “I take it you’re Voldemort?”

Jungkook looked positively outraged by this assumption. “Of course not! I’m The Chosen One.”

Now you were full-on laughing. And The Chosen One – who, technically, could have actually been called The Boy Who Lived after all the life-threatening stunts he’d pulled since starting puberty – smiled, beyond proud of himself.

Smiling at each other for several seconds – that could have been minutes or even hours for all you cared; it only felt like one blink of an eye to you anyway – you felt your chest fill with affection. That tended to happen sometimes, especially when you’d been dreading a situation – The Talk About the Sunday Night Kiss – and then managed to successfully make it out alive – by using a method, commonly referred to as, Staying Quiet and Changing the Topic.

“I meant what I said, though,” you spoke and the relief that you didn’t have to endure the awkward ‘so… what do we do now?’ question washed over you with a warm wave. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

You had leaned closer him as you said this – it was a natural instinct: reaching out to touch someone’s hand (or, uh-oh, cheek!) for more effect – but you froze mid-way, hanging awkwardly over the console of his car and regretting your very existence because you’d noticed how Jungkook stopped breathing when you moved closer, and how quickly his breathing returned to him – in the form of a disappointed huff – when you suddenly stopped.

“Thank you for taking me to the meeting today,” you ended up blurting as you pulled back, your eyes now firmly locked on the handle of the door.

“Yeah. It’s nothing,” he replied and, somehow, that was it.

The eternity you always spent in his car when he dropped you off in front of your dormitory had suddenly come to an end and, because of how weird it was to leave without saying goodbye – but, then again, were you supposed to hug? Kiss? – your hand lingered on the handle numbly, only pushing the door open a minute later.

Paradoxically, relief and concern both flooded your brain as soon as you stepped one foot outside but then, before you could exit his car, you felt him take hold of your wrist – not pulling you back per se, but holding onto you firmly enough to stop you from moving.

“Hey,” Jungkook said. You were mid-step, so you had to fully exit the car and lean down to look at him.

“Hmm?” you asked, your wrist still in his grip even though he had successfully captured your attention.

“D-don’t…” he tried to say, mumbling the rest of the words under his breath. You frowned, not hearing him, and were about to lean forward to ask what he’d said, when he cleared his throat and tried again, “let’s not be weird around each other, okay? We know each other far too long for that.”

Your plan to keep your mouth shut and divert his attention to different topics had, clearly, only succeeded in part, because Jungkook was addressing last Sunday night, after all, but he didn’t dare to bring the kiss up directly. And his acknowledgement of the fact that you were too stuck in your own head to let him talk to you about the kiss specifically, made it all worse.

“Yeah,” you said then. “I wouldn’t want things to suddenly be weird between us.”

“So, let’s not make it weird,” he said, nodding and reluctantly letting go of your hand. “Don’t forget to text me tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” you pulled your hand back and, with one last smile – that looked forced, uncomfortable and weird; all the things you didn’t want it to look like – you walked away from his car and back to your dorm, ready for Inna’s tirade of questions. Questions that you had no answers to.

What surprised you about the company barbecue on Friday afternoon wasn’t the fact that Inna hadn’t demanded to know all the details of the event when you told her where you’d be going, or the fact that all of the people you’d seen at the bi-yearly meeting on Thursday, were now dressed in red aprons like your friendly neighborhood dads.

It was the fact that Namjoon, of all people, was dressed like one of those dads, too.

“Hey!” you exclaimed, evidently shocked to run into him here. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh, hi!” Namjoon seemed just as surprised but he shook your hand – which was his go-to way of saying hello to people, as you’ve learned – and smiled, explaining, “I’m interning here, actually. What about you?”

You were thrown off balance by your surprise – the two of you had talked about your plans for the future before, sharing your ambitions with each other, and yet you didn’t know that he was an intern here – but recovered a moment later to explain yourself.

“Oh, I’m—the CEO is an old family friend, so I’m here as a courtesy of sorts,” you said, feeling self-conscious when you saw Namjoon raise his eyebrows after he learned about this connection. “I was supposed to come earlier to help you set up but my roommate was leaving for the weekend, and she—well, anyway. I’m only here to get acquainted with the company, really.”

Contrary to what you’d expected him to ask you next, Namjoon wondered, “do you see yourself here in the future?”

Even though he didn’t inquire about your biography outright – “were your parents powerful and influential businessmen as well?” – his question did seem to insinuate that you may start working here purely because of your relationship to the head of the company.

“Maybe,” you replied, realizing how privileged you were to be here when you weren’t even a part of the company yet. “What has it been like, interning here?”

“Oh, it’s been okay. It’s the only company that took me in,” he spoke and you felt yourself exhale in relief after you lost the spotlight. “The others weren’t looking for interns. Or they needed interns with a job experience that spanned more than my college career.”

You scoffed, understanding what he meant very well because you’d been there, too. “How does that make sense?”

“It doesn’t,” Namjoon said with a sigh. “And that’s why I’m here.”

“So, this wasn’t your first choice?” you asked.

“No, but I don’t regret coming here,” he replied. “It’s a nice work environment. The people are very welcoming and helpful, which isn’t something you see a lot of in corporate businesses.”

Sadly, some of the people here weren’t very welcoming in their personal lives, you thought bitterly, remembering Jungkook and his father’s tense relationship. You chose not to mention that, however, because it didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

“I hope you’re not here for work, though,” you said instead, smiling as you watched Namjoon laugh awkwardly and nod at the beef patties on a plate next to the grill.

“No,” he said. “But they did put me on grilling duty – which wasn’t very smart of them, considering how terrible I am around things that can burst into flames – so I do have some hefty responsibilities today.”

You chuckled. “I could help you. I’ve done my fair share of barbecuing when I was growing up. Let me just leave my handbag somewhere—”

“The gazebo over there,” Namjoon pointed at the far end of the camping grounds, “they’ve turned it into a coat room. You could leave it there,” he looked at you and, catching his own eagerness, explained, “I would really appreciate your help. I don’t want my internship to end prematurely because I’d poisoned everyone with my poor cooking.”

Giving him a sympathetic grin, you assured him, “that won’t happen. At least, not on my watch. I’ll be right back!”

As you’d learned once you got back to the grill and started to assist Namjoon – or, allowed him to assist you – Jungkook’s father hadn’t even arrived yet. Him and his wife – according to a very chatty woman who was Namjoon’s supervisor – were supposed to come a little while later and then, following tradition, they would take a picture with the rest of the employees, sit down for a meal, and leave within an hour.

This barbecue may have been a nice social gathering for the employees of his company, but it was strictly a formality for Jungkook’s father.

“Still, it’s nice,” Namjoon said once the woman left you two to finish grilling the sausages and the patties alone, “not many CEOs bother to interact with the lower-rank employees at company events. At least, not in my experience. My dad didn’t even know what his boss looked like and he’d worked for the same company for twenty years.”

“It sounds impossible in today’s day and age, though, with everyone being on social media,” you pointed out.

“Of course. But you don’t always recognize people from social media in real life. So, it’s nice that even I, an intern, have a chance to see the CEO of the company with my own eyes. And maybe even meet him.”

“Hmm, sure,” you nodded with an unconcerned shrug. “It is nice of him, I suppose.”

Namjoon noticed your nonchalance and he knew that the reason why you couldn’t relate to him in this particular situation was because you had nothing to get excited about – you had already met the CEO.

“You said he was a family friend?” Namjoon asked you. “So, you know him quite well, then?”

You paused grilling for a second to look at him but he was watching the food to make sure it didn’t burn. And that was even better, since it gave you more time to come up with an abridged version of your relationship with Jungkook’s father.

“Yeah, uh… my mom and his wife had been best friends growing up,” you said, “and they’re still very close to this day. Now that they’re both married, their families got involved in the friendship, too. He’s always been kind to me but my knowledge of him comes from Jungkook’s point of view, so I’m probably—”

Namjoon finally looked away from the sizzling grill to get you to back up. “Wait, Jungkook?”

“Yeah, we—” you paused, realizing that he wasn’t confused about your friendship with Jungkook but, rather, about Jungkook, being the son – and the heir apparent – of the CEO. “The company—i-it belongs to Jungkook’s father.”

“Oh,” Namjoon mumbled, looking away as this revelation rendered him speechless for a quick minute. “Oh.”

You didn’t know what to make of this “oh”, so you tried to clear the air with a chuckle.

“I, uh—I had thought that was common knowledge on campus,” you said.

“I—maybe it is, I don’t really keep up w-with that,” he admitted. “I just assumed he was popular because of Parental Advisory.”

“He is,” you nodded, “but coming from a rich family probably didn’t hinder his way to the top very much.”

“No,” he snickered, “it probably didn’t. So, uh, is he coming here, too?”

You had picked up a pair of tongs from the folding table nearby and used them to flip the patties before you answered. That was why you didn’t notice how much Namjoon struggled to process this new information. You couldn’t ask him what was it about Jungkook that caused Namjoon to have such a hard time dealing with this news.

“No,” you said, still not looking at him as you focused on the grill. “He’s got a show tonight.”

“Ah, so his band comes first,” Namjoon said in a voice that would have been humorous—in a sarcastic way—if it wasn’t so acidic.

You stopped what you were doing to give the boy next to you a surprised look.

“Well—not necessarily,” you said and then tried to find a way to explain why Jungkook was the way he was without getting into too many unnecessary and overly-complicated details, “he cares about both, but he’s not—he’s got, uh, some issues with—”

“With being civil in front of his father’s employees?” Namjoon interjected sharply.

You blinked. “He—”

“God, sorry,” he blurted suddenly, putting the metal spatula down on the grill before realizing that this wasn’t a good idea and picking it back up again. He sounded exasperated as he tried to take his previous question back, “I don’t know why I’m coming off so angry about this. I was just surprised. I did hear that the CEO had a son who was presumably going to take over the company one day, but I didn’t think it was… you know.”

You didn’t know, but you could guess that Jungkook’s bad reputation preceded him and even people, who claimed not to judge others without getting to know them first, couldn’t help but judge first.

Namjoon sounded disappointed when he talked about him. Worse, he sounded displeased and even choked as he spoke, trying to cover up his own frustration so he could remain impeccably respectful like he always was – or tried to be.

He tried to avoid stereotypes but you’d gotten glimpses of his real attitude at the library when he’d revealed his assumptions about the members of Parental Advisory, guessing – and getting it right – that the members were a “troubled bunch”.

You’d admired his restraint from any further assumptions that could have shown his prejudice. But now his respectfulness irked you because it hid his real feelings and made it almost impossible for you to defend Jungkook without sounding like you were overreacting.

“There’s still a long way before Jungkook can take over,” you said, focusing on the tongs in your hands and the way they clapped with a metallic yelp each time you clicked them together. “He’s working on it and his father definitely isn’t cutting him any slack just because he’s his son.”

“Right, I wasn’t—”

“But you probably know that if you work here,” you continued, yours words coming out in a batch of agitation that Namjoon could not interrupt, “there aren’t any exclusive employees here. Everyone is being treated the same, regardless of their connection to the staff higher up.”

“No, of course!” he exclaimed before you could continue. “I didn’t mean to imply—although, I guess I did imply that he had certain guarantees that other people didn’t, which is true, of course, with him being the son of the CEO. But I didn’t mean to make it sound like he wouldn’t deserve the chief executive position. I’m sure his father wouldn’t give it to him if he didn’t think Jungkook was worth it.”

“Yeah,” you said, swallowing hard. “He wouldn’t.”

Namjoon wasn’t going to say anything else about this – he’d already said too much – but the way you went straight for his throat when he misspoke about Jungkook, shed a new light on your relationship with him. It intrigued Namjoon even if he wasn’t fascinated by you in a romantic sense.

His interest in your relationship with Jungkook was mostly understandable, though – the two of you were so different on the surface, one could only wonder what was it that attracted you to each other.

Well, apparently, there were depths to the reckless lead vocalist of the campus band that Namjoon didn’t know about.

“I’ve heard he treats everyone here like family,” Namjoon said, trying to make his voice sound light as he shifted the topic from the son to the father.

“I’ve heard that, too,” you agreed, your voice still on edge. “The man has a great reputation around here.”

“He’s sort of living up to it, too,” Namjoon said and you saw him nod in the direction of the road that ran along the north side of the camping grounds.

You turned your head to see Jungkook’s father step out of his car, with his wife following after, from the other side. He shook hands with the few people who came to greet him. 

He had a wide smile on his face – a smile that you couldn’t remember seeing in a very long time, but now that you did, you realized how similar him and Jungkook were: both of them seemed to lose ten years of their age when they smiled.

“He kind of looks like he’s running a presidential campaign,” you said, observing the scene as Jungkook’s father greeted his employees – some with a good-natured hug, others with a wave.

Namjoon glanced at you and, relieved to see that your mind was no longer lingering on your previous conversation, laughed. “Maybe a bit, yeah.”

Within moments of Jungkook’s father’s arrival, the campgrounds were in an uproar: everyone was busy grilling their last bits of food and arranging it in a way that would look the most appetizing.

The plate of food you and Namjoon had grilled definitely wasn’t the easiest on the eyes, but none of the food seemed under-cooked or burned, so both of you were content with that. 

Then, just as you were about to pick the food up and carry it over to the structure tent in the center of the grounds, you were reminded that time for dinner hadn’t arrived yet.

The traditional picture had to come first.

You felt a lot like you did on picture day back at school – with one of the employees ordering everyone around, demanding they squat, scooch closer, smile wider, turn their heads, and move to the back because their clothing is too flashy – and that was what you told Namjoon when the two of you found yourselves standing side-by-side in front of the camera, very close to Jungkook’s father himself.

“I think it’s worse than it was at school,” Namjoon whispered back, glancing at the other employees and their wide smiles, “but, at least, we don’t have to wear uniforms.”

You scoffed. “Yes. Wearing dark red aprons is better.”

“This awful color makes us all more united,” he said, looking over your shoulder and accidentally meeting the eye of his CEO, who was making sure you weren’t standing too far from him, because he considered you to be his guest and, therefore, he had to make sure you received the best treatment. Namjoon figured as much, as he cleared his throat and straightened his posture.

Finally, the photographer – or, actually, the Head of Human Resources with his new Samsung – took the picture, making sure the flash blinded each and every single person posing for him. And then he took another picture. And then another one. And then a few more for good measure.

You thought you’d blinked in all of them but you hoped to never see those pictures anyway. They probably hung them up in the lobby to remind everyone who went into the building that this was a very friendly environment to work in, but the actual employees never really looked at the pictures.

It was almost funny how wrong you were about that.

“Such a pleasure to see you here,” Jungkook’s father said, approaching you as soon as the people broke apart from their designated positions and pretended to mingle while, really, they waited for the director to finish talking and lead them to the main tent for dinner.

“Thank you very much for inviting me,” you said, aware of everyone’s eyes on you as you exchanged a polite and obligatory hug. “It’s a very nice place here.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” he nodded and then, much to your relief, pointed at the tent. “Let’s go have some food, shall we? I’d been saving up my stomach the whole day for this.”

You chuckled and walked next to him towards the plastic table, filled to the brim with various plates of food. There was far too much grilled meat here – it was impossible for everyone to eat it all, no matter how many people were here – but that only seemed to please the CEO.

“Would you like to take a look at the pictures, sir?” the Head of HR approached Jungkook’s father after he noticed that your conversation had ceased.

Based on how carefully he held the treasured Samsung in his hands, you figured that, either the phone had cost several million dollars, or the man was genuinely terrified of Jungkook’s father – which wasn’t unlikely, as you very well knew.

“Oh, of course, of course,” Jungkook’s father said, always so pleasant, and then stopped to take a look at the phone. You weren’t sure if you should have kept walking or stopped as well. And then he solved the dilemma for you by addressing you, “I’m going to forward the picture to Jungkook so he knows what he’s missing.”

“Oh, yes, that’s a great idea,” you said, smiling, even though you knew Jungkook probably wasn’t even going to open the picture.

Funnily enough, you were wrong about that, too.

While you and Jungkook’s father joined the rest of his employees for the barbecue, Jungkook was finishing soundcheck with his bandmates. He checked his phone – like he did after each song – and rolled his eyes when he saw a text from his father instead of from you.

He opened it, though.

He didn’t care much for what his father said – but he had to admit, he’d never seen his father use the winky face emoji before, so that threw him off – but his eyes caught the picture he’d attached and Jungkook pressed on it without a moment’s hesitation.

Skimming over the bright smiles of his father’s employees, he scanned the picture, looking for you.

And he found you.

But not before he found Namjoon standing right next to you.

Much to your surprise, talking to the other employees – even despite the age gap – proved to be a lot of fun. Some of the older ones actually remembered you from when you were little; they recalled you and Jungkook holding onto Jungkook’s mother’s dress as she brought you two along when she came to visit her husband at the company. And the younger employees curiously absorbed everything you told them about your experience at university, sharing their own life stories with you in return.

Because you found yourself having a good time here, you only remembered that you’d left your phone in your handbag – which was across the camping grounds, tucked away in the lonely wooden gazebo – when Jungkook’s father – who was still here, much to everyone’s surprise – decided it was time to pop the champagne.

You excused yourself from the table, promising to return soon because you only meant to retrieve your phone so you could check the time and maybe check in with Jungkook in case his show was over by now.

That was not what ended up happening when you located your handbag under the various expensive jackets that were haphazardly thrown on the bench in the gazebo.

You pulled your phone out to see several missed calls.

None of those missed calls were from Jungkook. In fact, the majority of them came from Inna, which was already weird enough since she’d left campus again this weekend and she never called you. You always texted.

But what truly confused you were the last two missed calls because they were from Yoongi, Jungkook’s bandmate. You’d only talked to Yoongi on the phone once, when you were attempting to get in touch with Jungkook after he missed dinner at his parents’ place, but Yoongi was high back then so you didn’t think he even remembered.

But he did remember, apparently, because, while you stood there, puzzled and a little alarmed, his number lit up on your screen again.

Clearing your throat, you picked up the call. “Hello?”

“Oh, fuck, thank God, you’re here,” Yoongi spoke and, judging from the relief in his voice, he knew very well whom he was talking to. “Is Jungkook with you?”

“Jungkook?” you repeated stupidly. “W-why would he be with me? Don’t you have a show?”

Yoongi laughed, loudly and completely humorlessly. “We do have a show. He was wasted for the most of it.”

A painful bolt of electricity shot through you. “He performed drunk?”

“Doesn’t matter. At least, he performed,” Yoongi said, “that’s before the encore, though. We couldn’t find him. The fucking asshole completely missed the three final songs. We thought he went to see you.”

You felt a pang of guilt even though you had nothing to feel guilty about because Jungkook was most definitely not with you, and he didn’t have a single reason to come see you before he finished the show anyway.

“I-I’m not on campus right now,” you said, running your hand through your hair as you considered what could have happened in the span of the few hours since you left your dorm this morning, after having talked to Jungkook on the phone. “Did you try calling him?”

“Obviously. He’s not picking up. I’m pretty sure he tossed his phone into a fucking lake,” Yoongi said and then, even though he didn’t mean it, he added angrily, “he better be in the lake, too, or else I’ll kill him myself.”

Knowing that the scenario of Jungkook accidentally driving into a lake wasn’t one to be dismissed, you felt your skin shiver.

“I’ll look for him,” you promised, looking back at the celebration in the tent across the field.

“You said you weren’t on campus,” Yoongi said. “Your roommate said she was out, too.”

You weren’t aware that Yoongi had talked to Inna tonight, but that explained the avalanche of missed calls from her. You made a mental note to send her a quick explanatory text message on your way to your dorm.

“I’m coming back,” you told Yoongi, grabbing your bag and making your way back to the rest of the company. “Let me know if he gets in touch with you, though, okay?”

The boy on the other end scoffed. “He won’t. Chances are, he won’t talk to the rest of us for a week after he eventually shows up back home. As if it’s us who fucked up, and not him.”

“Did anything happen?” you asked, still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. That wasn’t easy when each piece looked drastically different from the next and you had no idea what the full picture was supposed to look like. “Did someone say something to him? Did he get into a fight? Did he—”

“No. Nothing happened. We were—ah, shit, wait, his dad texted him, didn’t he?” Yoongi said but it didn’t sound like he was addressing you. He wasn’t; a moment later, a muffled, “yeah” sounded in the background of the call. Then, Yoongi continued, “yeah, we were finishing up with the soundcheck when he got a text from his dad. He read it and just fucking dipped. When he came back to do the show, he was already struggling on his feet.”

You cursed under your breath before thinking aloud, “his dad is here. I did see him text Jungkook but he was just sending him a picture—could it have been the picture that triggered him?”

“A picture of what?”

“There’s this barbecue that the company organized. His dad invited us both but he stayed back to do the show, so I came alone. We took a picture, everyone who’s here. And his dad sent it to him. Could that be the reason why he—”

“No,” Yoongi said right away, “company dinners—or barbecues, or whatever—doesn’t sound like Jungkook’s thing. He wouldn’t give a fuck about the picture. Unless you took someone there as your plus one?”

“Of course I didn’t. I was supposed to come with him but—oh, fuck.”

You stopped walking, the realization hitting you first, and the absurdity of it following right after.

Namjoon was in the picture next to you. He was just standing there, not even touching you, but was it possible that his appearance in the picture was enough for Jungkook to lose touch with reality?

“Fuck, of course, that’s possible,” you said out loud, almost stomping your feet in frustration like a kid, throwing a tantrum. “Listen, I have to go. I’ll text you if I find him.”

You didn’t hear Yoongi’s response because you were already pulling the phone away from your ear as you returned to the tent. You needed to find a way to leave without raising any suspicions with Jungkook’s father – whom you ran past in a wide semicircle like he was the plague itself – and you figured that the best way to do that would be faking a health emergency.

But for that, you needed to spend another few inconspicuous minutes by the table, looking colorless and uncomfortable. That wasn’t going to be difficult since you did feel light-headed already.

As you waited for the right amount of time to pass before you could leave, you tried texting Jungkook. You even tried calling – thinking you’d have enough time to walk far enough from the table so that’d no one would hear you – but the beeping signal never ceased and you didn’t get to hear Jungkook’s voice.

Right when you bit your lip, trying his number for the fifth time in a row as if the previous four times were just glitches in the system, someone noticed your distress.

“Hey,” Namjoon’s voice sounded by your ear, startling you because he was across the table from you just a second ago. “You okay? You came back to the table, looking very out of it.”

“Namjoon,” you said, your voice so grave, he thought you were about to tell him that the entire campus had burned down while the two of you weren’t there and you were the only suspects. “I need to leave.”

“Did something happen?” he asked, the concern in his voice genuine.

You nodded. “Jungkook got in trouble. I have to go back, b-but I can’t tell his father about any of this.”

You spoke without thinking about your last conversation with Namjoon or how this news could have confirmed Jungkook as a useless waste of space in his eyes. Frankly, in that moment, you couldn’t have cared less about Namjoon’s opinion of Jungkook. 

You could have used his help, even if he was going to judge you for it.

“I’m going to call myself a cab,” you said, “but could you please do me a favor, and tell his dad that I’d left because I wasn’t feeling well?”

Namjoon pulled back from your chair and looked across the table to his own seat – his leather jacket resting on the back of the chair – before giving you a nod.

“Let’s go,” he said. You were already standing up but then paused and sat back down, confused.

“What?”

“I’ll drive you back to campus,” he said, “we can leave without saying anything – no one will even notice. And then, when I’m back, I can tell everyone that you weren’t feeling well and that’s why I took you home early.”

“T-that’s very kind, but I can really just—”

“No, let me take you home,” Namjoon insisted as gently as he could, afraid that his forceful tone might remind you of his previous slip-up when you were talking about Jungkook. “It’ll be my way of apologizing for stepping over the line earlier today.”

You considered telling him that he had nothing to apologize for – he didn’t know Jungkook personally and everyone was entitled to their own opinion; you’d just gotten annoyed that he was so quick to hide this opinion under the curtain of fake politeness – but, eventually, the realization that you really didn’t have the time to debate if he should have felt apologetic or not won over, and you nodded.

You needed to get back to campus quickly, even if there was a risk of Jungkook seeing you and Namjoon together again – if that really was the reason why he got drunk and missed the encore of his own show.

“Okay. Let’s go,” you said, finally standing up. “Thank you.”

keep reading | masterlist

[agathasangel]

because you’re worth it (cordelia goode x fem!reader)

Hi this is a shitty vent fic because I’m sad

Warnings: mentions of past bullying/verbal abuse/mental abuse, implied eating issues, reader just has very low self esteem in general, some teacher/student stuff but reader is over 18. Angst and maybe hurt/comfort i guess.

Summary: You never thought you were anything exceptional. In fact, you never thought much of yourself at all, and your family and peers didn’t seem to either. But one day, after finally being able to access your telekinesis in a moment of fear for your life, you were sent to an academy for girls with exceptional powers. You found a home and a family, but still never felt quite at home until one meeting with the headmistress who seemed to understand your pain.

“Remember (y/n), intention! Your powers are innate, you still have it in you!”, Zoe told you during one of your lessons. You began to really believe it, and it worked! The candle glided right to your hand like it was nothing. Normally your telekinesis only showed up when you were angry or scared, and it was almost uncontrollable.

Your first time performing telekinesis was when you were in high school. One of the many boys who bullied and harassed you relentlessly tried to run you over with his car as a “joke” when you were walking home. In a moment of fear and shock, his car flipped over. He survived, but was badly injured and the incident made the news, and you were interviewed because you were the only witness. About a year or so later, after you graduated, your parents got a call from Cordelia Goode, asking to meet with you. Little did either of them know that in the past year, there have been more incidents. Things would fall when you were angry, explode or break when you were scared. You knew you were doing it with your mind somehow, but knew you’d just sound crazy if you tried to explain it to anyone.

When you met with Cordelia, she seemed impressed by how strong your powers were. It had been so long since anyone seemed impressed by you.

“Oh, it only happens when I’m feeling some strong emotion, like when I’m angry or scared. I don’t even know if I really belong here, my parents say I-”

“That often is how it starts, (y/n). But I think you’ll master it quickly. And you do belong here. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.” The older woman walked around the table and touched your shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment. The touch felt nice, safe. You liked it.

“I’m sorry about what that boy did to you. Or I should say, tried to do. He got what he deserved.”

Cordelia seemed nice. Everyone often talked about how kind she was, how deeply she cared about all of her girls. But there was a part of you that, despite everything, made you doubt that her kindness would really extend to you. You were so used to seeing the worst sides of the people with the best reputations. You learned to not judge people based on how they treat you, because sometimes even the “kindest” people were mean to you, and you didn’t know why.

But that feeling seemed to fade away, as Cordelia was always kind to you. You still didn’t have any friends at the academy, as you were too scared to talk to anybody for very long. You didn’t think you deserved to be around the other girls. You were scared they would make fun of you if you talked to them for too long, so you often cut your conversations off quickly. Some of the other girls thought you were stuck up, but most of them understood you were just shy.

The day you learned to control your telekinesis was one of the best days. You felt like you were a real witch and knew that you did deserve to be there after all.

About a year after you were admitted, you still struggled with seeing yourself as a real part of the school, and the coven. You couldn’t believe any of them actually wanted you, especially not the Supreme. You knew you were a real witch, and that you belonged there, but you still saw yourself as less than everyone else. You always saw yourself that way, because of what everyone told you. They said you were ugly, they criticized your body, called you stupid, annoying, weird, a freak, even your parents told you that maybe you deserved to be bullied. You still felt bad for taking up space, even though this was supposed to be your home.

One day, you were in the greenhouse late at night, working on a potion for the project you had to do, when Cordelia came in. 

You immediately started to apologize, “Cordelia, I’m so sorry, I’ll go now..” you said as you packed up and left.

“No, no, stay here and finish. You don’t need to apologize, you have every right to be here. We can share.”

“Thank you, Cordelia.”

“This is as much your home as it is mine, honey. Now what are you working on?”

“Oh, it’s just a potion I need for my incantation class tomorrow. I’m almost done, I’ll be out of your way soon-”

“(Y/n), you’re not in my way at all! Actually, I’d like you to stay if you don’t mind, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for quite some time now.”

Those weren’t good words. Were you in trouble? Was she kicking you out?

She clearly saw your face because she said “No, don’t worry, you’re not in any kind of trouble. I just want to make sure you’re alright,” said Cordelia as she checked on all of her plants.

“Why?”

“Because I care about my girls. You’re doing wonderfully in your classes, you’re becoming a talented witch. But you’ve been here over a year and you barely talk, you hide in your room, skip meals entirely or not eat when you do show up. I see all of that. I see how small you try to make yourself seem around everyone. I know you’re shy and that you’ve been hurt before, but you don’t need to hide from any of us. You especially don’t need to hide from me. Come here.”

You came closer to Cordelia, and, abandoning her plants, she hugged you tight. It had been so long since you felt affection like that.

“You don’t deserve that, (y/n), you don’t deserve any of that. I saw so much of your life just now. Every awful, untrue thing you’ve been made to believe about yourself, the horrible things people have said and done to you. You alone, here, terrified to speak to any of the girls, or even me.”

“You saw all of that?” You said as you started to cry.

“Yes. Shh, don’t cry. You’re okay... don’t worry, I’ve got you. Poor thing, you’re shaking,” she held you tighter, running her hand through your hair.

“You know, (y/n), I do understand how you feel.”

“You? But you’re-“

“I wasn’t always the Supreme, you know. In fact I was probably the last witch anyone expected to be the next Supreme. Before passing the Seven Wonders, I suffered loss after loss after loss. My mother hated me when all I wanted was her approval. My husband was secretly a witch hunter who only married me for ‘access’. Everyone told me I was weak and unworthy, and I believed it. I didn’t think I belonged here, or anywhere.”

“I’m so sorry Cordelia. I had no idea.”

“And when I stopped believing all of that, that was when my powers grew. I think your powers will grow as well once you start seeing yourself as a worthy part of our family, because you are.”

“You really think so?”

“You know, (y/n), I’ve always seen so much of myself in you.”

“Thank you, Cordelia. That means a lot.”

“And there’s one more thing...”

“What is it?”

“I love you, (y/n). I don’t know what kind of love it is yet but I know I love you. I thought at first I just cared for you like I would a little sister. But there’s a part of me that thinks I love you in another way.... of course I don’t really know yet. I would need some time. And I would never abuse my power over you. After all, my main concern is to protect you.”

“Cordelia... I think I love you too.” And you shyly kissed her on the cheek.

“You missed”, she said as she kissed you right on the lips, and you kissed back.

“Take some time and think about it. It’s been an emotional night. I won’t pressure you either way, and no matter what happens, I will always be by your side.”

You spent the rest of the night gardening with Cordelia and just feeling her presence until you both went to bed.

“Goodnight, (y/n). Remember everything I told you, my wonderful girl.”

“I will, Cordelia. Love you.”

“Love you too.”