#living in a world that no longer remembers what a childhood looks like and maybe never knew to begin with

[luxaofhesperides]

Ghostlight prompt: Danny and Duke being childhood friends, but Danny tells Duke the moment the accident happens and such cause he trusts him, only for Danny to go radio silent when giw decide to block the town communications in senior year.

So Duke-does he tell Danny he's Signal or not? Up to you-gets worried the longer no contact goes by.

Maybe the away game thing seen in other posts where the sports team still does away games and Danny gets enough good will with star or dash maybe and they send a message to Duke that's some coded phrase and Duke knows shits going down?

(yourlocalcorviddad, it's a side blog so didn't want to send from main sorry)

Danny is not someone who is on his mind a lot, these days. It’s to be expected, considering how distance and their double lives eat up all the time they have to talk. Really, it’s a miracle that they were able to speak enough to learn about their own individual vigilante work, especially with Duke bouncing around foster homes for a good portion of that time. 

They haven’t spoke in months but that’s normal for them.

Duke thinks he can be forgiven for not knowing something was wrong. He still won’t forgive himself for it.

“Danny’s gone?” he repeats, feeling numb. There’s static ringing in his ears, his entire world hollowing out.

The guy in front of him looks grim, unable to meet Duke’s eyes. Did he introduce himself? Duke can’t remember, can’t keep his spiraling thoughts straight in his head. “He’s gone. His entire family is gone and we haven’t been able to call for help because… well…”

“It’s those guys, right? The ones in white?”

“You know about them?”

“Danny told me. Danny told me a lot about what he did in Amity Park.”

The guy lets out a slow, relieved breath. “Good, then I don’t have to explain. Sorry, it’s just that it’s not something we talk about, especially out in the open. After the last few months, things got really bad. We know the GIW took the Fentons, but we can’t find out how or why and they’ve got us on a tight lockdown.”

“Then how did you get out?” Duke asks. Another arguably more important question pops into his mind a second later. “Actually, how do you know about Danny and… you know. The other things.”

The grimness on the guy’s expression fades away some beneath the sudden shame and embarrassment. “Oh, that. Well, I dunno how much he told you about his, like, daily life, but, um. I’m Dash. Baxter. I bullied him?”

Dash. 

Dash. That’s a name he recognizes. 

Danny’s complained about Dash a lot in the past. Since they were in middle school, really. Duke would always get mad on Danny’s behalf about how terribly he’s being treated, how no one would stop such obvious bullying. And every time, Danny would laugh it off and say in that soft voice of his, It’s alright, Duke, really. Having you care is more than enough for me.

It never stopped the bullying, though, but the way Danny talked about Dash changed when they both entered high school. He was still annoyed about everything Dash did, but there were less insults about him, less venting about every little thing that pissed Danny off about him, as if he just didn’t care anymore.

And there is, of course, the most memorable time Danny called Duke about Dash over the summer.

Hey, Danny, Duke had began, only to be cut off by Danny yelling, I kissed Dash?! Or he kissed me?! What am I supposed to do now!

And Duke, despite the jealousy he felt at hearing that Danny and Dash kissed, laughed so hard he cried while Danny yelled at him to be helpful. 

There wasn’t any discussion on Dash since, beyond a comment here and there about a funny fanboying thing Dash had said about Phantom. The focus of their conversations shifted towards how hard it was to be heroes or vigilantes, quiet reassurances that they’re both doing the best they can, tips traded about best ways to patch themselves up and get through the night. Sometimes, it felt like Danny was the only person in the world to really know Duke; all his pain and promises, his dreams, everything he was Before and who he became in the After.

He’s missed Danny, but the last message Danny sent him told him that things were getting rough in Amity Park, and to not call or contact him until he reached out first.

So Duke trusted in Danny and focused his attention in Gotham, putting his all into becoming a better hero, someone people can rely on. 

He thinks that maybe he should have fallen into the Bats’ bad habits of invading privacy to make sure Danny’s okay. 

Too late for that now, though.

“I know you,” Duke says after a long moment. “He talked about you sometimes. Come with me, we have a lot to discuss.”

Dash looks appropriately nervous, but he doesn’t argue. 

It’s a tense, quiet walk to the library where Barbara works. She’s stationed at the front desk when he arrives and greets him with a smile, eyes flicking towards Dash in question.

“Hey, Babs, got a private study room open?”

Her gaze sharpens and Duke can’t help the feeling of relief that flows through him, knowing that Oracle is ready to look out for him. “Let me check,” she says, turning towards the computer to click around a few pages. “Study room 8 is open.”

That’s the study room with a working lock and soundproofing. It also has cameras and a mic inside, but all the other study rooms have one too, just for safety purposes. Things could always go terribly wrong when people are locked together in a small room, and having video and audio evidence of what happened has assisted in more than a few cases. 

He leads them up to the second floor, past the students studying and the group of young children in the back corner of the library listening intently to a read aloud. 

The only occupied study rooms are those up front, closer to the stairs. The back rooms are empty and quiet, the perfect place for a little impromptu interrogation.

“So,” Duke says as he closes the door to study room 8 behind them. Dash sits down as if this is just a casual conversation, but the way his foot taps against the floor betrays his nerves. “Danny’s gone. And somehow, that lead you to me.”

Dash glance around, then leans closer to drop his voice into a harsh whisper. “The Guys In White got some insane upgrades a few months ago and forced every citizen of Amity Park into a surveillance state. The entire Fenton family is gone, but we all know it’s really because they want Danny.”

“Explain the situation in Amity Park some more.”

“Well. It’s like this: we didn’t take them seriously, so they upped their moves and got us trapped. No one goes in or out of Amity Park without good, verifiable reason. We have a curfew and we can be randomly stopped and searched for ectoplasm or exposure to ghosts. Most of the ghosts have left, but a few of the stronger ones hang around to cause trouble to get the GIW off our backs for a bit.”

“So how did you end up in Gotham?”

“I was invited to tour the college. And since outsiders were expecting me, the GIW let me go. But there’s definitely some that tailed me to Gotham, but I can’t find them at all. Even talking to you now is a huge risk for me.”

Which means they don’t have much time to talk before someone comes looking for Dash. His words, paired with everything Duke’s heard from Danny, paint a deeply unpleasant picture in his mind. “Are you going to be in trouble?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. It’s Danny we’re all worried about. He told me before he got caught that if anything happened to him, I should find you. Tucker helped us narrow down where exactly you are and sent you that text to get you to where we met.”

“What do you think I can do?”

“I don’t know,” Dash admits. “But Danny trusts you, and he needs your help.”

Duke was never going to say no to this request to begin with, but damn if those words don’t make him want to run to Amity Park without waiting for anyone else.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’ll help rescue him and bring down the GIW. You should go now, before they get too suspicious.”

“What are you planning?”

“I got a couple of friends who are good at destroying government property. Trust me, you’ll see what we’re up, we’re pretty noticeable if we’re pissed off enough.”

“Don’t take too long then,” Dash says, standing up, “I expect a good show from you. See you around, man.”

And with that, Dash pats Duke’s shoulder and leaves the study room. Duke doesn’t follow after him.  He’s got a rescue to start planning, and the less time he wastes, the better.

In the end, it’s pretty simple. It’s not a hard mission at all when the time comes for them to act, but the amount of data they gather and have to shift through is daunting. But that’s more Tim and Barbara’s forte, so he trusts them to handle it. 

Together with Red Robin, Spoiler, and Black Bat, they hit Amity Park hard and fast. 

One night was spent learning the lay of the land and every station and lab set up by the GIW. The second night was spent burning it all down and tossing open cages full of green blob ghosts and a few transparent, weakly glowing human ghosts. Stronger ghosts, glowing brightly, joined them in a few places with battle cries and maniacal laughter.

They split up and took down all the bases and patrol stations on their own, sweeping through the city like vengeful shadows. 

By dawn, the GIW were in shambles, without any bases or equipment, and rounded up for arrest. 

Cass was the one to find Danny and his family; his parents were forced to create weapons for the GIW under threat of Danny and Jazz’s torture. Danny was locked up like an animal and studied. Jazz had restraints on, including a muzzle, and a bloodthirsty rage in her eyes. Apparently, she had put up the most fight and, while being studied for repeated exposure to ectoplasm and radiation, started biting people.

The Fentons are big names in this conflict. Tim makes the executive decision to burn one of his out-of-state safehouses so they can hide and recover in peace, then promptly moves them into it as soon as the EMTs give them the all clear. They’re gone by the time the sun is rising over the horizon, and the curious Amity Parkers that have gathered behind the blockade of police cars have to be reassured that the Fentons have been taken away for their protection, not for further abuses. Even then, tensions are high and the locals are clearly prepared to start rioting now that they have a chance to fight back.

As vigilantes, they’re not meant to interact with cops much. Perhaps it’s simply their experiences in Gotham that keep them at a distance, disappearing into the neighborhood the moment attention shifts off of them. Either way, Duke is hurrying out of Amity Park with the rest of the team on his heels, eager to return to Gotham and follow up on their own leads to make sure the GIW is properly gutted and dismantled. 

Duke heads off for the Hatch as soon as they reach Gotham, hoping to shed the suit and finally be able to call Danny. The guilt of not noticing how bad things had gotten rolls through his stomach, and more than that, he’s missed hearing Danny’s voice. 

The first few calls go straight to voicemail. Duke leaves a quick message asking Danny to let him know how he’s doing as soon as he can talk. 

Then he goes for a shower and to change into civilian clothes, prepared to make his way to Wayne Manor to let Bruce know how everything went. And hopefully distract him from his Disappointed Father/Leader Lecture about taking on missions behind his back, as if Duke can’t handle himself. And also because Bruce has no leg to stand on when it comes to this. He’s fully prepared to throw that entire lecture back into his face at a moment’s notice.

The post-mission exhaustion is hitting him hard and fast. Duke has to brace himself against the wall once he’s out of the shower, resisting the urge to just lie on the floor and sleep there until he starts feeling more human. 

Somehow, he gets himself into some sweatpants and a plain shirt, pulls on a pair of mismatched socks, and begins gathering his things so he can get to the Batcave. 

He’s in no state to be driving. Maybe someone would be willing to take him there?

Just as he reaches for his phone to thumb through his contacts and see who he can bother, it buzzes in his hand. Duke blames the way he jumps on his exhaustion, then blinks his tired eyes to squint at the name that pops up onto the screen.

Danny.

All at once, his exhaustion fades away. A rush of adrenaline runs through him as he scrambles to accept the call, already pacing around the room so he doesn’t fall asleep. 

“Hello?”

There’s a moment of silence, then the exhale of a breath that turns to static over the call. “Duke,” Danny’s tired voice says. “Duke…”

“You doing okay? I couldn’t get to you before you and your family had to leave and go into hiding, but I’ve been worried about you, man.”

“I’m good. We’re all fine, now. Fentons are strong, you know? We’ll bounce back in no time.”

From what he’s heard about Danny’s family, that’s most definitely true. He’s seen the pictures of walls Jack Fenton has burst through with his body. It’ still hard to believe that no one in the family is a meta, outside of Danny.

“You need anything? I can get it to you, just say the word. Anything at all.”

Danny hums, then asks with a playful note in his voice, “Anything?”

“Anything.”

“I need you. How fast can you come meet me? I’ll even pay for express delivery.”

Duke laughs, so relieved at hearing the lightness return to Danny’s voice that he feels weak in the knees. “It’ll be at least two days. I gotta sleep and debrief with Batman before I can see you. It’s gonna take some time to get out of Gotham again.”

“Maybe I can go to you, instead,” Danny suggests. “Fly over and be there is less than an hour.”

“Are you in any shape to be flying right now?”

“I’m fine! Already healing and everything,” Danny insists.

“It might be dangerous if any rogue GIW agents go after you.”

“Well,” Danny says, “That’s why I need to get to my knight in shining armor sooner rather than later, right?”

Duke bites his lip to fight back a smile, blinking his eyes forcefully to keep them from closing under the heavy weight of exhaustion. “Does that make you a damsel in distress?”

“I mean, I did need rescuing, so I guess? I’m not much of a damsel, but I could put on a pretty dress for you. It’ll be like playing pretend when we were kids.”

“Oh, man, I kinda miss those poofy dresses. I think I could still rock on, put it on top of the armor when I go out for patrol.”

Danny snickers. “Signal: the most well dressed vigilante in Gotham.”

“That’s me, baby!”

The last of the agonizing fear that’s choked him since he first talked to Dash finally melts away. Danny’s fine now. Everything’s okay; the GIW are done for and there’s plenty of people willing to look out for the Fentons. This will never happen again.

“Hey,” Danny says, voice suddenly turing more serious. “Send me your location. I wasn’t joking when I said I could fly over to you. And before you say anything! I do need it; Jazz and my parents are smothering me and I just need to get away from everything and pretend all of this never happened.”

The admission softens Duke, makes him shove away everything that tells him this is a bad idea, that Danny needs more rest first, that having Danny fly over alone and without warning any of the Bats fills Duke with anxiety. 

He does miss Danny. More than he can put into words.

“Yeah, okay,” he says at last. “Come meet me, Danny.”

He texts Danny the location of the Hatch before common sense tells him to be more careful with his base of operations. Not that it matters, anyways; if there’s anyone in the world he trusts with everything, it’s Danny. 

Then he sends the Bats a quick text saying he’s crashing in the Hatch and to not bother him until the sun is fully up two days from now. Oracle gives him a thumbs up emoji, which is a good guarantee that she will personally see to it that no non-emergency messages interrupt his rest and recovery time.

Duke has no idea how long it will take Danny to get to the Hatch, so he putters around, cleaning up the space and straightening it out in an attempt to keep busy enough that he doesn’t crash. Travel really takes it out of him. It’s one of the cons of being born and raised in Gotham: he doesn’t have the stamina to travel outside of it, especially when they were there and back in less than three days.

Thank god for Tim’s many motorcycles and his tendency to see the speed limit as a weak suggestion that can be ignored while on a mission.

Ultimately, the call of sleep is too strong to resist. 

One moment, Duke is sorting through files on the Hatch’s computer, and the next moment, he’s face down on a bed with his face shoved into a pillow. 

Blearly, he manages to pull his phone out of his pocket and send Danny a typo-ridden text that hopefully gets across the message of might be asleep so just come in, don’t wait for me to answer the door.

He’s out like a light as soon as it sends. The last thing Duke registers is his phone dropping out of his hand and falling against the mattress with a little bounce.

When he begins to wake up, something’s changed. As much as he wants to go back to sleep, awareness comes back to him slowly and Duke forces himself to claw his way out of unconsciousness to figure out what, exactly, is bothering him so much. Until he figures out what’s changed in the room, he won’t be able to sleep because he’ll be worried about someone breaking in.

His mind comes back online long before his body does. It’s only when he tries to move that Duke realizes he’s no longer alone on the bed; there’s someone wrapped up in his arms, body temperature a little too cool to be a normal human.

Blinking open his eyes, Duke looks down at the head of messy black hair and feels Danny’s soft breath ghost across his chest. 

“Danny?” he manages to say, voice rough with sleep. 

Danny hums and doesn’t move.

“Hey, look up. Let me see if you’re really alright.”

“Mmm, no,” Danny mumbles, burrowing his face into Duke’s chest some more. “‘m sleepy.”

A good argument. Duke is also sleepy. 

“Fine,” he says, “Check in the morning, then. G’night, Danny.”

“Night, Duke. Thanks for saving me.”

He tightens his grip on Danny, contentment burning warm in his chest. “Always, Danny. I’ll always save you.”

That’s why he’s a hero, after all. To save others, to reach a hand out to everyone the way he needed when he was younger. To keep the people he loves safe. To make sure Danny always finds a way back to him. 

This is what makes all the pain of this lifestyle worth it.

Danny makes everything worth it.

(@yourlocalcorviddad tagging to make sure you see this!)

[pixelnrd]

The morning after her brothers wedding, Heather woke with a heavy head and foggy memory in her childhood bedroom. It was a shock to roll over and realise that she wasn't alone.

The memories of the night before came flooding back - the dancing, the drinking, reuiniting with Jenny and the small sparks that had reignited something inside her. Somehow nobody had noticed them leave together at the end. She still couldn't believe that it had happened after all this time.

And yet... they were both adults now. They had both experienced the world, experimented and found themselves. Heather was somewhat surprised that Jenny had wanted to come home with her, but hadn't questioned it in the moment of lust. She was still caught up in the status quo of high school, the act they performed to cover up their real feelings and pass as straight to everyone.

The first thing she felt as she sat up was guilt. Guilt for the secret she had still kept from her brother... that it was she who had ended his relationship, all those years ago. And now here she was, the day after Dustin's wedding, with that same person in her bed.

Jenny had woken up beside her. She smiled up at Heather, contented. Heather wanted to clear the air, immediately, before the guilty feelings took over. Before Jenny disappeared from her life again and she had to bury the feelings away.

'Last night was amazing... like a blast from the past, wasn't it,' she said awkwardly. 'But I mean... it's not the past anymore. It's the now and... I mean, we've grown up. Got lives and jobs and stuff.'

Jenny could hear the hesitation and nervousness in Heather's voice. Truthfully, she had only bothered going to Dustin's wedding to see her again. After all these years, she had finally come to own her sexuality and become comfotable with herself. No longer held down by fear or doubt, she had wanted to see Heather again, to see if those feelings still remained. For Jenny, they were still there.

'I mean, I'm not seeing anyone,' she confessed to Heather. 'I haven't seen anyone in a long time. Men are just... well, you know. It's not the same once you've sampled what else is out there.'

There was an awkward silence that permeated the room. Jenny decided to be bold with Heather.

'Look Heather I... I still like you. I know it's not high school anymore, and maybe it's because you were my first... there's never been anyone else I felt the same for. Now that you're back we... we could see eachother more?'

Heather felt nervous. How could she start seeing Jenny without Dusty knowing? And if Dusty did know, she'd have to confess to what she did. It would only only hurt him.

'I don't know if... if I'm ready right now,' she said sadly. 'I need to talk to Dusty first, but I don't know if I'm ready to do that.'

Jenny was sad, but she understood. 'Well, if this is goodbye again for a little while, let's make it a goodbye to remember.'

[missscarletrosesett]

Can I ask for Yandere Tokito twins hc? If not just Yandere Muichiro! Thanks if you do

Summary: Yandere Tokito twins and Yandere Muichiro Hcs.

Warnings: Mentions of blood, death, emotional abuse, obsessive and possessive behaviour, and forms of manipulation.

Note: Here’s another overdue one. I'm sorry it took so long. I hope you don't mind if I did both.

Tokito twins

(In this they both live and Muichiro keeps his memories)

You three are childhood friends and have a very close bond. You were the glue that held them together.

Your guys’ parents think you three were so cute together. I mean who wouldn't?

Whenever they would squabble, it would always somehow end up with you getting in the middle of them while trying to calm them down.

Mainly Yuichiro.

Time skip to when the demon finds the cabin and attacks you and the twins.

Yuichiro jumped in front of Muichiro in order to protect him, but that resulted him in the loss of his arm.

While you? You just sat that petrified of the scene in front of you.

After help arrived things seemed to get better.

With the help of your care and the Ubuyashiki’s, Yuichiro was going to live.

After Yuichiro made a full and healthy recovery, he decided it was best to stay on the sidelines. (As much as he hated it) and watched as Muichiro trained his hardest to become a Demon Slayer.

You and Yuichiro cheered him on from the sidelines.

Not long after that Muichiro became a Hashira.

Speaking of Yuichiro and Muichiro. You've noticed that they've become more possessive over you, and never let you stray far from their sight.

At first, you thought it seemed from the worry of losing you because you three thought of each other as family.

Oh how wrong you were.

At first, it started out as wholesome worry.

Then it turned into guilt-tripping, restriction to the outside world, and more.

They would try and coax you with small little acts of affection and gifts, trying to make you see there was no reason to go outside.

Simple but sweet things.

Do not get me started if they catch you trying to escape.

If Yuichiro catches you trying to escape, he will drag you back with him and start emotionally abusing you.

He would call you unflattering names, calling you ungrateful and so on.

He would leave you alone for days without the proper care and nutrients you needed to live.

Then he would come back and start acting all sweet with you.

If Muichiro found you trying to escape, at first he’ll gently try to coax you into no trying to escape, but if that doesn't work, it'll get harder than it already needs to be.

He’ll threaten you and yell at you much like Yuichiro, even giving you the silent treatment.

But he won't even last a few hours before begging for your forgiveness.

Poor baby

He can't stand the thought of you being scared or angry with him.

If you do somehow manage to escape, it won't be very far

The farthest you'll get is maybe close to a small town, before being dragged back by most likely Muichiro.

That's when you realized you were never going to leave their line of sight.

“Come on, let's get you home, where it's safe.”

Muichiro

We all love him, but he is ruthless as a yandere.

RUTHLESS.

Same scenario as for the twins, you were childhood friends with the twins.

After the Demon attacked you guys, you and Muichiro were the only survivors, having Yuichiro sacrifice his life in order to protect you two.

Muichiro experienced Memory loss but for some strange reason he remembered you

You were happy that your best friend remembered you, of course, but you couldn't shake the feeling that he changed somehow.

He felt different, and not the good kind.

After he became a Hashira, he invited you to his estate, which you happily accepted.

As time went on, you noticed that your visits became longer and longer, sometimes even you having to stay the night, until you couldn't even step foot outside his estate.

You couldn't even remember what the outside world looked like.

He would act like his old-normal self around you, but if you ever did something he didn't like or approve of, he would revert to his cold-hearted, ruthless self.

And if you try escaping, good luck, getting caught will be your worst nightmare

He couldn't care how much begging and pleasing you were doing. He would drill it into your head.

You would stay by his side, like old times.

He would achieve his goal no matter what, even if he has to spill your own blood.

“Why do you insist on escaping? How troublesome. Seems like you still haven't learned.”

[doublerainbow-if]

Double Rainbow

Double Rainbow is a romantic coming of age interactive fiction set in the city of Paris, France. The story follows you settling down after traveling around the world looking for your soulmate for years.

Rating 18+

Content Warnings: Abusive childhood, toxic relationships, and forced intimacy/love

Your folks weren't the picture-perfect image of a soulmate couple growing up. The bitterness and resentment staining what should have been a pure bond. At least that's what you were taught growing up. You wanted to believe in that idea of true love, a relationship that will complete you. That is what anybody needs in this world, though that's another you were told growing up.

Then it happened, it finally happened. A fleeting encounter on a highschool trip to the Big Apple. A mere brush of skin and suddenly your world was exploding in color. However your vision bleed back to monochrome just as fast. It was fleeting but that colorful vision and feeling wholeness will always stay with you. It was the driving force behind dropping everything after high school and taking off to New York. You had to find them.

It has been years now. Far longer than you were expected with how hard you tried to find them. Traveling all over the world to find that special someone, to see in color once again. You had wanted to give up so badly but you can't. This was suppose to be everybody's destiny, your happily ever after. Right?

Though maybe you can stop. Just for a while. Rest and savor life. That's what Lee always say to you since they joined you on your journey. You have a lifetime to find them, why not live your life too? Which lands you on the doorstep of one Mx. Jean Connoly, one of the most prolific art curators in Paris.

Play as male, female, or non-binary along with transgender choices

Interact with eight different characters, each unique in their own ways in this world of soulmates

Customized your appearance, personality, and special interests as you finally settled in for the first time since high school

Figured what kind of artist you are in Paris, France; a painter, scluptor, photographer, and many more

Navigate your way in this world where soulmates are the pinnacle in society while navigating the dark side behind the modern romancization

Connect with different characters who may or may not be your soulmate. You'll never know until you take that leap. But do you want that soulmate? Will you throw away your life's dream for somebody that wasn't predestined? You'll decided.

Myrtus/Mrytle "Elias/Eliza" Kouris-Henderson

26|Male/Female|Greek American|Rejected

Your old childhood friend that moved away in your freshman year. They were your safe haven growing up, keeping you away from the abusive environment in your home and being your best friend. Sometimes you wished that they were your soulmate but they found theirs abroad and like that they were gone. Now they're back in your life, a chance encounter when you arrived in Paris. But they seemed different, more sullen and moody than you remembered. The flower tattoos growing on their arms though tore your heart open. Their soulmate rejected them.

Tropes: Childhood Friends, First Love, Slow Burn, and Reunion

Leandro/Leandra "Lee" Hale

27|Male/Female|Brazilian|Unclaimed

Your best friend you made in New York City who joined you on your journey. You met them within your first week of being in the Big Apple and they were so enthralled by your quest that they had to join you. You never ask them if they also did it to find their own soulmate but they seem pretty happy just traveling around with you. They always kept grounded when you gotten close to giving up or going off the deep end. You couldn't ask for a better friend. But sometimes you see a spark of something unfamiliar in their eyes, what is it?

Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Secret Pining, Partners in Crime, and Angst

Brendan/Brenda "Bree/Bren" Ferrell

26|Male/Female|Irish American|Unclaimed

The cousin of your boss Jean Conolly who seems to follow you around like a puppy. They have very demure personality quite unlike their cousin but their smile is a sight to behold when you can see it. You don't why they taken such a liking to you but they are such a sweet and kind person. They're one of the first friends you made in the city and you wouldn't give them up for the world. They do freelancing as a book illustrator for publishers who you always see sketching in their notebook during your weekly hangouts. You wonder if they sketch you too?

Tropes: Puppy Love, Flustered/Obvilious, They Love You First, and Workplace Romance

Jean/Jeanne Conolly

30|Male/Female|African French Irish|Rejected

Your new boss since you decided to settled down in Paris. They have such an expressive and free attitude that reminds you a bit of Lee. But what drew you in was their dedication to their craft. Just that passion for art and displaying amazing creations, it's just awe inspiring. Especially since they saw you, a vagabond who showed up on their doorstep looking for work, and quickly took you under their wing. But the flower tattoos shouldn't be on them. Who would reject such an amazing person?

Tropes: Boss/Employee Romance, Best Friend's Brother, Forbidden Romance, and Second Chance at Love

Vincent/Vincenta Voog

28|Male/Female|Vietnamese French|Rejected

Your coworker who has branded you as their rival since you started at the gallery. Their burning focus and passion for their art is only matched by their utter arrogance and contempt for you. You don't know why they hate you for so much expect for their contast efforts to have Jean focus only on them. But there is something that slips through their haughty mask. The deep loneliness flashing in their eyes when a comment unexpectantly cut deep and quick sadness when they see the black marks that stain their hands.

Tropes: Rivals to Lovers, Angst, Miscommunication, and Against Destiny

Collin/Colette "Cole/Coco" Woods

28|Male/Female|Canadian|Unclaimed

Your coworker who has taken to being a thorn in your side. The best friend of V, they made it their mission to make you the new target of their jokes and pranks. A lazy person who somehow manages to create amazing marketing campaigns, they're confuse you so much. Heavily charismatic and charming, they can draw to customers to them like flies to honey and sell snake oil without a sweat. But the soft smile at the end of the work day and their relaxing atmosphere make you almost forget their childish antics. Almost.

Tropes: Work Romance, Bad Boy/Girl, Friends with Benefits, and Slow Burn

Avery Suman Ragda Remington

35|Male/Female|British Indian|Unclaimed

Your companion when you eat lunch at the cafe near the gallery. You noticed them out of the corner of your eye as you pick up your lunch every day at the cafe until you bumped into each other quite literally. Their easy going but mature attitude and friendly smile on their face as they caught you before you fall, it was perfect balm for such a hectic day you had. After that day, they became your lunch buddy. Talking about anything and everyhting and just letting yourself relax as they had such a calm prescence to them. You don't know however that they're the benefactor for the studio you work at.

Tropes: Billionaire Romance, Secret Indentity, Meet Cute, and Age Gap

Kahula Lennon 'Aukai

25|Male/Female|Hawiian|Rejected

The hottest musician in the underground scene. They have a magnetic and intense personality that can draw anybody to them including you after one of their concerts. It was just one time thing that only happen because the two of you crossed paths that night and quickly moved on. But they popped up in Paris for a break from their tour and lasered in on you. Could you take chance with one who has dozens before and after you? Even one who rejected their soulmate in order to become the star they are today?

Tropes: Starstruck, Playboy/Playgirl, One Night [You get to decide what happened that night], and Forbidden Love

[lilacxquartz]

Blood Thicker Than Honey | One Shot

Suguru Geto x Fem!Reader

ao3 link | masterlist

Summary: Suguru was drawn to you from the start, however your lineage shared a similar flaw to his own and in his perfect world, there were no exceptions.

W.C: 4.3k

Themes: (warnings in red) one shot, dark, dead dove lite, some smut, references to murder/death, reader insert, second person pov

A/N: After the break of the first half, it’s a slight time skip, just a year. This nightmare of a fic is short and sweet, but a lot happens.

~~~

It had been just a couple of years since the day that Suguru last said goodbye to his old life and chose to walk down his own path. No regrets, he thought. His life should have been his own from the very start and it was a cruel joke with what jujutsu society had initially planned to do; to script a predetermined fate for him instead, to force the shovel into his hand and to dig the same early, shallow grave as his friends would have done.

It was sickening, in its own right. To take a canvas so perfectly untouched and mar it with ink from a well that wasn’t his own and he couldn’t help but want to spill the pot. If it were up to him, regardless of the mistakes he’d make, then it would still be his own story to tell at least. What felt more cruel was to be left behind as just another tool to use, another weapon in a limited arsenal yet discarded as soon as the value was lost.

(Except for the blue-eyed ghost from his past, they’d use him until there would be nothing left.)

He simply couldn’t set an example with that, at least not for the two girls he had adopted. After all, what good could possibly come from anything at all when the only lesson that such a society taught was that sorcerers were born to be led to slaughter? No, Suguru wanted something different for them, something that should have been given to his old friend in fact; the freedom of an actual childhood.

Despite this, he was still sure to remind them that they were simply better unlike the filth that had otherwise locked them away before. The non-sorcerers, who hurt what they couldn’t understand, that abused them and refused to see beyond their own ignorance. He would remind them whenever they showed even a flicker of empathy for the ordinary people of the world, quick to extinguish such a silly thought away from their still uncorrupted minds.

Perhaps it was cruel to do so, but they didn’t know any better.

Reminding them as many times as he had to do so, again and again, that if the regular people of the world knew about sorcerers and what they were capable of, then their own history risked repeating once more.

After all, humans loved to destroy what they couldn’t understand, blaming themselves later on in history books when the apologies didn’t have any weight to them any longer; when the lives that they destroyed were buried long ago, forgotten and already lost to time.

He would remind them of how he slaughtered—massacred—those who dared invite such cruelty in the village they were kept in and how he struck down every last one of them. How he dipped his hands into their blood and wore the stained aftermath like a badge of honour.

Maybe the world didn’t deserve to understand, he thought. It was true that the ordinary people could earn their place and even worship the strong as their gods if they were given a chance to do so, but they’d always remain beneath them all the same. If he was willing to sever his own parents from the world for their own flawed existence, then there was nothing left in the world that could stop him alone.

And while taking a trip to the city, all these thoughts festering in his mind, trying to push them away for just a moment. Trying to give the girls a childhood worth remembering and looking back on, that’s when he spotted someone unfamiliar but captivating all the same—you.

Sporting an all too familiar work uniform, it seemed that you were in the midst of having just completed a mission of some sort, evident from how worn out you looked. He watched as you slipped into a nearby cafe, clad in layers of dust that hung onto your frame.

What a sight for sore eyes, he thought.

“Maybe we’ll stop somewhere and get something sweet?” he announced to both Mimiko and Nanako, both of his hands occupying their own. He didn’t personally care about interacting with the common people, but he bit his tongue for certain moments.

He wasn’t going to make them miss out on life just because of the prejudices he had.

And as he followed you in, his eyes focusing on you and how you acted, he found a certain charm behind your actions. Maybe it was the way your eyes seemed to convey exactly what you were thinking—fumbling your order with wide eyes and reluctantly accepting the fate of your new name, when called out to be known as “Kaka” in the busy joint. Standing just a few people behind you, he very clearly heard you say “Keiko”, though.

Maybe it was also the way that you didn’t seem to push his girls away when he instructed them to infiltrate your table and to steal your attention for a little bit while he ordered. Watching as you instead accepted your fate to entertain the two young siblings that took over the seats opposite with what he concluded to be genuine kindness. He glanced on and off as you smiled and you wowed at whatever it was the girls talked about you with.

Suguru of course, shamelessly played his way over to the table, feinging both ignorance and concern over his “lost” girls, handing them both a pastry each accompanied with hot chocolate. There was something endearing with how you interacted with them that he couldn’t just shake away; the first impression already made and set in stone.

“Ah, there you both are,” he said, ruffling their as they smiled at one another—so young and yet already understanding of his intentions, keeping their mouths perfectly zipped shut as they stifled giggles at the idea of him having a crush (and one so obvious, too.)

You blinked at the guy before you, flashing a glance at his features. He seemed significantly older than the two but not enough to be their father.

“Oh, are you their brother?” you asked.

“Not exactly, I see them more as daughters,” Suguru replied, his lips easing into a friendly smile, “you could say that I saved them from a bad situation so it’s been just us three for a while.”

You smiled in understanding while maintaining a polite tone, “How kind of you.”

Extending a hand that you were still cautious enough to not reciprocate to, he clicked his tongue in resignation and introduced himself anyway, “I’m Suguru by the way and these two are Mimiko and Nanako,” he paused, studying your reaction, “and you are…?”

You were about to introduce yourself but then your eyes narrowed as he spotted your name scribbled incorrectly on the paper cup, reaching out to turn it towards him. With embarrassed haste, you attempted to blurt it out in an effort to correct him, “Kei-“

“—Kaka?” he couldn’t help but snort, the two girls giggling beside him. He didn’t mean to bully you, but he did want to have a silly story to introduce you with in the future.

“It’s Keiko,” you muttered in a resigned tone, taking the cup back and gulping down a sip.

Suguru leaned back as you did so, studying the way your lips pressed against the slotted lid. You seemed tired from the way you glanced at him, but not bothered enough to push away his company completely. Maybe you wanted to be alone after what was likely a busy day but didn’t have the heart to say something rude in front of children. He knew just how intensive those missions could be and considered leaving you alone, but he didn’t want for you to just slip away either.

To lose you to the city, to allow you to fade away as just another fleeting face in the crowd, never to be seen again.

Tokyo was like that, after all. Maybe to an extent, all major cities were. You’d see someone and you’d bond with them in your mind, maybe spin a whole fabricated story riddled with what-ifs and maybes, only to never see them again. He didn’t want to reduce you to just another ghost that haunted his memory though (he had enough of those already) and besides, he could tell that there was more to you than just being a pretty face.

“So, you’re a sorcerer, aren’t you?” Suguru was quick to ask, his eyes locking in on the uniform you wore. He needed to keep your attention for just a minute longer, if he could help it. He knew how this looked too and didn’t want to come across as an out-of-touch person trying to hit on you without knowing anything about you (even if he did have the girls help him out in that regard).

You nodded as you took yet another sip, recognising right away that this was no ordinary encounter, “Oh, yeah. Just moved a here couple of weeks ago from Osaka, actually.”

Suddenly, your interest was piqued and you couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he wanted from you. The very act of jujutsu was rightfully concealed from the prying eyes of the public and for obvious reasons, so he had to either be involved or was a sorcerer himself to have made such a conclusion. Lowering your cup and studying him, he seemed to be laughing at something in particular. Your eyes settled on the darker-haired girl, (Mimiko, was it?) sitting opposite you, her fingers dabbing at her lips while she stared at yours. Quickly, you wiped off the foamy residue left from your latte, thankful that at least someone let you know.

Suguru leaned in closer as the girls tucked into their pastries, his elbows resting on the table, “So, what brings you here?”

You considered how to respond to his question as your fingertips drummed around the paper cup. There was nothing rude about the way he asked it, but you were still wary about being too honest. You didn’t mind the company that the three offered you, but your reasoning for coming to work in Tokyo was shallow at best.

“The pay is better here,” you admitted, reading his reaction carefully. You had a mixed bag with admitting such a thing; some people cared a great deal, immediately making assumptions about your character while others didn’t care at all.

“Hm, but the spirits are a lot worse around here, no?” Suguru asked, his tone sounding curious but laced in bitterness. “The pay is great, but it comes at a cost.”

He didn’t want to admit it too soon, especially since he didn’t even know you existed until just ten minutes ago, but he didn’t like hearing that someone that he harboured a potential interest in was doomed to be just another cog in the machine; another part to be replaced rather than repaired.

It wasn’t your fault, many were just simply too blind to see just how disposable they really were in the shackles of jujutsu society. Not to worry though, he thought, he would help bring you to the light.

You tilted your head to the side as you hummed, finding his reaction interesting but fair, “I mean, yeah? I suppose they are, but not everyone has a choice in how they earn their living, you know? I’d rather have a fighting chance to live a better life if I can help it.”

Suguru nodded, continuing to chat with you while both you and the girls ate and sipped on whatever you had left. Again, you didn’t mind, finding the company interesting and almost pleasant in a way. Maybe his words might have seemed blunt and maybe even rude to others, but you appreciated that he didn’t mince his words.

You did find it curious, though, that he remained somewhat cryptic about what he truly did. You didn’t know all too much about him just yet, but his name did ring some sort of bell, seeming familiar in your mind—maybe you heard it in passing? The big shots of Tokyo were rampant here and in your short time spent in the city, you had already shaken hands with your fair share.

And maybe, just maybe, it was poor judgement on your end to have followed him back so soon, but the shyer sibling of the pair insisted that you did so and being a once quiet kid yourself, you weren’t one to dampen someone’s spark, no matter how faint. Mimiko seemed to have taken a liking to you and wanted to show you just about everything that she thought you’d like—mostly drawings but also a plush doll similar to the features you had. You did find it amusing though, that Nanako’s side of the room in contrast, was more orderly and even composed, more like an actual preteen’s room seeking independence more than Mimiko’s side.

Suguru in the meantime watched on from the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the frame. He brought you here partially to entertain Mimiko’s request but also to prove a point to you, that he wasn’t after you as a caretaker. Admittedly, this was an insecurity he had, needing to prove to you for some reason that he wasn’t just some lost kid barely breaking into his twenties with two extra mouths to feed, but someone reliable.

He walked you back after meeting with you either way, already convinced that you might be the perfect one for him which was admittedly, a rare moment of clarity for someone like him. Suguru was very selective with the company he chose to keep and even while his found-family was growing in steady numbers and there were already suitable candidates to consider, this also meant nothing if the girls he sought to protect didn’t think the same.

No, it had to be someone that they all liked. Strangely though, he didn’t resent this sort of system. Perhaps the sisters were a blessing of some sort, acting as some sort of filter to determine who was worthy and who wasn’t. Mimiko, so kind-hearted, would settle on someone gentle. Nanako, more guarded and even selective, would only allow those who didn’t pose a threat to get close.

And as he walked you back in the slowly darkening skies, the golden hour hues soon to be replaced with blanketing darkness that threatened to sweep over, he couldn’t help but already fall for you. He admitted more than he should have, telling you about the girls and allowed you a glimpse into his idolised perfect future, but he didn’t reveal too much too soon.

Not yet.

You parted from him with more questions than answers, just as he had so intended, wanting nothing more than to write you into his own story. Leaving you behind with just a name and a phone number, daring you to contact him again if you too, had felt something in between the lines.

Indeed, it wasn’t the last you saw of him as you met with him a second time after that, and then a third time and soon a fourth. Slowly, but surely, he entangled you into a mess that he spung with his own matter yarn, expecting you to navigate through the knots with no needle in place. It was by sixth meet or perhaps the seventh, that you learned just how cruel he could be but also just how kind—especially so as the city continued to break you down just as it did with everyone else, just as he predicted it would with you too.

(And at your most desperate, he offered you salvation. Happy to break you away from the predetermined mundane, eager to welcome you into a life where love didn’t have to be hidden—a place where you didn’t have to pretend.)

It was though his words slowly poisoned you into a sweet surrender, spreading venom through your once hopeful mind, keen to rid the idea that the world deserved to be helped at all. He reminded you that cursed spirits were a result of human negativity, so therefore the problem lied within people, not you, not him and certainly not the girls. He convinced you with carefully curated words that you could be so much more, planting the seeds of his own personal hatred into the core of your mind—sprouting what he thought to be a justified blame.

People weren’t worth fighting for, he would tell you, repeating it as many times as he had to do so before it would echo as an innate truth in your thoughts.

Lingering, festering. Settling into a known truth.

Yet, at the same time, it didn’t feel like a forced decision on your end to surrender to his will when you packed up your old life behind to see a promising future with him and the girls. If was with your own pledge that you vowed to not become another body in a casket, be it figurative or literal.

No, this was something you grew to want as well.

(A sweeter existence without the bitter aftertaste that followed.)

~~~

“We both share the same flaw, you know,” Suguru gently murmured, half asleep on the bed that you both now shared. His black hair loose, cascading against his sharpened features.

“We do…?” you asked, meeting his longing gaze. The skies outside were dark by now and the girls were sound asleep in their room down the hall. A bedside lamp offered a dim light, offering just enough of a glow to illuminate the troubling thoughts brewing on his face.

Suguru gently cupped your cheeks before answering you, fully understanding that you simply just didn’t get it yet. Not fully, at least. His touch brushed against your flesh like cushioned silk against his own skin, his barren eyes desperate to find life within yours.

It was ever since you told him that your parents weren’t sorcerers either, that he felt an even stronger connection to you. Something that flipped a switch in his mind as he became fully convinced that this was his true fate—one where he had to liberate you, to erase the imperfections that held you back.

In his vision for a perfect world, there was simply no room for mistakes and that included ordinary people. Including your parents. Even if your family did manage to somehow create art from unskilled hands (just as his own had done so too), then that still didn’t make them artists. The world was corrupted with negativity and they deserved to meet their end the very same way.

“Maybe it was meant to be this way,” Suguru mumbled again, sounding even more cryptic than before, “both sorcerers born from nothing.”

“…Suguru?” you asked, your voice laced with a hint of caution, unsure whether or not you should have been trying harder to break him away from his nonsensical thoughts. His expression was so serious, so angry and yet, he looked at you with such love, almost unconditional.

(You were his future.)

“I want to protect you,” he concluded, taking both of your hands and pressing them to his lips. His eyes were dead set on you as you watched him move back, ready to take a break from whatever darkness festered in the back of his mind.

He kissed at your shoulders, silently announcing to you that he was back to normal again. He peppered love bites along your neck and down to your collarbones, a little ritual that he spent the last year or so carefully defining. Suguru was territorial and his lips bruised you in places that were visible, where the ending cuts of clothes didn’t fully cover or reach, as if to show you off in a way that others couldn’t even dream of having.

He wasn’t shy about how much he loved your body either, with how his hands constantly roamed around your flesh, mapping out every single inch of your skin with such tender love and care.

It didn’t take too long for you to learn that his sexual appetite was insatiable either with most nights ending with him spearing his cock in-between your legs, pounding you into a flustered state as if his life depended on it.

Each night would start similar; so deceptively gentle. Soft kisses and careful worship, but if your body was his temple then he only saw it as right to be the one who got to ruin you as he pleased.

You’d surrender to him nightly, with your hands wrapping around his back and pulling him down by the shoulders. You’d hug his taut body flat against yours, rubbing flesh and skin alike into sweating passion.

And this night should have been no different, yet something about it felt off. As if he made a decision just now with you, perhaps for you… without you?

But you didn’t think too much of it for now, your mind melting at his touch as his tip teased at your entrance. Suguru loved to take his sweet time with you before he claimed you every night. He loved nothing more than to rub the head over your clit, testing the waters with your slick heat tempting him inside just below.

“So fucking perfect,” he would say, an unending cycle of varying praise remixing at his lips. Sometimes he would simply whine, so intoxicated before entry and desperate to stake his claim.

He pushed himself in when he couldn’t take it anymore, swiftly easing himself into your glossed sex, so ready to take him in. Every time he plunged into your core and every time he felt your walls tighten and your thighs clench around him, he could feel himself being driven to madness from just lust alone.

You cried his name as he impaled you and as his hips bucked against yours—your fingers desperately grasping at his back to gift you comfort. His relentless rutting driving you almost manic, but unchanged from his usual pace. Sometimes, he worried about being too vanilla for you as his desires were admittedly simple, but just from hearing your aching screams and needy moans and the way your breathing seemed to shudder from when he slammed into you from impact alone, he knew that he permanently had you; you were his and he was yours.

And as he emptied himself into you yet again, he pushed himself into you until the wave rode itself out completely. It was almost mesmerising of a sight, to see you so flustered and slightly tinged red, salted beads of sweat prickling down your body; your pretty pussy so full of him and perfectly spent.

Pulling away from you, he concluded something darker, promising you something you didn’t yet understand, “I’ll do it for you. Just for you.”

~~~

Perhaps you should have seen the warning signs with just how erratic he was acting just a couple of nights ago. Since then, the sex had died down in intensity and the words he drove himself insane with were no longer uttered, but his passive claim on you felt almost personal. It no longer felt as though you were simply his lover nor just a girlfriend, but someone who had intertwined with his very own soul.

So, at the mention of him cheerfully suggesting to meet with the people responsible for bringing you into the world, perhaps you should have read more in between the lines. Maybe you should have deflected his direction or even lie about their whereabouts, but you didn’t.

Deep down, you knew what he was up to. The the man you fell for—the very same who confessed to razing villages and killing their residents, the one who killed his very own kin for the sake of a better world, free from humanity’s own doomed confinement, was now driven to dip his hands in even more blood.

(And for your sake that time.)

It was almost sickening to hear; with his smooth words falling onto your corrupted ears, with how he truly did believe that it was all for a greater cause.

“You’d still choose me in the end, right?” he asked you, holding your hand as you faced your family home. He was about to go in, to do something unspeakable but all for you.

You nodded, albeit cautiously. Accepting that the world was simply just too cruel. You felt as your own tears spilled from your eyes, salting your cheeks while your heart fluttered in your chest; fully understanding what it was that he was about to do.

You knew better than to stop him.

You’d be a hypocrite if you called for exceptions.

It was a maddening sight, all things considered as you watched the loveless walls of your childhood interior, devoid of happy memories that could have been photographed and adorned around the various rooms, decorated by Suguru in the heat of something terrible. Ivory white concrete, splattered from the aftermath of crimson slashes, like sprayed ink from the finest well—blood that was spilled again and for your cause.

Suguru only ever wanted to liberate you.

To free you.

So maybe that’s how it all had to be.

You watched as the life disappeared from the faces of those who raised you a final time, like a light giving out. Deep, dark blood pooled at their heads, almost void like, the reflected lights overhead seeming almost like stars.

Blood that was thicker than honey and yet it didn’t feel so sweet.

A part of you however felt troubled as the death finally settled, something that you couldn’t quite shake off. You started to feel it at first in the mornings, just maybe a week ago. A sweeping nausea that would overcome you; a sickness that was perhaps too telling, too frequent by now to be written off as a coincidence.

You couldn’t help but wonder…

If you were both born from such equally flawed lineages, then what if the unborn child you carried was woven from the same sort of cloth?

What if they were born simply… ordinary?

Would he accept it… spare it? Or would he…?

You clutched at your stomach, almost sickened by the thought.

You already knew the answer.

(No exceptions.)

[lillie98]

How to Save the World—Stranger Things 5

I’ve had some time to sleep on the episode titles and think about them, read theories, etc. and I now believe they might be real.

Hear me out: Stranger Things is all about cycles, parallels, tropes happening over and over again. The Duffers love taking a moment and repeating it in slightly different ways to prove a point. The story started with “The Vanishing of Will Byers” because we needed to place a small, innocent child in the center of our story, something to bring our character together and drive them to action. Well, that child is no longer in danger and our team is ripping apart at the seams. It’s almost like we need something similar to reunite everyone and drive them to action again.

Remember: The Duffers love parallels. Will’s disappearance brought his deeply fractured family together, uniting them for a common cause. It also brought Nancy and Jon together when their families needed them most. Now, the Byers are a united front, ready to tackle any monster that comes their way. They are the glorification of the avant-gard family. Now which family is struggling? The Wheelers. The perfect, All-American Nuclear Family: Mom, Dad, 3 kids, and a picket fence. They look perfect to the outside world, but behind closed doors, they are deeply struggling. They don’t communicate, the parents have no idea what’s happening in their children’s lives, and if they’re not careful, if they don’t come together and form a united front—they’re going to lose everything, potentially causing the end of the world. (Why? I haven’t gotten that far yet!)

Now, how do we inspire them to action? Maybe by taking the child who was born to save their crumbling marriage—the one has seen everything but, up until this point, been too young to contribute. Now, she’ll be the same age Will was when he disappeared and Mike and Will are the same age as Jon and Nancy. The Duffers are trying to illustrate the idea of “The Next Generation.” This evil, this Upside Down dimension is NEVER going to stop until someone from the Wheeler and Byers families breaks the cycle. Children will continue to vanish, the world will continue to crumble, until someone steps up and says ENOUGH. The Wheelers and Byers (parents and children) must step up and face their pasts in order to move forward.

The “Stranger Things” are not only LGBTQ+ matters, they are the skeletons we hide in the closet that literally eat us alive. They are the dark, festering parts of ourselves we don’t let anyone else see. The invisible cancers that slowly and silently kill us. Until we face them head on, until we bring them to the light, they will NEVER die. Stranger Things is about owning your past, facing your fears, and finding the light again.

So yes, Stranger Things will end with Will Byers making it home from Mike Wheeler’s house on November 6, 1983, but not in a time traveling way, in a finally letting go of that scared, pained little boy who thought the world was better off without him. It’s Mike accepting his sexuality and place in his family. His role as a leader. It’s Joyce accepting love from Hopper, who must accept that he is not actually cursed, but that sometimes, bad things happen to good people, even when they think they’re doing the right thing (Vietnam). it’s Karen and Ted falling in love again and fighting to save their family. It’s Eleven discovering that love, not anger, should fuel her powers. It’s mourning your stolen childhood while stepping into the version of yourself that child never got to be. It’s stopping the cycle and creating a better world for the Will Byers and Mike Wheelers and Jane Hoppers of tomorrow. THAT’S how you become a Hero.

[willowser]

i think that childhood best friends to lovers with kiri would actually be — an incredibly sad journey LOL

you're perfect in his eyes. quirkless, exactly as you're meant to be, with the potential to do anything. everything. the world is at your feet and he knows you'll go after it — it's him that falls flat, that can't follow in your footsteps. his quirk isn't anything special, nothing manly, and it won't make him a hero like his heroes. instead he's just in this odd, empty space in between. floating.

you accepting him that way — i think it would mean everything to him.

neither of you really know what to expect, when he goes off to ua. of course you're excited for him; even if his hair is new and he seems a little different, you can feel the build of confidence in him, the motivation he has to try, and that means more to you than the distance ever could. of all things, you want kiri to be happy, even if your friendship takes a backseat to bigger, better things.

days turn to weeks turn to months and the calls become less frequent. the first time he comes home in a while — maybe half a year — he brings his new friends and they're...incredible. strong and powerful and full of life, full of excitement, spontaneous and fun. the kind of people that become heroes. the kind of people kiri needs around him.

you don't think he means to be so distant; what little time the two of you get together is the same as it always is. cheesy movies and multi-player RPG's until the late, late hours of the night. pizza and energy drinks and jokes that are still as funny as they were when you were six. he sleeps on the couch instead of your bed now and doesn't sit as close as he used to, doesn't take his shirt off just because anymore — but you don't mind. you try not to. you try not to care about how much he sweats when you stare at him, or how red the back of his neck gets, or how it seems like he can't look you in the eye anymore.

you don't think he means it, and so you can't be angry at him. angry, no, hurt though...that's a little harder. because everything seems the same with him; it's not like he's upset with you or even wanting to leave you behind. he always apologizes for not keeping up, genuinely, looking like a sad little puppy even though you for forgive him, easily. you're not sure what has changed exactly, you're only sure that everything has.

kirishima's able to go pro very quickly, has a spot secured even before he's graduated. by the time he was sixteen, he'd already been in the news a handful of times, celebrated for the incredible hero he's always been capable of being, and the public loves him by the time he's eighteen. while he's out saving lives and making an impact on the entirety of japan, you're studying or trying to find a new date to the summer festival, because you know he won't be able to go. he doesn't make your graduation — and sounds really sorry about it, when he calls a few weeks after — and you get petty enough that you don't go to his either.

it's stupid, and you feel bad, but kirishima doesn't even notice.

a long time goes by, before you see each other again. all the attempts he makes to meet up with you are fruitless; either he can't make it or you don't want to try, too tired and embarrassed after being stood up time and time again. his apologies become redundant, and even if you know he means them, it doesn't make them any easier to hear.

naturally, you see him again at the worst moment: coming out of the gym, sweaty, without makeup and fighting off a painful zit on your chin. he's with his bestie — bakugou, who is even more terrifying at twenty-four than he was at fifteen — and kiri has his hair up in a cute half man-bun and it's longer than you remember and he's bigger than you remember and in a shirt that should hardly count as a shirt.

and he's overjoyed to see you.

"oh my god!" he laughs, smacking a hand to his forehead as you stand awkwardly in the doorway, trying to tuck your face down in the most nonchalant way.

it's the wrong move, because you don't see him step in to hug you.

"kirishima!" you squeal, trying to jerk away as you feel his cheek press against your damp hairline. you feel gross, even worse when you see the face bakugou makes. "quit it!"

"sorry! i just can't believe—" and when he sees the look on your face, the happiness on his drops, replaced by something like humiliation as he glances between you and his friend.

there's something terrible about the slow end of a friendship, and you can see it manifest in his expression. how much of a stranger the two of you have become over time, due to neglect, and it seems like all the ugly feelings are soaked up by him like a sponge.

you don't even know what to say. you don't even know if there's anything to say—no, no, that's not true; there are a million and one things to say, but you just don't know where to begin.

[dearestspirit]

a note heard in heaven - 06

mizu x fem!reader | au based on the film the handmaiden | word count: 11,078 | warnings: mdni. this series will contain sexual and dark themes, including: abuse, sex, sexual assault/harrasment, period typical misogyny, murder, allusions to suicide, and period typical stigmas against mental health.

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a/n: beginning note for context: most of this chapter is within the context of the reader going through memories of their childhood, meeting mizu, and previous events of the story that happened with mizu, but moreso from the reader's perspective. also, it has the brunt of the tagged topics (abuse, suicide) but i tried my best at writing things with only as much detail as i thought they needed to have to advance the plot. take care and enjoy!

You’ve lived in this manor for a long time. From crying child to complacent adult, most of your memories are within the walls of the estate. Purgatorial fog covered the recollections of your haunted youth– knowing you were raised purely to be what you are now. A well; to be dipped into, whether it be for money or pleasure. To receive nothing in return. Nothing good, at least. No matter how far you go from that place, you’ll still flinch when you think of it. It’s why, even in the back of the carriage as you and Taigen are leaving the asylum, you grow distant. Strings of what used to be lingering fuzzily in your mind, as if the fear wants to eat away at you.

Just like it did when you were a child.

In that same dreary library, attending your reading lessons even then, that’s where horror first began its feast with you. It’s where you’d first hear the words ‘bitch’ from your eventual fiance. Where he had first met your skin with bruising metal beads. Your hands, your knuckles. They had stayed painfully red for weeks. He’d tell you to remember it. He’d tie the metal beads to the obi around your waist. Really burn it into your mind for any time after that you wanted to act out. What part of you had fear gulped into its belly then? And what part did it chew on when you were given your own bedroom, away from your dear aunt?

Madam Kaji had told you a tall tale that night. Your new room suffocated in deep shadows, curtains drawn to dim the glow of the moonlight. You remember begging her to light a candle in your room. Desperately, because while you knew you couldn’t ask for two, you might have a chance at one. Just one light to protect you. Any sense of security or safety in this place was scarce– so much so that you weren’t even surprised when the older woman sneered down at you, refusing. That doll you owned– the one you seemingly carried with you everywhere– was the only semblance of warmth you ever felt here. She crouched down, level with your eyesight. Pointing her lantern towards the door, she spoke in a hushed tone, telling you all about the ogre who’d burst into your room if it heard you scream or cry. How it’d smother you until you could no longer manage to make even a whisper of a sound. You thought you heard the now familiar sound of a stomach growling.

Until your aunt came through that very door, spooking both you and Madam Kaji.

She had tsked, shaking her head. “Don’t be scaring little ones like that.”

Her pointed glare towards the elder woman was obvious as she used her own candle to light your lamp, which had eased your fears at least a little. You remember her to have always been that kind. Always looking out for you, in a world where nobody else was. The first person to make you feel like maybe you did belong. That despite whatever horrific paths you’d find yourself on, you weren’t entirely alone. But those heartfelt moments grew to be few and far between through the interference of your eventual fiance. Short lived too, washing down the drain alongside what fragments of faith you had left. That man had doled out cruelty and punishments equally between you and your aunt, snuffing out any sense of joy in your lives.

You had learned a lot from the woman, regardless.

Like when she told you to hold out your hands, dropping a photo of your mother into your outstretched palms. Did you know, decades later, you’d be asking the same question she had?

“And me? Everybody says I don’t compare to my big sister.” She spoke with her head turned, displaying her side profile.

You must’ve spent hours looking at that picture after that. You never knew her, the only testament to her as a person being the stories passed down from your aunt. Tracing a finger down the slope of her nose, then your own. Perhaps you’d never compare, either. Not like it mattered, when every step of your life was decided for you. You wouldn’t have to compare, you would just have to exist. No desires, no grudges. No mind to dwell on the truth of your life. Just pieces of a blank slate hastily kept together by the desperation of the people around you greedily trying to take your wealth.

Despite any punishment, you’d still act out any way you could. You’d giggle and point at the dirty words and pictures in those books you were forced to read during your lessons. When your aunt would point and verbalize the parts of the human body across from your eventual fiance, you were to repeat them. You’d chuckle as she’d point out the lower areas– noticing the displeasure on the man’s face. He’d descend upon you and your aunt quickly, leaving you teary eyed and frowning.

It wasn’t long after that that you found out what a mental hospital was. The threats to send you away to one of them were frequent, becoming a little more real each time you acted out. You had been told that this sort of hysteria was typical in the women of your family– he had side-eyed your aunt at that particular comment– and that it’d do you good to get your lunacy treated. That they’d bury you into the depths of cold soil. Cover it up until you ‘improved’, after which you’d become a fucking dog to them. Leashed. Detailing the frightening ways these hospitals would treat their patients, it made your aunt start running. She had made a desperate attempt to get out of the library before that lever was pulled and the gate had shut in her face, much like it did to Mizu when she first tried to get in.

You wished you were brave enough to try.

You watched your aunt slowly grow sicker. Older now, and able to reminisce, you now knew the cause of that sickness. Those fucking readings he’d make her do during his bidding sessions. To an audience of men, delighting in a well put together woman voicing off lewd words. When he’d make her read the story of women getting defiled, smoking men gathered on the steps to view her. They’d have their own cushions and tables, treated with the highest regard to further his own influence among these sadistic individuals. At the end of it all one man would go home with the crass material, and your fiance would be even richer. You’d watch with a heavy heart from the doorway of the library as she finished up, dabbing at her cheeks with a folded handkerchief. That smile she gave to you– deeper with pity and sympathy than you could describe at the time.

When she’s found dead the next day, you think she took with you the last scrap of hope you had left. Her body swayed from the branch of that cherry tree outside your window. A servant had swiftly carried you away, trying to tear your eyes away from the gruesome scene.

You visited that tree often. Thinking of your aunt protecting you, as best she could, from the harsh realities of the world you lived in. Something about you swears those flowers bloomed even more beautifully– their hue a vibrant pink, fragrant and sweet. Your aunt’s soul in a rush of floral glory. Arms above your head, you’d let yourself feel the breeze and swing just like she did.

What acts of defiance did you have left in you?

Exhaustion buckled you into silent submission.

The estate grew with you, over time. Adulthood made little change in you, but the manor morphed beyond itself. Renovations to the library changed its appearance, now seeming more opulent. Pools of clear water embedded in the tatami floor, bonsai trees, and sections of pure white sand adorned with rocks adding a scenic flair to the room. Despite all the change, you were still just as terrified of the library as you used to be. The death of your aunt was nothing to your now fiance– the ‘proposal’, if you could call it that, happened shortly after– his only concern was those books of his. Eventually, he had replaced your aunt with… you.

In your heart, you know that your aunt’s most profound regret was that she could not save you from him.

Candlelight lit the room, your hushed voice rolling through like a fog. Crude details of sex falling on perverted ears. Bondage, whips. The faces of your listeners staring into you, hanging onto every syllable you speak. Their legs begin to tremble the more you delve into the story, the peak imminent. A new man you’ve never seen before sits proudly. Not as jittery or obvious as the others, though his eyes are just as intense.

The Count. You know him now. His ulterior motives, too. In your memories, that’s apparent in hindsight. The intense look in his eye is not that of perversion, but rather, trickery.

Your performance continued that night. Men had begun to fan themselves, fidgeting. With the last word having been read, you watched your fiance stand, describing the origins of the book and how he’d gotten his hands on it. Aristocratic nonsense that’d bore you to death. The Count had chimed in to the conversation, striking a nerve within your fiance as you see him light up at whatever he said. Mentioning an author by name, you assume. The book is flipped around to the audience to show the one problem.

An illustration, torn from its place. Only the hint of it remains in the ripped edge still holding onto its bindings.

“Before the bidding starts,” His hand waves over to you, gesturing for everyone to gaze your way. “We’ll have a demonstration.”

You’d be disrobed of the extravagant kimono you had on to reveal a lighter one underneath. With the pulling of a few levers, a wooden mannequin with maneuverable limbs would be lowered from the ceiling, coming to rest in front of you. Removing the pins from your hair as you let it down, you’d have to straddle the puppet’s legs, your own obi wrapped around its waist. You’d be bound to it, this way. An unfortunately visceral feeling of eyes crawling on whatever inch of skin they could see made your mouth dry, you remember. Your fiance would set up all the ropes on the model, it eventually coming to be hoisted in the air, you still secured in its lap. Below you, you could faintly make out the image of the many men leaning forward in their seats, as if to study your form. Leaning backwards to imitate the position you’d read out earlier, you could feel your stomach begin to turn. Your mind had grown fuzzy after that, barely perceiving the suggestive speech going on about you.

Your next clear memory of that night was of you sneaking your way through the manor. Many shortcuts were riddled throughout the strange architecture. Above the library was a particular wall. From your side, you were able to slide it aside and peer into the room below. Convenient, when you wanted to catch your fiance’s wrongdoings. Sat at one of the tables was The Count, carefully replicating an illustration from a book. A forgery. Yet their discussion landed at the one topic you expected; women, and particularly which women The Count figured he could successfully lay with during his time at the manor.

He clicked his tongue. “There is… only one who would refuse me here.”

“Madam Kaji?” Your fiance raised a brow at that.

“Your former wife who you still share a bed with?” The Count scoffed. “She’d come to my door in an instant if I showed her the right attention.”

“Then who?”

“The lady…” At his words, you peered through the slots in the wall as best you could. Anticipating his next sentence with great anxiety. “She didn’t look away when she saw me. Even if I were to meet her tonight… I couldn’t. Her body is cold, and her eyes… they have nothing. I’m certain her soul is dead inside. Go easy on her.”

You had gulped at that, slumping back a bit as the two began smoking together. At that time, your fiance had just laughed at the implications of The Count’s statement.

You found out soon after that that The Count had offered himself up to give you painting lessons; something he claimed was expected of all the ladies he met in England, where he had studied. Your fiance had insisted on the two of you sharing a meal with him. A gesture of kindness he bestowed only to those like-minded to him. You were never very lucky in receiving any sort of grace from him. When he was ushered away by a servant to take care of some important matter, The Count leaned on his elbows towards you.

“He will only be gone for a little while,” He said, eyes fixed on you despite their brief glance to where your fiance had run off to. “There’s something I’ve come to discuss with you about your future. You’ll see me waiting by the stone lamp at nightfall.”

For some reason, you had decided just this once to see. Your life had been vapid and essentially pointless after your aunt had passed– your handmaidens were not kind to you, Madam Kaji was too busy to entirely get along with you, and your fiance… well, you didn’t want him to like you to begin with. It didn’t surprise you that, after going so long without it, the tiniest glimmer of hope made your chest feel like it was bursting as you waited for midnight to come. You had sent your handmaiden away, off to some other wing of the estate so she wouldn’t be privy to whatever The Count wanted to tell you. After you heard her footsteps depart, you took a peek past the curtain of your window.

And there he stood, cigarette lit in his hands gazing back up at you. Eventually he had sauntered off out of your eyesight, but you could guess where he was going. Only minutes later was there a knock at your door.

“I’m not looking forward to having rumors spread about the two of us,” You spoke through the door, guarded. Your doll sat comfortably in your arms. “What do you want?”

“Look, it was really hard getting here,” He sneered. “I don’t need any of your princess sass. I’m the son of a farmhand, and I’ve spent a long time trying to get the skills to meet you. Bookmaking, forgeries. I came here to attract you, get rid of you, and take your money, but…”

He briefly trailed off, leaving you to wonder why. He cleared his throat after some contemplation, continuing.

“I don’t think I’m the type who would be able to seduce you, to put it in plain terms.”

You had snorted at that, opening the door. “You’d be right.”

The man had then allowed himself into your room. “So, I’ve thought of a new deal. In exchange for about,” He makes a motion with his hand to imply he’s thinking. “Half of your fortune, it can be a rescue operation. We get married, I take you far away, we split the money.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“So you rather marry that old pervert and stay here than even try?” He asked.

“I’m not going to marry anyone.” You seethed, backing away from him as you let your words sink in.

“And what of your wealth if you simply die like that? It’ll all go to him and he’ll just repeat the process from the beginning.” While he makes a good point, you can’t shake the years of trained fear of your fiance.

“He’ll… he’ll follow us,” You’ve started to quiver, securing your arms tighter around your doll. “The basement. He’ll put us in the basement.”

“What?”

You take a deep breath, eyes becoming distant. “After my aunt passed, I read in a book that there are certain things that happen to the body after being hanged. However, when I saw her body… none of the signs were there. When I asked my fiance about it, he asked if I wanted to go somewhere nice. He pulled up some of the tatami mats from the floor, leading me down a staircase.”

Even now, you could never forget the chill that seeped through your sock clad feet descending those stairs. How his words sunk in, that what had happened to your aunt was a consequence. A punishment for an attempted escape. The purpose of this room became more than clear to you; the variety of strange tools and objects. A lot of things that your mind couldn’t parse at the time. Your head throbbed at the lack of light, the underground room feeling like it was closing in on you.

A shiver courses through you. “I will never go back there again.”

The Count nods after hearing you recount your experience, exhaling noisily and rubbing his chin. “This,” He held up a small vial of an unknown liquid. “Is opium. If he ever gets a hold of you again, you can drink all of it and be dead within minutes.”

In your panic addled state, you grabbed for it eagerly. Before you could get a hold of it, he had swiped it out of reach.

“Not yet. It’ll be a wedding gift,” He huffs, shaking his head. “Quite a grim one, at that…”

Your annoyance was clear as you rolled your eyes, willing the prick of tears to go away. In that moment you knew you had to try. If your aunt could not save you, then you would save yourself.

“Then…” You wandered over to the windowsill, taking a seat on it. “Bring someone to be my handmaiden. We can send her to a madhouse under my name. I want… I want my name to be buried there. ‘I’ won’t exist after that.”

He agreed. Especially considering the plan to get rid of your current handmaiden would be to bed her. The repercussion of which would be Madam Kaji kicking her out, of course. With her commitment to routine and keeping everything in order, it’d be the very next day that your new handmaiden arrived.

Mizu.

Unbeknownst to most people– maybe your aunt or fiance had known, you weren’t sure– that spot on your door was a peephole, facing outwards into the handmaiden’s quarters. You watched Mizu fumble with her luggage, placing it away and out of sight. In a move that shocks you, she hesitantly slid the screen to your room over, peering inside. When you looked back, you saw how the lump of your blankets on the bed slightly resembles your figure. As if you were laying there, unaware of Mizu’s presence. Gently, you thud your doll against your door, spooking Mizu into shutting the door and scrambling into bed.

“Fuck.” You heard her whisper.

Your grin widens.

Mizu is exactly what you had asked for from Taigen; a foolish girl who wouldn’t know any better. But… isn’t that exactly what she thought of you, too? You knew it, by the way she looked at you with those sad eyes when you had screamed for your mother, faking a nightmare. A bit of a dirty trick to play on her first night, you admit. Even so, that didn’t stop you from being amused at the charade of it all. Taigen had suggested that you show off all your fancy belongings to her– every finely made kimono, the glamorous jewelry. Her awkwardness was more than obvious. The fact that she had never come face to face with such expansive amounts of wealth was clear every time her blue eyes widened or lit up at the various items you showed her. She… was endearing, actually.

So much so that when you found out about the other servants stealing her shoe, it genuinely enraged you. Something you hadn’t felt for a long time. Most of your emotions had boiled down to dull nothingness after years of complacency. You found little value in feeling anger, much less expressing it. With your servants lined up in front of you, you’re sure they too could sense the unease in the air. Arms crossed tightly, you stared them down.

“Which one of you took her shoe?”

At the far end, one of the servant girls is quick to bow on the ground, tears in her eyes. She must’ve known it was better for her to concede, confessing her guilt rather than letting the information reach Madam Kaji. You nodded, feeling at least a little relief she had done so.

“If she ever runs because of something any of you do to her, I will personally throw you out myself,” You sigh. “Fuck.”

You had some inkling of an idea back then, that your feelings for her were already… complicated. Those moments you had felt her eyes on you– piercing, with heavy lids, just watching you– you couldn’t suppress the thrill you felt. Taigen had told you a little bit about her. How she had grown up poor and mostly went back and forth between either the woman who took her in or that elderly man she trained under for some time. You knew her to be strong, capable. Though, she was a bit like you, wasn’t she? Not very well acquainted with the art of social skills. She certainly didn’t know much about the way of nobles like you, so her suspecting you as being just as conniving as her was unlikely. You had never felt close to someone like this, at least not someone your own age. Other handmaidens would often cower before you, not because you had specifically done anything to them, but because of Madam Kaji’s strict standards. Mizu, though? She filled your time with genuine conversation and laughter. Maybe not the most smiles because she wasn’t exactly one to outwardly express herself, but that slight upturn of the edge of her lips– you could’ve kissed her the first time you saw it. Her entire face deserved the downpour of kisses you wished to give it. Forehead, eyebrows, the lids covering her striking eyes that didn’t scare you, cheeks, the tip of her nose often reddened by the cold rainy weather, lips, chin. You truly did think of her, late at night when your back would hit the cushioned softness of your mattress.

That bath didn’t help either. Absent-mindedly, you find your tongue running over the tooth she had smoothed down. Hoping to quell how much you missed her with whatever faint trace of metal that thimble had left behind. Hoping that, if your taste buds found that metallic tang, it could calm the way your heart pounded.

It came to be a fond memory of yours– how she had so gingerly taken your face in her hands. The pads of her fingers were calloused, rough on your own skin. You desperately wished there had been no thimble barring you from feeling her thumb trace across your teeth, your tongue. If she had asked you, you would’ve gladly closed your lips around her. Hers was a painless authority– your obedience to her was not beaten into you. You supposed… you just liked her. That notion of you being hers, and her being yours? A thread of a thought that you could barely unravel before you watch her eyes trail down your body. With how bright they are, it’s impossible to not notice the way her pupils dilate, especially when you see her throat bob as her eyesight aligns with your breasts. You had seen many, many men with wandering eyes. Impolite, sleazy gazes that made you squirm in discomfort. You wonder if her staring was a result of arousal, too? Mizu was unlike them, though. While her thoughts may have been impure, her hands stayed only where you asked them to. Never seeking out more than you wished to give. However, you craved for her to keep looking. There was almost a pained whimper from you as she peeled away, removing her thumb from your mouth. How easy would it be to grasp her wrist, drag her hand down your body until she was rolling her fingers over your most sensitive parts?

“Go ahead and finish washing.” You notice the way her voice had lowered, gotten huskier.

She sits with her back to the tub, arms crossing tensely. Behind her, you could make out the visible red tint speckled across the tops of her ears. To you, the silence is comfortable, but you’re sure that it’s agony to Mizu. Smiling, you hoist yourself to your knees, taking two movements to situate yourself behind her.

“Mizu?” Your voice is breathy, right next to her ear, that gets even redder.

“What?” She snaps at you a bit, but you pay it no mind.

“Do you want to come in, too?” If you didn’t feel it would push the limits, you would’ve planted a kiss right behind her ear.

Another on her neck below it. She’s frozen, not answering you while she’s deep in thought. Probably weighing her odds– would this be something you’d go running to Madam Kaji about if she said yes? You knew you wouldn’t, but you’re not sure how to assuage those doubts in her. Mizu turns to you, a smirk on her face that sends an arrow through your heart.

She leans in close, barely space between you two at this point. “Maybe next time, princess.”

The likelihood of you falling in love with her increased tenfold after that. Even as Taigen had told you to occupy all her time, to ensure that she thinks you’re falling in love with him at a snail’s pace. As if you’d fall in love with him at all, you wanted to scoff.

You couldn’t. You were on a nosedive, falling hard for the girl he had sent to be your servant. The one you were supposed to send away. Her presence now burnt into every joyous moment you could think of. Dinner, where Taigen had called you breathtakingly beautiful. A brief flash in your mind compared to how Mizu’s body had engulfed the rest of your memory. Dressing her, giving her those earrings to wear, having her look like a noble lady in front of you. Removing every garment one by one, too. Despite the glove in between, letting your hand follow the dips of her shoulder blades. Laughing with her after your painting lessons, or on that walk where she had cradled you so kindly. Having been deprived of true affection and feeling her palms against your cheeks as she talked you out of those bleak thoughts.

It was companionship.

When you thought of how this scheme was going, the way Mizu would never be yours if it came to fruition– you could barely fathom it. Finally, here is what you think you were made for. A woman who you would do anything to call your own, but with her came that cruel twist of fate that this would be it for you two. How hellish that you’d have to put up with Taigen’s grabby hands and crude remarks for the entirety of it, too?

That day it had rained, with the two of you back at the estate waiting for Mizu to return was one such occurrence. You had slapped his hand away from your arm, eyes going wide with annoyance.

“Ugh, you men are so simple.” You mumble.

“What?” Taigen snorts. “I’m just playing around. Your fiance’s making you read too many of those books, hm? I’m not after your body, only your money.”

He had pinched your cheek, your arm, and then your ass, which you fiercely swat away.

Mizu had gone stomping around the manor, you being unaware that she had seen Taigen so boldly touching you. You had seen her in the night, sitting straight up and sighing. Her anger was so freely expressed in those eyes of hers. When she looked Taigen’s way, her hatred of him was unmistakable.

At this point, yours probably was too.

Sitting on that rock in the forest, nearly in his lap, you had told him as much. He had insisted the two of you had to make the proposal believable. Mizu would have to see the two of you tangled together in order to truly think you had accepted. You had reluctantly agreed, though the nausea in your belly wasn’t soothed at all. He had made a comment to pretend he was that wooden mannequin, and he’d pretend you were another woman as well.

You didn’t want him to be the mannequin.

You wanted him to be Mizu.

Balanced in her lap, letting her cup your thighs in her hands. Fingers tracing upwards, creating a path of flames that licked deep into your bones. Her mouth on yours, frantic and frenzied with desire, the absolute need to be close to each other. You needed to be close to her because you loved her. In all your convoluted years of living, for once, laying with her, you had felt that first twinge of simultaneous fulfillment and heartbreak. Your heart, beating once, fed itself full on the fantasy of being together with Mizu. Beating once more, it collapsed when you heard her distressed cry for you, rooted to her spot in the forest as she saw you kissing Taigen.

With all the pain in her voice, the slight watery quality to her eyes, you could’ve never guessed that she too, was shattering.

A cool breeze wafted through the library, chilling your skin. You cleared your throat, watching all the men in attendance for tonight’s bidding settle into their spots. Taigen, of course, is there too. The story laid out in front of you made you pause, knowing its contents by the title alone after having practiced it for so long.

Depicted in the erotic tale was a relationship between two women. Describing how one of them was given a small box– four small silver bells contained within. A gift for her and her lover. As you read aloud, you notice the room growing dimmer. Regardless of the candlelight fading, you were able to continue. The two women would take two bells inside of them. Legs parted and meeting each other in the middle, the melodic notes would ring as they moved against each other. Tongue wetting your dry lips, you try to keep your focus on your speech. The illustration portrayed in the book below has you nearly tripping over your words, a momentary glimpse of it recalling Mizu to mind. To feel her, no bothersome fabric blocking you from her bare skin. To willingly allow yourself that vulnerability with her. Feeling her weight, her heat, the bumps of scars littered across her skin that you wanted to kiss, wanting to take away every ill thought she may have ever had. Feel the roughness of her hands finding every part of you with curiosity and desire, no trace of malice or greed.

Abruptly, applause rang out in the darkened room. You had barely even noticed that you finished reading.

Even dabbing at your heated skin with that folded handkerchief, you couldn’t shake those thoughts of Mizu away.

Your nerves had gone cold once darkness fully encompassed the estate. Were you even sure of how you got here? Mizu, hovering over you, eyes set on the rise and fall of your bare chest.

“If he sees you like this…” She’s mumbling, so rapidly you can barely make out what she said.

In seconds, she’s descended onto you, her tongue circling around your nipple. You can feel the way her hand slides to your side, nails dipping into your tender skin. A futile attempt for her to cling onto what little restraint she has left. You know she probably thinks of you as something dainty, easily broken if treated haphazardly. Bite. You wanted to tell her. Mark you so even when the two of you were no longer, you could trail over the scarred teeth marks. Bruise. Let you see the way her love erupts across you, let her pour every ounce of unabashed need into them. Rather, her lips close around you in a languid suck, dragging an open-mouthed gasp from your throat. On impulse, your fingers card their way through her hair, pulling while you try to hold onto the last shreds of your stability. You can feel her chest rumble against your abdomen right before she’s planting wet kisses against you. She travels up your body, following the natural contours of your shape until she reaches your chin. Pulling back, she looks down at you. Her eyes, somehow even brighter than the moonlight, cause your lips to part. Mizu’s beautiful. You could see her like this every night. Every hour, and still not tire of it.

Tears dot along your lower lids, partially out of pleasure as she teases her fingers around your nipple, but also out of an indescribable anguish. Mizu was not an easy woman to read. With you two playing the roles of blushing virgin and warm mentor, did this mean anything to her? Was it only because you asked her to show you how The Count would touch you, a thinly veiled attempt to seduce her? She handled you with such a sweet touch,it was hard to think that maybe it was nothing special to her.

“Will he be this gentle, too?” You asked, noticing the rasp in your own voice.

“How could he not?” Her lips are so close, tickling your jaw right below your ear. “He’ll do this, too…”

You’re lost in a heady daze of lust as you feel her fingers creep along your calf to reach the hem of your clothing. You’d let her tear it apart if it meant her touching you even a second sooner. She pauses, not moving further until you hurriedly nod, burying your face in her shoulder. The fabric of your robe slips off you with her movements, bunching up under you. As her fingers dive deep below, gliding circles over your clit, you breathe out a wanton laugh. Finally. Mizu was here, touching you, it was meant to be like this. Clutching at her arms, pulling down the straps of her underclothes to rid her of them, you think you could die. What a precious woman to have above you, clawing lines into your sides that’ll unfortunately inevitably fade. Your fingers follow their path, wanting to imprint them upon your consciousness forever.

“Keep showing me,” You can barely speak, muttering. “Do it like The Count would.”

Briefly pausing the journey of her tongue down the dips of your thighs, she nods against you, huffing out a near mindless ‘uh-huh’. Traveling upwards from the inner crease of your knee, she licks a stripe up your thighs, her hot panting warming the cool trails of saliva.

“The Count will tell you that you’re soft, warm, and…” She’s grabbing your legs, putting your feet flat on the mattress with your knees raised and spread. Her head knocks against you as she leans, eyelids fluttering when she gazes at your center. “Breathtakingly beautiful.”

You’ve raised yourself up to your elbows at this point. Her hair tie had come loose, dark locks flowing down past her shoulders. With the moonlight bathing her in a halo, you wanted to tell her. Tell her she’s an angel. Beg for her to not leave you, as pathetic as it’d make you look. Anything to make it so that just the two of you could exist together, you didn’t care where. You’d put up with every disgusting pervert in the world if it meant she stayed by you. If, at the end of the night, you could have her slip into your bed– whether your bodies met in a flurry of excitement or not, you wanted her there.

Her hesitance, though, was noticeable. While you enjoyed the stroke of her palms against your thighs, you worried if she had any intention to do this– to want this. You swipe a thumb over her cheekbone, startling her as her irises dart to you. There’s an emotion you couldn’t quite discern in them. In hindsight, you recognize it as the same way you’ve looked at her all this time.

Lovesickness.

Petting at her hair, you smile down at her. “Would The Count be staring like this, too?”

“Sorry,” The breath of her laugh washes over you. “He would.”

With her apprehension seemingly gone, she presses a chaste kiss to your clit– so charming of her it makes you whine. Her eagerness is shoddily hidden behind her subtle actions, tongue rolling over you in leisure strokes. But her hands, gripping onto the outside of your thighs to hold you down, are shaking. It’s less like she’s keeping you steady and instead trying to maintain her own sanity. The tentative lapping had soon turned more confident, Mizu becoming more assured each time you moaned or gasped. Greedily trying to push your hips up, you feel Mizu’s palms flatten over you, exerting enough force to keep your lower body grounded to the mattress. Still, in at least some way to satisfy you, she speeds the movements of her tongue, the rhythmic patterns it traces over your clit. Her eyes flutter open to peer up at you. You can practically feel her smile into your cunt as you uselessly try to halt the wobble of your thighs. Your head buzzes with the way her noisy slurping echoes in your ears, the way you feel like your very fucking existence is driven down to this singular point of your arousal, the way the tip of her tongue dips shallowly into you. She hardly ever pauses, the rumbling of her groans and heavy breaths shooting pleasure up your spine.

“Miss,” Reluctantly, she had pulled herself off of you, head still between your thighs and mouth stained with your translucent arousal. “Should I keep showing you?”

You whimper, sitting up and wrapping your arms around her waist. You gulped in doubt, wondering how to word your next thoughts.

“Mizu… I want to,” Your eyes dart down to where she’s shed her underclothes, completely bare before you. “Can I?”

You were hopelessly, unequivocally in need of it. A hunger you needed to sate, to please the most beautiful girl you’ve ever known. Taigen had claimed you a peach. You knew better, though. It was Mizu who was worth adoring– soft in the same way the fuzz of a peach is. More than anything, you wanted to partake in every part of her she’d give you. Scrape your teeth, bite and embrace her down to her innermost pits, until the heat of your humiliating starvation could finally cool. You had always been the one devoured, be it by greed or perversion– just once, you wanted to be the ravenous one.

You’ve noticed now that she blushes very easily, up her neck all the way to the tips of her ears becomes bathed in a red flush. You can’t help but chuckle at the sight, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of her lips, finding that you taste a bit of your own wetness.

“Okay,” She nods, chest falling with a heavy exhale. “Like this.”

Mizu effortlessly moves you in her arms, positioning you both so that you’re on your sides. She’s got you between her thighs and her between yours. Part of you wanted to scold her and tell her you just wanted to fuss over her. Mizu’s seemingly content though, a soft sigh escaping past the lewd noises of her tongue. If the scene weren’t so erotic you’d have laughed, told her how cute she is. You’re not sure if she would’ve listened, having always averted her attention away from any compliments you tried to give her, but she really was.

Not wanting to waste any more time, you take her thighs in your hands and part them, making space for yourself. Your breath caught in your throat, immediately latching your mouth to her clit.

She’s loud.

Practically wailing at the first suck, the way you messily circle your tongue over her, over and over. Her voice reaches a pitch you’ve never heard from her. It fuels you, fuels the way you lay the flat of your tongue against her. A wordless plea, begging to hear even more of her moans. You quickly become addicted to her– her sounds, her taste, the feel of her cunt as she tries to ride her hips into your face. You collect every pearl of slick from her onto your tongue so you can eagerly drink its sweetness, pangs of heat throbbing within you with every drop you savor. Mizu keens into you, rutting more and more the longer you lap away at her.

You think you could for the rest of your life, sustain yourself only on the wetness that drips from her.

More. The word repeats itself in your mind as you’re shifting away from her, pulling her up and into your lap. Knees firmly planted by your sides and pelvis raised, you sneak your hand below her. Cupping her arousal in your palm and thumbing at her clit, you smile up at her. Her moans are these sharp intakes of air, lustful gasps that leave your thighs hopelessly squeezing together. Eye-level with her breasts, it’s an urge you can’t resist– taking her peaked nipple between your teeth and biting. She lets out a stuttered laugh, an angelic sound that you hope the beat of your heart replicates forever, holding you by the back of your head and snuggling you closer to her. You let your middle finger swirl against her entrance, half-lidded eyes staring up at her from where you’re still pressing kisses to her chest. Mizu swallows, teeth digging into her lower lip as she nods. Laving your tongue over her, you sink your digit inside her. She writhes a little at the intrusion, welcoming the stretch regardless. She’s more than wet enough to take it, you muse. Pushing in and out, you relish in the way her warmth clenches around you, the way her body wants you, tries to suck you back in as if you’re a vital missing piece. Biting into the soft side of her breast, you tease your ring finger alongside the other. When you feel her walls adjust to both, you fasten your pace.

“Mizu,” You’re mumbling into the valley of her chest, chaste kisses left behind in the wake of your words. “Do you like this?”

That blush of hers is dappled across her skin again, collarbones, neck, cheeks and ears dusted with a brilliant ruddy hue. Her lips shut into a tight line, hiding a warbled and muffled moan, a pitiful ‘yes’ slipping out.

“Do you like me?” You’re grinning, though you’re aware of the way your eyes must look glazed over, a collection of tears on your waterline.

Energetically nodding, she lets her hands wander up your arms, steadying on your shoulders as her hips move on their own accord in tandem with your fingers, before continuing on to take hold of your cheeks. Like she’s ready to take care of you before you even ask her to, before anything is visibly wrong, she just knows.

“Promise, then,” You’re crying now, tears having fallen down the slope of your face, hiccuping an almost grief-stricken sob. “Promise you won’t betray me.”

Mizu’s lips part, brows furrowing as she shakes her head. “Never, I never will.”

Her words tumble off into gasping, pitchy moans. Your chin on her sternum as you look up at her, your tears finally slowing. You had heard what you had wanted all this time– she promised. Her utterance of devotion, a rush of cool water over every piece of fiery anguish within you. You loved her. You loved her, and the knowledge that you do finally makes your world quiet. No nagging, lingering fear. No ogre waiting in the shadows to smother you. No unnecessary pains doled out upon your innocence. For a moment, one that would be all too short even if it lasted for eternity, the two of you are the only people that exist. No fiance, no Taigen.

Mizu, and just Mizu.

She places her hands on your shoulders, pushing you backwards so you hit the mattress with a thud. After some shuffling around, you’re able to take hold of her hand, using it to grind your pussy against hers. Mizu’s mouth drops open, eyes wide as she imitates your motions. The two of you are perfectly slotted together. Every feverish, wet pass of your clit over hers has you nearly collapsing. Your breaths mingle together, slipping out as heated sighs.

“How,” Mizu swallows thickly, trying to catch her breath. “How do you know these things?”

You just smile at her, shaking your head. Gripping her hand a little tighter, you’re able to thrust against her faster. You’re only vaguely aware of the way your inner thighs become coated in the mixture of your arousals, feeling like you’re coming apart at the seams. Mizu’s moans pick up in pace, hitching every so often when the two of you connect in a pleasurable jolt. Her other hand is clutching, nearly clawing at you, wanting so badly to break skin and leave marks on you. With her mouth falling open wide, eyes trained on you, Mizu tumbles over her peak, the quivering of her thighs noticeable against your own. Her groaning doesn’t stop, an arm flung over her eyes as you can make out the hint of tear tracks by the corners of her mouth, the redness of her cheeks hidden. Hearing her, her loud cries of pleasure as you keep going send you over the edge, a few more slick joinings of your cunts together, and you’re there with her, the current of your arousal running through your body. Finally stilling, you can hear the breathy, lighthearted chuckles of Mizu once you fall backwards, arms spread out on the mattress under you. Mizu crawls the best she can, kissing up your navel to your lips, settling beside you. Her hair’s mussed, the dark tresses flowing behind her, eyes shining and face stippled in pink blush.

What a precious woman to have by you.

That memory was one you came to ruminate on often– especially the day after that, where Taigen had put his hands on you during that painting lesson, bribing Mizu out of the room with a coin. Or at least, attempted to. Her unwillingness to leave had undoubtedly pissed Taigen off tremendously, him storming out down that rocky dirty path. Mizu followed shortly after, as did you, having secretly trailed behind both of them. You had listened in on their conversation, hiding a laugh when Mizu had stomped away after defending you.

Taigen had stood there dumbfounded, looking at you past the branches of trees you lurked behind.

“Can you at try a little fucking harder to pretend you want this marriage before she runs off?” He hisses.

Exhaling, you look out in the distance where Mizu had walked away. “I... can't. I want to quit,” You swallow, hugging yourself close. “I hate everyone here. My fiance, my mother, you...”

Taigen snorts at that, raising a brow. “And Mizu? You feel sorry for her?”

You nod. “I... can't stand her.”

He shakes his head, lighting a cigarette and taking a few drags of it. “Would you care to know some of the things she's said about you? That you're too sheltered. Even if I were to touch you intimately, you'd be completely oblivious to what a man like me wanted. She's only been nice to you out of pity, start being realistic.”

As much as you hated to admit it, you dwelled on his words for much longer than you wanted to. It's an inescapable cycle of blame you go through. It's your fault for not knowing better, then it's Mizu's fault for being so kind to you, and then it's Taigen's for starting this all in the first place; repeat until you're suffocating.

That must be why it's difficult to avoid crying when Mizu insists, yes, you will love Taigen. Resting on that lounge chair, her massaging at your weary calf muscles. When you're ripped from placid waters, thrown right into stifling flames to burn alive, it hurts, you realize. It's the best comparison you can make when Mizu all but tosses you to Taigen's waiting maw, solidifying what he had said to you. Pity. No matter how much you try to assure her that you could be happy here, happy with her, more so than you ever could be with The Count or your fiance, she doesn't budge.

“What if I said I loved someone else?” You asked, feeling the slow rising of warmth up your frame. “I don't have anyone else on this earth... would you really still tell me to marry him?”

Repeating her own words back to her, you hoped she would notice. Take the hint, absolve herself of all this, and be with you. Fix everything, prove she wasn't like everyone else in your life. You want her to be different. You need her to be different. How could she have done all this if she wasn't? Even now as you looked down upon her in anger you could feel the stains of her lips everywhere she had kissed you, could feel the brush of her knuckles across your cheekbone, the way her hands had made your body so pliant. You couldn't comprehend it. How could all of that be worth so little to her that she'd be willing to give it up for a chunk of money? Was that look in her eyes just a trick of the light, your mind's imagination?

Blinking back tears, you watch as she sighs, taking your leg into her hands once more, timidly trying to settle your frustration. “You will love him.” Mizu's looking up at you, the twinge of optimism in her eyes making you sick to your stomach.

She really believes what she's saying. She's doused you in kerosene, her insistence the final motion that sets your body alight. You would've given up this whole fucking charade if she had just kept her promise. You would've done anything to get rid of Taigen, even if it meant staying in this house, just to assure the two of you could be together. But if she doesn't even want it, then what's the point? If she doesn't even want you, then…

“Get out,” You don't even recognize your own voice, faltering with shuddering sobs as you take her by her arms to pull her up to a standing position. “Get out.”

“Wait, miss!” She calls out, but you barely register it before you're dropping her down onto her bedroll, retreating back into your room with the door slammed behind you.

Maybe Madam Kaji was right about ogres waiting to smother you. This world in which you had no one, this world which had been patiently waiting to swallow you whole, will finally get its rightful meal.

You shouldn't have been born.

Silence drenches the night, goosebumps over your skin as the breeze rustles at your clothes, your hair. You're shivering, staring up at that haunted cherry blossom tree. Tears continuously rolled down your cheeks. Fingers trailing down rough bark, wondering if it's worth it to try to ground yourself. Your fury had not been quelled, not in the slightest. In your mind, you could see Mizu's eyes, the way they were practically begging you to fall in love with Taigen. How could you tell her that it's not just that you didn't love him, but you couldn't? How could you have stupidly believed her, that she'd never betray you? Swallowing a laugh, you look down with teary eyes at the box in your hands containing a length of rope.

You shouldn't have been born. Poor, unwanted thing that you are.

Distant thuds reach your ears, harsh and quick breaths– the sound of someone nearly hyperventilating– flooding your senses. Before you can even turn around, you're hit with an overwhelming force, being corralled into a pair of arms.

“Let go.” You whimper, struggling.

“I'm sorry,” Mizu gasps, chest heaving against your back. “Don't... don't die.”

She represses a trembling sigh into your shoulder, the faint moisture of tears dotting the bare skin of your neck. You're surprised, brows raising.

“And what are you sorry for?” You question, seeing if she'll be honest.

“I was working with The Count, we were going to send you away and take your money,” She picks her head up from your shoulder so you can clearly hear her. “So, please... don't get married to him.”

“Are you worried about me?” You turn around in her arms, taking sight of her tear-stricken face. You had never seen her cry, never thought she would, at least not in front of you. “You shouldn't be.”

Taking a step back, she keeps her hands on your arms. “Why not?”

With a thumb pressed into her cheek, you swipe away any stray droplets. “Taigen and I were tricking you. You were going into the madhouse, under my name. Then I'd get to take up your name and run far, far away.”

Her eyes dart across your face, unable to sense any hint of a lie in what you've revealed to her.

“Fuck! I should've never trusted that asshole!” She yells, piercing the quiet of the night.

But her arms are back around your waist, coddling you close to her chest. Like if she can't feel the pressure of your body against hers, you'll be gone, whittled down into infinitesimal shards she couldn't see anymore. Her truth lies in the way her breath evens out, the way she gathers your wrist up in her hands, fingers caressing your pulse point, to lead you back to your room. How she checks behind her every so often to make sure you're alright. Those little actions that make her Mizu, the real one.

Maybe Madam Kaji was wrong about ogres waiting to smother you.

Mizu sits at your desk, carefully writing out a letter to her folks back home, informing them of the new turn of events; the two of you teaming up against Taigen. Placing a solid gold bracelet next to her which she could enclose as payment, you settled down alongside her. Taking the bracelet between her teeth to test its legitimacy, she grinned.

“This'll go far for them, thank you.” She tells you.

When she's feeling genuine happiness, it's hard for her to wipe the smile off her face, you notice. You hope that once you two are able to make it away from all this, she never stops smiling.

So the next morning, when your fiance beckons you over to the side of his carriage, you don't let your fear stop you.

“Just because you have a week of freedom, doesn't mean you can misbehave,” His words were full of venom as he spat them towards you. “Don't forget where I'll put you.”

You take a bow, eyes cast to the cobbled ground. You wouldn't let him get to you, not any longer when you had Mizu there for you. The two of you would be successful, and then you could run so far from this place you wouldn't remember how to get back even if you tried. Nobody would be able to find you again. If they did... you're sure Mizu would have some things to say about that.

Slowly approaching her, you smile, willing any bad thought out of your mind at the sight of her pretty face. “Let's go,” You tell her. “We don't have a lot of time before we have to leave.”

“Come, then.” While she offers you her arm, you're hesitant to take it, choosing to step past her. You would've, but the idea of Taigen still lurking around the estate and the possibility of the other servants not having gone far, you avoid her touch.

You can hear her sigh behind you, though you're aware of the light undertone to it– she knows you're trying to refrain from any rumors cropping up before you leave, lest Taigen catch wind of them. Her steps follow you, wordlessly keeping up. You're thankful she seems to understand why silence befalls the two of you. Though you feel the subtle gesture of her hand at the small of your back, tensing for a moment. Mizu's breath hits your ear when she leans in even closer to you, her raspy voice calling out to you to 'come on'.

There's a moment after packing your things that you turn to her, hands smoothing down her apron. Your fingers are twisting into the fabric, not ready to have her change into her 'disguise’– really just a cloak, her glasses and a kasa, but it does well to hide her face– quite yet. She's always been your handmaiden. Even with it being a role for her to fill, a part to play, she's tended to you with such care. You couldn't wait until you were both just normal people. No ladyship, no servantry. You wanted to dote on her, flood her with all of your affections and have no one bat an eye at it. Though, she pulls your hands from her, holding them in her own. Her thumbs graze across your palms, a distant look in her eye.

“What are you thinking about?” You ask her, which definitely startles her out of whatever daydream she's having.

“About how we need to leave,” Mizu takes your arms in her hands to spin you around to face your luggage. “Let's go, princess.”

That little nickname she's given you makes you roll your eyes, watching as she cloaks herself and puts on her glasses and kasa. The sight almost makes you blush, the way she's effortlessly beautiful and handsome at the same time.

“Actually,” You speak up, turning to her anxiously. “Would you follow me?”

She's unsure, you can tell by the way her eyes squint, but she agrees. After last night, you're sure she's on edge, rightfully so. Finding out the tables were turned on her must've been difficult, but she knows you feel no loyalty to Taigen. Despite everything, you two are each other's safety. Taking her down that stepping stone path to the library, you're not entirely sure where you're going with this. That place had been your whole life, and maybe the idea of leaving it behind was a little terrifying, regardless of the grim reality it held within its walls. Perhaps you just needed to see it one last time, really make sure you were leaving it behind.

Mizu's startled by that ceramic snake again, carefully toeing the barrier between inside and outside. She steps over it once she sees you bypass it, unafraid. You see her briefly grimace at the sight of a small, erotic porcelain statuette. Your fiance has a few of those around, blatantly making his predilections known to those who enter. Perhaps she thought it was just a little one off, a bizarre trinket owned simply for the peculiarness of it. She's corrected when you hand her the volume of some series she's never heard of. Flipping through the pages, she halts when she comes across the illustrated pages. Women in various degrading positions, breasts and nether regions fully drawn. Those blue irises of hers somehow become even icier, glancing from the book, to you, back down to the book.

Her gaze catches on the spinel earrings one of the women is depicted wearing.

“Is this...” Her voice is gravelly, like she's straining to get the words out. “What you've been reading, this whole time? To your fiance, those men that show up?”

You're not sure what you expected when you brought her here. Maybe your whole life, you've known that what's been done to you has been wrong, that you've been used as an object of desire to satisfy certain pleasures. Her anger, though, radiated through you. Tugged on a heartstring so deep within you you thought it had been entirely cut loose. She looks up at you one more time, meeting that teary gaze of yours. Mizu shakes her head, taking that page in her hands and ripping it from its bindings. Striking the long buried part of you that felt you were worth something. Worth fighting for, worth rendering this whole library asunder. Throwing the book on the ground once the drawing is in tiny pieces, she moves forward fast, looking for whatever she can get her hands on and destroy. Her chest heaves with every agonizing huff of breath she inhales, fueled by the heights of her rage. That saddened look in your eye, which had been hardened over time into something you had resentfully accepted– the pure hatred she felt for anyone who had ever betrayed you, tortured you, anyone you had ever read a fucking word to.

Her cape billowed behind her as she moved through the room, grabbing books from their rightful places and hurtling them to the ground below, ultimately damaging their spines and covers. You're trailing after her, a lost puppy watching in amazement. Shreds of paper litter the floor, stepping on them in your rush to follow. Pulling a concealed dagger from you don't know where on her person, she's slashing through the parchment of as many scrolls as she can find. Kneeling on the ground and slicing page upon page. Those familiar stories, all ones you recognized, made useless at the hands of someone who loved you. She yelps, the dagger handle slipping out of her palms with how furious her motions were. It does little to deter her though, collecting it and continuing her assault of the library. Shoving entire rows of novels onto the floor, books ending up in ruined heaps. She throws open one of the glass display cases, the lid shattering upon impact to the floor. Carrying over pots of colored ink, she smears it over the illustrations housed within. Hands stained all manners of red and blue, you can't stop the few tears that finally slowly shed.

You wet your lips, feeling pieces of you come together at this unhinged spectacle of romance. Isn't that what the relationship between you two has been all this time, anyway? An unexpected force that knocked you on your ass the moment you realized you loved her. More than that, the moment you realized she loved you. Yes, exhaustion had buckled you into submission, but love had weathered you into a storm.

Hurrying over to the tatami mat floor, you remove some of them to uncover the shallow pools of water that lay below. Mizu nodded, gathering up piles of the books in her arms to bring them over. Helping her, you could feel your lungs burn, eyes painfully wet with... astonishment? Pain? Some mixture of the two, perhaps. She kicks her shoes off, stepping into the water to fully submerge the books. To the side stands you, holding some more pots of ink. You're petrified. Until she looks up at you, and the fury in her eyes subsides when she sees you, turning into that gaze you know, now.

Lovesickness.

You hurl ink into the water, effectively dyeing the books into a muddle of colors. Joining her in the water, you stomp away, pulling even more books in. Breathing labored, Mizu steps out. Gripping a flat length of metal adorned with a tassel in her hands, she stands before that snake. Steadying it in her hands and widening her stance, she swings hard. Shards of ceramic go flying, the head taken clean off the sculpture.

It's your life in summary. Those bits of shrapnel, the way Mizu had torn your life apart the second she stepped foot in it.

Your savior.

Your Mizu.

There's a renewed vigor in Mizu's movements as she guides you out of the manor. One of her last acts of protecting you before she begrudgingly has to place you in the arms of Taigen to fulfill the rest of the plan. This time, when she offers her arm to you, you take it. She keeps you level over even the most jagged paths, catching you when you stumble. A cobbled wall stands between you and your freedom, slowing down to a stop when you reach it. Mizu drops the satchels you carry to the ground, heading over the wall. Her arms go around your waist, picking you up and placing you down on the other side with little difficulty.When she lands next to you after grabbing your bags, you can't help but smile at her, a dreamy look in your eyes.

“What?” She asks, a hint of awkwardness in her tone.

“Nothing, nothing!” You bump into her with your shoulder.

She sighs, shaking her head but hiding her expression from you. “Come on, we don't have any time to waste.”

Running through grassy fields, the sun finally starts to peek through the treeline. You barely ever have any time to catch your breath, but your rowdy laughter and wide smiles are proof you don't care. You know it won't be long before Taigen meets up with you, taking you away and sending Mizu off into that asylum. For now, you're together. In this world only the two of you exist, where your hands can meet, lips can kiss. Your only witnesses being the fall of the moon and the rising of the sun, the soft blades of grass beneath your feet, the bubbling creeks of water.

Everything up to that point had led you here– Mizu being hauled away, crying out for you. Yet your cheeks hurt from containing your chuckles, the knowledge that Taigen would have everything handed back to him, tenfold. All the unnecessary shit he's put you both through... He'd be nothing in a matter of days.

You click your tongue, clearing the tears out of your eyes.

“I'm hungry, Taigen.”

a/n: so, this chapter is like. over twice the length of any of the others, sorry about that. hopefully that makes sense for why it took longer to update! i would've split this chapter in two, but… i couldn't see it being split in any good way, personally. also, it's likely that the next chapter will be the last, i'm not sure if i'll do an epilogue yet though. anyway, i hope you've all been enjoying the story so far!

[lassieposting]

I think the most important think to as qustions about us how we got the first letter and tape to begin with,someone had to have wrote it and sent it in the mail and had have to known the protagonist address,but maybe I'm just overthinking it ,its just a way to start the game, btw I think the only info about the protagonist or the player from the developers is their height 5'10 - 6' idk how canon it is ?

Do you think poppy is "evil" ?

Hmm...no, I don't think Poppy is evil.

I think Poppy is traumatized and misguided, with quite a naive outlook on morality, and her actions are guided by that and her limited experience of the world and humanity for the past like, fifty years.

Ultimately, both Poppy and the Prototype want the same thing - to put a stop to the atrocities committed by Playtime Co. They agree on that. But they're implied to have had vastly different experiences with Playtime, and that is very relevant to how they approach their shared cause.

It's worth noting here that these two have, potentially, been trapped in that facility for half a century or more. The word prototype suggests that he was the very first test subject to survive having his brain and nervous system grafted to a constructed, partially organic body. If his name is correct, he should predate Poppy. He is the template they used to create and refine the process to make her. She is the "perfect" version of him, the finished product. He is a rougher, less polished first draft.

And Poppy was created in 1950. Since you can't have a living doll walking around and living her life in the outside world, that means she's been inside the factory for 55 years, 10 years of which she spent locked in a case. And if the Prototype is rightly-named, he's been there even longer.

And look at how different their situations are:

Attitude Towards Procedure

In Poppy's cut dialogue from the end of Chapter 2, she explains to the Player that:

"Terrible things have happened, and I am the cause. Being able to exist as a doll, it has killed so many people."

Her choice of words here is interesting, because it implies that there's a fundamental difference between Poppy and the other Bigger Bodies experiments. Specifically, it implies that Poppy was a willing test subject. She uses positive phrasing to describe her experience. Being able to is a phrase that suggests that existing as a doll is a desirable state. She could have said existing as a doll. She could have said making me a doll. She could have said turning me into a doll. All of those are negative phrases I'd expect from one of the unwilling test subjects. But Poppy uses being able to, and I think that's significant. I think what we have here is someone who has a more positive, favourable view of her current existence than the others - someone who sees toyhood as either a second chance at life, or a second chance at childhood.

The Prototype, on the other hand, is strongly implied to not be a willing volunteer - quite the opposite. He's highly aggressive towards Playtime staff. He's uncooperative with Playtime scientists. He's actively trying to escape the facility in the backstory. That is not the behaviour of someone who consented to his procedure.

Containment & Care

When we first find Poppy, we see that her living situation is actually pretty good.

Like. Yes. She's locked in a case, ripping off Annabelle like her little heart depends on it, but we know that's not where the Playtime staff kept her - she explicitly attributes that to the Prototype:

"He's the reason I was trapped in that god-awful case for so long."

(We can even make an educated guess as to when this happened and why. Poppy was in the case during the Hour of Joy - she remembers hearing it all happen, but not participating. Given that she was firmly opposed to the idea, it's likely that Prototype sealed her away ahead of time to make sure she wasn't able to interfere. It was a tactical manoeuvre, so it would've happened shortly before the Hour began, so that no staff had time to discover her and remove her from the case.)

So anyway. Ignore the case. Look at everything else.

We find Poppy in a section of the factory that's been refitted to look like a house, in what looks like a child's playroom, full of toys, cushions and furniture. If this is where Poppy has been living all those years, that suggests she's well-cared for, well-treated, and kept mostly happy by the company - we know, of course, that she wasn't entirely spared from the trauma; her maintenance tape is pretty horrific. But she's definitely been treated more kindly - or at least kept more comfortable - than some of the other experiments, and that's reflected in her feelings on the Hour of Joy: she's seen humanity in the Playtime employees who've interacted with her, so she sympathises with the terrified workers.

(Which? Actually makes me wonder if there was a reason none of the other experiments ever came to let her out in the ten years between then and the beginning of the game. Poppy's perspective is very different to that of most of the toys who were created from frightened, imprisoned children, experimented on against their will, and it would make sense for them to feel resentful or angry about it. Mommy Long Legs is mocking and lowkey aggressive towards her, and her avoidance of CatNap suggests he would be, too. Maybe her opposition to the idea of the Hour of Joy made her unpopular with them. Though she seems to have made up/never fallen out with Kissy Missy, at least.)

This is a huge contrast with the Prototype, whose entire experience with Playtime is one big human rights violation. He's kept in a prison cell in the labs under 24/7 surveillance, in almost complete isolation - CatNap, who's allowed to socialise with him, isn't created until the 90s, and the only other time we see or hear of anyone interacting with Prototype is in his regular sessions with Harley Sawyer, who spends that time coldly torturing him in the name of science. And that's given him a very different perspective - that nothing will change at Playtime without drastic and violent rebellion on the part of the experiments. Playtime doesn't care about their experiments' quality of life. They don't care about their feelings. They know that the toys have no rights, that they can't safely leave the factory, and that post-transformation, they have very little recourse against their tormentors. He knows that he'll spend the rest of his life a slave unless he's willing to kill.

(The other experiments also seem to have fallen closer to Prototype's end of the containment spectrum than Poppy's. There's a literal dungeon beneath the playhouse, with enough cells for each of the Bigger Bodies Smiling Critters. We know CatNap was locked away in what is explicitly described by a Playtime worker as a prison, when he's not doing his duties in Playcare, and also segregated from the other Critters - his cell is outside their dungeon. Playtime's idea of "protective custody" for Thomas Clark - now in the body of a Bron toy - was an empty padded cell with no company or stimulation, and he was a loyal employee who'd dedicated like 40 years of his life to the company. When Thomas was placed in with the other experiments, it appeared that they were all thrown into a "genpop" situation together in a big room. Like, Poppy is the only toy getting special treatment, accommodation and enrichment here. It's no wonder almost nobody stood with her against Prototype - he's "one of us", and she would've seemed like "one of them".)

The vibe I get is that like. Both of them are activists, of a sort. But Poppy, before the Hour of Joy, is the "middle-class white woman" moderate sort of activist. She will write a strongly-worded letter of protest to her local Head of Innovation. She will wave a colourful poster at a peaceful rally. She thinks that compromise, diplomacy and patience are the ways to solve her chosen cause. And she can afford to wait for compromise, diplomacy and patience to work, because while she is affected by the oppression she's protesting, it's a bearable situation for her. She has parts of life she enjoys. She has reasons to keep living. Whereas Prototype is a "frontline" kind of activist who's willing to lock horns with riot police in the street armed with only a brick and a smashed bottle, because he's part of the group whose lives have become so unbearable under the oppression that they have nothing left to lose.

Neither is evil. Neither is undeserving of empathy or understanding. Neither is morally beyond reproach. Both their viewpoints have been shaped by experience - Poppy's by her "privilege" (in comparison to the other experiments), Prototype's by his abuse. They're not even truly on opposing sides. The difference between them is simply a matter of degrees on spectrums. Patience/desperation. Optimism/cynicism. Idealism/realism. Hopefulness/hopelessness.

And that's what's most tragic tbh. Poppy believes Prototype is just as evil as Playtime, not realising just how easily she could have been him, or become him, had she been treated the same way he was.

(As to how we got the letter...honestly, I'm not sure. The childish writing suggests Poppy wrote it, but she couldn't possibly have walked it to a post box. Maybe Prototype's mind control reaches far enough to have a postperson collect it from outside the factory's front door? For that to be the case, Prototype and Poppy would need to be working together, but I do have a few disjointed thoughts about how that could turn out to be the case.)

[ohtobeleah]

Leah babe. Whenever you’re ready we’re here patiently waiting for the next update of TH&TH.

THIS TOOK ME FUCKING FOREVER TO WRITE!! And as promised, an earlier update as the Masterlist received 1’000 notes!! Ahhh. Anyway—here’s the next chapter. Also the Masterlist for those who need to catch up. We're getting closer and closer to the end of what I'd say would be series finale of season one of TH&TH. But a series two would be on the cards.

Jake Seresin never thought he’d fly for the Navy, he had every intention of joining the airforce from the day he knew what a plane was. The white walls of his childhood bedroom were plastered with air force propaganda posters spanning decades, yet they all told him the same thing. That planes were cool and that someday he’d fly one. He remembered as he sat in his F-18 Super Hornet that the longer he sat staring at the walls he littered with his dreams, his passion—the more he wanted it. A common denominator however for a lot of Jake Seresin's teen and adulting life choices had been one thing and one thing only. You. 

As Jake took his only shot at saving his colleagues' lives as they gained altitude towards the sun–like a modern day version of Ikaris themselves, Jake thought back to the moment he thought maybe the Navy wouldn't be such a bad career choice after all. 

“You wanna do what?” Sitting on your best friend's bed you told Jake that you were starting to think about a career in the Navy. “Say it again for me real quick, I don't think I heard you correctly.” He teased as he spun around on his desk chair, flipping the pen he’d been doing his homework with through his fingertips. 

“I said, I was talking to Sarah the other day and she said her older brother is a clearance diver and loves it.” You explained as you sat with your History book open on page one hundred and forty nine. Reading about the social and political constructs of the highly controversial and deeply divisive ruler—empress Wu. “Been thinking about it a lot actually–seemed pretty neat.” You couldn’t really focus on her rise from common concubine to empress when Jake was staring into your soul from across his room though. 

“You know if you go into the Navy and I go into the Air Force we can't be friends anymore right?” Jake taunted before you threw his own pillow his way. “What!” He gasped. “I'm just saying–it's kinda like a given thing that the branches all kinda hate each other.” It was your senior year of highschool so the reality of the real world was starting to kick in. You'd both been giving a lot of thought into what you wanted to do after school. If a gap year was on the horizon or if college was a possibility. Or for you maybe it was the Naval Academy and for Jake it would be the BMT. 

For now though, you and Jake both worked down at the local pizzeria after school–it was supposed to be your way of being able to spend more time together. But when the big boss had noticed that the two of you barely got anything done when you were both rostered on together? He made sure to end that real quick. 

“Doesn't the Navy have like, Naval Aviators or something?” You sighed, not realising just how much of a spark it lit inside Jake as he watched you return to your work. “If we both enlisted maybe we might be able to take on the world together?” You weren't putting all that much thought into what you were saying, simply making light hearted conversation with your best friend as you both did whatever homework you both had due the next morning. You History and Jake Mathematics–always the maths guy. “Who knows, But hey–if you do go into the Air Force and fly those stupid planes that cost way too much money I guess you already have a callsign.” Smirking, Jake looked at you like you’d just shot him through the chest. 

“Oh no. No way would I ever use Hangman as my call sign.” Jake huffed as he shook his head. “It's stupid.” 

“It's who you are, idiot.” You reminded him, all those moments where he’d hung around his locker waiting for the right moment to talk to you only to be left hanging had the namesake sticking to him like super glue all through high school. Like fuck was Jake taking that shit with him into his adult life. “Besides, it suits you.” 

The pad of Jake's thumb hit the trigger for his missile lock system the moment he’d been drawn back into the present by the tone he’d locked on the fifth generation fighter pilot. He watched as the jet exploded into a thick black fiery cloud that surely had to be lethal for whoever had been sitting in the cockpit. Knowing that he was coming home to you and whoever he’d just shot down wasn't. That would be his second air to air kill. You hadnt taken well to the first one–he wondered for a moment if you'd love him any less now that he had two. 

“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, this is your savour speaking.” Jake put on his usual persona of the guy who everyone just couldn't stand as he came racing through the plume into vision of Chaos and Rooster. “Please fasten your seatbelts, return your tray tables to their locked and upright position and prepare for landing.” He watched as Chaos looked his way and smacked her first twice against the side of the cockpit, laughing behind her mask. He couldn’t really tell from this distance how fucking close to death she really was. 

“Hey Hangman, you look good.” Rooster commented from the back seat, not his usual position on a fighter jet. All things considered though it probably still had a pretty good view. Jake nodded peacefully in response, he was going to say something about how he wanted to throw up over the fact he’d left you like he did to get here. Crying, screaming his name, yelling at him that you needed him. He wanted to mention that it killed him to know he left you heartbroken in his best friend's arms because he just put his colleagues above you and even more so above his own safety. Or that if he’d listened to your direct orders to stand down Rooster and Chaos may very well not be alive right now. He wouldn’t ever say that to you—ever.

Jake didn’t say any of the aforementioned things, he couldn’t. The words failed him when he tried to convey the right things to say—they always had, but in this very instant he knew his worry and utter agony was written in the lines on his face. 

Jake just nodded and laughed with them. 

“I am good Rooster, I'm very good.” He paused as he broke right and turned back to head towards the carrier. He wondered if the girl who sat on his bed that one time and said you could both take on the world together would still want to charge at it head on when he landed or if you’d throw your hands up and finally say enough's, enough. “I'll see you both back on deck.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“You’re okay Hawkeye, I got you.” Javy rocked with you as you clung to him in utter heartbreak. There was no sense of time anymore, you didn't know if you'd been left on the runway for two minutes or two hours as you cried out in utter heartache loud enough for anyone walking the flight deck to hear. “Jakes gonna bring em home.” 

“You don’t know that–what if he never comes home.” Javy wasn't about to tell you that he had that feeling too, he wasn't about to break your heart any more than Jake had already done so in order to go after Rooster and Chaos. “He's the love of my life Javy–” Javy felt his own heart shattering as he held you a little tighter, sitting with you between his legs in the middle of the runway. His arms encapsulated you like he was shielding you from the world around you. Not wanting you to ever be hurt again. “What am I supposed to do without him huh? What does he fucking want from me!?” 

“He doesn't want nothing Hawk, he probably just knows by now that you love him enough to know that whatever happens, good or bad–he had all the right intentions.” Deep down you knew Javy was right, you did love Jake enough to know that a year ago–or even just a few months ago for that matter, he never would have done this.  

Levi ‘Elvis’ Macarthy was a terrible person and an even worse influence on your husband. He was the very dictionary definition of superficial. There wasn't a person you loathed more than Jake’s current Wingman. You knew Levi wouldn't hesitate to leave Jake in the dust if things went wrong, but what scared you so much more was Jake had become the very same. 

“Oh my god—“. You just couldn't hold it in any more, your marriage had fallen to shambles around you before there was anything left to salvage. Your grandmother always used to tell you like because and you love despite. But with Jake? Over the last few months nothing seemed worth it. “You're worse than Levi.” You had just been discussing Jake's latest deployment, he hadn’t bothered to tell you until three days out. “Levi, he’s a selfish superficial asshole but he can’t help it, Jake–but you? You could be a good person but you wanna be an asshole! You are so obsessed with getting promoted and becoming the best of the very best that you’re choosing to be a piece of shit—“ It would be your last fight, the fight that drove you over the edge, the one you couldn't come back from. The fight where things were said that you couldn’t take back no matter how badly you wanted to. It was the fight that put all your others to shame. 

“Okay stop pretending this is some moral dilemma!” Jake hadn’t told you about his next deployment because he knew that you still weren’t over his last. He didn't know how to tell you without starting a fight. Which inevitably happened anyway. 

“It is a moral dilemma! You’re pushing everyone away to chase a fucking pipe dream!” You were so proud of Jake and everything he’d accomplished, but the idea that you were the only one who was didn't sit right with you. You knew he lived for the applause, but you couldn't cheer him on from the bleachers alone. “You’re a lieutenant! God isn't that enough for you at this moment? Revel in it a little before you chase the next rank!”  

“Oh you wanna go there?” Jake scoffed as he took strides towards you, crossing the distance of the living room. “You—“. Jake spat, his voice laced with venom as he spoke to you like he hadn’t been in love with you since the very first time he saw you let alone spoke to you. Pointing his finger into your chest. “You’re afraid to climb the ladder.” He barked. “Tell me love.” The term of endearment made you weak in such a heated moment. “When was the last time you actually did something you were proud of? You spend all your time worrying about me and what I'm doing and what I'm supposedly becoming because you're too fucking scared to fucking apply yourself, you're scared that even if you tried just a little goddamn harder that you'd still be told you're a crap analyst!” He didn't mean any of it, he just wanted to hurt you the same way you hurt him. But Jake? Well he couldn't attack your person, so he went for your job, your career. He knew you held a little self doubt about your position in the Navy, unlike himself who just oozed confidence in every aspect. “Always a Lieutenant Junior, never gonna make it to Rear Admiral.” 

“You go on this deployment, I won't be here when you get back.” This time you weren’t messing around. The idea had crossed your mind a time or two when things had gotten really bad, when you thought it would be easier to run than to stay and figure it out. 

“What?” Jake had suddenly lost all his male bravado. “What the hell are you talking about?” Although you’d thought about it, you’d never said it out loud. Never mentioned the idea to anyone. “Baby–” His eyes were soft and suddenly full of regret, had he gone too far this time? 

“You heard me Jake so help me god if you go, don’t expect me to fucking be here when you get back.” You thought your love for Jake Seresin could outlast any challenges you faced, but when he was the challenge himself? What else was left to do. 

“You know I have to though—you know better than anyone that I can’t just not go?” His eyes took in the entire expanse of your face, every small mark and imperfection that made you perfect to him in every way. Cupping your face between his hands. “Wifey, we’re okay, we don't have to do this.” You ignored Jake's words as you focused on the first statement that slipped past his lips. 

“Seems like an inevitable outcome then doesn’t it?” You continued, only to pull away and turn on your heels. Holding back the flooded dam that threatened to break if Jake made any attempt to keep you here. Stop you from leaving–.if he asked you to stay you knew it would be all the more harder to go, without question. You loved him so much. 

“Baby don’t leave me.” You left in the middle of the night that same night. 

He never would have put the lives of his fellow aviators above his own and he most certainly wouldn't have defied direct orders to risk his life in order to save another. The version of Jake Seresin that you almost served divorce papers to was long gone. Dead and buried. Replaced by the very best version of himself you knew he could be. The version you fell in love with during highschool. The version who asked you to marry him one random night in July under the stars as waves lapped around your ankles. The version you saw a future, a present and had a past with. It didn't hurt any less though, knowing that the outcome of all his soul searching may end up with the same outcome you’d left him over in the first place. 

You'd' still receive that folded flag, you’d still cry as his coffin was lowered, only now you knew for sure that you wouldn't be the only one to mourn him. 

“GET HER OFF THE DAMN RUNWAY!” Pete Mitchell could be heard screams from the barricades that you jumped over to reach your husband in time, to no avail. You’d fallen into a heap in Coyote's lap, inconsolable and crying as your heart raced at the thought you’d never see Jake again. Clutching at Javys flight suit, the nornex not doing much at all to dry your tears. “COYOTE! GET HER UP BEFORE YOU TWO GET RUN OVER BY A GODDAMN F-18!” 

“Someone tell my wife I'm coming home.” Jake had radioed back to the tower all the while you and Javy had been sitting on the flight deck. He had started making his way back to you the second he wasn't needed, he saw no need to string out your obvious heartbreak. He couldn't wait to get back to you, tell you how sorry he was, how much he loved you, how much you meant to him and how badly it broke his own heart he had to leave you behind like he did–but he knew Rooster and Chaos needed him just a little bit more in the very moment. Jake also couldn't wait to let you know how idiotidc it was to stand in the middle of a goddamn runway. How endearing and brave and oh so stupid he found it. He knew that you were going to tear him a new one about his actions, that was his only leg to stand on. You were miss prim and proper, he was reckless and foolish–the better halves of each other. “Someone tell Y/n I’m okay, for the love of god someone tell her I'm alright.” It was a plea that fell on somewhat deaf ears though, no one could get to you to relay the message and Pete Mitchell certainly wasn't about the scream that crossed the flight deck of the carrier. 

“We gotta move Lieutenant Commander–” Javy cooed as he tried to lift you up. Deadweight against his arms, you didn’t budge for love nor nothing. “Hey, Jake’s coming back, surely.” Pointing over your shoulder to the black dot in the distance headed straight for the carrier Javy tried his best to break through whatever haze had begun to cloud your better judgement. “You see that speck? That's Jake, so unless you wanna get railed by the cord that's gonna come at us at about a hundred miles an hour I suggest we move and the second he lands, I'll let you go? Deal?” You didn't believe Coyote as he tried to be the voice of reason, but as you watched the speck get a little closer, a little more defined, it sparked a hope inside you that you wanted to believe in. That it was Jake and he was coming home. 

“Shit–” You scrambled to your feet, dusting your uniform off as Javy took your hand in his, one hand behind the small of your waist as he guided you over to where the rest of the group stood. Phoenix, Bob, Fanboy, Payback, all desperately awaiting the return of Hangman, Rooster and Chaos. “You really reckon it's him?” You asked as you approached Maverick, he hated the look in your eyes. Despair. Your eyelashes were wet and your cheeks were stained but none of that really mattered when he placed a gentle hand on your shoulder and nodded, bringing out a haphazard smile across your face for the briefest of moments. 

“It's him Hawk, it's all of them.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

It was the smoothest of landings Jake had ever pulled off. Everything had gone according to plan. When the tail hook caught on the catcher cord, slowing Jake's Super Hornet to nothing, he could finally breathe again. There wasn’t a lot that confronted Jake Seresin, but when he took off from the carrier, leaving you behind? He’d never felt such a fear in the back of his throat. It resonated with him until he leaned. 

The cheers roaring out from his colleagues and fellow Naval men and women were enough to have him popping his canopy, holding his helmet in his hand as he fist bumped the air. Ravelling in the moment, the glory, the praise. Jake Seresin lived for the applause—and for the almost good enough but not quite worthy Dagger Spare, he thought he’d done pretty well for a guy who hadn’t made the team. 

“You’re insane!!” Phoenix beamed as she tapped Hangman on the shoulder three consecutive times. “And I’m not gonna tell you you’re great, but well done.” He barely acknowledged her, his eyes catching you in the crowd. The roar of success faded as he handed Bob his helmet—without taking his eyes off you. A smirk crept across his face when he saw you falter for a mere moment. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing you were utterly and wholeheartedly relieved he was safe. But for a split second as the crowd cheered and separated just enough for Jake to barge his way to you—you couldn’t not let the happiness consume you. 

“Hi wifey—“ Is all Jake manages to say before you’re barreling at him. Running full speed into his arms. With a jump and a graceful lift, your lips are connecting with your husbands as he catches you in his strong arms. Hands on your ass as he kisses you back. Your arms thrown around his shoulder as he deepened the kiss you thought for a while there you’d never get to experience again. “I’m so so—“ You didn’t let him finish as your open palm slapped against his cheek. 

“Don’t you ever leave me like that again, do you hear me?” It wasn’t harsh enough to actually hurt, but it was still with enough force that took Jake aback. “Hangman—do you hear me?” Eyeing off the little gold heart he wore with so much pride.

Jake couldn’t stop himself from beaming at you. He loved you, oh so much. Kissing you again with haste as he nodded against your lips. “So stupid, I can’t believe you do that! Never again okay?” You pleased as Jake kissed you, talking into his mouth as teeth clashed together and tongues danced. Cupping his face to make sure this was real. That he was back and he was safe. “You hear my baby? You got nothing to prove.” 

“Loud and clear ma’am, loud and clear.” Mumbling into your mouth as he held you up by your thighs. The cheering of the entire crew around you made it all the more remarkable. Jake Seresin was a hero, and a beloved one at that. “You’re not off the hook either, pretty girl.” Jake smirked against your lips. “Jumping barricades and barrelling up runways.” It was true, it hadn’t been your finest moment, but you did it all for love. “So stupid wifey, you know that right?” You knew, so the only dignified response you gave was a silent nod. 

“I thought you weren’t coming back—“ You mumbled just shy of a whisper as you let your forehead rest against Jakes as he slowly put you down. Bending over with you to chase your lips again. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of you. 

“I’ll always come ba—“ Again, you slapped him again. This time a little harder as he trapped your hand in his. Making sure you couldn’t slap him again. “Okay, you gotta stop slapping me.” Jake poked his tongue against the inside of his slightly throbbing cheek as you eyed him off. 

“Sorry, I just needed to make sure you were listening.” Racing past the bridge of the carrier where both Admiral Beau and Admiral Bates stood. Chaos flew low and close as you looked up overhead. She held her finger up to the glass. Giving the admirals the bird before her right engine cut out. “But I’m so proud of you Jake—you brought them home.” 

“So I’m off the hook?” Jake asked as he raised an eyebrow, cocking the corner of his lip slightly as you shook your head. Laughing. 

“Oh, oh no—no no no Jacob, you are most definitely not off the hook.” You called him Jacob, he knew he was in shit when Jacob slipped past your lips. “But for now I think you deserve to have your moment.” You gestured to the crowd around you now cheering on Chaos and Rooster as they landed in the barricade. “Go celebrate your victory Lieutenant.” 

“I love you, Wifey!” Jake beamed as he stepped back, immersing himself in the crowd around him. “Love you to the moon and back!” He grinned before turning around, finding his way to the two people he risked it all for. 

“I love you all that much more.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

It had been a few weeks since the Uranium mission had come to its completion. The Admirals had made it abundantly clear that the ragtag team of aviators who had grown to be more like family than just colleagues could have a few precious weeks of unrestricted leave for their duties and sacrifices. Bradley Bradshaw and Robert Floyd had chosen to stay in North Island; They weren’t leaving until they knew for sure that Chaos Kazansky was going to be okay. For you and Jake? Things had mellowed out, settled down and you were both working through the underlying issues that were still plaguing whatever future you were both preparing to have with one another. 

Like today for example, you were both about to find out the paternity results of the DNA test Jake had taken for Marissa. He knew it wasn’t his kid, but he knew you needed that in writing. 

“Okay ladies cough up.” The Miramar Base Hospital smelt of sterile everything but the nurses station? They smelt of that Ariana Cloud Perfume and whatever food had been on offer in the cafeteria that day. “Who owes me what?” You teased as the three ladies sitting behind the glass fished out their wallets and all handed you a ten dollar bill. Much to their own displeasure. You smirked, collecting your earnings with no sympathy. 

“Much appreciated ladies—“ You winked. When Jake had first started doing the rounds for Chaos, you’d gone with him one time early on. The ladies at the front desk had mentioned Jake would always stop and have a chat—nothing malicious, nothing sinister behind it. He just enjoyed the praise he received. And you saw nothing wrong with that—but you’d started an underground betting ring not three days later with the nurses. If your husband was gonna act the foot? The least you were gonna do was make some extra money off him. “Someone ask him about his call sign next time he stops by, if he says anything else besides the fact he was left hanging by a girl he had a crush on in highschool he’s a liar—“ You picketed the cash as you turned on your heels. “Fifty Bucks ladies, take it or leave it.” 

“You look rather nice today Commander?” One of the nurses cooed as she hollered down the hall after you. You weren’t really sure what she was on about to be honest, you were just in a pair of old jeans and a sweater. Maybe it was the brown hair you now wore with pride. Jake had been right, Blondes did have more fun and you had certainly had your fair share during your time back at Miramar. You weren’t meant to be a blonde. So back to your roots you went. “Anything in particular got you all dressed to the nines?” 

“Just enjoying the rest and relaxation ladies, nothing else to it.” You smiled back at them before making your way further into the hospital—running into your husband and Bob shortly after. “I was just coming to see Chaos? How is she?” You asked Bob as Jake took you under his arm, pulling you closer to his side as he kissed the top of your head. It still smelled of brown box dye. He’d helped you colour it back a few nights prior. That in and of itself should have been a mission he had taken more seriously. 

“Awake, she wanted to be with Rooster for a little while.” Bob explained softly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee, do you want anything Commander?” You still weren’t all that keen on everyone calling you commander, shaking your head softly you sighed as Bob stood before you with tired eyes. 

“I’m good, and would you please just call me Hawk if anything Bob? Even Y/n’s totally fine—you guys are family. I don’t want you calling me Commander if we’re not on duty or working together.” 

“Yes ma’am, I’ll see you guys a little later.” Bob was tired, he walked the halls like a ghost of his former self. He and Rooster had been tag teaming for weeks and you knew Jake was worried about them both. 

“God I feel awful.” You mumbled into Jake's shoulder. “We should do something for them.” 

“Only thing we can do is just be here for them.” Jake kissed the top of your head before making a cheeky remark. “Commander Seresin.” He expected the elbow he copped to the ribs but it didn’t make it hurt any less. “Ohh—“ He doubled over for a moment as he stilled in his tracks, watching as you kept walking down the hall. “Okay, I definitely deserved that.” 

“Bet you thought it was gonna be you who made commander first, didn't ya hot shot?” You teased over your shoulder as your husband caught back up to you. “What was it again? Always the Lieutenant Junior, never gonna make it to Rear Admiral?” Quoting the remark Jake had made during one of your more heated arguments. “I’m sure you’ll catch up, Lieutenant.” 

“I liked you better when you were just a lieutenant commander—“ Jake taunted as you both rounded the corner. Laughing you just shook your head. “So cocky now—someone better tap you on the head before you fly too close to the sun there, Icarus.” 

“You know I don’t fly, Flyboy—“ You taunted back as you reached for Jake's hand, walking side by side towards the office of Dr. Sanders—she’d called you earlier that same morning to confirm the results of Jake's paternity test had come in and as had your fertility checks. “And before you say anything, no—I’ve seen the way you fly, I’m not getting in one of the tin cans with you.”

“Javy said he’d take you up if you wanted to?” 

“Oh fuck off—“ You couldn’t hold back to scoff. “You know I’m terrified of flying, never in a million years would you ever get me up in one of those things.” It had always been something you’d pushed to the wayside, but even when you flew commercially, you needed anxiety callers to keep you from panicking. “Thanks, but no thanks.” 

“Ah, there’s the lovely couple!” Dr. Sanders greeted you both with a wide smile as you approached her door. “Come on in, we have a lot to talk about.” 

“All good news I hope?” Jake questioned as he let you enter first and pulled your chair out for you. A kind but almost jarring gesture. The look on Dr. Sanders' face said it all though—it wasn’t. Fuck.

“Mr Seresin, how sure were you that this child wasn’t yours?” She asked and for a moment there you forgot how to breathe. Holy shit, was Jake actually a father? To another woman’s child? 

“Fairly certain I could back my entire career on the matter, why?” Jake still expressed so much confidence in the matter at hand, he never once wavered from his standpoint. It was almost admirable. He sat beside you, reaching out for your hand because he knew if anyone was freaking out right this second it was you—running the pad of his thumb across your palm. 

“Remind me to never second guess your better judgement, you’re not the father Jake—I’m not sure whether to say congratulations or my condolences but biologically speaking no, that child isn’t yours.” 

“That’s exactly what we wanted to hear.” Jake smiled as he turned his cocky attitude towards you fully. “Never doubted it for a minute.” 

“I’ve already informed the other party, she sends her best wishes.” Dr. Sanders sighed before she opened the tan folder on her desk. “Now—onto you little miss, what am I going to do with you.” She sent you a soft smile. This was never an easy part of her job, but education was key.

“Lay it on me doc, I can take it.” Your hand squeezed Jakes just a little tighter as you shifted in your seat. Knowing whatever Dr. Sanders was about to tell you was going to knock the wind from your lungs. 

“Y/n, you have blockage in your left fallopian tube, that means that when sperm are trying to make their way to an egg the blockage is stopping them before they can fertilise.” You really didn’t know what to say as you sat shocked in silence. “It doesn’t necessarily mean a natural conception isn’t possible, it just means that the chances are less likely and if you do ever decide to have children, prenatal vitamins and hormone treatments will aid in the process. And hopefully whatever sperm does make the journey, they take a right instead of left.” 

“Is there anything we can do to remove the blockage?” You asked softly, there was a small part of you who didn’t want to know the answer. But you asked regardless. 

“There’s surgical procedures we can schedule you in for—but they're all quite major and can lead to even more pressing complications like infertility overall.” Dr. Sanders explained. “It’s better to leave well enough alone and hope that the one you still have can come through, otherwise? There’s IVF treatments, adoption—“ Dr. Sanders made it abundantly clear to both you and Jack in her office that you were, in fact, not broken. She’d seen too many women come through her doors that wore the same face she was currently looking up. “You my dear are not broken, you just need to take a few extra steps.” 

“I’m—uh, can we take home all the information you have on all the options please?” Jake could hear it in your voice how scared and upset you truly were. All he could do in the moment though was reassure you that he was there, right beside you. Squeezing your hand to keep you grounded in reality. “We’ll go over everything at a later date.” 

“Of course, and if you ever need a consultation you know where to find me.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“When are you gonna go up with Hawk?” Coyote smirked at you through the mirror of the free weight section of the base gym. Finishing your set of lateral raises, you huffed out a groan when you placed the weight down. It’s a bad dream by Good Charlotte played through the speaks as you looked at Javy through the mirror. His smugness rubbing you the wrong way immediately. 

“Who told you I ever would?” Two more weeks had passed since the events of the uranium mission and new postings were starting to trickle in. You’d yet to receive yours, but Jake had reciprocated his. A full time position here in North Island. If he wanted it. He’d get to accept—waiting to see what would come of you. 

“Uh, your husband?” Javy sent you a look as if to say who else would’ve told him that. “You two seem good these days?” He asked, still standing behind you in the free weight section, looking at you through the mirror. “Seem happy?” It was no secret to anyone that knew you and Jake that you had your demons, but over the last few weeks, amongst everything else going on—you’d seemed to work a few things out. 

“I think we’re gonna do a few couples therapy sessions but yeah, we’re good.” You smiled over at Jake who’d been doing some boxing with Payback. “I’ll never find a better part of me Javy, and honestly I’m starting to think that I'd rather be here for him than anywhere else in the world for myself.” 

“He loves you.” Javy smirked softly as you turned to face him. “I remember there was this one time I had to really reel him in from going fully off the rails just after you’d left.” You’d never heard Coyote speak his truth on the matter before. “He was fucked Hawk—he knew he drove you away but was just too stubborn to admit it to anyone around him let alone himself.” 

“I wasn’t innocent in the whole thing—“ You added as you let your eyes linger back over to Jake, he’d lost his shirt somewhere along the long as he held the pads for Payback. A thin sheen of sweat covering him head to toe. “But you like because and you love despite.” 

“You did what you had to do.” Javy added, only to change to conversation seconds later back to his original question. “Come in Hawk, one ride—come up with me for service checks?” 

“I dunno Coy—“ You tried to protest, your fear of flying all consuming. But it was to no avail.

“You can’t be a commander without having flown once—“ You’d technically made Commander rank four weeks ago, but the official ceremony wasn’t until January. It wasn’t a question you could keep avoiding any longer, both Jake and Javy pestering you to no end about this joy flight. Were you particularly interested? No—but if you had to do it once to get them off your back it seemed as though the answer had to inevitably be a yes.

“Honestly? What's the worst thing that could happen?” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags: @justanothermagicalsara @alexsisrebekah @stinkyjax @starkleila @luckyladycreator2 @love2write2626 @shanimallina87 @dempy @mintellaine @kiarabellerum31 @abaker74 @shadowsndaisies @haworldwidefunnyguy @peakascum @ssprayberrythings @averyhotchner

[rasendamn]

like daylight

🌀 i once believed love would be burning red- but it's golden. 🌀

uzumaki naruto x reader

warning: angst

Rivals (noun): a person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity.

-> Synonym: Uzumaki Naruto

He was the bane of my existence; his annoying cackle and proclamations of his future as a Hokage.

Yet, he was as warm as the sun, if not warmer.

His nagging attitude gave me headaches whenever we were together; his protector complex and daily combat challenges.

Yet, his eyes were the most calming shade of blue I have ever beheld.

His constant need to one-up me was tiring; his inability to let me fight for once and prove myself.

Yet, he motivated me to become a better person, like he was always capable of doing with our enemies.

He was someone who never gave up no matter how dumb it seemed; his embarrassing need to persist in what he sets his mind to.

Yet, he lead the world into a new phase of hope.

He gave me hope.

His smile, his hair, his strength, even the whisker-like lines adorning his face. They screamed daylight.

A pure, golden beam of warmth. So addicting, and so, so dangerous.

I would be lying if I said I didn't begin to find him attractive after his 3 year absence from Konoha- and if his ninja way was to never go back on his word, mine was to stay true to everyone else and myself.

You can say that it's shallow: switching up from scoffing, arguing and competing to blushing, bantering and protecting. Why? Because of his looks?

Maybe it is, but one should know that it was his character that illuminated mine. I didn't have a wonderful childhood either. But like a coward, I let myself drown in it, while Naruto swum to survival.

He just happened to be the hand that pulled me out with him.

I don't know when he himself changed his mind about me, but I thank whatever God there is that he did.

And here, even as I lay staring up at the mourning sky, I thank that same God for making me strong enough to protect him. Even if it meant breaking his heart by leaving.

The once searing pain in my stomach subsided, and I like to think it's because he's holding me.

They say that the manner of a Shinobi's death is what measures their character. And what a wonderful way to die.

His tears are blessing my fragile state, and his hands are pouring his life into me, and his eyes are urging me to stay.

And despite all that, all I want to do is memorise every inch of him- his beautiful face, his admirable physique, his can-do attitude. What a wonderful way to die.

"Don't cry."

I hear myself say.

I see my hand cup his battle-ridden face, the dimmest I have ever seen it.

"You'll be okay," I bless him with.

He shakes his head furiously, breathing so intense with quivering lips.

Oh, his lips. One of my favourite things about him. I still remember when he first pulled me in. When both of us could no longer hold back.

Dinner at Ichiraku, like always. Only that we couldn't stop the tension from building up anymore.

He walked me home, even though I lived the opposite direction. We even took our time.

Glances here and there. Hands brushing. Laughs permeating the quiet air.

And when he suggested that the night was still young, he brought us to a breath-taking spot overlooking our village.

We talked. And talked. And talked.

Then, under the moonlight and stars, we told each other what we'd been hiding from each other even as teammates.

And slowly, every so slowly, he pulled me towards him. In that moment, I questioned how I was able to live all these years without him with me like that.

He brings me back from my distractions, telling me to stay awake. Telling me that Sakura will be here soon. Telling me that he can't let me go. That I can't leave him.

"Please."

Who is he begging? Who is he asking mercy from? Who is saving me, when I saved him?

Sasuke, my old friend, the person I used to confide in, the little boy I grew up lonely with. Even he stares in disbelief from a distance.

What have I done?

The question is written all over his face. But I forgive him. I understand his hurt. I just wish it could have gone differently. I think we all do.

I hear Naruto curse Sasuke out. And I feel his arms wrap tighter around me. So I kiss his tears away. But they keep coming. I tell him to find it in his heart to forgive, because my sacrifice was not only for him, but for the boy whom my sympathies went out to as well.

"I can't do this without you," he gulps, holding me with such care, like I could break into a million pieces. With him here? Never.

He makes me complete. Whole. Or half? Since he makes up the other.

"Yes," I smile, "You can."

"No-"

"You must." I urge softly, stroking his whiskers, line by line. Stroking his fluffy blonde hair.

"Please," he begs with my name; I love how he says my name.

"Let me bring you to Sakura-chan."

I shake my head again, holding his hand down as he makes a move to leave his fated battle.

Stubborn as ever. What did I expect?

"I gave you an opening, didn't I?" I say with as much grit as I can, trying to sound like my cocky self, "Now what are you gonna do about it?"

He ignores me, the azure in his eyes roaming my face.

"Please," his tears glisten with so much pain, "I can't let this happen. I just got you- I can't- please- I can't lose you now."

I wipe them away again, not caring if my own ran down my face.

"You always had me, Naruto," I whisper to him, "My heart and all. Ever since your annoying self at thirteen declared you hated me."

He cries even harder, hiding his face from me in agony.

"And you'll never lose me," I bring him back to bless me with his gaze, "You think you can get rid of me this easily?"

We both know what I plan on doing, but this man, this boy, isn't only mine. Everyone looks at him to create change in this dark world.

If he was my beam of hope, then he can be everyone else's.

I reach up, swiping a finger gently against his headband to keep it clean, Konoha's symbol adorning him in pride.

"I'm so proud of you, you know?" I focus on fixing stray blonde strands- he can't end this fight with hair I nagged him to cut in fear of obstruction; turns out I am always right, "I just know you'll make a fine Hokage."

He just watches me, freely crying over me, as if protecting the both of us from the rest of the destruction.

“You know, you’re as beautiful as when I first met you,” he plays with my hair out of habit, smiling in reminiscence.

And it seems, he’s also trying to drink in every single detail of me, unwilling to look away in fear of my departure.

"You liar."

I can't break down anymore. For him. I change the topic, needing to let him know that this? This is inevitable. I would much rather spend my last moments in peace with him.

"I can't wait to meet your parents," my voice cracks, for I can't help it any longer.

He sniffs, fighting against his closing throat.

"They'll love you."

We smile at each other, even daring to share a laugh.

He presses his lips to my forehead with so much love, even if it is the gentlest touch he has ever graced me with, "Just like I love you."

He leans in. I wrap my hand around his neck, and we close our eyes to savour this moment.

"I love you." I proclaim.

I pull back, letting him hear the words I have always wanted to say to him.

"Thank you," I say to him, "For everything. For strengthening me. For loving me. For fighting with me. For fighting for me."

All of my feelings, my unspoken words, my hopes and dreams.

No, he is all of that himself. He is everything I feel, every overwhelming thing I can't bring myself to say, every hope, and every dream.

With these parting words, I kissed him one last time, pouring my all into him.

I feel the power of the Tatsu, hidden in me as the only thing I have of my clan, empowering him; this will do well with Kurama's strength. How I'll miss that sly fox, too.

Both of you, keep each other safe.

Then, he can win as I hold his hand, letting him know that he will never rid of me despite his fears.

The will of fire, like it always has, burns brighter than ever.

For he: my rival, my teammate, my loved one, is the flame of hope.

He is the daylight that this world waits to see once more, over the horizon of a new dawn.

🦊🍥

[blackjackkent]

what do you think wouldve happened in an alternate universe where hector let karlach become a mind flayer?

(A/N after writing this whole answer: whoops, this got out of hand, hope you're okay with an Unexpected Fic. XD Also maybe a smidge weird/dark at the end, although not a ton I hope? Certainly no more than the whole game is weird/dark. XD Anyway I hope you enjoy. <3 )

Ohhhhhhhhh.

Anon, I love you for asking me this question. <3 A very intriguing one!

And it is because I love you for asking me this question that I have braved looking up a video of Karlach actually becoming a mind flayer, which I had put off doing because I am a softheart and I knew it would hurt and also make Hector yell in my head. XD And when Hector yells in my head it's a whole thing because he does double Flurry of Blows against the inside of my skull for 140damage and it's rough enough in there already.

However! I have now watched it and done some thinks. (Hot damn, Lae'zel is MAD too, at least in the version of the scene I watched. The whole thing is very upsetting.)

Fundamentally it would be a tragedy, and not just for Karlach. Watching the way the scenes play out - there is just enough of Karlach in her speech that Hector would not want to disconnect from her. I think perhaps it touches on the same hope that kept him expecting a miracle for her heart right up until the end of the game - somehow, somehow we can make this work, somehow we will find a way...

But there is no way. This is who she is now, a creature of the Astral Sea with his love's voice and an empty place where her soul should be. And unlike the engine situation he can't even kiss her to make himself feel better because she looks like a squid.

-----

The one saving grace is, I suppose, she does seem happy enough. In the epilogue, she states that she has found a way to get brains to eat by consuming from terminally ill patients at a clinic in Baldur's Gate, people who have volunteered for the process because they are about to die anyway. And she talks about helping all of them live on by absorbing their memories and carrying them with her.

It's... sweet, in a way, Hector supposes.

He tries to keep busy. There's no battle in Avernus to occupy him in this timeline, so he primarily works with Jaheira and her kids on rebuilding. It's hard, physical work; it keeps his mind occupied. At first he sleeps at the Elfsong; later, after some nudging from Rion, Jaheira offers him lodging at her home, where he takes a hand in raising the latest crop of orphan children she is protecting. He sees Baldur's Gate start to bandage its wounds and begins to believe there was some purpose to all his struggle.

But his own wounds do not heal so easily.

He visits the clinic often. He and Karlach talk. Her voice is a slow near-monotone in her accent, unlike anything he ever heard from her before. Sometimes he can hear a twinge of her humor or a turn or phrase, and his heart leaps... but other times she speaks of things like destiny and infinite time in a way that reminds him more of the Emperor than the woman he loves.

She never laughs. She doesn't curse. There is never even the slightest mention of sex; though she still fully understands a double entendre when he makes one experimentally, she seems to take no interest in it. She seems to exist slightly beyond him, with a view of the world that is no longer of the Material Plane.

And yet... she does know him. She remembers everything - stories he told her of his childhood in the monastery, details of Selunite rituals she learned from him, quiet moments in camp he half-forgot himself. She still calls him Soldier, and sometimes Hec. She remembers her own parents; she remembers the city. There is just enough of her still in there... just enough for it to squeeze his heart.

----

One day she walks (well, floats) with him to the Singing Lute; she sits with him while he eats. They talk about the rebuilding; he points out from the balcony some of the new homes he has worked on. She is quiet for a long time. "It is good to see the place begin to live again," she says, in that strange cool slow voice that has replaced the old jocular drawl. "It's what it was all for."

He nods. "Do you regret it? Any of it?" Do you remember what we had? What we've lost?

"How could I, Soldier? The city still lives. You still live." A long pause. The old Karlach might have laughed sardonically, but there is no humor. "Even I still live, and I have grown beyond myself. What is there to regret?"

It sits like a rock in his stomach. If she is content, what more can he ask for? And yet it hurts... it hurts...

-----

Jaheira notices that he begins to withdraw back into himself, that he is quieter and more serious. She mentions it to Gale, on one of his visits to the city from Waterdeep.

"You're not wrong there," Gale agrees. "You weren't around yet, when we knew him fresh off the nautiloid. He was much more careful, then. Very controlled. The very picture of monastic stoicism - in between the panicked realization that we were all undergoing a supreme nightmare that never ended, of course. He lightened up, over the months - certainly by the time you knew him."

Jaheira purses her lips. "And this... he is returning to his old ways, you believe?"

"I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume," Gale says, with a sort of bleak humor, "that Karlach is no longer providing the same amount of compensatory levity that she used to."

-----

In the end, almost two years later, Lae'zel is the only one who speaks to him of it directly, and she is brutal - but effective.

"You have been hollowed out, she'lak," she says bluntly, on one of her rare visits from the Astral Plane. "It is a lessening of you. Do you still trail after your ghaik as if bound to her by a lead?"

"I have done much in the city since you left," Hector says, somewhat defensively.

"Chk. I do not speak of your body's business, k'chakhi. I speak of your mind. Your heart. You have lost yourself. You live only for others."

"As I was raised to do. As I have always done."

"Hector." She rarely speaks his name directly, but she does now, and it makes him jump. "You know of what I speak, and I will not have you ignore it. Your work in the city is admirable. You have cause for pride and contentment. Yet you pine after Karlach as if you hope to find her in the shell wearing her voice."

"She's still in there, Lae'zel."

"You mislead yourself," she spits. "Was it not you who taught me the strength to look beyond mindless devotion?"

That stings, and unconsciously he stands up a little straighter. "This is not mindless. It has been earned," he objects.

"Tas'ki. She is ghaik," Lae'zel says flatly. "What remains of her will dwindle, day by day. You know this as well as I." A pause. Then her eyes soften, and her voice with it. "You do not honor her sacrifice by this emptiness, Hector. Nor do you honor yourself."

He says nothing. His lips draw into a tight line. He hears her, and he does not want to.

"Think on what I tell you," she says - for all the world, now, as if she is the wise mentor and he the student in need of guidance. "You are no fool. You know I speak truth. Do not discount it."

-----

It takes a long time, but he does eventually start to come back to himself. Ten years. Twenty years. He grows old, though he loses none of his strength, his training too ingrained to allow him to weaken with age. The city reforms, stronger than ever, and he slowly begins to learn what life is, outside of both monastery and war.

He teaches self-defense to the children Jaheira rescues and others in the Lower City. He learns to (very badly) play a lute at Alfira's school. He tries his hand as a woodworker after so much carpentry work in the rebuilding of the Gate; one day, with some pride, he gifts Halsin a raggedly carved owl in return for the duck. He travels with Shadowheart several times to the House of the Moon in Waterdeep, reaffirming his faith in the light that has guided him through so much darkness.

And he reads voraciously. Everything he can get his hands on, from every library in the city. There is far more knowledge in the world, he comes to learn, than the particular cache with which he grew up.

He visits Karlach less, over time. And Lae'zel was right - there is less and less left of her each time he sees her. She is drifting away from him. And slowly he comes to terms with that - that what they had was a wonderful thing and a fleeting thing that will never come back to him. He learns to live for them both, for the life she would have had with him, had there been time.

He does not love again, though. He lived his whole life devoid of romance before he knew her, and he has little interest in trying to find it again in the years that remain to him.

For the most part, he moves on, and eventually finds himself relatively happy. But there is one last concession to sentimentality and to everything he has lost.

-----

On one bright, cold afternoon in mid-autumn, many years after the Netherbrain has faded into a bleak memory, he goes to the clinic. She is there, much as she always is; she has not seemed to age much in all these years, though the tentacles are slightly longer, a bit more nuanced in their movement.

He, though, is old; the grey dappling in his hair and beard has faded to white. His body acts as strong as ever, but time is implacable; he knows, as she once did, that he has very little left. It is a strange thing - a weakness of spirit rather than flesh, old age's deeper destruction that even the most disciplined monk cannot stave off forever. He is not dying, but he would be dead soon, likely within a few tendays.

"Hector," she says, flat and cool and almost unrecognizable, and inclines her head at him slightly. "You have settled everything?"

"Everything," he says quietly.

"You are still certain it is time?"

"Yes."

"Then we will begin." She gestures him to a secluded corner of the clinic, with a comfortable chair set up for the purpose. He settles himself there and looks up at the clinic's cracked stone ceiling and waits.

"It has been a good life," he comments, as much to himself as to her, as he waits for her to approach. "Lae'zel was right, that I had to move on. I have done much, seen much. I am proud of what we achieved - all of us."

There's a long, expectant silence. Then he leans his head back, closes his eyes. "I never stopped loving you, you know," he adds softly.

"I know," she answers, and her jaws sink into his skull.

[gildengirl]

Gallagher Girls: Holiday Headcanons

Cammie & Zach:

They start to make their own little traditions over the years.

One of their favourites' is getting in the car after it's dark and driving around to look at all the Christmas lights and decorations.

They like to make up little ratings, pick out their favourite house, the best street, and things like that.

Zach usually drives while Cammie controls the Christmas music and occasionally makes Zach take a few sharp and sudden turns because "Oooooh, that street looks good" and "We have to see that one!"

It's also a pretty good way to exercise some in-vehicle countersurveilance techniques.

Zach grew up without having many traditions in his life—the holidays were never an exception, so he likes that he finally gets to make them with Cam.

His favourite part is seeing Cam light up when they spot THE HOUSE.

Her face is frozen with the kind of joy a 4-year old might have, she's so giddy her smile hangs wide open, and Zach always drives real slow just so it lasts a little longer.

Every hour driving, every aimless turn, every year it's all worth it for that single moment.

To him, it's more magical than all the Christmas lights.

Abby & Townsend:

One year, Townsend comes home to find a tree has appeared in their apartment, boxes that were clearly once in storage have been placed throughout the living room, decorations are scattered across every surface, a few rogue bulbs are rolling around on the floor, and he's pretty sure that what's supposed to be hot chocolate is boiling over on the stove.

It's like a Christmas bomb went off.

And there, in the middle of everything is Abby, playing Christmas music with the volume cranked up as she tries to untangle a never-ending string of lights.

He starts to help, but only after "Abigail, how can you disassemble a bomb, but not untangle a bloody string of lights?" "Are you just going to stand there and ask questions, or actually help me?" "How did you even get the tree in here?" "Just help me!"

She is pretty cute when she's frustrated.

They bicker about how to decorate the tree, what ornaments go where, and how many times a person can listen to "Last Christmas" before going completely insane (Abby's pick, not Townsend's).

After everything's on the tree and Townsend puts the star up, maybe they end up slow dancing to "I'll Be Home For Christmas," just swaying there in the glow of the tree; taking a moment to enjoy their chaotic little Christmas.

And then Wham! comes on again....

Rachel & Joe:

Most years they like to escape to the cabin.

Winter mornings there are some of the most peaceful mornings they know.

Joe makes the coffee while Rachel settles on the couch by the fireplace with a book or newspaper, and somehow everything is so much more quiet with a fresh layer of snow.

Every other year, Rachel pulls out a few old boxes filled with decorations and pictures, and little souvenirs from all the times they had to spend the holidays in some other part of the world.

There's pictures of Cammie's first Christmas, childhood ornaments made out of Popsicle sticks and clay, cards and gifts that hold a fortune in sentimental value.

There's something that manages to touch everything in those boxes—and that's Matt.

He's in the pictures, he's addressed in the cards, he's a memory that lives in every toy and trinket that's home is now in a box.

Once it would have been too painful—to rummage through old memories, but time has a way of healing, and more and more it just feels right—to remember someone who gave so much—loved so much.

Because they both have no doubt, that the best gift was being loved by Matthew Morgan.

And they're just glad they have each other to remember that.

[sporadically-writing]

Could you write more modern!reader x percy please maybe about talking about holidays and different customs I think Percy would celebrate the hell out of Dia De Los Muertos tbh

Absolutely! I do not celebrate Dia De Los Muertos as it is not my culture but I've always thought it was a beautiful holiday when studying it in my Spanish classes. I hope I got everything right! Enjoy!

Thank You For Sharing

Pairing: Percival De Rolo x Modern!Reader

Warning(s): N/A

Word Count: 590

It had been a little while since you had come to terms with you permanent stay in the world of Exandria. You were still sad at the apparent loss of your life in the land you come from and getting used to a world without the advancements you were accustomed to was a rough experience. However, your adventuring family has made things easier.

They would ask you questions about your life, about your family, and about the way things are where you come from. You had told them all about your favorite foods recently and everyone was interested in attempting to recreate them the Exandrian way.

No one was more interested in asking these questions than Percy, not that you were really surprised. Percy is an intellectual man who has a natural curiosity, it would only make sense for him to have a lot of questions about your world.

However, some of his questions, or rather, the type of questions he asked most frequently surprised you. He did ask you about technology where you come from but, he more frequently asked you about your home and your family. He asked for specific details as well. It confused you a little bit until one night while thinking about it, you realized why he did that.

He wanted to make sure you would remember them.

It was thoughtful and, after hearing about what had happened to his own family, just a touch of heartbreaking.

Regardless, he was very invested in hearing about your life, something that, in your burgeoning relationship, flattered you.

One night, at another failed attempt at recreating a childhood dish of yours, you and Percy were on watch together and the subject of discussion had turned to you again, this time the question regarding traditions.

"We've told you about our Wintercrest festivities before, yes?"

"Yes, Percy, you all have."

"Is there a similar celebration where you come from?"

"A few actually. Celebrated by different collections of people. Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanza and Christmas to name a few. My world has quite a few holidays really."

"Which one is your favorite, dear?"

To hide your blush at the nickname, you turn your head away, looking at the stars as you think. "Probably Dia De Los Muertos."

"What does that mean?"

"Day of the Dead."

"Is it a frightening holiday?" Percy asked with a bit of a laugh, remembering your discussion of Halloween.

"No, though some people dress up, it's a day to honor those who have passed before us. Families create offerings for their loved ones with pictures, flowers, gifts, occasionally glasses of alcohol. It's a day of celebration of the lives of those we love that are no longer here" you explained.

Percy was quiet for a moment. "That's... that's really nice."

"I've always thought so." You paused as an idea came to you. "We could maybe..."

"I think I'd like that."

The two of you smiled. The comfortable silence continued for a while before you noticed the feeling of eyes on you. You looked over to see Percy looking over at you.

"Thank you" he said with a strangely sentimental smile on his face.

"What for?" you asked.

"For sharing your world with us" he responded in a way that absolutely melted your heart. As you moved your blushing face away from him, it is pulled back softly by Percy's hand. He has moved a little closer to you and clearly had something else to say. "And thank you for staying."

You didn't stop him when he leaned in.

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Request Rules/Character Sheet

[uroboros-if]

Hello!! I have a question regarding the parents :DD

I was wondering, do Nero and Raphaele have any hobbies or activities they like to do whenever they have some freetime? I remember that Nero likes to wander in places where flora and fauna are abundant, but I was wondering if there would be anything else he'd like to do to casually pass the time whenever he's at home. The same question goes for Raphaele!

They must be quite busy, what with being gods and all, but maybe there's something they like to do during moments of quiet when they just want to stay at home?

I'm also quite curious about the ROs' hobbies, but please only answer for them if you feel like it 🫡✨I just think that knowing the hobbies of MC's parents — if they have them — could be a fun way to imagine what MC's childhood with them was like, as well as how they may have been influenced by their parents. Thank you, and I hope you have a very good day!! 🤺✨💐

Aha! One of the very earliest asks that I received on this blog ever was asking if the gods have any hobbies!

My following response applies to all the gods, including Nero and Rafaele! This ask got unnecessarily long, so putting it under the readmore <3

To reiterate — no, they don't really have many hobbies. If they have hobbies, they mainly pertain to their role. Before their active involvement in mortal affairs, they were content to observe from afar, give very indirect guidance, meditate, and walk through nature in solitude.

Ever since the unification, they've began taking on a more proactive role, especially since the advent of the second generation of gods began to embody more abstract concepts such as love, wealth, and gratitude—concepts that could only have come forth from a world with social relationships. Second generation gods, then, tend to be more present in the human eye, though all deities are advised not to interact with mortals often. There are only a handful of gods who are exempted.

The Twelve, who are more naturalistic deities whose domains include the seas, the land, the winds and so forth, are less likely to have any interesting hobbies other than observation, meditation and admiring nature. Second generation gods, however, may take to more "human" kind of activities (e.g. Quin, one of the deities of love, is particular to fashion).

It goes without saying, almost all of them enjoy spending time with loved ones.

While this may seem dull, time passes by differently for immortals, especially those who've lived longer. One learns to take pleasure in life's simplicities.

I apologize this is such a blanket answer for the fathers, since I know you're particularly focused on them to create an idea of what MC's childhood may look like! For that, Nero and Rafaele would especially try to instill a sense of reverence and respect in MC for the natural world, like letting them dip their toes in the river or walk through grass with naked feet. Let the sunlight pour on their head, and listen to the sounds of the forest.

Lastly, the ROs. Luciel's only other distinctive hobby is reading, while Salvatore has little time — but they would try anything if given the opportunity! Ciocana is a learner by heart, with reading and people-watching in particular being their affinity, rather than animals or nature. Unlike Salvatore, they have the chance to practice human activities such as dancing. Alessi, as a mortal, naturally has more varied hobbies such as cooking, gardening, training, and so forth.

I hope that gives you more ideas!! Thank you so much for sending an ask, Aspen 🥺🥺💕💕 your lore questions are always a treat!

[luvrodite]

An AU that I’m too scared to fully write but I’m desperate to share:

You can see ghosts. You’ve been able to since childhood, and for you they’re as real as any living person. You don’t tell anyone, really. There’s enough flavours of weird in Gotham that people would probably believe you, but it feels a little invasive. Most people wouldn’t want others digging into their business while they’re alive, why would they feel differently when they’re dead? So for the most part you live an ordinary life. You wake up and go to work. You go out to dinners with friends and on disappointing dates. Maybe sometimes in between you remind a little old lady ghost that she’s no longer living, or give directions to a little boy that no one else seems to see. It’s your normal.

One day you meet Jason and his grin is bright like the sun. You meet at the local library when you drop your stack of books heading to the return desk. He helps you gather them up, accidentally knocking his knuckles into yours, starts a conversation about one of your books. By the time you leave, you’ve got his number in your phone and a new book under your arm.

Things with Jason are so, so good. You fit together in places you didn’t even realize were missing. You move into his apartment, too quickly according to his little brothers. Dinners out with friends turn into entertaining at home. Taking it in turns bringing dishes that fill the apartment with mouthwatering smells. Nights out at the movies ending with heated discussions about how “the physics of explosives don’t work like that” on the couch. Agreeing to be a plus one at a gala only if there will be french fries after. You love him so much, and if the completely unsubtle questions about your taste in jewellery are anything to go by, you’ll get to love him forever.

Until one night he comes home haunted, unable to bring the perpetrators of a little boy’s death to justice. Jason knew him personally, from the youth shelter he volunteers at. He takes it so personally that someone so young and under his protection has been snuffed out. Something about this dead boy reminds Jason a little too much of himself. Maybe because they died at the same age, or he was once that scrawny and featherlight too. The police have no leads, chalking it up to just another Crime Alley street kid meeting an inevitable end. He is tearing himself to pieces trying to discover who could be so cruel and you can’t bear to see him in pain any longer. And so you offer, gently, to see if the ghost of that boy, who stands at the entrance to Crime Alley and asks for directions home, can remember who killed him.

He jerks back and there is such a look of horror and fear in his eyes. Not of you, never of you and your abilities, but for what he fears you might see clinging to him. The choking sensation of grave dirt. The faces of the people he’s killed to make Gotham safer. Literally the blood on his hands in a twisted parody of Lady Macbeth. He is terrified that you can see the monster he has always feared himself to be. Jason is up and running, escaping out into the night through the window before you can do more than reach after him.

You don’t get the chance to tell him that all you see is a 15-year old with a gap toothed, blinding grin wearing the Robin colours with pride. You don’t get to tell him that that 15-year old boy always tells you when Jason comes back hiding an injury or asks you to make sure he’s eating more than cigarettes. You don’t get to tell him that even from beyond the grave, Jason Todd never stopped saving people.

- 🍂 (@fic-over-cannon)

i think this has so much heart and love and i hope one day you'll be able to share a full fic with us because i would love to read this.

"Maybe because they died at the same age, or he was once that scrawny and featherlight too."

i think featherlight is so !!! the emphasis on how young he was and small. that the world should've done better by him but the cycle continues and the system fails more and more children like him - waving it away as inevitable. it makes me grieve. it reminds me of that one piece that's like 'every version of this story ends with you being slaughtered' and it's so tragic.

thank u for sending this in <3