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hawnks · 2 years

Text

coincide pt. v

series rating: r18 (explicit)

hawks (takami keigo) x reader

word count: ~4,800

[soulmate au, slowburn, UST as a plot device, avian keigo, allusion to depression, hurts hurts hurts until it doesn't anymore right?]

warning: canon-typical violence

Summary: You’ve got a talent for melodrama, huh?

.........................................................................

His sabbatical is lengthy and non-broadcast. They’d wanted him to take a respite, recuperate, maybe go sit under a waterfall. You’re not yourself, his handler told him. We need Hawks. Not whatever ghost has taken his place. It’s dangerous to keep masquerading as someone who’s heart is in it one hundred percent. That kind of half-assed heroing will get someone killed, one of these days.

They book him a room at a historical hotspring, set up an itinerary with huge swaths of time dedicated to “Rest.” He leaves the hotspring, and the country, without telling anyone.

He goes to Taiwan, to help with some underground hero work. Then France, then Egypt. Most of the jobs are espionage, kept under wraps, need-to-know basis. The rest are off the books altogether. He flies most of the way himself, just so he can pass out each night, bone-tired, and wake up in the morning with nothing but open air behind him.

Everything hurts, the muscle strain and the altitude headaches and the canned coffee he mainlines just to keep from falling out of the sky on overnight journeys. There’s a pressure in his chest that won’t let up, a constant squeezing sensation that feels like shortness of breath, like drowning. Like all the air sucked out of the world, and Keigo, alone, fighting to stay afloat.

Maybe he should get that checked out.

But then, there’s no time to think about the future. He keeps his schedule tight, barely a second to blink between each mission, let alone book a session with his Commission appointed doctor. Besides, it’s pointless, anyway—

All of it.

He fights, draws blood, garners secret and dangerous intel. He sits down for dinner with ambassadors and heroes revered among their people. But there’s no glory to any of it, no reverence left in him.

He imagines himself, a glassy-eyed, shiny little kid. How deeply he would have felt these accomplishments, these feats. Now all he feels is a vague sort of wistfulness. Like he’s already an old man, been through, seen it all.

“What the fuck, Hawks,” his handler says over the phone. It’s been three weeks since he left, the first time he’s answered their calls. “You can’t just abscond without telling anyone.”

“Abscond?” he returns, with a genuine laugh. “Like I’m a thief?”

“You are an asset to the Commission,” the handler returns. “And you have responsibilities.”

“I’m on vacation,” Keigo tells him, and hangs up.

And he tries (really, he does), to handle things in a productive way. He reads several (more than three!) listicles about top ten ways to get over a breakup, until he realizes that the two of you were never actually together. He’s not sure what to google for that. Unearned heartbreak? Severed soulmates? Miss her so much it feels like dying? But not even just the idea of her, or our apparent future, or the pretty thoughts about destiny? Miss the way she smells and the weird way she holds her chopsticks? Miss the way she laughs, and the sound of my name on her tongue? Miss her and miss her and miss her and miss her—

He tries the listicles. Does the self care thing, bubble bath, kitschy facemasks and all.

And — he sees paramors in every country he visits. People from his past who fawn over him, praise him, adore him. They draw his jacket from his shoulders, and it smells like sweat and ozone. They find the tiny, secret clasps on the back of his uniform, unwrap him like a present.

“Pretty boy,” they call him. Coy and sweet. Hands so sure and eager as they caress his body.

And he winces. Takes a step back. “Can we just—” he says, running a hand through his unruly hair. It’s getting too long. He’ll have to cut it soon. “Can we just talk?”

They all agree, sure, whatever he’s comfortable with. But the tension never leaves the room, no matter how long the small talk carries on for. Because he can claim fatigue or headaches or just not feeling it all he wants. But he could never admit the truth. How dirty he feels closing the door with another body in the room. How he cringes at the touch of another. How it’s— you. Always. On the back of his mind, at the base of his throat. Behind every turn and inside every decision. You.

You, you, you.

And the constant, painful reminder —

The feeling isn’t mutual.

...

The wedding is beautiful.

Everything goes perfectly. The whole event looks like something off a trip-advisor page, beautiful but quaint, elegant yet intimate. The food is delicious, the cake so moist it melts in your mouth. Even the weather is sunny and mild, as if the powers that be wouldn’t even stand in the way of today.

You wish you could give everything the attention and admiration it deserves.

On the trip up, you imagined that maybe this would be just the thing to pull you out of your month long stupor. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it’s hard to resist the rustic charms of this place, and the inherent joy of the other guests.

Soulmate weddings are commonplace nowadays, but no less special for their frequency. There’s an indescribable quality of felicity to them. A rightness, like everything is happening exactly as it should, like everyone is exactly where they need to be. It’s something of a comfort to guests and to the couple themselves; what’s meant to be will happen. And there’s nothing anyone can do, no force of nature that can stop it.

You try to enjoy yourself. Try to take in the ambiance, the good company. And it’s nice, for the most part. Really, it’s a lovely day, and if it weren’t for the strange tightness in your throat, constantly, you might even have been able to enjoy it.

You throw up in the bathroom, after appetizers, while the first plates are going around. You’ve been drinking, already too much, and on an empty stomach. You have half a mind to simply tap out for the night, but you can’t leave your friend tonight of all nights. Especially not when she keeps turning to you, elated, to make some silly joke, or to sigh and squeeze your hand with a dreamy smile.

You sneak out when the party begins to pick up pace, leaving the revelry and crawling out a backdoor, into the insipid chill of encroaching night. You find a nice little staircase alcove, planning to settle down for a few minutes, but the sudden sight of another person on the stoop takes you aback. Even more so when you realize it's the groom himself, taking a drag on a cigarette.

You’ve never officially met, until today, and even that was just pleasantries, no time to talk. You’re not sure how to approach this situation; a part of you instinctively wants to apologize, but that would just make things even more awkward..

He peers at you, waiting for you to say something. But you don’t, so he does.

“My last one,” he says, holding it up in salute. “I was thirteen, when I started. Thought I was a real rebel. It turns out I was just an idiot.” He looks at the cigarette, a strangely wry smile on his face. “Could never work up the nerve to stop, but… she hates it, so I’m quitting.”

“A nice wedding gift,” you say, gathering yourself. You come to lean against the metal railing next to him. It’s cool against your bare arms, and you relish the sensation, the shock of it enough to keep you grounded, for the moment.

“Ah,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Not a gift. Just… wanna make her happy.”

You look at his hand, the cigarette already halfway done. It smells different than any other you’ve encountered before, oddly mild, almost floral. And it makes something inside you well up, the thought that a life could be changed so wholly, so staunchly.

You think, how special, to have someone who breaks bad habits for you.

It’s enough to cause you to burst into tears. Before you can stop it, your whole face is wet, and your breath is coming out in hiccuping gasps.

The groom looks on, terrified. He stubs out his cigarette on his heel before handing you, of all things, a handkerchief.

He says, timidly, “Wanna talk about it?”

It takes a few long, awkward minutes before the initial wave of misery subsides, and you can speak.

“Fuck.” You wipe your nose, unattractively, with his handkerchief. You shake your head. “Nah. It’s your wedding. Go have fun.”

The groom shrugs. “I’m not one for spectacle. This is for her. Later, when we’re alone and eating pizza in bed, that’s for me.”

That’s nice, you think despite yourself. It just sounds — very nice.

“She told me,” the groom says after a minute. “About your… soulmate, thing.”

You shrug. What else could you do? There’s nothing to be said. You’ve moralized and offered platitudes your whole life. You’ve lied and said you were content. But here, at your one best friend's wedding, alone, there’s no more slack to give. You’re faced with the truth lying at your feet, like a dead bird.

You’re alone and it’s so hard.

“She loves you. That’s never going to change,” the groom tells you. “Even if a lot of other things do.”

You think about that for a moment. Nod. “Yeah,” you say. “I know. Thank you.”

It takes you a few more minutes to calm down, fully. You’d tell him to go back inside, but you get the odd sense that he doesn’t really care that you’re crying in front of him, that he’s not as uncomfortable as you might have expected him to be. So the two of you hover there, on the stoop in the dark, until finally, you feel centered enough to rejoin the festivities.

You brush off your dress. You offer him a hand up.

“I can see why she likes you,” you tell him as the two of you make your way back inside. The instant heat upon walking through the door almost makes you wince.

“Aw, nice,” he says, grinning. “Best friend stamp of approval.”

...

Keigo’s first stop, once he’s back in Japan, is a convenience store. The second is Enji Todoroki’s temporary, secret residence.

It’s a small house, on the outskirts of a small city. Barely any thru-traffic on the streets. Most of the population is in their later years. No one recognizes Keigo as he trawls the street, looking for the discreet entrance. It’s hidden by a wall of laced kudzu vines.

Enji is slow to answer the door. Keigo sent a text to say to expect him soon, but who knew if the other man saw it. He hasn’t been himself lately.

When he finally opens the door with a grunt of surprise, Keigo just holds up his plastic bag in greeting. The outline of six tall boys is prominent.

“I haven’t had alcohol in 20 years,” Enji says, his voice without inflection. Still, he takes the bag, leaving the door open in his wake for Keigo to shuffle in after him.

The living arrangements are spartan. Hardly any furniture, and what comforts they offer is slim. Hard, cold surfaces. No throw cushions, or blankets, or pictures on the wall, or magazines bookmarked with old receipts. No sign of life at all, save for the single pair of shoes, tossed in a careless pile at the door.

The pair sit on the floor in the middle of what is probably the living room. There’s no furniture at all, here. The tatami is worn to softness beneath them, ages old. The combination makes everything feel stark, exposed. There’s a vulnerability to an empty house, no places to hide, no way to obscure yourself.

They drink in relative silence. Keigo arrived in the late afternoon, and the day passes into night without obstruction. No one gets up to turn on the lights when the sunset fades into ashen stars, both of them content to sit there in the dark.

It’s easier like this, almost a waking dream. Neither of them have been sleeping well, taking care of themselves.

It’s been a long time since Keigo has drunk, too. Soberness was his default, an expectation of the job. Heroes don’t get days off, not really. There’s always the expectation that if some disaster should occur, they will be able to rise to the occasion. That doesn’t mesh well with substance use.

Occasionally, Keigo will have a glass, to keep up appearances. But he can’t remember the last time he felt like this, tipsy, a mellow warmth settling beneath his cheeks.

Moonrise turns everything to shadow. Like this, tall, dark, and faceless, Enji finally speaks.

“I wish I’d done things differently,” he admits. His voice is no longer booming, and proud. It’s quieter than Keigo has ever heard it. “I wish I could have seen that more than honor or strength, what they needed was… kindness.”

“It’s not too late,” Keigo says, but the words are empty. How would he know? He’s never had to consider these things before. Never had terrible, all-consuming regrets before.

“In some ways,” Enji says. “Society would have you believe that amends are as simple as an apology,” he says. “But I will be paying for my mistakes for the rest of my life. And it still won’t fix everything. Some things are broken forever.”

“That’s convenient for you, too,” Keigo says. He peers at Enji, eyes bright, intent. “In some ways.”

Enji peers back at him, expressionless.

“Now they’re tied to you forever, like you said,” Keigo explains. “You can’t fix things, but you can keep them.”

“That’s not my decision to make.”

Keigo’s response is quick, brusque. “Isn’t it?”

He realizes he’s leaning forward, too tense, too defensive. This isn’t about what it’s about anymore. It’s not about anything, really. He sinks back into a relaxed posture, reestablishing his practiced nonchalance. He takes another sip of beer. His hand is trembling.

“No,” Enji says, simply. “It’s not.”

The pair fall back into silence. Enough has been said, for one night.

...

Kirishima sends you home.

It’s the last thing you’d expect, after taking several days off for the wedding. You come in early, ready to elbow through a backlog of work, only to find the floor already bustling with a small crowd of unfamiliar faces.

It’s about eight people, total. Some of them are heroes. You can tell from the way they’re dressed, the way they hold themselves. Kirishima is in the middle of them, more dour than you’ve ever seen him.

He comes to you, when he spots you, skirting his way around the visitors to meet you at the door.

“Ah.” He rubs the back of his neck, glancing back at the group he left behind. “Why don’t you head home for today? This is all kind of, uh. Not safe for you.”

“Should I be…” you try to glance around him, get an appraisal of the situation, but he’s such a mountain of a man that he takes up nearly your entire field of vision. “Like, worried?”

“No,” Kirishima is quick to say. “No, everything is going to be fine. But this isn’t quite your area of expertise, and I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”

He’s taken on his hero mien, shoulders back, a little more tense than usual. His tone is kind, but unmoveable. Leaves no room for arguments, or questions.

“Okay,” you say slowly, still a little unsure about all of this. “But you’ll let me know if you need help, right?”

Kirishima smiles at you, but not in a condescending, what would a small-fry like you be able to do, way, like any other hero might. His affection is so stalwart and genuine, his friendship so gentle. It only makes you worry all the more, for anytime that the goodness of Kirishima Eijiro might be at risk, that humanity might be deprived of him, for any moment, in any way.

He holds out a fist, and you knock knuckles, shakily. “Promise,” he says.

Then he pats you on the back, subtly steering you back to the elevator, away from whatever catastrophe he now has to face, alone.

You have a vague idea of what all this might be about, but who knows what might have changed in the three days you’ve been away. The hero world moves at a breakneck pace, and it seems like you’ve fallen out of the loop.

You think about the classified documents you’ve sorted through, the cases piled up on your harddrive. You’ve seen enough of past villainy to know that it’s not all stars and stripes and showing up at exactly the right moment. There’s a lot of accidents. A lot of almost made it, so close. Sometimes, the heroes just aren’t fast enough. Sometimes they make mistakes.

It’s a job that risks more than one life. A burden on all fronts. If a hero dies, odds are many other lives get taken down with them. It’s why Kirishima wants you kept away from whatever is going on. The big bold word of the hour — casualty. Someone adjacently related to the incident, an unnecessary death. You’re not strong enough to protect yourself, not the way you’d need to, to exist in the same space as the heroes. Not enough to protect someone else.

Everything feels strange and uneasy. Like you’re teetering on the knife point of something huge. But you can’t fit all the puzzle pieces together, no matter how long you mull it over. It’s been like this for so long, you can’t trace back the origin of this foreboding feeling. Maybe you’ve always felt this way. You try to recall a time you’ve felt completely at ease, comfortable in your own skin, but you come up short, unable to pinpoint a moment, unable to figure out why not.

You spend the rest of your day in PJs on the couch, eating icecream straight from the tub, fretting and fretting. Wondering when the anchorpoint of your life became fear.

...

His next stop is the Commission HQ.

No matter that he hasn’t slept in forty-nine hours. The Commission has already figured out that Keigo is in-country, and there’s work to be done.

Firstly, he’s reprimanded. Loudly, and for a solid fifteen minutes.

This is interrupted by a handler conspicuously walking right between him and the higher ups, and dragging him bodily out of the room. Keigo allows himself to be hauled away, waving as he goes.

He’s asked to report on a number of missions he underwent while he was away. Provide details, recall key facts. He took diligent notes, but a lot of things require his own explanation, or follow up information. This takes up almost the entire day. Suddenly he regrets keeping so busy, over the past few weeks.

It’s already late, late into the evening by the time he sets foot in his own agency. Things are quiet. There’s not much work to be done when Keigo himself is not around, so it’s unsurprising that most of the night workers have taken off.

It’s nice to have a little privacy, even with another handler tailing him as he takes stock of the building. Nothing much has changed. Even his office is spotless. For some reason, he’d expected dust to have gathered in his absence, but of course the cleaning people would never let that happen.

It’s almost like he hadn’t left, at all.

Exhausted, he intends to make one final stop at his locker before heading home. He just needs to grab another flight suit, dump his dirty ones in the hamper, to be cleaned.

He’s still carrying around the bag he traveled with. He hadn’t taken much; his mode of transport doesn’t allow for heavy packing. He took the essentials, a few toiletries, a few flight suits, one spare change of civilian clothes. He dumps all of it in the bottom of his locker, to be sorted through when his bones feel less likely to melt out of his body altogether.

He took one personal effect, and it stares at him from the top of the pile. The sweater he’d nabbed from your place. On nights he did sleep, he slept with it. Wrapped around him, or bunched up in his arms. It’s no longer soft, handled so much that the fibers had been worn to crimped bone. It had stopped smelling like you after the first week or so. Even with his heightened senses, eventually all traces of you were lost, the altitude and his own body overwhelming your scent.

It was pointless to hold onto. It didn’t stave off the cravings, only made him remember all the times he had actually touched you, your skin, your hair. Felt your breath, or heard your voice. Dead weight, unnecessary baggage for his long trips. Still, he couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how many times he told himself he would leave it at whatever hotel he ended up in that night. Some mornings he would slip it on, pull it tight around himself, until he felt the constriction, until he thought the threads might snap under his grip. But the craftsmanship of it was impeccable, and it survived his rough treatment, and he would spend those mornings with the not-quite comfortable fabric wrapped around him, watching the sun rise miserably.

He shuts the locker door. Maybe this will be the end of it, now.

He sends the handler home, assuring him that he’d be up and at ‘em at the crack of dawn tomorrow. The handler doesn’t look especially reassured, but there’s nothing to be done now, and he’s ready to call it quits himself.

Alone on the office floor, finally, Keigo takes a moment to just breathe. He closes his eyes for a moment. Tries to shut out all thoughts. They’d taught him to meditate as a child. He’d alway thought it a pointless endeavor, but now he kind of wishes he’d paid better attention, that he could simply will away his mind like turning off a light.

He barely has a minute to try. Someone clears their throat, asking for his attention.

He turns to them with a smile. “What’s up?”

He recognizes the young man. A PA, hired a few years back.

“Intel for you, Sir,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to wait until tomorrow to take a look.”

Keigo motions for the file in his hands, flipping through it as soon as he has it. No sense putting things off.

The PA explains, “The task force has discovered a list of addresses. Around half of them are the residence of record for established heroes. Another handful are homes that heroes have kept off the books. The one connection they all seem to have is that they are currently occupied by at least one civilian, as well.”

Keigo nods, peering at the list.

The PA says, “Right now we’re operating under the assumption that these are a list of targets.”

Keigo had assumed. With the momentum gained from Rei’s attack it would figure that the villain would keep going. Attention tends to spur on bigger and more intense feats.

“Who else knows about this?” Keigo asks.

“Only heroes assigned to the task-force, sir.”

“No one from the Commission?”

“The intel came to us from Deku’s agency,” he returns. “The Commission will receive the information as soon as Deku has convened with his people.”

Keigo nods again, then returns his attention to the page. The first step would be to mobilize the people at these residencies, but how to do that without alerting the culprit would take some creative problem solving. The page is nearly full, numbers reaching toward the margins.

Still, despite the massive amount of work to come, this is a step in the right direction.

He’s about to hand the file back to the handler and pay a visit to Deku’s agency himself when something catches his eye—

Your building address, and next to it your unit number. You.

He’s out the door and in the air in ten seconds, flat.

...

The last thing you expect is to see on your impromptu day off is your door literally being cracked at the hinges.

The second to last thing is the man you haven’t heard from in weeks, pushing past you, stalking straight inside like he owns the place.

He looks… not great. He’s definitely lost some weight. There are horrible, dark circles under his eyes. His hair is a little longer than he prefers. He smells like how he always smells after taking double patrols, like sweat, and the city, and the sky.

Has he been taking care of himself? Has anyone been looking after him?

“Get what you need,” he calls. “We’re leaving.”

He starts grabbing things himself. Your cardigan. The book you’re reading. Your sturdiest pair of shoes. His arms are full by the time you can work up the nerve to respond. Even then it sounds like more of a squeak.

“Keigo?”

He glances at you. He’s breathing hard. “Why aren’t you packing?”

“Because,” you sputter, “what the hell?”

You reach for him. Then pull away. You take a step back, but you’re too unsteady on your feet to do anymore than that. Your legs might just give out, anyway.

You’re reeling from his appearance, not able to make sense of any of it. Maybe you’re dreaming. But —

He’s standing right in front of you, the brightest thing in the room. If he were a little closer, you could feel his warmth.

It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, it feels like you should have forgotten what he looks like. But it’s just the same as always, him in your space. Feels so right, even when everything is all turned around like this. Recognition, in its basest form.

He leans in toward you. Opens his mouth, about to say something. From this angle, oddly, he looks like he might be about to bite you, the subtlest hint of teeth, his breath still leaving him in heavy drags. Like a predator, all keyed up and ready.

Like if you run, he’ll chase.

You can hardly get the words out. “What’s happening?”

An expression crosses his features, a flash of emotion that’s gone in an instant. A tick of remorse, disconsolate. Then he’s back to his unshakeable, placid smoothness.

“You’re not safe here,” he says. It’s a tone he’s never taken with you before. Stern, cool.

You have a hundred more questions, but they’re like little dragon flies, flitting around your skull. You keep grasping for them, but missing. You can’t figure out what to say. You can’t figure out what’s happening.

Then —

You taste it, before anything. A metallic twinge to the air, like an ink blot of blood, coins on your tongue.

Suddenly, your center of balance is off. You’re falling, bracing, falling. But not falling, because Keigo has you in his arms, hauling you, painfully, in some direction.

A noise you can feel in your bones, that makes you think your teeth might fall out from the force of it.

You’re airborne. You think you might vomit. The night is whip-cold but also brutally, violently hot.

—Falling. Again. For real, this time.

You feel the soft brush of grass. He’s pressing you into it. He’s shifting you on top of it, rolling you.

“Are we on fire?” you gasp.

“Not anymore,” he returns.

His hands are all over you, bracing, touching, searching. Your skin is oddly numb. You can’t quite tell which way is up, anymore. You can barely hear anything, the whole world muffled, static.

Somewhere, in the dark you catch a glimpse of molten light, and the sluggish neurons of your brain struggle to the conclusion that your home used to be there. Everything that’s yours used to be there. Now lit up, glowing like a midnight sunrise. Blinding you. But you can’t look away.

Keigo’s on you again. All around you. He has a better grip on you, now. Not painful anymore.

Two flaps and you’re airborne again, clutching to him with all your meager strength. Being clutched in return.

The heat from the flames follows you up, licks into the sky, and you think you must still be burning, you have to be.

But Keigo has a hold of you, so tight and visceral it swallows all your thoughts, all your fear, and eventually you make it far enough that the ash is distant, and the night swaddles you like a cool blanket.

“You’re okay,” Keigo is whispering, lips against your crown, your temple. “I got you. I’m sorry. You’re okay.”

Distantly, you realize he’s been saying it this entire time.

#hawks x reader #keigo x reader #takami keigo x reader #keigo takami x reader #ok ok ok everybody be cool everybody stay calm #don’t be mean to me or I will do it again #coincide

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ningningsdream · 1 year

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the villain in your story | part twenty three

“what are you guys doing?”

minjeong, jimin and you were occupying the largest table at suhturday, so concentrated on your research that you barely noticed the people around you until jeno came by your table.

“we’re planning a trip.”

“a trip? exciting! can we come?”, jaemin popped out of no where with the spray to disinfect the tables and a rag.

“you don’t even know where they are going?”, jeno nagged at his friend.

“we’re going to gangwon do.”, jimin said, eyes still focused on her laptop screen.

“when?”, jaemin asked, leaning into your side to pick at what you were doing on your laptop.

“during the two weeks suhturday closes so in a few weeks. but looks like we’re only going one week because none of those airbnbs are available two weeks and, these prices are high as fuck.”, you answered, checking the details of a house you just clicked on.

“oh, that one is nice.”, jaemin exclaimed, talking about the place you were checking out.

“i know right? but the price though… most of the houses are for large groups of people.”

“how about we join the three of you? it’ll be less expensive if we’re five. like this house, if for three to six people, same price if you’re three or six, so if we come with you, the price will be divided by five instead of three.”

“i don’t know you but i love saving money. i’m not against it.”, minjeong said, looking over at jimin and you for an input on the suggestion.

“why not.”, jimin nodded, already doing the math in her head.

“the more, the funnier.”, you added.

“alright!”, jaemin clapped his hands together and finally turned to his roommate, “so what do you think?”

“oh wow, thank you for asking my opinion on this.”, jeno said, sarcastically, “but i’m down, sounds fun.”

"down for what?", the third suhturday working finally arrived, seeing that his coworkers weren't coming back, "if you're talking about that weird business idea hyuck suggested the other day, i'm going to tell you one more time that i'd rather die than have him as my boss."

you laughed at renjun's statement, before catching him up on the situation, "we're going on a trip altogether, wanna join?"

"when is it?"

"one of the week suhturday closes."

"ugh...", renjun sighed in disappointment, "i'm going back home during the two weeks."

"so we'll have to put up with those two without you?!", exclaimed jimin, jokingly.

"yah!", jaemin and jeno exclaimed at the same time with an exaggeratedly offended tone.

main masterlist | tviys masterlist

pairing: fem!oc x barista!jaemin, fembarista!reader x barista!jaemin

genre: fluff, angst, suggestive, barista!au, sns au

summary: girls' code prevents you from liking the guy your friend likes right?

a/n: can't wait to post the trip's parts

taglist: [@glamourizz @rinrinslovebot @nctzennikki09 @moonjobf @hiqhkey @leemarksfavorite @calssunflower @donghyuckster @vianna99 @kookiedesi @baehaechannie @nshimura @thiccfullsun @dear-dreamie @neobowlingshoez @jjaehmins @liliansun]

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red-moon-at-night · 11 months

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Currently concocting the most self-indulgent 'normal' Milgram AU in the world right now... I am going to make these fuckers Found Family and give them a chance to come to terms with their situations and themselves...

All through the power of a goddamn fish shop/aquatics store.

Hear me out okay:

So we know that from his interrogation questions, Kazui has a childhood friend who he looks up to, that has a boat and if the world ended tomorrow he would go fishing. He mentions to Mikoto in a timeline conversation that one of of his hobbies is trawling. I am taking these facts and running with them like my life depends on it.

In this AU everyone lives in relative proximity to each other (I will have to think about exactly where later) and are all in different stages of their ‘sins’, but notably no one has actually killed a person.

Kazui is a widower having a midlife crisis at 39 and taking time off of work/leaves his job altogether to pursue something new - like helping out his childhood friend with his fishing-store-come-fishkeeping-aquatics-shop. Yes it’s weird that it’s both but it brings in more footfall and more customers (is what his childhood friend tells him). It becomes a bit of a running gag. Kazui also starts running martial arts classes in the evenings because I can totally see that being something he wished he’d done instead of... whatever his old job was. Anyway, he’s depressed but somewhat happy doing the things he loves.

Meanwhile over to the left we have Haruka finally being discharged from a psychiatric unit on a community treatment order (yay!) Part of that community treatment order includes a program where individuals volunteer in the local community with partnered businesses... Haruka picks the fish shop, obviously. But he’s getting paid for it, because Kazui is not about to agree to free child labour. So Haruka gets a job!

Cue a journey of self-discovery in which Haruka learns he is actually not useless or a burden to society. He can do things? He’s been given responsibility? And he enjoys it?? Mind blown. Kazui is there to support and encourage along the way. Just wholesome all around (except for the trauma Haruka has to unpack about his mother and her fish tank ohoho-)

Haruka is the first kid Kazui ‘adopts’. The second kid is Muu who wanders in the shop one afternoon, missing a shoe and has a thousand-yard stare in her eyes. We then have this scene: Kazui asks if she’s okay and she eventually replies something along the lines of “yeah I’m fine I just tripped while trying to catch up with a... friend” and Kazui then asks if that’s why she’s only wearing one shoe and if she needs a spare and she says “no I just forgot to put it on until now thanks for reminding me” and takes a shoe out of her bag and puts it on. Kazui decides she’s exactly the right kind of person for Haruka to practice his social skills with and gets him to go over there and help her out. They awkwardly talk about the betta fish tank they’re standing next to. She leaves. She comes in the next day and says she’s decided to set up a new tank at home could she get some help with supplies. The rest is history.

Muu starts skipping school and hanging out at the fish shop, to get away from her... situation at school. She still hasn’t talked to Rei since that day in the bathroom. Kazui is slightly concerned but also isn’t a snitch and would’ve bunked off school as a youth so is pretty chill with it as long as she’s safe. The fish crew is born.

Some extra very important bits of lore:

Kazui takes Haruka on dad-and-son fishing trips.

At some point Kazui ‘adopts’ a third kid except it’s actually his child from a fling about two decades ago. It’s Yuno. He doesn't actually know he has a kid until her mother gets into contact with him, saying her daughter wants to meet her biological dad can she please come and see him. Kazui has an existential crisis. Kazui agrees. They set up a date and he's asking his fish shop crew about what kids their age like and learning very little because he’s taken in two very weird teenagers. Muu does end up telling him about brands of makeup/clothes/perfume/etc. that girls like, which of course is all expensive and possibly designer.

So yeah Kazui and Yuno meet and she runs circles around him. She's her wonderfully sweet but cold self. They talk about his dead wife and he is dying inside. They exchange contact numbers and emails. She wants to see him again which surprises Kazui because that's Not the vibe he was getting from her.

The university students exist and they all go to the same one. For now it’s mainly Kotoko and Mahiru lesbian hours. She’s a law student, and she’s a literature student, sharing a class (maybe linguistics) and slowly becoming aware of each other’s existence. Mahiru likes girls but she doesn’t know it yet. Mahiru sits on campus and does a bit of people watching, writing stories inspired by what she sees - and maybe one day she sees Kotoko doing her vigilante shenanigans and falls a little bit in love. Kotoko is oblivious to this (is what she tells herself). They end up working on a class project together and become weird friends.

Kotoko is very much doing her side gig of apprehending criminals and punching the daylights out of them. No deaths... yet. She wants to improve her technique so starts going to the martial arts night classes run by Kazui. Mahiru eventually ropes into watching one time so she can make notes for action scenes she wants to write. She also ends up joining. It's fun!

Haruka also learns some martial arts with Kazui, having one to one sessions before classes start. It’s good for him, to get his pent up anger out in a non-destructive way, to redirect all that energy somewhere. He’s scarily good. This results in him building the courage somewhere down the line to join in on the actual classes, at least every now and then. He and Kotoko spar and it impresses her just a teeeeeny tiny bit.

#milgram #AU #this became a VERY long post but I needed to write Everything down #Ideally it would be great to get everyone together in this au but this is all my brain can do for now...#there's definitely wiggle room here to change stuff and add things!#the yuno and kazui connection is thanks to me seeing that post by tokyogruel one time and immediately agreeing with it #this conglomerate of ideas is quite frankly insane but I hope you can see my vision <3 #I mainly made this for myself as inspiration for writing and so that the idea is out there somewhere on the internet if I never get around--#--to acting on it!!#plenty of fish in the sea AU #at least that's the name I'm giving it for now... so I can actually find this post in the future teehee >:3c #kazui mukuhara #haruka sakurai #muu kusunoki #mahiru shiina #kotoko yuzuriha

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soullessjack · 5 months

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oh my god also another thing is that the entire domestic au is just so terribly hetero-nuclear. like the show already established TFW2.0 as an unconventional surrogate family by like the end of s13. rowena telling Lucifer that as far as Jack’s concerned, TFW are his fathers altogether. jack telling Sylvia that he has “more dads than most” and telling Laura that Cas is “one of” his three dads. dean telling john he has a family despite it not being the What Is And What Should Never Be -esque vision john had. Sam telling Lily Sunder that Jack is their kid and Cas directly relating Dean’s (and their) suffering in 14x07 as the loss of a son.

and that’s not even getting into how jack and Mary canonically see each other as mother and son, leading into jack technically having 2 moms. they all have house chores. jack has an apron to do the dishes and dean has one to cook. Sam has a jogging routine. they have movie nights and game nights and they go out to eat after hunts. they go shopping in town. Etc etc.

so much of the domestic aus just seem to disregard this entire dynamic, especially when it comes to Sam being the uncle instead of one of Jack’s three dads, or he’s the target of “who’s the mom of the group” discussions. sometimes he doesn’t even live with them anymore?? sometimes they do have a little apple pie life house and cas is (Sometimes) drawn up as effeminate and dainty and very obviously meant to be the Woman or woman-lite in the relationship. Jack is of course either a baby-shaped clutch purse or a smiley cardboard cutout whose entire existence is to make his dads look cuter and gayer.

And it’s just. Weird. Like, I personally read TFW2.0’s family dynamic as inherently nontraditional (see also: queer). The show puts repeated emphasis on it being unconventional, especially from the outside world’s perspective, but maintains that it is their family. It’s the same brand of unconventional surrogacy that has always been part of the show. as @honeyedwhiskey my beloved puts it, “‘the urge to unqueer a queer family and turn it into a nuclear one” is quite strong in this fandom.’”

it’s already happened with destiel and unqueering two men into The Man and The Woman and it’s happening still with the way this fandom views TFW2.0 as a family and their concept of “domesticity.” this constant need to make somebody The Woman or the Mother because you guys have no concept of men being nurturing or of masculinity being inherently queer lmao

#cal.txt #spn #tfw2.0 #destiel #domestic au #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #baby jack #like…. does this make sense I have a headache #queer dean winchester #gay castiel #don’t even get me started on the gender roles I will start spitting blood

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springdandelixn · 1 year

Text

Missed Chances and Broken Promises - Part III

Summary: Choices have been made and the consequences must be endured.

Warnings: Angst—that’s my warning

Characters: Loki x F!Reader

A/N: It's snowing in February. How weird is that? Haha Stay warm, babies and just a little note, this fic was inspired by LANY's song Up to Me.

p.s. This is a continuation of my Loki University AU fics Secret Serenade and Study Buddy.

Your feedback and reblogs would be very much appreciated. Enjoy! ❤️

A year and five months. That’s how long it has been since Loki has seen his friends.

A year and five months. That’s how long it has been since he left you crying in your apartment.

He never should have opened Vision’s message. Never should have allowed his curiosity to win over his judgment. He was very much aware of the reunion Steve and Sam had planned for their friend group, Thor pestering him every chance he got to coax him into attending.

Loki chose to stay away, chose to do what was best for the people who have chosen to shun him after your break up. But most of all, he chose what he thought was best for him for he wouldn’t know what to do if he ever saw you again, wouldn’t know what to say or react if you ever did decide to speak to him.

Your eyes begin to bore into his head, puffy and full of tears as you begged for him to stay, telling him how much you loved him and wished it was enough. But he’s made his decision and it led to him walking out of your apartment and your life. He could still hear your cries then from beyond the wooden barrier, how the anger rolled off of you as you cursed at his name and soon followed him out and shoved him from behind.

“I never want to see you fucking face again, you coward!” The last words you gave him before shutting him out of your life.

His hand tightens around the glass when he picks up his phone, a heavy breath escaping his lips when he opens Vision’s text again and stares down at the image he attached for Loki to witness. Everyone looked so happy, even Natasha who rarely showed a smile was doing such, her arms wrapped around an older man he’s never seen before.

But what takes his attention the most is the sight of your face. A wide smile kissing your lips as you stared at the camera, both your arms wrapped around Thor and Wanda respectively while they hug you from each of your sides. You still looked the same, just the way he remembers, how he wants to remember you; happy and carefree, the woman he fell deeply in love with.

Loki fights the urge to ask Vision about you, to ask if you’re already seeing someone new or if you finally got the job you’ve been working so hard to get. And he almost does, already tapping on his phone and composing a message to convey his thoughts to his best friend. But he only stops when Clarice’s name pops up on the screen, the silence of his office disturbed by the annoying ringtone.

He’s been dodging her calls since yesterday, telling her more of his lies about preparing for a business merger that his father asked him to present. Yet the truth of it is that he wants to be left alone while he wallows in his misery and shields her further from the guilt that continues to claw out of him. As he no longer thinks he can continue keeping up the charade of a loving partner.

He should feel guilty for what he’s doing, and he does, but even if he wants to save her from a loveless life ahead, he can’t. He made his bed and he has no other option than to sleep on it for he knows that the cost of his happiness would all be worth it in the end, especially knowing that he’s done his parents, most of all his mother, proud. Right?

He sighs when his phone finally goes silent, deleting his message altogether before turning off the device and shoving it in his drawer. No more distractions, he scolds himself and slouches against his chair, swirling the contents of his glass before finishing it one gulp and succumbing to the task of sorting out his thoughts, and most of all, his emotions.

Clarice is a fantastic woman; gentle, caring, and very much selfless in almost everything she does. He’s even bared witness to such traits when he accompanied her to a charity ball once, pledging a generous donation to an orphanage that wants to help their unadopted children adjust to society, even showing excitement when she was invited to meet the children herself.

She’s also a great lover, a giver if Loki would put a label on it, showing such desire just to please him and show him that she’s attentive of his needs. It prompts Loki to give back the same energy and try his best to love her the way that she does him.

But most of all, his mother adores her, probably even loves her more than her own children. A fact he’s proven when he formally introduced her to his family, the Lady Frigga overflowed with happiness that she began calling her ‘daughter’; the word constricting Loki’s heart, not out of joy, but of dread that his fate has already been sealed shut.

“She sounds like a great woman, beautiful too.” Thor’s words push to the forefront of his mind, their conversation during the small family reunion that night coming to life.

“She is.” Loki responds, indifference painting his face. “She helps in charities, too, just like her father.”

“Jonathan Richards, right?” Thor inquires. “The one who owns the country club mother frequents?”

“The very one.” Loki drones, his eyes darting across the hall to look at his mother doting on Clarice. But his ears pique up and his attention is pulled all the same when Thor utters your name, his eyes focusing on this brother and feeling the air around them growing tense. “What about her?”

“Have you talked to her? Or seen her recently?” His brother asks but all Loki could do is look away and busy himself with his drink.

“I—I haven’t,” Loki admits and wills himself to keep a stoic facade. “She didn’t handle my departure well and she was very clear that she never wanted to see me again.”

“You broke her heart, brother.” Thor says defensively yet calmly. “She—maybe you two could still work things out. I know you still love her and I know she does too.”

“Why do you seem so adamant about it?” Loki says, the irritation rolling through his tongue. “We’re over brother. That’s the reality. I’m with Clarice now and I’ve never seen mother so happy about any woman I’ve been with, only her.” He sighs and shakes his head before looking up at Thor seriously. “I’ve moved on and I know she has too, so it’s best that you do as well because whatever frivolous dreams you have of us getting back together, it will never happen—just let it go.”

“Okay—I won’t bother you anymore about it.” Thor concedes, holding his hands up in surrender. “But I just want to ask you one last thing.”

Loki groans and rolls his eyes before facing his brother once more. “What is it?”

“Yes, mother is happy, maybe even father,” Thor begins. “But are you?”

Until now, he still thinks of Thor’s question that night, haunting him, mocking him and makes him question himself if he’s truly made the right decision. And each time, he finds himself reeling back in and going through the list of why he should be with Clarice, why she’s the better choice.

Gentle.

Kind.

Beautiful.

Selfless.

His mother loves her.

He keeps trying to look for something wrong that would completely put him off of her, but ultimately, there’s nothing—except for one.

She's not you.

The ringing of a phone startles Loki awake, eyes squinting as he tries to push away the sleep, seeing darkness shrouding the entirety of his office. He looks at his office phone, the red light blinking continuously as the ringing continues to echo throughout the space. He thinks it’s Clarice, looking for him again and decides to send it to voicemail, but it’s Thor’s name that shows up on the screen instead, surprising him and causing him to answer the call.

Muffled music plays in Thor’s background along with indistinct chatter, Loki grunting as he imagines his brother wasting away at a club and still acting more like a college student than a grown man. He winces when he hears his brother burp a greeting, Loki rolling his eyes afterwards as he waits for an opening to answer back.

“Are you drunk, brother?” He asks.

“Maybe—a little.” Thor gurgles. “Loki, looooki, I have wonderful news to tell you,”

“Where the hell are you, Thor?” Loki groans in irritation. “Are you calling because you need a ride home?”

“No—no, no, no,” Thor slurs then laughs loudly, his attention seemingly getting pulled by someone. “I just wanted to tell you something about…”

He says your name and immediately, Loki stills, his chest tightening once more just from the utterance of your name. He swallows thickly and stands from his seat, pacing by his desk as he feels his pulse quicken by the second.

What does he have to say? Why now of all days? His mind races, the possibility endless that whatever Thor would tell him would break his heart. So he decides, then and there that he should completely cut ties with you, that he shouldn’t even know an inkling of what has become of your life to avoid his from further derailing.

“No, Thor. Whatever it is, I don’t want anything to do with it.” He says sternly.

“But—”

“I said no!” He’s almost shouting and he feels he’s startled his brother when he goes quiet. But it’s too late for him to reel back now, his emotions spiking immensely and his sanity spiraling into oblivion. “I told you I’ve moved on and that I’m happy with Clarice. Why can’t you accept the fact that nothing will ever happen between her and I any longer?! Why are you so fucking caught up in our lives when you should be busy fixing yours?”

“Loki—”

“Father wanted you to run the family business but I’m the one carrying the weight of it because you refuse to grant his wishes! It should be you looking for a suitable wife, not me! Yet there you are, partying with your friends and it’s like none of you even grew up!”

He fumes, all the pent-up sorrow and pressure from the expectations surrounding him bursting all at once. He grabs the tumbler sitting idly on his desk and throws it across the room, glass shattering and scattering against his marble floor.

“We’re no longer in college, brother and you better start getting your shit together!” He shouts.

Silence once more fills the call and Loki sighs, slumping back into his seat, pressing his fingers against his temple to try to quell the anger within him.

“I’m sorry—” Thor murmurs, his drunken state seemingly subsiding from the onslaught of Loki’s rage and Loki could feel his heart soften for his brother. “I just—”

“It’s alright, brother. You’re drunk.” Loki states before letting out a deep breath. “Just—call me when you get home and please, for the love of god, drink some water.”

“I will. Thank you, Loki.”

Before he could even respond, Thor drops the call, the sound of the dial tone filling his ears. He places the receiver back and stands from his seat, walking over to where he threw the glass and picking up the shards from the ground. He went overboard and he shouldn’t have shouted at his brother for the choices he made. It wasn’t his fault and yet he’s throwing the blame his way.

Regret begins swirling within him as his heart decides to go against his head, and the desire to know what Thor was going to tell him about you begins to eat at him. But maybe, it’s for the best, he tells himself, that I don’t know. He’s already a few steps out of the gutter and knows he has to resist any temptation to completely set himself free.

I no longer keep a tag list but if you want to be kept updated on my fics, follow my side blog @springdandelixn-archives and turn on notifications.

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ghastlybin · 1 year

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Reader has a strong passion for everything is creepy and dark and she likes to visit old castles and mansions. In one one her trips, she goes in a real beautiful gothic castle but she find the owner: Kim Bora (also SuA is a vampire and they fall in love)

Dude, vampire SuA can on GOD ruin me I am not kidding I don’t even really care for vampires as much as other mythical beings but this is an exception fr and I think I like vampires a little more now that Bora is one SHEESH 🥵 as always, thank you so much for requesting btw!! So sorry if this is late or bad💜💜🫶🫶🥹 ily though but goodnight lol

Pairing: Vampire! SuA x GN Reader

Word count: 1.8k

Genre/contents: Maybe a mixture of angst and fluff? Vampire AU

TW: talks of blood & blood sucking, missing people, implied m u r d e r, cannibal mention but no cannibals involved, I know veins are triggers for some people, these are all just mentions though I’m not detailed about these things but to be safe I will include them here anyway

Note: y’all already know I have to overexplain myself lmao I’m bad at fluff relating to falling in love so please excuse my attempt at it, I also love horror/creepy/dark things so… Yeah. I loved this request sm!! :,) Also also, I lowkey (like 5%) based Bora’s castle off of Castle Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village because it was a pretty cool & beautiful fcking castle in the game if I gotta say :,) except the window entrance ofc I improvised that shit lol but I hope you enjoy it and that it’s up to your standards, otherwise please please let me know! I’m always open for constructive criticism. 🥹 Adios, until next time

Fck it we’re using this gif again.

On the way out of town, you’ll feel bittersweet, and all the more refreshing, the feeling of leaving the city in your rearview.

Where the roads get narrowly winding and more flora is evident around you and the further the road takes you, you see why you left the city.

And why you may never return.

It was beautiful.

The way certain things unsettled most, how with just the right amount of shade you could turn something completely mundane and make it dark.

From the webs of spiders to coffins, to the macabre style contained in the form of artwork, stories, the horror, even.

The eerie allure of the darkness had to it.

The century-old castles, mansions, and even regular townhomes- All untouched and deprived of signs of life, and at the same time they looked lived in.

The haunting beauty of it all.

You were in the chokehold of all things creepy, all things dark, and a deep-set curiosity.

You didn’t mind the way it all made you feel. Some would say you’re just braver than the rest, others would say you’re weird or that you’ve simply just embraced the darkness.

Maybe you were brave.

Maybe they were weird for not seeing the way you saw things.

Maybe you have embraced the darkness.

You were never afraid of the dark.

You loved it. Growing up, you imagined yourself living in a dark castle or mansion that gave everyone in town eerie chills that would unnerve them to look at, and yet they were still very beautiful to look at.

The other kids back then would debate which urban legend they believed Castle Bora held more.

The one where a vampire was living there in that unexplored, untouched, and far from society-castle- where it was meant to be. That Bora was the name of the vampire living there.

Or the one where Bora was a cannibalistic witch that would lure young people into her Castle to feed on their blood to keep her youth.

You argued that that was still a vampire, not a witch at all, and there was a vastly large difference between vampires, cannibals, and witches.

No one ever listened to your explanations.

But you at least knew the difference between the three.

Castle Bora.

Its grand walls encompassed the area, the pointed arches, the vaulted ceilings that were located on the inside, and the grey tint to the exterior topped off the beauty of the castle altogether.

You knew since you were a kid that you would explore the castle.

You’ve explored Castle Handong, Castle Yoohyeon, and even Castle Yubin before it had closed off to the public for reasons unknown.

Castle Bora has been your goal exploration and the day had finally come.

You had enough money for the transportation, you knew the route thereafter that too had been kept hidden from the public after someone had gone missing when going that same route.

An explorer of old castles and mansions, they said.

That only made you anticipate the trip more. The fascination of what was out there with you and this beautiful castle.

You weren’t crazy, and you didn’t have a death wish.

But you were going to explore this castle.

If that meant sharing the same fate? Well, death was never one of your fears anyway.

The long, winding road stretched on as you drove, excitement building up inside of you as you were finally going to live out your childhood dream.

The paved roads turned into dirt, the trees became more close-knit, and civilization was far beyond you.

And there it was, Castle Bora. Home to the late Kim Bora.

You pulled over to a stop just before the road had been cut off before the gates.

The centuries-old castle looked to be well taken care of, to your surprise. You stopped your car and grabbed a camera and a notepad to transfer to your journal later on before heading for the front gates.

To further your surprise, the gates opened with ease, the loud creak it made was the only sound accompanying you in the isolated area.

The main door was locked, to your dismay, but you’ve never been one to give up. Not when you were this close to getting in.

One thing you learned from the other castles was; there is always at least one window unlocked.

Luckily, you found that one window and it let you into a room that exited into something reminiscent of a main hall located on the other side of the main entrance.

You marveled at the sight.

The beautiful exterior, the chandelier that hung in the middle of the main hall with stairs spiraling upwards, and the wallpaper that had been maintained for centuries.

You took as many photos as you could as well as notes to help keep the memory fresh in your mind for later.

You began to ascend the stairs but were immediately greeted by a rough shove back down the stairs.

Luckily you were only two steps up and didn’t fall as hard as it felt.

Your camera was still intact, but it had slid across the slippery linoleum tiles of the main hall along with your notepad.

“Breaking into my castle, taking photos, notes… Who are you and why shouldn’t I kill you right here?”

You were in a trance seeing the woman descending the stairs and hovering over you. Her beauty was mesmerizing in ways you couldn’t begin to describe,

“I didn’t know someone lived here.”

The woman pulled you up to your feet, harshly by the collar of your shirt.

“No one warned you about me?” She bore a hole into your eyes and for a minute, you felt her peering into your soul.

“Bora?” The corners of your mouth curled upwards. “It’s so cool to meet you.”

Bora blinked, taken aback as she let go of your shirt. “Why aren’t you screaming?”

“That would be rude, wouldn’t it?” You fixed your shirt and retrieved your camera and notepad.

“Everyone screams when they see me.”

You checked your camera to see if it was still functioning. “Why?”

You met her eyes right as she snarled, showing you her fangs and running her tongue under the sharp tip.

“You should fear me.”

And you smiled, even more captivated by her.

“I should,” you took a step closer to her. “But I don’t. You are my role model.”

Bora glared at you, but only for a second and out of disbelief.

You were the first human that hadn’t screamed or tried running away from her. The first human she didn’t immediately lunge at and suck the blood right out of your veins.

The first time she had ever been called a role model.

“If you aren’t going to kick me out, might I request a tour of this beautiful castle?” You mentally prepared yourself for the rejection, seeing as you did break in thinking no one lived here.

But Bora accepted.

She showed you around the entire castle and even let you take more photos and notes. She watched the excited gleam in your eyes the further in she took you.

Everything about her castle she thought was average, you treated it as gold. She appreciated that you were careful as to not make any messes and asked her before you took any other pictures.

It was when you had tilted your head to view a sculpture she had on display for centuries, that she saw the crook of your beck exposed and the veins lying under the layers of skin that could be easily broken by her fangs.

And for the first time in centuries, she fought the urge. The craving or need to taste your blood.

The hunger she felt within.

She wanted you.

But she fought it. She fought it because she was your role model.

She fought it because of how appreciative you were during the tour of her castle.

She fought it because you were the first person in centuries that didn’t treat her as a monster.

Bora wasn’t a witch or a cannibal.

But she was a vampire and vampires have needs too.

“Are your fangs real?” You asked.

Bora snapped out of her craving for sinking her teeth into your neck with a nod.

“So you’re a vampire?” Saying that out loud, you felt silly. Who would ask something like that in someone else’s home?

“Yes.” Bora uttered. You smiled, fascinated.

“Cool.”

“It’s cool until you have to watch every mortal you love die before you.”

Your smile faded a little, and a hint of guilt surfaced.

“Do you want to turn me?”

“Absolutely not.” Bora immediately shook her head. She would never wish her condition on anyone else.

The pain and isolation she’s faced.

Even now, meeting you, she wouldn’t consider it. She was beginning to like your company too.

But she would never simply turn anyone.

“Shame. I wouldn’t mind living here forever.” You spoke, closing your notepad as the tour ended.

“Guess it’s time for me to go?” You looked at her expectantly, hoping she would lead you back to the main entrance.

Hearing you say that, Bora felt the isolation over the centuries kicking in again.

You were invested in her castle, you even broke in to see it. That kind of dedication was admirable to her. And now you were talking about leaving.

Possibly never seeing her again.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Bora blurted, immediately trying to remain cool.

“I promise, it’s not human meat or blood.”

“I would love to.” You smiled, accepting her offer without a moment's hesitation.

She wondered if you’d still have said yes if it were human meat and blood she’d be serving.

You were someone Bora liked having around, despite you breaking in and her almost pouncing on you first thing.

You were someone Bora yearned for in her period of isolation.

Maybe not you specifically, but someone who didn’t run away screaming in terror. Someone who didn’t seem to care that she was a monster.

It scared her to have met you.

Seeing your face, hearing your voice, the faint scent of your blood as you stood beside her, walking beside her, and how she might lunge at you at any given moment if the urge got too strong.

No.

Bora wasn’t afraid because you were a human vessel full of fresh blood.

She was afraid for the first time in centuries, she felt a beat in her chest where her heart should be.

She was afraid of how alive you made her feel by meeting you.

She was afraid you, too, would leave.

“Right this way.”

Bora hoped you would visit her again.

And with a smile, you would vow to.

Back in the city, you’ll smell the pollution of car exhaust and hear cars honking, people chattering, and school or church bells ringing.

And you’ll wish you had never returned.

#dreamcatcher x reader #dreamcatcher imagines #dreamcatcher #dreamcatcher au #dreamcatcher sua #dreamcatcher sua x reader #dreamcatcher bora

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 3 months

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By: Paul Schwennesen

Published: Jan 22, 2024

Higher ed is certainly facing its reckoning — “reaping the whirlwind” comes instantly to mind. As I watch Harvard squirm under the international spotlight, I find it difficult to be very sympathetic. According to an email I received from its new interim president, Harvard is being “subjected to an unrelenting focus,” a “persistent scrutiny” that has pushed the college into an “extraordinarily painful and disorienting time.” All I can honestly say is, I know how you feel…

I graduated from Harvard years ago and can’t pretend to have kept my finger perfectly on the pulse of campus politics there. Nevertheless, I am a newly minted PhD from a mainstream university and I can easily extrapolate. My experience on campus these past few years has, I do not doubt, mirrored exactly the kind of shenanigans that has gotten Harvard into such “painful” straits. And without wishing to sound too gleeful, I admit to feeling a certain sense of gratification at watching academia reap what it has sown.

I entered my doctoral program in history in a fit of innocence. I genuinely sought a community of the mind — a place where ideas could be freely exchanged and interesting knowledge gleaned. While the experience was not altogether miserable, I have to say my overarching sensation after getting the degree was one of relief. Yes, yes, everyone is relieved to finish a doctoral degree, but there was something else compounded on top: the sense of finally not having to watch what one says, the feeling I imagine one would feel on leaving a political reeducation camp. No more eyes, no more veiled threats, no more biting your tongue.

I had been ostracized, for instance, at the very outset by a clique of the exquisitely sensitive for my attempts at open conversation about gender politics. I wondered aloud if the au courant trans-movement might itself be a “social construct” and was told that my questions were “violent” and could not be tolerated on campus.

During my portfolio exam, when I was declaiming on the perennial ‘Man vs. Nature’ tension, I had a tenured professor stand up and order me to “STOP saying man” and to only use the word “human.” The incident was so embarrassingly egregious, it derailed my exam. It even caused a neutral member (a paleontologist, bless him) to submit a formal complaint to the dean. The complaint went nowhere of course.

After a few years, I didn’t even bother to apply for most of the choicest scholarship opportunities, since they overtly proclaimed that “preference will be given to historically disadvantaged students.” I didn’t presume that “historically disadvantaged” meant someone like me — rural, mid-life, veteran, and leftist-nonconforming…

Not that it is any kind of revelation, but the growing chorus of concern over out-of-control Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) thought-control is well earned. In none of my classes could students or faculty engage in anything like open inquiry about race or gender. A discussion about the history of enslaved Europeans alongside the history of enslaved Africans? Crickets. A contextualization of gender roles that defied the standard “oppression” narrative? No.

After years of reading my work with nothing but praise, my advisor suddenly required me at the eleventh hour to replace the word “Indian” with something more palatable (ludicrously, the Spanish “Indio” would suffice). Another member of my committee offered to take umbrage at my comparisons of documented ethnohistoric rituals on Native Americans’ behalf, a patently paternalistic and insensible thing to do.

Look, I’m not claiming to have been surprised. I knew what I was getting into and had harbored suspicions from the outset. Moreover, I am quite prepared to admit that some of the disaffections with my academic experience were self-induced. But to ignore the pervasive cloud of weird, semi-threatening tension which swirls around a modern faculty corridor does a disservice to a long and venerable academic tradition. Students like me have not been well supported or encouraged intellectually these last years. Academic activism has squandered the talents of an entire generation and appears hellbent on doing so again.

Yet, for all that, there is an optimistic silver lining. Now, for the first time in recent memory, the hyper-politicized woke orthodoxy is being successfully challenged. The cracks in the ivory tower have become fissures for the whole world to see. My warning to my college-aspiring children that I won’t spend a brass farthing on tuition seems to be an increasingly widely shared sentiment. Meanwhile, The Harvard Business Review, attempting to make sense of the precipitous collapse of DEI initiatives, now advises companies to “explore DEI actions that are identity-neutral but remove bias from the workplace. Examples include creating structured recruitment and promotion processes with clear, transparent, merit-based criteria…” In other words, “enough with the racism already.” Maybe the lunacy is coming to an end.

Harvard’s high dudgeon over outside scrutiny is indicative. And despite all the “painful and disorienting” turmoil at being held to account, the message seems to be getting through. The interim president tells us that “[r]ededicating ourselves to free inquiry and expression, in a climate of inclusion and a spirit of mutual respect, has never mattered more. Upholding a paramount commitment to academic excellence has never mattered more. Pursuing the truth has never mattered more.” Indeed. Maybe the reckoning higher ed faces will begin the long course-correction it so badly needs. Maybe it will even return to the sort of place I had hoped to go.

#Paul Schwennesen #Harvard #Harvard University #Claudine Gay #diversity equity and inclusion #DEI bureaucracy #diversity #equity #inclusion #academic corruption #intellectual integrity #higher education #luxury beliefs #academic freedom #academic integrity #religion is a mental illness

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riverdale-retread · 10 months

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Riverdale S7 E12 (Chapter 129) After The Fall

Jughead is back to narrating. He says things about Archie and Reggie which in some ways could have applied to himself in earlier seasons but also not because Jughead did not have as much in common with Archie as Reggie evidently does.

Jughead really is making up a story here- he says things like "they think about the same things" when in every instance we've seen from Reggie and Archie it is clear they most certainly do NOT do that. This is a bit of sour grapes and/or anti sports bias from Jughead towards Reggie, which is nteresting because he and 50s Reggie have more in common with each other than either do with Archie. And Reggie was spot-on to not bother learning Soup Can's name because Jughead is wrong to say Reggie thinks mostly about "cars and girls." He escapes his real thoughts using cars and girls actually.

Perhaps Jughead is cranky because Reggie and Archie are jointly THAT kind of morning person - the kind to go running before dawn and then commit to a day's activities. Reggie focuses on "his true love," basketball, Jughead says, "while Archie gets some writing done."

Is this why Archie and Jughead can’t spend time together in this au? That is, can they not both be writers at the same time??

Julian, who had been driving, crashed the car into the river and himself into a coma. Archie sits next to the shell shocked looking Reggie in the hospital hallway while the other boys stare blankly at the TRAUMA sign on the door to Julian’s hospital room. “All the Bulldogs most likely would have drowned if not for Reggie,” is what Jughead says.

Ok but I’m confused because that was an open top car that Reggie got into. In any case, Julian looks very corpselike and his father wants someone to blame. The easy person is apparently Reggie.

This is very entertaining because the show pointedly added a black extra to play one of the Bulldogs that got saved from drowning in an open top car (but really, how??) in a river without sustaining any visible injuries (?!!?) by Reggie, which means Clifford Blossom's prejudices operate as one of the follows: (a) he only hates Koreans in particular (b) he only hates Asian minorities or (c) he only hates poor people (so if you're middle class, race doesn't matter to Clifford).

In any case, Clifford wants to foist blame for all this right on Reggie. Maybe because he is in a hospital, Clifford chooses his words carefully - he calls Reggie Punk and Thug rather than some more choice words. Uncle Fucking Frank states a truth- that it was Julian who was driving - but completely fails to stick up for Reggie or directly defend him. This struck me as very true to life.

Reggie and Archie hear this whole exchange, including Clifford demanding that Reggie be kicked off the team altogether, but Reggie still doesn't have a reaction.

Jughead says that the Bulldogs' brush with death was a tragedy and so was the whole sequence of events leading to Ethel killing the Milkman. Jughead also friendzones Ethel hardcore at this particular moment too, in his narration: "My BUD Ethel.” S7 narrator Jughead has an unplesant sneery side which I don’t know what to do with. At the moment, the two of them also look very shell shocked. Jughead is sitting just like the rescued-by-Reggie Bulldogs were, while Ethel, with a halting, affectless voice, tells the very useless Sheriff Keller what happened: “It was the same milkman that I saw leaving my house. after he killed my parents.”

Ethel is a goddamn hero, and oh to be a big strong girl like her, to be able to overpower a crazed knife wielding asshole. Good for you Ethel.

When Ethel basically confesses to killing the man, Jughead comes out of his shock to interrogate the oddly silent Sheriff. “It was self defense!” he says.

But then Keller says a series of weird things. All his questions are answered, he says. He doesn’t want Ethel to make any sort of statement at the station, he says. This whole situation - a teenage girl runaway from a home for troubled kids stabbing a man dressed up in a milkman’s outfit in the abandoned apartment of a man possibly murdered by te same milkman is… “an open and shut case.”

Jughead gets very annoyed - as he always does with Kevin’s dad in every universe, because that man sucks - and wants some answers. “Who is he? Who is the milkman?!”

Keller doesn’t even pretend to have any sort of respectable answer, instead stammering about “fingerprints on a file” and so on as Ethel finally starts to feel the gravity of what she just faced and begins to weep.

So rather than do any sort of crime solving this American cop’s priority is to take the unjustly incarcerated girl with no one in the world back to the site of incarceration. Jughead and Ethel vociferously disagree with this plan. I guess because he is faced with incontrovertible evidence that Ethel is capable of killing a man when she needs to, Keller doesn’t insist, other than to say that he needs an adult to be involved in the care of Ethel.

But why not Jughead? Why doesn’t JUGHEAD need to be in the care of an adult?

Anyway, the person that Jughead decides is a worthwhile bet in this town is Mary Andrews. She really must have some sort of allergic reaction to there being too many men in her house, because now that all three are gone she can suddenly occupy her kitchen. She is wearing a robe, with her hair up in a net. For some reason Betty and Alice are in the kitchen with her, also in very elaborate robes.

This culture is very strange to me, this business of wearing printed robes. It looks nice but like, if you have time to find the thing and tie it on, wouldn’t it take just as much or little time to change into shorts and a blouse? Anyway, the three women are very startled that it is Jughead calling about Ethel and not Frank or Archie calling about Julian or Reggie.

Mary must’ve given Jughead permission to come to the house with Ethel because the next time we see them Jughead and Betty are sitting either side of Ethel, who is holding onto her knees with all her might. Honestly who can blame her? I would be in total hysterics in her shoes. Jughead is back to looking shocked, and Betty is calmly checking out the blood stains on Ethel’s coat. Ethel is always covered in blood.

Mary doesn’t want Ethel and Alice is willing to take her on. When Ethel objects, Alice says that it wasn’t her idea to ditch Ethel at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. She’s being evil and creepy, is Alice, but Ethel has no other viable choices, poor thing. Betty is very skeptical of what her mother is up to.

Later that night, Archie and Reggie are trying to get to sleep in their shared room. Archie tries his best - he calls Reggie a hero for saving everyone. Reggie is very, very realistic. He says that he did what he did - repeatedly dive into the raging(??) river to haul out boys he doesn’t like and one who was particularly hateful to him because he knew that if any one of them died - “especially Blossom” - he would have been “locked up for the rest of his life” or worse than locked up. Archie doesn’t know what to say to that, but because Reggie performed the Very Useful Minority function of opening his eyes for him, Archie at least knows not to say any Pollyanna shit in response.

The next morning, Betty comes down to see Alice serving a very uncomfortable Ethel some breakfast. (When she rejected Betty as a daughter, she enacted that by telling her to make her own breakfast.) These two not very nice women start fighting over Ethel. Betty invites Ethel to walk with her to school, to which Alice ups the stakes and says she’ll be DRIVING Ethel to school that day. Ethel really wants to get away from Alice, but dares not.

As soon as she’s at school, Betty vents to Veronica about how phony her mother is. She wants to run away from home now. Veronica unburdens herself too, finally admitting that she has been locked out of her own apartment.

The post has already been made about how Veronica is sort of living Jughead’s S1 storyline except better - instead of a bunk bed in a rundown building at the drive in, she’s living in a well appointed office attached to her movie palace. Veronica still feels like “a common squatter,” however. Betty gets a very shiny look in her eye as she asks Veronica if she has tried “breaking back into” her home.

We’re in English class now, where the teacher thinks that the solution to their current town doldrums - a boy in a coma, several traumatized from a car accident involving a submerged vehicle, ETHEL KNIFING A MAN TO DEATH IN SELF DEFENSE AFTER RUNNING AWAY FROM ASYLUM -is … a poem written by a classmate.

Phantom.

They tell me I’m solid

They pat me on the back

They see a son

A student

A Team Player

They see a boy like any other

But I look in the mirror

And there’s no one there

Just smoke and mirrors

And I do not know how to be solid.

…. This is Archie’s poem. He is mortified by this public reading. Ethel says this poem, which uhhh I am not a poet so I don’t know but it doesnt seem … all that great? But anyway - Ethel says it’s Beautiful but also she just stabbed a man to death in self defense literally last night and then had Alice Cooper practically spoon feed her breakfast fruits this morning before driving her to school so Ethel cannot be trusted.

Kevin is the most cringe anyone has ever been on this show, this show with the infamous I’m A Weird Weirdo Speech. He assumes Clay wrote it, turns around all googley eyed in his chair to tell him thati it was “incredible.” Clay has caught all the smug from Kevin though and smoothly says back that he didn’t write it. Kevin is this close to sucking off his boyfriend in class like right now.

Then the teacher outs him - Archie wrote it. She thinks he has a lot to say. Everyone - but especially Reggie - is more perturbed than impressed that it was Archie.

This is a good day that doesn't feel great for Archie because the next thing that happens is that he is named interim captain of the basketball team by his uncle. Both Reggie and Archie thought it should’ve been Reggie. Archie isn’t happy.

The crazy aged boyfriends that run the school are interrogating Ethel and Jughead again, but pretending to do it all friendly-like. The child psychologist says the most insane thing ever: He says that Ethel has proven her sanity BY KILLING THE MILKMAN. He could have literally said anything else - like, You were telling the truth after all! or something but no. Silencing that weird milkman outfit wearing person by KILLING him was the way she got to prove her sanity.

The psychologist insists on calling the milkman ‘a drifter’ because Keller said so, then he launches into a whole speech about how comic books (not murderers, not cops unable to solve murders) were the problem all along. Jughead and Ethel wearing matching forest greens, put on their innocent faces to ask if drifters don’t in fact just ‘drift’? So how to explain the fixation on killing all these people in this particular zip code?

The principal looks more and more disturbed as the psychologist waxes on, but doesn’t say a word in agreement nor disagreement when his boyfriend says "We have told you exactly what happened.” He’s a single issue crusader, and his target is still comic books.

Archie goes to visit Frank to try to get out of being captain. “But shouldn’t it be Reggie?” he says. Frank says that it wasn’t his call because Clifford wanted the only other red haired boy to be captain of the basketball team. Instead of addressing the weird redhead religion, Archie points out that Clifford Blossom has been giving Reggie a hard time from the start. Frank knuckles him down into silence, then brings out the kryptonite - a relic of Saint Fred. “Your Dad’s Captain’s Patch.” So that completely bowls Archie over. His fetishization of his father is astonishing.

Betty has packed up to run away, politely announcing to her mother where she’ll be staying. Alice doesn’t try to stop her.

Lickety split, Betty breaks into the apartment. A skill she learned from Tracey True books! Veronica is elated, telling her that they can be as loud as they want inside the apartment but can't be too careful when using the back stairs to get in or out. Then she says that she has invited “the boys” who are most definitely not Reggie or Archie because she “actually wants to have some fun.”

This is possibly the most callous thing that Veronica has ever said. lololol I mean! Reggie is not ‘fun’ because he’s just been through a terrifying ordeal of a car accident, and Archie is not fun because he’s taking over as captain from Jason when he thinks it should be Reggie. I mean, I think what she means is that they’re not fun for her because they both rejected her as being too much for each of them and then both got fixated on Betty, but that’s not any better right? And then things really go sideways because it turnso ut who she has called are her employees: Clay and Kevin.

These are the two least fun people in Riverdale. Clay is stultifyingly boring, pompous and self absorbed. He’s a bit too comfortable lapping up his boyfriend’s slavering adoration in public for my liking. And Kevin should not be let anywhere near Betty. His coming out as gay DOES NOT ERASE all that hateful truly misogynist shit he said and did to her while he was using her as an unknowing beard. This is so sad for Veronica too - she is still so lonely, but the only people she can find to keep her company are the girl who needs to get away from her psycho mom and her two gay employees.

Meanwhile, at the Blossom house, Cheryl is furious that the basketball season is to continue. Though initially at the hospital Clifford was angry enough to want blood for blood, now that he’s had time to think about his real priorites (uh the possibility of the basketball team having an actual winning streak), he’s decided that his moderately capable son being in a coma may not be such a bad thing. When Cheryl says she will not be cheering on this team while her “brother languishes between life and death” her father gets physically violent and verbally abusive: He threatens to put her in a coma (or I guess kill her) if she doesn’t perform to expectation. Cheryl runs away, upset.

Now we’re back at the Pembroke, where the Beronica and the Icky Gays are putting on some sort of show to some sort of unknown audience. Things get very surreal very fast. Is this music diagetic or not? Why do they keep looking at different corners of the room? Are they aware of the camera somehow? Is this fourth wall bursting but only implicitly? Did they rehearse this?

I kind of wish the show had made a clean break of it for this number, you know, like Bollywood. Where you’re in the market putting bangles on the girl and then the music starts and suddenly you’re 2 kms apart in front of the pyramids at Giza and running towards each other singing.

In any case, the boyfriends help the two girls sing about washing some man right out of their hair.

Then they all settle down in front of the fireplace to do some underage drinking. Betty says to Kevin that this is “more of a kick than when” they were going steady.

The misogynist gaslighting he put her through has permanently damaged Betty’s brain, I swear to god.

The thing is this line of questioning that Kevin starts makes me hate him even more. As I’ve said, Veronica went after and got rejected by both Archie and Reggie, and now, WHILE UNDER HER ROOF, you ask Betty how her threesome date with those two exact men went? C’mere, Kev, there’s something right at the crotch of your pants, let me kick it off for you with the steel toe of my boot.

Veronica even looks a bit bereft when Betty says that she and Archie did kiss after “percolating” on Halloween night.

Unsurprisingly, Veronica changes the subject. She wants to know who has the biggest dick in Riverdale. For a virgin she has a weird amount of confidence about what happens in the boys’ locker room - “having a steam” and “snapping towels.” Kevin - of course Kevin - coughts it up immediately: Both Reggie and Archie are sizable. Then we go down the roster - Jason and Fangs both have small penises, but the true event is that Dilton Doiley is superhung.

The girls scream about it. I’m - skeptical. If the dude is very narrowly built, normal size junk can look more substantial. Trompe l’oeil if you like.

At the basketball game the next day, the hungover bad girls are wearing dark sunglasses indoors for the starting line up presentation. Cheryl looks extremely unhappy to be introducing Archie as the new team captain. Her mother is wearing the most extravagant ribbons. Cheryl looks so unhappy that Archie asks her how she’s doing. She says she’s fine but then tosses him to the wolves, making him give a speech.

Fortunately, we are not subjected to the speech, which apparently was merely ‘nice’ according to Mrs. Thornton, the English teacher. She comes to find him to tell him that he writes better than he speaks. She hopes that Archie will put as much energy into his writing as he does into his sport.

Fieldstone, the shady publisher of disreputable comic books, is the only adult with the correct take on Ethel. Oh! It just occurred to me that Fieldstone and Werthers might be exes. And that’s why the fixation on comic books in particular as the source of all evil! She “survived those crazy nuns, took out a killer and cleared your name!”

Yeah! ETHEL IS AWESOME.

Immediately, he offers her employment and something else to think about, both of which she needs very much. He coassigns Jughead and Ethel to a project. “I am looking at the dream team!” he says.

Ethelhead are nuts. Jughead has picked up some of the sleaziness and says that he thinks it's a good idea to capitalize on the media attention the milkman case has gotten by working on the sequel to the original comic. Greater commercial considerations must take precedent - there is too much "heat" around the milkman comics and killings so they are not to touch the milkman topic at all. Ethelhead seem disappointed.

Betty and Veronica are shopping at Mary Andrew's dress shop. She's being a bad saleswoman- eavesdropping on their conversation before interrupting, not offering any assistance and then being super nosy about where to send the clothes to. Betty tells her that Alice is copacetic with Betty staying with Veronica but I guess Mary still hasn't forgiven Veronica for setting up that beauty contest between the boys because she is suddenly determined to do something about their situation. I mean . . . Mary, you yeet out of existence altogether because Frank is in the house. Don't poke your nose into these girls' business please. But more than the idea of Betty spending a lot of time with Veronica, it’s really her use of the word Copacetic that really sticks in Mary’s craw. She doesn’t approve when children use big words I guess?

We cut to a bronze looking statue of a bulldog seated in a car in front of Riverdale HS. Fangs screams out that the thing’s name is Peppy, and Archie also supplies the fact that this statute is “our mascot.” The villain of this scene is of course Bret Weston Wallis. He calls Archie “Red” (and ignores Fangs altogether, which - he is so right for this!) before he baits Reggie by calling him “a choker” which sounded very sexual to me until he added that he meant that Reggie cracks under pressure. Archie and Bret almost come to blows over Reggie’’s honor.

In the main timeline, of course, Archie and Bret came to fisticuffs over sports too, but the the time when Archie successfully physically assaulted Bret was over the alleged death of Jughead.

Jughead in this universe is completely split away from Archie, where Archie probably has no idea whatsoever what Jughead is doing and they barely interact, which means Reggie is firmly in Jughead’s previous role vis a vis Archie.

One of the difficulties that the narrative keeps having to contend with in Riverdale - which I’ve tracked in my retreads of earlier seasons - is that while the narrative is certain that Archie is The Lead and furthermore is backed up by Jughead the narrator thinking Archie is The Lead, in fact this show has two leads (and it’s not any of the girls, awesome as they are). Jughead is the other lead of this show, which sometimes he wants and other times he doesn’t. When Jughead interacts too closely with Archie, he inevitably tends to push Archie closer to the villains, to become the anti-hero. This is why, in this timeline, with minimal interaction with Jughead, Archie is so wholesome and bouncy and innocent.

End of sidebar.

In any case, Archie threatens violence on Bret, but Reggie stops him. Before they drive off cackling like mustache twirling villains, Bret gets a last dig in about Reggie’s poverty He’d bet a wager with the Bulldogs, he says, but he doesn’t “play for food stamps.”

Reggie was never implied to be poor in the og timeline, but because he’s Jughead in this one, he has also inherited Jughead’s poverty.

At the Andrew’s house, Reggie is talking his teammates through a game plan about how to handle each of the Stonewall Prep players. Reggie has really pretty, clean handwriting. He’s being very commander-in–chief, giving encouraging, bite-size instructions. He’s also hyper observant, so Reggie reads all of Archie’s microexpressions accurately. He knows something is off.

Later, doing dishes side by side at the sink - the exact kind of activity that Jughead would’ve loved to do by the way - Reggie asks his boyfriend, I mean, Archie, why he’s upset. Archie is upset because Reggie should be captain of this team. Reggie says having a title is not that important - he wants to keep winning games “until I can go pro. Archie says he only plays basketball so he can feel close to his dad.

Reggie, looking lean and sexy as fuck with a very thick belt tight around his hips, asks him “So what’s your passion? Cars? Girls?” as they two of them stand shoulder to beefy shoulder. These are the two that he can think of Archie exhibiting some sort of interest in from their time together, but Archie doesn’t say yes to either. He instead puts a hand on Reggie’s shoulder (does he mean to say, YOU?) then gives him a very intense look deep into his eyes before he says “You wouldn’t belief it even if I told you.” This is the Archie that only learned through his Uncle of the sexual pervert mustache what gayness was, so I think he thinks Reggie would also find gayness unbelievable. (The show wants me to think Archie is this passionate about ‘poetry’ but I just don’t believe it).

At Jughead’s train car, Ethel is sketching away.

Ok but seriously, there’s not gonna be any sort of publicity or trial or anything about the fact that she straight up stabbed a man to death? Riverdale is such a scary town. Keller is a man who will force a prostitute to rape his teenage son, so I’m not surprised or anything, but a whole person DIED at the hands of a teenage asylum runaway and nobody bats an eye in Riverdale. Don’t ever go there. Holy shit.

She is almost done with a scary sketch of a menacing milkman. When Jughead asks her to be mindful of what the publisher said, that there was to be no Milkman reference anywhere, she says that it’s really important to her to keep a hold of what she knows to be true because “everyone is still trying to tell me what happened and how it happened.” She says, through her tears that she wants to tell her story, “even if it’s just in a comic book.” Jughead is in full support, so he wants to find a solution, to have their cake and eat it “without a glass of milk, of course heh.” He’s so sweet, but I’m annoyed that this doesn’t seem to be leading to Ethelhead. It should. She’s a (literally) tortured artist with a dark past and resilient spirit and he’s her understanding squire and helpmeet and THEY SHOULD KISS. Give me Ethelhead, Roberto! Support women artists, goddamn you!

Over at the Pembroke, Betty and Veronica have dressed up in sheer nightgown type things for each other (Veronica in periwinkle and Betty in pink). They’re sitting in front of the fire as Veronica paints Betty’s nails. The one bonding activity Veronica remembers with her mother is a manicure at bedtime. Betty says Alice stopped interacting with her in any sort of tender way as soon as her period started.

Then Veronica says something that startles me by reminding me that these girls are supposed to be “sixteen years old, living without our mothers.” Right. Sixteen.

And then Veronica and Betty have an intensely Bughead moment, which sent me reeling. Alienation from (Betty) and abandonment by (Jughead) their families of origin, as well as the reassurance stated as a prayer (from Jughead to Betty) to not be like either of their parents was a major note in the Bughead relationship. Now that beat is given over to Beronica, with Betty taking the lead to break away from the previous generation. They link their pinkies on this promise then seal it with a kiss on their own thumbs.

There’s a sudden swerve, where Betty terrifyingly says that she finds Kevin and Clay to be a “happy, healthy couple” and Veronica even more terrifyingly agrees that they are “the dreamiest.

I’m about to get racial so hold on to your hats.

The degree to which white American women are never allowed to get angry at white men is very terrifying to watch from the sidelines. The exact way when Kim Ilsung died and North Korean television kept showing people coming out of the subway pretending to bawl their eyes out as they hurried to work the next morning? That’s the level of alarm (so vast it brings on disassociation) that I feel when when Betty says that she finds this ex boyfriend’s very unbalanced, very fetishize and bizarrely obsequious relationship with his first boyfriend “happy and healthy.” It’s so sick. Betty being raised in an insane environment where white girls like her are simply not allowed to feel anger at white men (hating the woman who created her and birthed her is fine, by the way, she just can’t be angry at MEN) means that she has to simp for this misogynist (before he’s anything else to me, gay Kevin is a man who hates women) who called her a sexual pervert for being horny and didn’t bother to hide how much he wanted to throw up in his mouth whenever he had to touch her boob and was moreover fully willing to sexually assault a woman for pay so he wouldn’t lose face in front of other men.

Veronica though is so eager to get into Betty’s pants that she (without being able to maintain eye contact with Betty) pretends to go along with this bit of crazy (because we all do that, when we have the hots for someone and we’re 16) (....or 26 ahem), before she quickly changes the topic.

“It mus be easier for two boys to date than a boy and a girl. None of that battle of the sexes stuff to navigate.”

This is the ultimate statement on Yaoi. Yup. Yes. This is what girls who get off on eroticized/ exoticized depictions of gay relationships assume.

Betty picks up on where Veronica is going with this immediately, chiming in with the “fun fact” that 81% of girls experiment with other girls before they turn 18. Veronica says she’s kissed a famous girl before. Betty says that she’s thought about kissing Veronica before. And then they play a really pretty version of the theme song - the Riverdale theme song as the two girls lean in for a kiss.

Only to be interrupted by Mary Andrews, wielding Smithers. She wants to know everything.

We’re supposed to hate Mary, but guess what Roberto - I still hate Kevin more.

Meanwhile, Cheryl is weeping at Julian’s bedside. She says - and this is partially a lie - that she misses Julian and loves him. I think it’s true that she misses him. She’s seen that her life is going to descend to a new circle of hell without Julians’ mediating male presence in her misogynist household. The combined force of her parents’ insanity is too much for her to shoulder alone. Julian wakes up at her plea.

Mary Andrews is having a very presumptuous evening, taking a seat at the head of the table at the Pembroke to express outrage about “a parent disowning their own child” and “evicting” their own child. Except in the OG timeline, Mary Andrews completely abandoned Archie for long stretches before selling him a bombed out house for actual money. If her outrage at how other women are doing something she did to her own in another timeline is supposed to be her redemption arc, I am not buying it.

Same time that night, Cheryl somehow knows to go creeping to her father’s study just in time to overhear that Featherhead has been tasked with bringing in a replacement for Reggie - K.O. Kelly from Boston - at her father’s instruction. After his great Yellow experiment, Clifford has had it and wants “a real” American boy so he can “send that Mantle packing.”

He wouldn’t call him Mantle in private like that. I don’t ever want or need hatespeech against Asians on American TV but this is getting ridiculous.

The next morning, Mary is yelling at Alice about being “no good” and “rotten” to which Alice reacts like a teenaged 'bad girl’ getting told off by an irate nun. She’s already had a go at Hermione Lodge, and now is demanding that Alice tap into her sense of ‘sacrifice’ to “regain your moral footing.” Veronica made out ok - she got her key to her home back - but Betty is right back in Alice’s clutches, which I’m not sure is a solution. The way Alice’s compliance is shown is by her doing Betty’s laundry and delivering to her while the daughter sits cross legged on the bed. It’s not at all clear to me why Mary Andrews yelling is going to change anything for Alice, but Alice forewarns about future battles. She tells Betty that Ethel is as much her daughter to her now as Betty.

Cheryl tells Archie, who tells Reggie, about the plan to cut Reggie from the team. Reggie hears it, and then says “How much you wanna bet the new ringer is a few shades lighter than me?” which is very funny in a bad way because a) the actor playing Reggie is mixed race so he’s not particularly dark skinned and b) the actor playing KO Kelly was very tan with black hair and so side by side COLORING wise they are identical. Archie is freaking out, and pushes Reggie to say what he really wants which is to be captain after all, at least for what might be his final game. Archie is going to help with that.

So. This is where I must speak up for Cheryl. Archie is doing an exceptional thing - he was given white insider privilege (being named captain because he is white with red hair) which he wants to give up for the meritorious candidate who isn’t those things. Cheryl on the other hand is given the third degree for something she can’t do anything about (not having any not white writers on the high school syllabus) plus being put through the ringer just because she wanted to see what her girlfriend’s club was. What the hell.

At Pep Comics, Ethelhead of my heart are presenting Ethel’s latest work to Fieldstone. They’ve made the milkman a mailman. The panel shows the deranged mailman holding a decapitated woman's head by the hair while Ethel in the foreground screams in horror. Is… is this how Ethel’s parents died?? By decapitation?

Fieldstone loves it! He thinks it’s brilliant. He does warn them though that “a storm is coming, like the wrath of God.” Jughead, wearing a very strange shirt with repeats of a six sailed ship in a bottle, pedantically tells him that since sticking their head in the sand won’t help, they “run headlong into the thunder and thumb our noses at it.” But the real talent of the pair is Ethel, who earns the sobriquet “girl genius” from the publisher. They decide to publish!

Archie, Reggie and the team all show up to see Clifford Blossom. Archie really has a thing about organizing people - into white supremacist vigilante gangs (Toni Topaz wording, not mine), labor unions and now whatever this is. The entire team will walk (stage a strike) if Clifford won’t name Reggie captain and also promise not to replace him. Clifford is furious, but it looks like the boys will win!

Betty can’t sleep but just then, Veronica calls! Just to say that she loves Betty, who says it back to her. They’re gonna go to the basketball game tomorrow.

Poof and now it’s tomorrow and Uncle Frank yields the floor to Reggie to give his speech as Captain. Reggie thanks them, and tells them that his parents are in the audience. Do we get to see Reggie’s folks at last? As the last two to leave the changing room, Reggie and Archie have this very manly exchange: “Don’t even give them a second to breathe.” “Count on that.”

Then they have a slow-mo walk out to the court. Reggie faces off with Bret, as a narrator takes over because the show understands (I hope) that nobody cares about the actual game. The Bulldogs dominated all the way to a victory. Montage shows - patrons of Pop’s glued to the radio, Julian & Cheryl listening in, Clifford bitter and drinking, the changing room in a disarray, the bulldog statue returned! Archie rounds us off letting us know that Reggie is MVP and record breaker. he also apparently saw the Parents of Reggie Mantle who can never be shown to the audience.

It was a huge mistake to give his parents a specific Asian ethnicity and to pick Korean at that. I suppose the actor or twitter may have objected, but in the historical context, making Reggie Japanese American or Chinese American would’ve made so much more sense, and been much easier to deal with.

Archie pins Reggie as they sit in their underwear in their shared bedroom. I mean. That’s what giving the captain’s patch to Reggie means, right? After all that fuss made over what Kevin did with Betty?

Reggie reveals that he knows fully well what Archie’s secret passion might be: Poetry. But with Reggie now in his rightful place as captain, Archie wants to stick aroundf or basketball.

All of a sudden, Jughead narration comes back, specifically to deny the intense homosexual emotion that the Reggie and Archie pairing are exhibiting. They are ‘wrestling’ after doings some very intimate conversation, after Archie has pinned Reggie using a totemic item symbolizing his FATHER, so Jughead insists they are “friends, PRACTICALLY BROTHERS.” Jughead is so jealous that when Reggie picks Archie off the floor to hoist him onto his shoulders (and rubs a hand up his thigh) to literally spin him out of our view (onto an awaiting bed, because there is literally nowhere else to go), he makes it thunder, then starts shouting about “the wrath of god” that was coming. “All of us would be smashed to pieces by it” could’ve sounded prophetic, but, actually it has all the bitterness of the whole “if I can’t have her nobody shall!” cry of rejected lovers.

#Riverdale #Riverdale season 7 #riverdale 7.12 #riverdale 129 #riverdale s7 recap #riverdale s7 #riverdale episode recap

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ninjagirlstar5 · 6 months

Text

Protag Teruya AU - [Act 1] The Price of a Forged Bond - Prologue

Wow, college has been kicking my ass a lot more than I thought it would. At least it's almost over...for now.

TWs: Injuries, Mentions of Blood and Death

AO3 Version

Act I Cover

Chapters Prologue [The Lost of You in a Strange Place]

Disclaimer: While Sannotori is problematic, it’s a thing in this AU/fic and the dynamic is not the same as it is in canon.

The Protag Teruya AU was inspired by @/anotherprofessional’s post! Beware of Void spoilers though!

Slam!

The door to the infirmary of the Monocruise hits the wall as Teruya kicks it open. There, his eyes were greeted with the sight of shelves filled with medical supplies, a trashcan in the corner, chairs, and curtains probably separating the beds from view. He keeps the door open as he beckons everyone in with his hand.

“Come on! The infirmary seems to have everything we need in here.” Teruya said, and everyone starts to file in with Shinji being the first to rush past as he was carrying the still unconscious Mikado in his arms. Everyone else seemed to have entered without a struggle, although Nikei had to lean against Setsuka for support. Just when Teruya was about to close the door behind Yuki though–

“Of course the infirmary would have everything you would need! I would be a neglectful teacher otherwise.” Monocrow suddenly flies through the door, causing Teruya to flinch and falter from closing it on his face. Or rather, beak. He quickly narrows his eyes though as the bird perches himself onto a nearby shelf. “And look what you’ve done to the door! You’re lucky it didn’t break, but was kicking it really necessary?”

“What are you doing here?!” Yoruko, who had to suffer from nearly being blown up like everyone else and looking completely disheveled with her ponytail nearly undone, immediately snaps at Monocrow. She nearly marched right up to the shelf he was perched on with a glare that promised death. “Just go away already! We’ll feel a whole lot better without you around!”

Monocrow goes quiet with his complaints. He didn’t have any pupils but Teruya can tell that he was scanning the class from his vantage point. Eventually, he flaps his wings with a huff.

“Very well. You’re all still alive, which is what matters the most.” Monocrow said, brushing his wing against his beak. “You best rest now as I still have some preparations to put together.” And with those final words, he flies behind the shelf and disappears altogether.

“How…does he even do that?” Yuki asked, gesturing to the spot where Monocrow disappeared. Teruya just shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t care.” He said as he opened up a nearby shelf. As Teruya goes through the shelf, he was able to identify what’s in it: aspirin, band-aids and gauze, antibiotic ointment, a hot/cold pack, creams for itchy rashes, a thermometer, tweezers, cotton swabs and cotton balls, an assortment of over the counter medicine, and uh, condoms as well. For all his grief with the mastermind’s puppet, Monocrow did stock up the shelves with everything they would need for an infirmary. Although there is some odd stuff, like syringes and other medicines he’s not even remotely familiar with. “I may be grateful that there’s an infirmary on the Monocruise, but Monocrow isn’t to be trusted.”

“I agree.” Hajime speaks up. “Although it was weird when he started making a fuss over Hashimoto’s attempt at murder.”

“Who cares? They’re both messed up!” Hibiki buds in. “He was all ‘this kind of violence is not allowed, Mr. Hashimoto!’ But he’s part of the reason why we’re all stuck here!”

“Alright, alright. Let’s not fuss over Monocrow or , uh, Hashimoto. What’s important right now is that we should all patch ourselves up.” Teruya verbally steps in as he pulls out as many of the band-aids, gauze, and painkillers from the shelf as he could, carrying them in his arms. He closes the shelf’s door with his hip. “I have band-aids and painkillers if anyone needs one.”

“And here’s some ice packs I found in the fridge!” It was Shinji, who stepped out behind a curtain with the ice packs in question. “If anyone feels as though something is broken, tell me right away and I’ll see what I can do.”

With their words, everyone gathers around to grab what they need. Some took painkillers, others took a few bandages for their cuts, and Kanade took one of the ice packs. Mikado had been laid out on one of the beds, still out cold from his fight with Kokoro and his cape having been folded up on a nearby chair with his hat set on top. Nikei had also laid down on a bed as well and it was obvious that he was still suffering from his concussion right now, his own hat hanging off of another chair. Thankfully, Shinji had said that it’s probably not severe but he should rest up as much as he can for the rest of the day.

“I can’t believe I’m the only one that has to stay overnight.” Nikei grumbled as he pressed his ice pack against his head.

“Actually, you’re not completely alone. Mikado also has to stay after what just happened.” Emma points out. She puts a band-aid on her cheek, which only makes Nikei frown her way.

“Yeah, sure. It’s not like the unconscious person will have any say in the matter anyways.” Nikei said, sarcasm dripping from his tone of voice. A dry chuckle manages to slip out of Setsuka’s mouth.

“Well, the most important thing is that everyone is alright, right? Nothing's broken or anything?” Setsuka asked, much more serious than before.

“I’ll be fine. It’s mostly thanks to Teruya that the worst I got was a few scratches and bruises.” Yoruko sighs, her arms hanging by her sides. Teruya looks away, trying not to let the praise get to his head. “I’m more concerned about how much my clothes have torn.”

“Don’t worry, Lady Yoruko! You look as fine as ever!” Was Yuri’s inappropriate comment.

“Keep your eyes up here! ” Yoruko snaps, both in tone and with her fingers as she gestured to her eyes. Yuri was completely nonplussed about her anger, smiling from the attention he got from her.

“Hey, uh…Wh-Where is Hashimoto, anyways?” Yuki speaks up, looking around the group. Teruya straightens his posture and does the same. He quickly realizes that Yuki is right: Syobai Hashimoto was nowhere to be seen right now. “I mean, he did get caught up in the explosions with everyone…”

“Wh-Why are you concerned about him?? Didn’t he just try to stab you?” Iroha points out just as Hajime finishes wrapping up her wrist in gauze. Yuki sputters as he raises his hands.

“I-I know! But to be honest…I’m more concerned that we don’t know where he is right now.” Yuki shuffled on his feet, allowing his nervousness to show on his face.

“Well, if he does try to cause trouble again, I’ll kick the shit out of him. No way I’m gonna sit back and let that happen again.” Hajime hissed out. He seems to have become aggravated at the thought of Yuki getting hurt. It was sweet, if a bit concerning with how he looked like he was going to–

“Don’t make such a face! It scares me!” Hibiki said, trying to hide behind her sister at Hajime’s twisted, angry face. The boxer immediately falters at those words and the expression disappears.

“S-Sorry! I just…” He clenches his teeth before grabbing a hold of a nearby chair. Just by holding it so tightly makes the metal creak and warp under his strength. Teruya can’t help but gape. Obviously, Hajime has to be pretty strong as he’s the Ultimate Boxer, but he didn’t think he could do that . “...Just what the fuck was he thinking?”

“I-I don’t know…Maybe he just snapped?” Kanade meekly speaks up as she holds onto her sister tightly. “With wh-what’s happening right now, it’d make sense…”

“K-Kanade, don’t say such a thing…” Setsuka said, but her words felt weak. Like she was still processing what had happened. What they were told. What they’re being forced to do…

“Don’t remind me! To think we’d be forced into a killing game…” Hibiki starts to shake. “How can we trust anyone like this?”

“Hey, don’t say such things. I’m…sure no one would do that…” Emma tries to reason but Nikei narrows his eyes at her.

“Tell that to Hashimoto. I’m sure he’s more than willing to prove you wrong.” He said with a scoff.

“Don’t be rude to Lady Emma, you cur! She is trying to share some trust, and you dare turn her down?” Yuri immediately bites back at Nikei, most likely because he was a guy opposing a girl’s opinion.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me??” Nikei, despite dealing with the concussion he has right now, starts rising from the bed. “I’m sorry, I don’t think you’ve noticed, but someone already tried to kill another and it’s barely been a day! And clearly, he was already messed up considering he slept through most of that damn trial. But who’s to say no one else here will snap under the pressure?”

“What, like you?” Yuri points at him.

“Wha – What the fuck?!” Nikei’s face darkens as he grabs the railing of his bed. Teruya’s heart stutters at the scene.

“Uh, guys?” He starts to speak up.

“Okay, seriously, what’s your problem? You’ve been flip-flopping between worshiping the girls and deriding the guys the whole time we’ve been here.” Hajime said, his naturally strong voice drowning out Teruya’s. He crosses his arms. “Can you at least take this a little bit seriously?”

“Oh, I am aware of what’s going on. But how can I trust any of you men here? We’re all strangers, after all.” Yuri crosses his own arms together, his frown looking more like a pout than a genuinely annoyed one.

“I swear, if you mock me just because I’m a guy one more time –”

“C-Calm down, Hajime! You too, Yuri!” Yuki tries to step in, even physically getting between Yuri and Hajime in the process. “I-I know that things are stressful right now, but surely even strangers wouldn’t be willing to kill someone!”

“B-But…Hashimoto did try to kill you. And we didn’t even know his name until Monocrow mentioned it.” The conversation has once again looped back to Syobai and his actions earlier today thanks to Yoruko’s words. Teruya frowns.

“Guys–”

“O-Oh no…! Everyone’s fighting!” Iroha said, using her sketchbook as a shield to cover her terrified face.

“D-Don’t worry, Iroha. I’m sure no one else will try to kill like Yuki said.” Setsuka steps closer to the painter to gently pat her back.

“Can you really say that for sure?” Kanade turns her attention to the billiards player, her usual soft voice devoid of a stutter.

“I, well…” Setsuka hesitates, her calm demeanor quickly melting from the sudden prod. Kanade flattens her gaze.

“Setsuka…Y-You shouldn’t go around saying things you don’t believe.”

“I – I do mean what I said. It’s just…”

“Setsuka, don’t kid yourself. You don’t trust anyone here just like everyone else.”

“Well, what makes you trustworthy??”

“What – I’m a journalist, Hibiki! It’s my job to find the truth!”

“Ha! Truth means nothing in journalism! All that matters is the gossip you spin in the most interesting way, regardless of the evidence.”

“OH, you son of a–”

“Yuri, if you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’m going to fucking punch you–”

“Try it, you despicable male. I have ways of making you cry for help.”

“W-Wait, that’s too much!”

“Oh no…”

“St-Stop…guuuys, the positivity is sinking…!”

“How can we be positive in a situation like this??”

“I-I…I don’t know! I just want everyone to get along, Yoruko!”

Teruya grits his teeth.

“...You know what? I can’t deal with this, I’m leaving–”

“GUYS!”

“THAT’S ENOOOOOUGH!”

Teruya jumps along with everyone else. The loud, boisterous voice boomed throughout the infirmary and it was no shock to anyone that it belonged to Shinji Kasai. He was pointing at them all and bringing attention to his red, exasperated face. Even Emma, who was about to step out of the group, froze in place. Once everyone was paying attention to him, Shinji lowers his pointer finger and waves towards Teruya.

“Teruya is trying to speak! ” Shinji said, suddenly bringing the spotlight onto the amnesiac. Teruya gaped but it was too late to stop him. They all turned to stare at him now, wondering what in the world he had to say in a situation like this.

And…what could he say, now that he had the stage to himself?

Sure, he was trying to get everyone’s attention. But now that he has it with the help of Shinji, Teruya has absolutely no idea what to say.

But…does it matter that he has no idea what to do?

It’s not like doing nothing is an option.

So, he had to do something.

He had to take a deep breath. Because there are people who were looking at him for some kind of help, even if he couldn't provide everything they needed. People that he needed to guide in some kind of direction.

And so, he breathes in.

And breathes out.

“...Thank you, Shinji.” Teruya said, somehow managing to keep his voice stable without stuttering. The firefighter gives him a grin, one that felt almost encouraging from how bright it seemed. He takes another breath to calm his racing heart. “Guys…I know everything has gone to shit. I’m not gonna pretend that it didn’t. But, that doesn’t mean we should be going at each other’s throats like this.”

“B-But…” Hibiki starts but Teruya stops her with a raise of his hand.

“Be honest with me, you guys. Do you really think arguing and insulting each other will get any of us anywhere?” Teruya lets those words hang over them for a while. It seems like such an obvious thing to realize, but with how high everyone’s emotions were running, none of them seemed to realize the impact of their words until they had this moment to pause and think. They all started exchanging glances with each other, and while Yuri still seemed a little miffed, shame became more visible on everyone’s faces. Teruya sighs. “This…killing game. It’s dangerous. I know that. But instead of hurting each other with words and forming grudges that could get each other killed, we should be working together to escape the killing game. And we can’t do that if we’re constantly accusing each other. Yes, we’re strangers, but that doesn’t mean we’re enemies either. So…the better scenario would be to get along, right?”

The group goes quiet, unpacking the words he spoke. Emma is the first to speak.

“I…don’t know about this.” She admits with a hand on her hip, unable to look anyone in the eye. Teruya starts to deflate.

Of course.

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to–

“No.” Teruya snaps his head towards Setsuka, her voice strong in her resolve. “No, he’s right. We may be strangers, but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies either. If we fight with each other, that’s only playing into Kokoro’s hands and thus, this killing game’s end goal. Whatever that is, but surely you guys get what I’m saying, right?”

“I-I do.” Shinji agrees, albeit with a stutter. He puts his hands on his hips and puffs out his chest. “We don’t know what that goal is, but this killing game was made to get us to kill each other, right? That means we can’t let ourselves fall victim to it by fighting. We need to stay strong!” He punches his hand, showing off his shark-like teeth as he smiles.

“Yeah, exactly, big guy!” Setsuka then laughs, her carefree attitude somehow managing to help defuse the tension that has gathered in the atmosphere. “Geez, this is so unlike me! Your Big Sis needing comfort and inspiration from her juniors…Usually, it’s the other way around!”

“Uh, Setsuka? We’re all the same age.” Yuki points out a little flatly.

“Actually, I think Shinji is the oldest out of everyone here.” Hajime said with a raised eyebrow as he turned to look at the firefighter. “Weren’t you held back for a few years due to an injury?”

“Details, details!” Setsuka was quick to brush it off before Shinji could answer. Not that he seemed willing to as her voice was enough to make his face turn a brighter shade of red. Weird. Why does he keep doing that? “What matters is what we do next and that we do it together. Right, Teru?”

“Uh…” Teruya felt himself stiffened at the nickname. It made his heart sink but he tried to keep his focus on the task at hand. “Yeah. Yeah, we should…” Teruya’s eyes wander over everyone in the room and he realizes something: they all had this tired look in their eyes. Not only that, their injuries were probably aching now that the situation had calmed down somewhat. “...Actually, we should all rest. We’re all hurt and beaten emotionally…and I think we’re all still processing what the hell just happened, right?”

“Y-Yeah…” Kanade murmured quietly.

“Everything was happening all at once, huh?” Yoruko’s arms hang by her side as she closes her eyes.

“A killing game, Kokoro’s betrayal, those people, um, gone, Mikado’s fight, and then Hashimoto’s attempted murder…” Iroha pauses before her eyes start to swirl. “Auuugh, just thinking about it makes my head dizzy.”

“Yeaaaaah, that’s definitely a sign we should take the rest of the night off.” Hajime agrees without much fuss. He rubs his shoulder and then cringes. “ Yep , definitely pulled a muscle. Doesn’t seem too bad, though.”

“Then the first thing we should do is find a place to sleep then. We can talk more about this in the morning.” Everyone should calm down by then. Hopefully.

“Yeah…uh, guys?” Nikei starts to speak up. Everyone turns their attention to the journalist, who quietly sinks back into his bed with a blush. “...sorry. For yelling earlier.”

“Ehh…don’t worry about it. I wasn’t exactly handling this very well either.” Hajime said, accepting his apology without another thought.

“Hmph…I still don’t like any of the men here.” Yuri said, which causes everyone to groan. When he notices that the girls were glaring at him, he simply smiles as he points to the ceiling. “But, I will let this slide and follow along.”

“Good. Freak…” Hibiki mutters that last part, but Teruya still managed to pick it up with how quiet the group has gotten. Which probably means everyone else heard it, too. Not that she seems to care right now. And if Yuri heard her too, he did not express any kind of disappointment.

“A lot of us certainly aren’t at our best right now, huh?” Emma said, rubbing her hand against her cheek with a chuckle. It wasn’t out of humor, but rather out of exhaustion.

“A-All the more reason we should rest! R-Right, Sis?” Kanade looks to her sister for guidance. She huffs but slowly nods her head.

“Right…But where should we go?” Hibiki curls her eyebrows, and frankly, that was a good question. Before Teruya can think on a suggestion though–

“I can help with that!”

“AH!!” Hibiki screams, immediately jumping behind her sister as if to use her as a shield. Kanade yelps as everyone’s attention is brought to Monocrow, who had reappeared out of nowhere again and had perched himself on top of the curtain. Once she realized who had spoken, the older twin gritted her teeth and pointed at the bird. “ You again?!”

“Yes, it is me again.” Monocrow said, his tone almost bored, like their reactions had started to lose their luster. “Before you all start shooing me away again, I do have some good news for you.”

“I…somehow doubt it’s as good as you claim it to be.” Yuki frowns at the bird, but Monocrow squawks indignantly.

“Oh, give me a little bit of credit! You may be in a killing game, but this is still a school field trip! Which means, as your teacher, I must accommodate you all with everything you need.” Monocrow flaps his wings before brushing one across his beak. “You all have rooms on the Monocruise: all the boys’ rooms are on the third floor, while all the girls’ rooms are on the fourth floor. I’ve already placed the name plates and pictures of yourselves onto your respective rooms. However, I have yet to arrange the necessary ‘keys’ for all of your rooms due to the rules I have yet to enforce, so they’ll be unlocked for now. Do stick to your own rooms to sleep in, though, as sleepovers will not be allowed once I give you your keys. Understood?”

“...Understood.” Setsuka crossed her arms, not too pleased that she was agreeing with him. But it doesn’t seem like they had a choice in the matter right now.

“Good. Now, if you’re all going to your rooms, I can guide you–”

“If they’re just upstairs, we can find them ourselves.” Yoruko snaps.

“Ah…hm.” Monocrow hangs his head. “It seems I’ve been stuck with the most uncooperative group of students. Oh well…” Despite his complaint, he disappears behind the curtain once more with a hop. Yuki quickly checks behind it before coming back just as fast, clearly disappointed and confused.

“I seriously have no idea how he does it.” Yuki said with a groan.

“At this point, I’d just accept it as fact, Yu.” Setsuka shrugs as she gives him a wry smile.

“I…think I’m gonna go on ahead. I’m really tired now.” Iroha starts to shuffle out of the area. Almost like she was waiting for someone to come with her.

“Why don’t we all walk there together? We’ll all be going to the same place anyways.” Hajime suggests and no one disagrees. Emma is quick to take Iroha’s side and she seemed happy that she wasn’t going alone right now. Hibiki and Kanade both looked like they were ready to leave as well, with the older sister going on ahead to wait by the door. Yuri was quick to follow after the girls, already having said his piece. Hajime leads Iroha and Emma out of the infirmary, but Setsuka lingers behind.

“Are you coming with us, Teru? It’s been a long day.” Setsuka asked, scratching the back of her head. Teruya hesitates but he looks back at Mikado and Nikei. The journalist was currently trying to find a comfortable position for himself and not make his concussion any worse. The wizard, though, remains unresponsive from the noise. Teruya frowns.

“I think I’m gonna stay here. Mikado hasn’t woken up at all despite our arguments and Nikei isn’t doing so hot. It’s probably best that someone watches over them to make sure they don’t take a turn for the worse.” Teruya said, his eyes lingering on Mikado’s form. Why hasn’t he woken up yet?

“Hm, that makes sense. Poor Kado over there had been out cold since we got here.” Setsuka agrees quietly.

“I-In that case, I’ll stay and help.” Shinji speaks up, stepping into the conversation. “I’m not a doctor or anything, but I’m probably the only one that knows first aid the best out of everyone here. If there’s any signs that they’re getting worse, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Shinji. I appreciate it.” Teruya smiled at him. He’s kinda glad that he won’t be alone taking care of these two. He’s not even sure if he knows enough about first aid to take care of them efficiently anyways.

“And I’d appreciate it if you guys would stop talking about my injury. It’s making me nervous.” Nikei speaks up from his bed, and Teruya notices the flat stare he’s shooting their way.

“Uh…sorry.” Teruya lowers his voice. “Anyways, we’ll be staying here for tonight.”

“Alright. I’ll see you guys tomorrow then.” Setsuka nods her head and then finally leaves the infirmary. The only ones left behind were…

“Um…Teruya?” Yuki speaks up, his voice a little quieter than before. Yoruko was hovering behind him as if she was waiting for a moment to speak as well. Teruya turns towards them, raising an eyebrow as Shinji goes to check up on Nikei. They weren’t completely alone, but there was some space between them that gave the implication that it felt more like a private conversation. “Before we go, um…I just wanna say thank you, for protecting me.”

“Huh?” Teruya blinks his eyes. Yoruko giggles at his expression.

“You don’t have to look so surprised. Every time there seemed to be danger, you kept jumping in to protect someone.” Yoruko smiles at him, her eyebrows curling downward as she holds her fist over her chest. “Like when those bombs went off, you held me close and took the brunt of the explosions. You guided me away when…when that mech appeared. And when the fight broke out between Kokoro and Mikado, you shielded me again.”

“Yeah, and you also stopped Hashimoto from stabbing me. Seriously, if you hadn’t, I…might not be here right now.” Yuki closes his eyes, adjusting his tie as he visibly starts to shake. “Seriously. Thank you.”

“O-Oh, um…” Teruya can’t help but blush. Not gonna lie, he feels a little bit embarrassed from the praise he’s getting. “I-It’s no problem! Honestly, I was just following my instincts.”

“Then that just means you’re more than willing to risk your life if it means keeping others safe.” Yuki then smiles at him. “That alone is admirable.”

“Right? Not everyone is able to act on their instincts alone. You have a strong sense of responsibility, you know?” Yoruko’s expression softens as her smile grows a little bigger. Teruya feels his blush growing hotter.

“N-Now you guys are just stroking my ego!” Teruya starts shooing them away with his hands. “Go on! Go to your rooms! Before you let my ego go to my head.”

“Haha, alright, alright. We’ll go. See you in the morning, Teruya. Shinji.” Yuki said, thankfully deciding to stop right then and there.

“Oh, yeah. See you tomorrow, Yuki!” Shinji pulls his attention away from Nikei, who seems to have fallen asleep now. He then notices Yoruko still standing there and starts to blush again. “A-And you, too…Y-Yoruko.”

“See you tomorrow. Be safe, both of you.” Yoruko nods her head towards them and the two of them leave the infirmary. Now that they are alone together, Teruya brings his attention to Mikado’s unconscious body.

“I’m going to check on Mikado’s injuries. Do you mind helping me, Shinji?” Teruya asked as he approached Mikado. He still doesn’t stir, even as he stands beside the bed.

“Sure. We should check his bones first. It didn’t seem like anything was broken or fractured, but it’s best that we double check.” Shinji takes the other side, carefully holding up Mikado’s arm and gently adding pressure to it. Teruya hesitates, his hand hovering over him.

“...Sorry, Mikado. But this is to make sure you’re okay.” Teruya said, copying Shinji’s actions on his side of the bed. They were careful to examine his body and it doesn’t seem like anything was broken from what he could tell. There were some bruises, but it's somewhat expected from the fall Mikado had taken at the end of his fight. Otherwise, there didn't seem to be any bumps or depressions. His breathing seemed fairly normal, and his skin looks okay, too. Although the wizard was covered from head to toe in clothes, so Teruya couldn't say for certain. He definitely wasn't going to strip him just to check, though. He just did not have the confidence to do that. Shinji didn’t seem concerned on his end, but he didn’t seem relieved either. If anything, he was frowning and a sweat drop was forming on his cheek. “...Anything weird on your end?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Not that I can tell, at least…” Shinji, who was checking Mikado’s leg, shakes his head as he sets it back down. He didn’t seem pleased with his own response and he was a lot quieter than usual. “If I was a doctor, I’d probably have a more concrete answer than this…But I’m just a firefighter. I only know first aid. Anything beyond that is…yeah.” He hangs his head helplessly. Something that Teruya related to a lot in just those few words.

“Yeah, I, uh, don’t know what I’m doing either. I’m certain that I know first aid but I don’t think I know anything else either.” Teruya admits quietly.

“Hey, I think it’s great that you know first aid! Not everyone knows the basics, and it’s a pretty overlooked skill since many people live normal lives. But you never know what could happen that makes that knowledge useful! You could end up saving a life or your own if more people took that seriously.” Shinji said, complimenting him on his knowledge, despite how small it was. Teruya, once again, felt himself turn bashful.

“Uh, hehe…Geez, what’s with everyone complimenting me lately?” Teruya turns away, glancing at Mikado’s face. He stares at his mask before leaning over. “I’m gonna check his head. He might’ve hit it pretty hard from his fall to still be unconscious like this.”

“You’re probably right. I just hope it’s nothing too serious.” Shinji agrees as Teruya carefully holds Mikado’s head. Again, nothing seems to be broken, but there definitely seems to be a bruise forming on his scalp. He grimaces.

“Is there another ice pack we can use? I think there's a bruise.” Teruya asked, raising his head.

“I think so. Let me go get one.” Shinji heads over to the fridge to grab what they need. As he does so, Teruya quietly brushes a stray strand of hair out of Mikado’s face as he examines it. It was then that he noticed that there were some shards of the mask dusting his face. He frowns before carefully brushing the remains off, and then he grabs a hold of the mask so he could chip the sharp pieces off. It’s best if he checked to see if there were any bruises underneath anyways.

When he removed the mask, though, he nearly dropped it altogether.

On Mikado’s face was a scar, one that was old and had faded with time but stood out with its dark complexion and taut skin. It was a large one that stretched from his jaw and cheeks to right underneath his eye and was chaotic in shape. And when Teruya moves Mikado’s head to look at it better, he notices that it even reached his neck and down to his chest.

It was a scar that surprised Teruya as he had never noticed them until now. Not until Mikado’s cape and hat needed to be removed to help him be more comfortable in bed. Just how did he get this scar? Were there more of them? Do they still hurt?

Was Mikado…ever distressed looking at them, at the scars he’ll always have to see, even when he didn’t wear that mask all the time?

“Here you go, Teruya!” Teruya flinches, pulled out of his thoughts as an ice pack wrapped in a rag comes into view. He looks up, making eye contact with Shinji before slowly taking the ice pack from him. “How is he?”

“I think…he’ll be fine.” Teruya carefully sets the ice pack where the bruise was on Mikado’s head. As he and Shinji adjust his position into something that should be more comfortable for him, the amnesiac swallows quietly. “Um…Shinji? These scars…”

“Yeah, they seem to be burn scars.” Shinji said, which only confirmed his suspicions. He had seen what they look like thanks to the firefighter showing him his scar when they were getting ready for the beach, and seeing a photo of one of his own on his back. Now that moment feels so far away. “They seem to be old, though, so I don’t think we have to worry about them right now.”

“Okay…” Teruya adjusts the ice pack to make sure it doesn’t fall off of Mikado’s head. This time, it gets him a reaction, albeit a minor one as Mikado’s eyes twitch but does nothing else. He sighs, hoping his friend will wake up soon. “...Now what?”

“Well, we wait and keep watch.” Shinji picks up a nearby chair and moves it over to Nikei’s side so he could keep an eye on him while Teruya keeps an eye on Mikado. The amnesiac slowly nods his head in agreement and slides a chair over to himself as well. The two of them sit down in their chairs and…wait.

They wait and wait. Even as Teruya slowly chips away at the mask with his fingernails to smooth out the edges, he waits. Even when he is done and sets it onto a table, he waits. He waits, watching over their two friends to make sure they’re alright. That their injuries don’t turn for the worst.

Teruya takes a deep breath.

It was strange how things have just…calmed down now.

After everything that had happened, he was sure there would still be chaos. That there would still be fighting and yelling and everyone turning against each other.

And yet, even that didn’t last very long. The minute there was even a moment of peace, everyone was more willing to talk, to be reasoned with and chose to turn in for the night instead of continuing to fight simply because it was exhausting . It had been a very, very long day and Teruya would want nothing more than to sleep right then and there.

But Teruya couldn’t sleep.

He had to watch Mikado and Nikei. He had to make sure they were alright.

He had to make sure they didn't die .

Die like Rei Mekaru, her body now a bloody, twisted mess of bullets.

His mouth goes dry.

Teruya slowly pulls his backpack off, not only because it was uncomfortable to sit with it on like this, but also to dig through it. There wasn’t much inside so pulling out the bloody ID was very easy but also mind numbing. He stares at it and starts rubbing at the dried blood with his thumb in a vain attempt to clean it up. To try and restore what is forever lost.

Because even as he tried to remember her face, all he could think about was the fear in her eyes before the blood and gore tainted his vision of her. That was all he could think about. That was all he could see .

Because he doesn’t remember Rei Mekaru.

But she remembered him .

She had memories of him, probably hung out with him. Talked with him, learned with him, perhaps even laughed with him even though the idea alone made him want to chuckle.

Rei Mekaru knew Teruya Otori. She knew him, looked at him almost softly like he was the only other person that mattered right now, and seemed hurt when all he could do was reject her for his lack of memories. She claimed to have come to rescue him along with everyone else. And after what had happened with Kokoro, he fully believed her words to be true now.

But now, she is dead.

Dead, just like her companion that seemed equally familiar with him.

Someone that knew him, that could’ve given him the answers of who he is, is dead.

Rei…who was probably his friend …was dead.

It was then that the grief hit him full force.

Teruya lets out a shaky breath.

It didn’t stop his entire body from shuddering.

His hands gripped the ID tightly, the plastic digging into his skin.

He tries to swallow, but ends up gasping instead. His vision blurred and he tried to blink it away. All that did was release the tears from his eyes and they started to stream down his face. He pants and heaves, trying to remain in control of his body as the world starts to fade away.

A chair scrapes against the floor.

Footsteps walk past the beds.

And then a pair of strong, muscular arms wrapped around his shoulders.

Shinji Kasai, who was loud and inspiring with his words, was silent as he hugged him.

And he didn’t need to say anything. All he needed to do was to hold him close.

Teruya held onto Shinji’s arms tightly to the point that his nails dug deep into his skin. He still held the ID in his hand for that was all he had left of Rei Mekaru.

And he cries.

He cries into the night, a loud, sobbing mess. And it was the only sounds that could be heard in the infirmary before that, too, fades away.

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lilisette · 1 year

Text

more thaemine stuff because i am down bad for a.... man?? that barely appears in the game

this is a thaemine x summoner mc fic idea that i will get to writing one day (hopefully)

inspired by hiroeb/gogopierogi's post on thaemine :) thank you for feeding my thaemine brainrot

so some basic info first:

no one knows his exact origins, aside from him appearing out of nowhere in petrania and proceeds to conquer half of it

no one knows his purpose for doing so either, why he fights and why he even agrees to be a legion commander when kazeros offers him a position

a predominant theory kr players have about thaemine is that he is zosma's, the god of chaos and ruler of petrania before kazeros came along, chaos shard, a part of his soul

with that out of the way.. heres the thaemine x summoner mc au

summoners can summon pets, elementals, and even ancient spirits (eg jahia, ligheas) to help them

so what if thaemine, a part of zosma's soul, is an ancient spirit? (that would also mean kadan is also one but we are not about to go into that)

being a soul fragment, that would mean that half of himself is missing because he is incomplete

a void of emptiness gnawing at him from the inside ever since he came into existence and he hates it, like hes missing something but he doesnt know what it is

its why hes been fighting for so long, to fill in that void of darkness and maybe find something or someone that could patch the void

accepts kazeros' offer because he thought maybe itll fix whatever is missing in him, but nope, doesnt work

this goes on until feiton, where he meets mc the first time

feels a weird pull to them, an affinity of some sorts and for the first time in centuries he feels that void of darkness within him ebbing away and hes curious

learns that mc is a summoner, who has ancient spirits, beings similar to him, by their side and he wonders. would being their summon fill that void?

but he doesnt act immediately, rather, he watches them closely to see if theyre worth his time and power

this goes on for a while, and the more time passes, the more intriguied he is by them

mc's summons warn mc of thaemine's interest because they are similar (ancient spirits) and can somewhat tell whenever a spirit is interested in courting a summoner to be theirs

mc being hyper aware now because of it, being on guard if some unfamiliar creature appears close by because thats how spirits observe their intended, to see if they are worthy before approaching

in hindsight mc shouldve told azena about this, but doesnt because they dont want to worry the sidereals in case its nothing altogether

everything comes to a head during thaemine's raid, at the very end

thaemine thinking mc is the perfect choice after observing them for a while, a strong summoner who isnt fearful of him, who could hold on their own against him

mc having a lapse in attention and gets separated from the sidereals, gets chain bound and the two finally talk

thaemine offering mc his aid against kazeros, to not go against them and not harm anyone they see dear if they accept him as a summon

with a catch of course.

mc is used to this because summons usually would ask for something in return if they are to be their summon, like mana, food, offerings, depends on the summon

so when thaemine asks for part of their soul... well that comes as a shock.

there are many cautionary tales told to summoners, to never give up your soul, not even a sliver of it because that means the summon owns you now, changing the power dynamic from balanced to the summon owning the summoner

and having your soul owned by one of the most powerful beings in existence is never a good thing.

but what choice does mc have? thaemine has a point; kazeros is infinitely more powerful than they are, than the god who thaemine was part of milennia ago and there is no guarantee that they will find the lost ark to counter kazeros in time

and thus mc accepts his aid, selling their soul to what many call the devil

instead of all the horrible things the tales warned them of, like telling them to do things theyd never do, to harm people or their other summons, thaemine kneels in front of them and leaves his mark on them by grabbing their hand and caressing it, a tattoo then forming on the back of their hand

he sets mc free, puts them back where the sidereals are and leaves, and now mc has to deal with the aftermath of being thaemine's summoner, of all things

there might be plotholes because im still fleshing this idea out and yeah im ngl this is just one giant excuse for me to write thaemine smut (cough mana sharing ala fate stay night for example cough)

edit: more ideas related to this au in the reblogs :)

#lost ark #lostark #lost ark thaemine #yeah brainrot on full force #if you see this cama i blame you for this insane brainrot 100% (affectionate)#cant believe im down bad for this guy who barely has 10 mins of screentime in game wtf #but yeah feel free to tell me what you think about this au or ask if something doesnt make sense

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dragonmuse · 2 years

Note

For the smut prompts or just a usual ask—the various AUs where Izzy, Lucius, and Eddy (or maybe even Stede!) end up in a polycule together, could you see a three/foursome developing? And/or would love to see some Steddy Hands smut.

(How ‘bout another first kiss ‘verse, some SteddyHands for thee. Their second time altogether:)

Eddy and Izzy’s sex had a routine. They figured out how to effectively get each other off early on. If Eddy was in the mood, she reached for Izzy, grabbed the nearest limb and squeezed hard until Izzy gasped, tilted his head back at the right angle for Eddy to bite his neck like a blunt-toothed, but determined vampire. He had a near permanent hickey at this point that he never hid. There would be some groping, rutting. Sometimes it would end right there, pressed against whatever surface they were nearest, or sometimes they’d make it to the bedroom and Izzy would wrap his legs around Eddy’s waist in silent request and she’d give him what he wanted with ruthless desire.

Stede didn’t work like that. Izzy knew it. Eddy knew it. They sort of tried it the first time anyway and Stede had gone along with it, but hadn’t looked thrilled.

“I think we gotta go slow,” Eddy whispered to Izzy while stroking a sleeping Stede’s hair after. “He likes all that romance and shit.”

“Gross,” Izzy groused.

“It’s not,” Eddy determined. “We’ll make it good.”

So the next night, Izzy tugged Stede into bed when he tried to pretend like he might go back to his own lonely mattress.

“Come here,” Izzy demanded, but when Stede hesitated, Izzy sighed, “Please.”

“Oh,” Stede glanced at Eddy, who smiled and reached out a hand.

“C’mere, we’ll be good,” Eddy promised.

“No, we won’t,” Izzy watched Stede take Eddy’s hand. “But you’ll like it.”

“I liked last night,” Stede said quietly. “Truly.”

“Yeah, but me and Iz do things one way. Maybe you like it another,” Eddy pulled him closer. “Let us try, huh?”

Stede went, laying down between them. Eddy kissed him sweetly, so softly. Izzy traced a hand over Stede’s arm, as Eddy settled into a good long makeout. Kissing Stede was different. Izzy kissed like a harsh request. Stede kissed like he knew the answer, but he wasn’t telling.

“Go on,” Eddy said when it was getting a little hard to think straight. “Iz, give him a kiss.”

Izzy didn’t need to be told twice. Stede rolled onto his back and Izzy swarmed over him, hands sliding into Stede’s golden hair without hesitation. Eddy watched hungrily as they devoured each other. At one point, Stede gave a hard shove and Izzy went over like he couldn’t keep Stede down with one hand tied behind his back.

Their places switched and Stede started a thorough investigation, tugging Izzy's shirt up and over his head, tossing it away. Then his hands slid down Izzy’s chest, over the spot on his ribs that always made Izzy twitch.

“Ticklish?” Stede paused.

“Scar tissue,” Eddy explained, reaching over to curve Stede’s fingers over the slightly raised line. “Can feel a little weird to the touch.”

“Sorry, my dear,” Stede said to Izzy.

“I do not fucking care,” Izzy bit off and bucked up against him.

“Yeah, you can go hard on him if you want,” Eddy laughed. “But I told him we’re playing nice, huh? Go a little easier.”

“No one needs to go easy for me,” Stede snapped and Izzy gave a deep moan. Stede’s fingers had dug in a little, leaving behind pink half moons on Izzy’s skin.

“Oh hey now,” Eddy sat up. “Not because you can’t take it. Just want you to like it. Seemed not to last night.”

“I liked it a lot,” the tone was a little hurt and Eddy frowned.

“But you looked...upset? Kind of. Even Izzy noticed.”

It was a bit of an insult, but good ole Izzy was already whacked out and attempting to get Stede to scratch him again by laying very still and looking at him very hard. Fuck. It was a good thing they’d found each other. Who else would learn to read the world’s most impenetrable language?

‘“It was my first time,” Stede sighed. “I was trying to sort out what I was meant to be doing. Nothing you did was bad. Most of it was really good. I...you both made me feel very good.”

Then idly as if it was a continuation of the sentence, Stede raked his hand down Izzy’s chest, leaving a streak of marks. Izzy’s head snapped back, a feral grin as he met Eddy’s eyes.

...maybe not the most impenetrable. Okay then.

“Maybe I want it softer,” Eddy said quietly, reaching down to cup Izzy’s neck, let him feel the press of their fingers there. “Sometimes.”

“Oh, Eddy,” Stede breathed out. “I can do that. I bet Izzy could too.”

“Uh huh,” Izzy said vaguely.

With care, Eddy fisted a hand into Izzy’s hair and pulled. The grin didn’t leave, but his eyes slammed closed. Then she leaned forward to kiss Stede slowly. He met her halfway and it was so good she could cry.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Stede confessed.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Eddy snorted. “Fuck, you’re a dream.”

“Izzy,” Stede glanced down at him, “what do you want?”

“Dunno,” Izzy slurred out. “Hand, mouth, fucking anything. I’ll do anything.”

“He’s got a good mouth,” Eddy dropped down to kiss Izzy. Familiar and beloved. He kissed back, holding them there with just one hand fisted in her t-shirt. “I’ve got you.”

“I know,” he sighed and released her.

Eddy sat back up, trying to decide how best to direct the scene, when Stede said,

“How about you lay down, Eddy, let Izzy show me how to make you feel good? ”

Just...lay back? Eddy blinked, then grinned.

“Yeah, I think I can do that. What do you think, Iz? You up for the tutorial?”

Izzy nodded, then paused, “You gotta get off of me first.”

“Oh, right,” Stede laughed and slid off of Izzy with a careless pat to his thigh. “Carry on.”

Eddy expected Izzy to just go for it, a practical demonstration. But instead, he knelt beside Eddy, waited for her to lay down then reached out and swept a tendril of hair out of her face.

“They like if you bite their lower lip, not the top. Not hard enough to break skin,” Izzy said measured, like he hadn’t just been a wreck from one swipe of Stede’s nails.

“Yeah,” Eddy agreed. “You do that..then the tongue over it.”

Izzy leaned down and did exactly that. Nipped at her bottom lip and then coasted the tip of his tongue over the tiny hurt until she shivered.

“You can kiss their neck, but not bite,” Izzy advised and did that too, one hand lightly cupping her shoulder. “Left side. Right side is ticklish.”

“It is?” Eddy blinked and then Izzy kissed the right side and she cringed a little, trying to scoot away. “Oh fuck it is.”

“Very educational,” Stede grinned. “Go on.”

“Don’t use it against me,” Eddy tried to sound threatening, but it came out a little wobbly as Izzy continued his lesson by shoving at her shirt until her chest was exposed, then flicked his tongue over her nipple. “Sensitive. You can play with ‘em, but not for too long or they get annoyed.”

“Feels weird,” Eddy agreed.

“I don’t think mine feel a thing,” Stede shed his own shirt and pinched at his own nipple experimentally which was quite a thing to watch. Izzy had paused to observe that. “No, not really.”

“Huh,” Eddy swallowed, wiggling the rest of the way of her shirt. If they were going to be half-naked, so was she.

“...right,” Izzy turned his attention back to Eddy with a twitch of a smile, gave their other nipple a bit of a glancing lick then kept moving down. “Grabbing at the hips is good. Ribs is not.”

“Love when you do that.”

“Yeah?” Izzy fitted his palms over the points of her hips. “Really?”

“You just said I did.”

“I....yeah,” deep inhalation, exhaled sharply and then Izzy got to work on skimming Eddy out of pajama bottoms. No underwear. They both usually slept naked, the clothes a courtesy the last few weeks to Stede crawling into bed with them.

“I see,” Stede had more room with Izzy around Eddy’s waist and he used to it to lay down beside Eddy. “I didn’t...is it okay to look?”

“Yeah, you’re hopefully gonna hang out a lot,” Eddy grinned and pulled him for a kiss. “Get an eyeful.”

Apparently Izzy decided it was finally time for practical demonstration only. Though he was showing off a little, laving his tongue on the underside of Eddy’s cock, giving her a look under sooty lashes to make sure they were both paying attention.

“Go on,” Eddy reached down to cup the back of his head.

Giving head was something they’d both been kind of freaked out about in the beginning. Maybe Eddy should tell Stede that some day, away from where Izzy might hear. How handjobs had been easy, but that had felt like a bridge to cross and it had to be Eddy first, more fearless always, no matter how much Izzy tried to range ahead to put himself between her and what came for them.

Of course, these days Iz was fucking aces at it and he swallowed her down, the challenge in his eyes disappearing into heavy lidded bliss.

“That’s beautiful,” Stede said in her ear.

Eddy was too busy melting into the covers to reply. Stede kissed the left side of her neck and brushed his thumb just once over her nipple.

Her orgasm hit her like her truck and she felt a little bad for bucking into Izzy’s throat, but he just held on and swallowed down around her which felt fucking amazing.

“I think I’ve learned a little bit,” Stede decided. “Izzy, can I experiment on you?”

“What?” Izzy croaked and he sounded a little raw.

“Well, I don’t think Eddy would like another go just now.”

“Could do it,” they muttered. “Just...need a minute.”

“Of course,” Stede kissed her then reached down for Izzy, holding out both hands. “Come on, let me try.”

Izzy took his hands and let himself be pulled up, then pressed down. Stede studied him,

“I’d like another full tour, but perhaps later.”

“Do anything,” Izzy muttered, throwing his arm up over his face, hiding his eyes.

“He means it,” Eddy did reach out and trailed a hand down the path Stede had scratched. “But don’t.”

“I won’t,” Stede breathed out. “I wouldn’t.”

What Stede did do was get Izzy out of his boxers and study him for a moment. Then he wrapped a hand around Izzy’s cock and gave it one full stroke.

“Not so different,” Stede decided and then shimmied down the bed. “Now, I need feedback, Izzy. Tell me what works for you and what doesn’t.”

“Fuck,” Izzy muttered. “Eddy...”

“He can’t do that,” Eddy supplied. “Loses brain function when he’s horny. Listen to the moans, there as good as a compass.”

One thing about Stede, he did love to learn and he paid attention when it was a subject he was interested in. After an aborted first attempt where he gagged a little, he reapplied himself and within a minute gained some confidence. The tiny broken moans that Eddy loved to coax out of Izzy started breaking over his lips. He was holding himself so still.

“S’good,” Eddy turned onto her side. It had been hot to have Stede in her ear, they gambled that Izzy would like it too. “You look so fucking hot like this.”

A louder moan was pulled from Izzy’s throat. Eddy reached for his wrist, pulled the arm away from his face. His eyes found theirs, magnets cracking back together.

“Eddy...” he breathed out, unsteady.

“I know. Can’t wait to have those pretty pink lips give me a turn. Does it feel as good as when I do it?”

“Different,” Izzy managed, before Stede must’ve done something good, tearing his attention back.

“Warn him if you’re going to,” Eddy reminded him.

Izzy nodded, holding out for another minute before managing a, “Stede...” and when that didn’t get his attention, fumbling down and tugging at Stede’s hair.

“What?” Stede pulled off with a loud pop dazed. “Did I-”

Izzy came, back arching up off the bed then falling back down with a groan.

“Oh,” Stede reached up, finding come on his face. That was going in Eddy's memory box for solo time. “I- did I do it right?”

“Yeah,” Eddy laughed and handed him their own discarded t-shirt. “That’s kind of the goal.”

“Good,’ Stede grinned and gave Izzy’s thigh an affectionate pat. Izzy was staring at the ceiling, a little blankly.

“What do you want?” Eddy asked. “And you should take off your underwear. Seems kind of silly at this point.”

“Of course,” Stede realized. He rolled off the bed and pushed them off.

His cock bobbed upward. Eddy had gotten their hand on it last night, but seeing it was something else altogether. Before they can bang two thoughts together, Izzy croaked.

“Fuck me.”

“Are you...” Stede frowned. “Is that an invitation or just an exclamation?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Izzy said vaguely. “Eddy?”

“All yours, I don’t even know how you’re up for it right now.”

“Not dead, that’s how.”

“An invitation then?” Stede smiled brightly. “I can wait.”

Izzy growled in annoyance.

“I think you’re good,” Eddy laughed.

It was a trip and a half talking Stede through getting Izzy ready. Stede just couldn’t accept that Izzy didn’t need more than some lube and a hard bite that Eddy happily administered.

“Not everything is a puzzle,” Izzy snapped. “Some time before I fucking pass out would be amazing.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Stede said liked that pleased him and finally got between Izzy’s legs.

Usually they did this with Izzy on his stomach, Eddy wrapping around him. Even when Izzy was fucking Eddy, Eddy was on top. Maybe with Stede, Eddy could lay down and let him explore. That’d be fun.

For tonight though, Eddy got the best live action porn they could’ve ever imagined. Stede, blushing from his cheeks all the way down to his chest, shaking a little, but so determined that he still managed to look confident about it, lining up and fucking into Izzy, who writhed and groaned like he was being murdered and was fucking thrilled about it.

She kissed them both as they worked at each other. Izzy’s cock valiantly rose a second time, twitching and bobbing with Stede’s rocking motions. When Eddy got to their knees to kiss Stede, she wrapped a hand around it, squeezing around the head.

“Excellent multitasking.” Stede offered as they pulled away for a breath. “How do I stop from coming before he does?”

“Eh, I can jerk him off. It’s your first time, do whatever.”

“Oh thank God,” Stede shuddered out a breath, then kicked into some new higher gear. Eddy jerked Izzy off, but he barely needed the help coming with a raw, pained sound as Stede buried himself for the last time and rocked like someone had pulled out his spine through his cock.

“That is so mine next time,” Eddy decided, lifting their hand to their mouth and idly licking away Izzy’s contributions to their general disarray.

“Yes...” Stede sort of sagged onto the bed then fell over. “I’d like that.”

In later years, that would be everyone's cue to get up and get cleaned, before righting the bed and maybe replacing the sheets. But they weren’t there yet and instead, they piled under the covers. Eddy in the middle with Izzy’s back pressed to her side, closest to the door, and Stede with his arm flung over their chest, far enough to cup Izzy’s hip.

This was what Eddy wanted, they decided. This and only this for the rest of their life.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #smut night all right

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