#narration: he is not fine and it Gets Worse

[recurring-polynya]

Ranking my Habitual POV Characters, from Easiest to Hardest to Write

Renji. Too easy, actually. He's a yapper. I love him, tho, he is my favorite narrator and I would never write anyone else if I could get away with it.

Byakuya. I hate this for me, too. He is a man of few words, but internally, he is also a giant yapper. Uses all the fun words you can't use irl or people will know you are autistic, like "repast" and "phantasmagorical".

Orihime. Also very fun to write! Sometimes insists on honorifics. A minor yapper.

Uryuu. Easy, but not exactly fun to write. I just gotta let my brain go into full-anxiety mode and ride the wave. It works, but, like. I write fanfiction so I don't have to listen to my brain's anxiety barf, please and thank you.

Rukia (present day). She would be a lot lower on this list if I didn't have a ton of practice and spend twenty hours a day thinking about her.

Ichigo. I don't write him very much because he's already got a whole manga about him, but he is fine and remarkably well-behaved as characters go. Also an internal yapper, worse than Orihime but not as bad as Renji.

Hinamori. The only problem with Hinamori is that she uses an entirely different naming scheme for everyone she knows than anyone else on this list and also often insists on honorifics.

Chad. Very pleasant to write, but much slower than other characters because he very carefully considers everything he wants to say before he says it, including his own internal narration. Says exactly what he means to say, no more, no less.

Kira. I am perfectly neutral on writing Kira-POV, I just think he's more fun from the outside looking in.

Have I ever written a Hitsugaya pov? I don't remember, but I feel like he should go here.

Inuzuri Rukia. What happens to Inuzuri Rukia is no one's business but her own. It is certainly not mine, the author.

Ikkaku. The problem is that I am a yapper, so every time I write Ikkaku having any sort of insight or introspection, I have to roll it back at least twice. His narration is just the thoughts that occur to him, completely in the moment, absent any sort of analysis. I could never. Doesn't use any of the fun words. Writing Kenpachi-dialogue is this, but even moreso, which is why I avoid him as much as reasonably possible.

(if you're a fanficcer and want to make your own list, please do!)

[klausinamarink]

One Kid Gone, Another Up and Vanished (part 7)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 next: Part 8

spoilers but a phone call gets through!

“You’re a thousand percent sure?”

Mike groans as he checks down the school halls, “Yes, Lucas. How many times do I gotta tell you that?”

“Well, maybe until I’m positive that we’re not having a collective auditory hallucination or the weirdo isn’t tricking us.” Lucas crosses his arms. Beside Dustin, El mutters “auditory hallucination” to herself with furrowed eyebrows.

“You guys hear that?!” Dustin exclaims too loudly, earning equally loud shushes. “Sorry, but El just said a scientific word without mispronouncing it! She really does have superpowers…”

“Not now, Dustin.” Mike hushes as they finally get to the AV club. He unlocks the door and lets everyone inside after peeking in. He guides El to sit in front of the radio while Lucas and Dustin turn it on.

Dustin won’t lie - he’s super excited to see El use her powers for the radio. He couldn’t believe it when she made Will’s voice come out. Will! Alive and singing!

But he’s still confused over Mike’s news of Will being with someone named Eddie. Eddie who? is their biggest question but El can’t say because she doesn’t know his last name or how to describe him.

“He’s a friend.” She keeps telling them.

Dustin prays it’s not Eddie Tremblay from fifth grade. The little sucker doesn’t deserve to be Will’s new friend after his football landed on their rocket project last month.

“Aaaand we’re in!” He announces, hopping behind El. Mike and Lucas squish against him even though they clearly have much more space.

El closes her eyes and listens to the whining static. Then the static changes through channels, voices quickly overlapping until they get more comprehensive. Then the voices get compressed into six, four, two-

“-Control to Major Tom..”

Dustin shoots his hand forward and grabs one of the speakers. But so does Lucas and Mike and now they’re slapping each other’s hands until Lucas finally takes it and yells, “Will, can you read us? Over!”

“‘Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong..’”

At the sound of the second person, Dustin’s first thought is oh thank God, it’s not Tremblay. Then his second thought is hm, this Eddie guy sounds kinda cool. Then his third thought is oh my god, we gotta talk to Will!

“Will! Do you copy? Over!”

“Will, where are you?”

“You feeling a bit better so far?”

“Tell Eddie we’re saying hi! Who is he? Over!”

“I’m getting cold again..”

“Me too. C’mon here.”

“Will! We’re right here!”

“How the hell are they not hearing us?”

“I wish I could go home…”

“So do I…”

El gives out a painful gasp and the radio explodes into flames. Dustin manages to extinguish it before the rest of the room catches, but the fire alarm goes off.

They all stare at the now-ruined transmitter, their only chance of connecting with Will and his mysterious new friend.

—

Eddie’s definitely missing.

It’s a fact that Jeff grows more sure of every day since Wayne Munson had asked him for Eddie’s secretive hideouts.

He keeps trying to ignore the seed of dread in his stomach, but it’s impossible now with the slightly somber atmosphere in the school after the morning announcement of Will Byers’ death. The fact that Eddie hasn’t shown up for classes or in the cafeteria again today isn’t helping either.

“If Munson’s still gonna be on his bender, he should’ve at least cancelled this week’s session.”

Jeff takes a half-open Skittles bag from Maya’s tray and throws it at Evan, making the two members jump. Maya because those are her Skittles and Evan because the bag hits his chest making more pieces fly out on the table.

“Eddie’s not on a bender.” Jeff hisses at Evan. Across him, Frankie is giving him one of his Don’t-Make-This-Any-Worse looks.

Evan huffs and crosses his arms, “Oh, yeah? Then where the hell is he?”

“Definitely not on a bender of any kind!”

“Gee thanks, that clears things up.”

Jeff’s about to snap back, but Frankie discreetly kicks his leg with a warning glare. It might be a good call because Jeff doesn’t know what to say next. Another defence of Eddie, for sure, but nothing to quench the rest of the club’s antsy-ness.

“Maybe he’s gone to a concert. Like hitchhiked to Indy or Chicago?” Maya asks after picking up her spilled candy.

“But he has a van?” Daniel, the senior member of Hellfire and their current drummer, frowns pointedly.

“What concert could’ve he gone to? Is there even any band playing in this bum state?” Evan raises his eyebrows.

“I dunno, Dio?”

“They’re touring in the UK right now.” Frankie says. Jeff shoots him a bewildered look that’s the equivalent to screaming are you kidding me? Frankie gives him a Play-Along-With-It look.

“Well, that settles it.” Evan raps his knuckles on the table. “Munson’s saved a fucking ticket to the goddamned Iron Lady’s territory and is breeding chicks in Dio’s mosh pit as we speak.”

Jeff stands up, no longer feeling hungry. He throws his half-eaten sandwich at Evan. The other boy gives out a disgusted shriek as the mayonnaise hits and stains his shirt. “Dude! What-”

“Shame on you.” Jeff keeps his voice even, just quiet enough for only Hellfire to hear him. Maybe it would somehow reach Eddie wherever the hell he is right now. “The only good thing about Eddie being absent is that he isn’t ripping the skins off of you and your characters right now. Especially you, Evan.”

He stares Evan down, who visibly gulps. “Eddie took you in the club’s open arms because he saw you were a loner who needed the right people to hang out with or you would’ve been one of the bullies. And this is how you thank him?”

He looks at the rest of the members and points at them accusingly. “When Eddie comes back from whatever he’s doing, I hope that rest of y’all feel guilty for thinking he doesn’t care. Because he absolutely does.” Then he grabs his bag and leaves the cafeteria without a second thought.

Outside is chilly as usual and the breeze helps relax Jeff’s nerves. For a while at least.

He stands at the parking lot, trying to think what he should do when he hears someone running over. He looks up and groans.

“Frankie, leave me alone, man.”

“So you haven’t heard anything from Eddie?” Frankie’s voice isn’t accusing but his look might’ve been.

“No. Not since the band practice days ago.” Jeff walks away but Frankie still follows him. “Then his uncle came and asked if I knew any places Eddie frequents. I told you guys that already.”

“Doesn’t stop Evan’s stupid theories.” Frankie mutters.

“You should’ve shut him up!”

“Are you kidding? You did better than what I could’ve done.”

“Words are stronger than death looks.”

Frankie snorts. He goes quiet as they reach the end of the school parking lot. Then he says, “Are you going to search for Eddie?”

Jeff stops. Turns and stares at him. “Uh, yeah? I mean, from what he said, Wayne’s probably already doing that. So, I dunno, I’m probably gonna do the bare minimum. Like where am I going to look, dude?”

Frankie doesn’t answer. His face is strangely pale and looking at something behind Jeff. He follows his friend’s phase and feels the dread well up in his mouth when he sees a poster on a nearby telephone pole.

He doesn’t need a closer look to recognize the black and white photo of Eddie from two months ago grinning at him or the large word MISSING written in Sharpie above it.

He tries very hard not to notice that it’s stapled right below Will Byers’ already wrinkled poster.

It’s a very strong feeling to see your best friend’s missing poster a few days after you last saw him alive.

Jeff forces to tear his eyes away from Eddie’s captured monochrome cheeriness. “Know what? Fuck it. Let’s find him. Wanna start at the woods?”

—

There’s something about singing quietly in the nightscape hell mirror version of your bedroom that makes Eddie’s fingers twitch to jolt it down somewhere.

After the meltdown at the house, Will had grew more quiet. Eddie had rocked him until Will complained of motion sickness and then Eddie had held him even when they slept.

After piggybacking the kid and singing “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” (at least until Eddie admitted death by earworms and convinced a change to “Space Oddity”) on the way back to Forest Hills, Will seemed to be back in his original spirits. Still quiet but no longer on the verge of tears next to Eddie. Although his coughs started to sound more wet and shook his small frame like a leaf.

Eddie prays to god that he can speak to Wayne this time. He hopes his uncle to come up with a cooler code system than Mrs. Byers and maybe get them out somehow.

But the trailer is quiet, save for Will’s whistled breathing as he sleeps in Eddie’s arms, the old itchy quilt cocooning them both. He has to stay up. Keep a lookout for the demogorgon in this hell land and for Wayne in the real world. But he feels so tired. If he can rest his eyes for just a moment…

The sound of muffled crying wakes him up.

—

The longer Wayne stares at the posters, the bigger the impulse to rip them up grows.

After Hopper left, he had went back inside and started on making the Missing posters for Eddie. The hardest part of it had been trying to find the right photo of his nephew and he had held back tears at how much Eddie had grown. How happier he looks.

He had printed copies at the library, keeping his head down from curious and pitying eyes. Christi Waldon was nice enough not to charge him for the fees.

Then he started putting the posters up and Wayne had felt like he was making a mistake.

Nobody never said anything how difficult it is to go around town again, putting a poster with your child’s face silently begging strangers who may disliked them to find them, and to do all of this without the police helping.

Wayne had printed 100 copies. He only managed to put up 18 of them before it became too much and hurried home.

Now there’s a pile of 82 posters with Eddie’s face staring up at him on the table. Wayne can’t bring himself to rip them up no matter what his mind demands it. He has a new superstition that if he does, Eddie will never be found alive.

He checks the time. Seeing it’s only after six, he sighs heavily and takes out his cigarette. He’s briefly overcome with the memory of catching a fourteen year old Eddie trying to smoke and how his smart cookie of a nephew swallowed the lit cigarette, immediately threw up, and sobbed while Wayne had to sit down so he wouldn’t break his own ass from laughing so far. After they’d both calmed down, Wayne showed him how to smoke properly and said-

He said…

What did he say?

Something erupts from his mouth. He clamps a hand over, suddenly worrying that he just got sick. But there’s no taste of bile. Only wet salt. He takes his hand off and, ah. He’s crying.

Wayne gives a wet laugh. Then it gasps into another sob. He covers his mouth again, unable to hold the tears back.

Above him, the lights flicker.

It feels almost comforting.

Wayne sniffs, watching as the bulbs hang on to its dear life of electricity. Then one of the lamps next to the couch start flickering as well. Slow and rhythmic.

The sadness does go away, but it makes Wayne feel the back of his neck hairs stand up.

—

Eddie drops his hand from the lights, stomping over to the phone. “Fuck this, now’s the chance.”

Will glances at him from where he’s crouching by the lights, still tired from being jostled awake so soon, “Eddie?”

He turns to him and says, “Little Byers the Vanished, how does one make a landline in the Vale of Shadows?”

“You, uh, just pick it up-”

Eddie does exactly that.

“Wait! It won’t even last-!”

—

The phone rings with a shrill.

Wayne snaps his head over to it. He’s breathing slowly, watching the landline like it’s his childhood spider.

The atmosphere in his trailer feels suddenly colder. As if there are ghosts present. Waiting.

The phone rings and rings until it gets to voicemail, his gruff message for the last decade. “You’ve reached the Munsons. Leave a message after the beep.”

There’s nothing after the beep.

Wayne looks at the lights again. The ceiling light has stopped but ones over the kitchen and door are flickering this time.

The phone rings again.

He stands up slowly, walking over to the phone. It rings louder to his ears now. He tries to ignore the sudden sense of a presence behind and beside him as he picks the phone up and holds it to his ear.

He hears static as if the caller has a bad connection.

He clears his throat and speaks, “Wayne Munson speakin’.”

The static crackles with some kind of harsh breathing. It’s loud to make Wayne cringe away and hang up-

“..Wayne..”

He freezes. The anxiety vanishes in an instant. “..Eddie?” He chokes out.

“..Wayne!”

“Oh my lord…” Wayne clutches the phone closer. “You’re alive, right? Eddie! Tell me where are you!”

“..I’m-”

The phone bursts into literal shock. He drops it with a yell and it clatters to the ground, dead.

That was him. That was Eddie’s voice.

Breathing raggedly, Wayne’s gaze snaps up to the lamps flashing maniacally. The air around him feels desperate and sinks down upon him. Anxiety comes back as quick as it comes, squashing on the brief spot of hope he felt.

“Nah, fuck this.” He mutters as he swipes his keys and runs out of the door. He can’t deal with more ghosts at this hour.

—

“Nonono—NO!”

Eddie slams his hands against the lights too hard. The pulsing glass bulbs nearly crack under the pressure.

None of it stops the sound of the truck engine starting.

“Wayne, it’s me! Can’t you hear me?!” Eddie’s throat is already dry from screaming, but he doesn’t care about it. “UNCLE WAYNE! JUST STOP AND LISTEN TO ME!”

He runs outside to the ever barren yard. He tries not to think about Wayne leaving just like how his dad did in his very last visit. How he had tried to chase after his dad’s car until Wayne stopped him. How he had been a crying mess while Wayne told him that both of them will stay together from now on.

“WAYNE, PLEASE! YOU PROMISED TO STAY!”

The truck drives away, farther and farther. If Eddie can catch him-

His lungs constrict themselves again. He stumbles, scraping his knees and palms on the ground. He coughs, gulping in too many shaky breaths that almost tastes like glass shards. He calls out-

“Come back! Come back!”

It comes out as a hoarse whisper.

His throat hurts.

The truck disappears. The sounds of the trailers’ muted everyday life and his own painful wheezing replace it.

Eddie is vaguely aware of Will shuffling up next to him and wrapping his arms around his shaking shoulders.

-

Taglist: @unclewaynemunson @steves-strapcollection @hellion-child @sidekick-hero @mmmmwaffles94 @demolitionjetstar @hbyrde36 @princessstevemunson @sirsnacksalot @tartarusknight @lyriclight @kodaik97 @plsdontdrinkmylavalamp @bookbinderbitch @gutterflower77 @soaringornithopter @angeldreamsoffanfic @panicatthediaz @renaissan-vvitch @manda-panda-monium @newtstabber @little-trash-ghost

[u3pxx]

KIM KITSURAGI - “Is that. My kineema.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Something in him is about to break, *big time*.

EMPATHY - And it’s not going to be pretty, do something!

- DRAMA [Formidable] - Everything is fine!

- “Sure is.”

DRAMA [Formidable: Failure] - Surely he’s aware that he’s not the *only* person in the world who owns a Kineema?

YOU - “Is it really *yours*? I mean, plenty of people have their own Kineemas, right? Like working men, government offices, uh, firefighters I guess, maybe even animal control people? Exactly! A million different people who could’ve driven it into the uh…”

DRAMA - Pause, my liege! Ixnay on the Ineemakay!

YOU - “It could even be our *mysterious* joyrider!”

KIM KITSURAGI - Your frenzied babbling falls deaf to the lieutenant's ears. Instead, he approaches the broken vehicle, sunken in the ice. He moves with a caution and gentleness you haven’t seen him display before.

INLAND EMPIRE - It must be cold and lonely down there, in the icy water. Maybe he could sense its sorrow, calling to him…

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - His hands, which are always stiffly placed behind his back, are trembling.

ENDURANCE - This is the shuffle of a tired, tired man.

HALF LIGHT - He’s going to do something drastic because of you. Oh god, terrible! You’re a terrible liar! You can’t look at this, you just can’t!

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - It's not *you* who drove his kineema into the sea. You have plenty of faults, but this one is decidedly not yours.

KIM KITSURAGI - He kneels down with his head bowed, casting his face in shadow. He plants a hand on the ice to stabilize himself, squinting to get a better view of the motor carriage. “Detective, it says ‘57’ on it.”

YOU - Sweat drips down your brow, and you feel a terrible headache coming. “Maybe our joyrider has an affinity for that number?”

LOGIC - He's not stupid, he knows that it's not that.

KIM KITSURAGI - “57.”

YOU - “What about 57?”, you brace yourself.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Precinct 57.”

YOU - You wince. “Kim, look-”

KIM KITSURAGI - “When I woke up in the Whirling-in-Rags with no memory of what happened during the days before, I've taken note that something of mine has gone missing.” He grits his teeth. "A very. Important. Something."

He runs his hands over his face, messing his already unkempt hair in the process. Regret creeps up on his features. “God. Fuck. They’re going to fire me over this, they’re not going to hear me out.”

EMPATHY - Desperation settles in the lieutenant's tone. Sadly, you find yourself in agreement, even if you don’t want it to be the truth.

YOU - “People are more valuable than machines, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Not people like me.” He rasps.

YOU - “…”

KIM KITSURAGI - Before you can say anything more, you fail to notice the lieutenant carefully walking onto the edge of the ice. He looks over the frigid water, a dizzying blue that mirrors and distorts his exhausted face back to him.

YOU - “Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI - Seconds pass as he looks to be contemplating something. Out of nowhere, he casually takes another step where the ice ends and the sea begins. It happens all too quick for the lieutenant to even voice a call for help— if he even wanted to — his body plunging into the cold water before your eyes.

YOU - “KIM!!!!”

uhhh bonus stuff? sorry i have swap au brainworms pfttt

(im not sure what skills kim has at the moment so rn he only has narration as his inner monologue ok whoops, i would like to keep harry as the guy who thinks in dialogue trees so im still figuring it out pfttt)

also, this was done bc i wanted to expand on these old scribbles of mine, just like an idea, i just think that he'd be having an even worse time wheezes

[dyaz-stories]

you know my tongue is a weapon || gojo satoru x reader

synopsis: Shoko suggests a study night, but Gojo's bored and he doesn't want to study. So, instead, he offers to play a game, when all the others have left to get some food: every time he gets an answer right, he gets a kiss.

As you soon find out, Gojo can be very good at studying, as long as he gets something out of it.

word count: 3.8k

genre: college!AU, mostly fluff i think

cw: kissing, making out, semi-public kissing, unresolved sexual tension, reader is insecure and is therefore an unreliable narrator, dry humping ig, fem reader (the word girl is used once)

a/n: first time writing for jujutsu and for gojo! any feedback is appreciated, and i hope you enjoy yourselves :)

soundtrack

prequel

Exam season is never a fun time to be on campus. Stress fills the air, the hallways, the always full libraries, even the coffee shops where people usually meet to relax between two classes. It’s the only conversation subject between sleep-deprived students, looming over their head threateningly at any time of the day and night. It’s stifling, a weight on their chest that never quite wears off.

As for you, well, you’re doing alright.

Oh, for sure, it’s a lot of work, and you’re not thrilled about it by any stretch of the imagination, but academia is your thing, so you don’t find it nearly as crushing as others do. You’re more terrified of the time period that comes afterwards, while you’re waiting for the results like Judgement day.

In the meantime, you’ve given up on trying to find a spot to study in the library, and you’ve been doing most of it in your small student room. You haven’t stepped outside in days when Shoko texts you to suggest a study night. You suspect that she hasn’t started working and intends to cram, but you take her up on the offer nonetheless.

You show up at her place right on time — you always are — with your notes and some snacks. You wait quietly after knocking, trying to make sense of the chatter you hear on the other side of the door. She had mentioned she would ask a few other people if they wanted to join, which you had assumed would be fine, but faced with the reality of it now you can feel a lump growing in your throat. Academia might be easy for you, but people… aren’t.

When the door opens to reveal Gojo Satoru, piercing blue eyes meeting yours through white locks of hair that he pushes out of his face a second later, you fully consider turning around and leaving.

“You made it,” he says, shooting you a wide grin.

“Hi,” you squeak in reply.

Gojo is a… friend. Ish. Kinda. You think. Well, he’s a friend of Shoko’s, anyway, so the two of you have hung out, socially, before. Up until last summer, you assumed he didn’t even know your name.

“Thank God you’re here,” Shoko says, appearing from behind him to grab your hand. “No one here wants to work. We need to whip these imbeciles into shape or something.”

“I’m working,” Nanami sighs from the table in the living room, where he’s sitting alone.

“I was just waiting for everyone to be here, Shoko,” Geto says, his voice soft and even, as he approaches the table.

You set your bag down, giving Nanami an sympathetic smile, and he pushes his glasses higher on his nose. When he nods at you, you’re pretty sure it’s a silent way of saying ‘thank you for not leaving me alone with them’.

“What are you guys starting with?” you ask, pulling some books out of your bag.

Everyone here has different majors, but with some classes in common. You’re not sure how efficient this enterprise is going to be, if you’re completely honest, but as Gojo lets himself fall on a chair with a dramatic sigh, you suppose it can’t be worse than if he was left to his own devices.

“I’m doing literature, algebra and physics tonight!” Haibara announces, perhaps a tad too enthusiastic. You don’t want to crush his hopes and dreams, but—

“You’re never going to get through all that in one night,” Nanami says with a frown.

“Don’t listen to him”, Gojo intervenes, “you can do anything you set your mind to.”

There are stars in Haibara’s eyes when he looks at him, but you notice the glances Gojo is stealing at Nanami, and the way his smile widens when Nanami grits his teeth in annoyance. You bite your lip so you don’t let out a chuckle.

“Do you want to start with literature with me?” you offer. “Nanami, you’ll have to handle algebra because I’m not taking any algebra classes this semester.”

The corner of Nanami’s lips curves to form a smile.

“It’s good that someone here is taking this seriously.”

“Ugh,” Gojo mutters. “Fine. Hey, Suguru, do you know what tests I have next week?”

Nanami buries his head in his hands with a pained groan, and you laugh again, lump gone from your throat now, as you move your chair to come sit next to Haibara. Gojo’s eyes follow your movement silently. When you lean over the same textbook as Haibara, shoulders brushing against his as you push a lock of hair behind your ear, his expression turns thoughtful. It’s only when Geto drops a book in front of him that he snaps out of it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to do shots instead?” he asks, tone sour.

“Man, don’t tempt me,” Shoko whines as she sits down as well. “The shots will have to wait.”

Truly, Gojo thinks, sadder words have never been spoken.

Nanami calls it quits right before 10 pm. He’s tried to leave a few times by then, usually because of one of Gojo’s quips, but Shoko’s managed to keep him around until then. It doesn’t help how delighted Gojo gets by his reactions, and you can’t blame him for abandoning you. You don’t doubt for a second that he would have been much more productive without everyone else around.

“If they pass their exams, we should give ourselves all the credit for that,” he comments at your intention, right before walking out the door. “Good luck with them.”

Then he’s gone, before Gojo can start to protest about why he is not getting any encouragements, even though he’s suffering so much, and everyone is mean, and nothing about this is fun, and—

Haibara, despite his best intentions, falls asleep on the couch less than thirty minutes later. It was just supposed to be quick nap, but by midnight he’s still down, and you can’t bring yourself to wake him up. Plus it’s not like you were making a lot of progress with him anyway, so he just might be better off sleeping.

It’s not long after that that Shoko starts to get real antsy. So far, she has kept on track despite Gojo’s attempts at distracting her, but you can tell she is starting to get incredibly bored. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to be Gojo’s case, even if the way his leg bounces underneath his chair tells you he’s itching to do anything other than sit here doing nothing.

“Fuck it,” Shoko says, finally giving up. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

Geto frowns.

“Now? Alone?”

“As if anything would happen to her,” Gojo says, spinning a pen between his fingers. “She’ll be the scariest person out there.”

Geto rolls his eyes.

“I’ll come with you,” he tells Shoko, and she shrugs. “Do you want to come too, Satoru?”

Gojo lets himself fall down on his chair, looking at Geto with his head hanging behind the back of the chair.

“Nah,” he says after a few seconds of intense deliberation. “Can’t abandon the teacher here.”

You feel your face heating up.

“Oh, I mean, I’m sure I’ll be fine. If you want to go, you should—”

“It’s fine,” he handwaves your protests away. “I’ll finally get some work done without Shoko here to constantly distract me with—”

He bursts out laughing when Shoko throws her pen at him.

“We’ll be right back,” she announces, standing up. “You,” she points at Gojo, “play nice. And you,” she gives you a severe look, “don’t hesitate to hit him. I’m not joking.”

She leaves the room, escorted by Geto. Haibara doesn’t even stir when the door slams.

“Alright,” Gojo says, not wasting a second to reach for your chair so he can pull you closer to him, “it’s my turn to get my own personal tutor.” His fingers brush against your leg as he pulls you in, and you know, from how his eyes seem to drink in everything about you, that he doesn’t miss your quiet gasp nor the way your breath quickens. You’ve noticed this before, too. If he likes annoying Nanami, he seems to delight in your reactions at least as much — though he tries to make you laugh or to fluster you rather than piss you off.

“Um,” you say, with the eloquence that characterizes you around him, “what do you need help with?”

He tilts his head to the side as he studies you. You find him breathtaking, you always do, but you think you’ve gotten better at hiding it, so even if it feels like he’s looking right into your soul, you give him an easy smile.

Somehow, he is the one who ends up averting his eyes.

“How about philosophy?”

Right, the two of you share that one class on the history of ideas.

“Sure,” you say, already grabbing a book and thumbing through it. “I’ve taken quite a few notes for that class, actually, I can give them to you if you—”

“That’s boring,” he interrupts you. “We should do something else.”

You put down your book, intrigued, and something twists in your stomach when you see the look he’s giving you. He’s like a cat with a mouse, with exactly the same hunger in his eyes.

“What—” you clear your throat when your voice cracks. “What are you suggesting?”

“Well,” he leans forward, resting his elbow on the table and putting his chin in his palm, “I need an incentive to work, you know?”

You swallow. Sure.

“So how ‘bout I get a kiss for every right answer I give you?”

And you almost choke on air.

“What?” you manage to croak. Blood is rushing to your face, and it feels like your brain is short-circuiting. Your heart’s beating faster, hammering in your chest, and you feel your palms grow sweaty.

“C’mon,” he teases, reaching out to pull on a lock of your hair and twirl it around his finger, and you know, you know, he knows he’s got you right where he wants to, “help me study.”

“Gojo—”

“Satoru,” he all but purrs.

“Satoru,” you say, “what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” he blinks innocently. “Just trying to find a fun way to study.”

You examine him carefully, try to figure out what, exactly, is going on behind these beautiful eyes of his. You’ve had— moments, with him. He fell asleep on your shoulder in the car once. He held your hand through a busy festival, teasing you about not wanting you to get lost, and later helped you get on his shoulders so you’d get a better view of the stage. The one time you agreed to accompany Shoko to the club, you remember his hands on your hips, his breath against your ear, the ghost of his lips to your neck. But nothing actually happened between the two of you. You’d told yourself that it was all a distraction for him, that he didn’t want more.

This isn’t exactly confirmation. You don’t doubt that it’s all in good fun still, and knowing you, and how hard you tend to fall, you should walk away while you have the chance.

But you really, really want to kiss him. Want to know what it would feel like to taste his lips, to have his body pressed against yours, to feel his hands all over you.

You always take the smart decision. This is not the smart decision. But…

“What if you get it wrong?” you ask.

Satoru blinks.

“You can, uh, spray me with a water bottle?”

You let out a brief laugh.

“Isn’t that a dog thing? That feels unethical, Satoru.”

He preens at your use of his name.

“You should take your chance,” he drawls. “Shoko says it’s really cathartic.”

You’re not sure you need catharsis, but you feel a little lighter now. It’s all a joke to him, clearly, and from what you’ve seen in the past couple of hours, he hasn’t seriously studied once. He’s not going to get the answers right. You don’t think he’s even trying to.

“Fine,” you say with a playful roll of your eyes, reaching out for a water bottle and positioning your chair so you’re facing him. “Who came up with the notion of civil disobed—"

“Thoreau, 1848, but the essay was republished with that name in 1866.”

You stare. Gojo gives you a lazy smile.

“Now where’s my kiss?”

“Um,” you say. You feel incredibly awkward now. He’s leaning back against his chair, with eyes that have not left you once since he’s suggested that idea. You— have to move, now, don’t you?

Very slowly, very hesitantly, you push yourself to your feet. Satoru doesn’t move at all, and you don’t know if it relieves you or stresses you out even more. The position is quite uncomfortable, too, with you standing and him sitting down. You don’t know that you’ve ever towered over him like that. Gingerly, you put a hand on his shoulder, and then you’re leaning over him, and then you’re kissing him, and then you’re moving away as fast as you can. This was just a peck, really, a press of your lips to his that lasted a second, tops, and that you’re already trying to forget about.

You’re not a teenager anymore, and you know this shouldn’t be getting to you that much, but it’s— it’s Satoru Gojo. You’ve worked very, very hard not to think of him like that, because you didn’t want to let yourself get hurt. And now, you’ve let yourself be dragged into this so easily? Ugh. You wish you could slap yourself.

“Okay,” you say, voice more high-pitched than you’d like, but still understandable, which you’re grateful for. “Next, um, can you explain what philosopher kings are?”

Surely—

“Of course,” Satoru pretty much sing-songs. “Plato thought that cities should be ruled by trained philosophers, because only a philosopher would know and act for the good of a city.” There’s a brief pause, before he adds, “Aristotle thought that was bullshit, though. For the record.”

And then he waits. You narrow your eyes at him.

“When did you study for that?”

“I never study,” he answers lightly.

Instead of standing up this time, you scoot your chair closer to him, and you lean forward. Satoru chuckles, but humors you — even if the temptation of leaning further back to make you come to him, because you’re just adorable when you’re flustered, is great. This time, when you kiss him, though, he presses forward before you can move away, his nose brushing against your cheek as he chases after you. And oh, what a sight you are after that, wide eyed, lips parted, hands tightening on your notes.

“Next?” he asks.

“Right,” you say. You’re— not sure what’s happening here, to be quite honest. Should you stop this? You— don’t think you want to, but you’re also not sure what this charade is all about. “Um. Spinoza thought that free will—”

“—could only be reached through knowledge, and that most people never obtained it.”

Okay.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a physics major?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking genuinely amused.

“Determinism’s a pretty big deal in science, actually, but let’s not change the subject here.”

You bite your lower lip, and his eyes track the movement like he’s starving for you.

You’re feeling hot all over, anticipation burning inside of you, and this time, you can’t pretend that he hasn’t done this on purpose. That he wanted to kiss you. You can’t quite reconcile the way you see yourself with that thought — how could Gojo Satoru want you, of all people? — but you find that it doesn’t matter.

You lean towards him once more, and this time, you let yourself kiss him. Really kiss him. You press your lips to his, soft at first, but when you don’t move away immediately, you feel him pressing against you, one hand coming to cup your cheek. His teeth pull at your bottom lip, and you let out a involuntary gasp. He doesn’t waste the opportunity to slide his tongue inside your mouth, and you keep inching closer to him, hands coming to his shoulders for support. You can feel yourself melt into him, and you curse your common sense when it leads you to break away from the kiss.

It doesn’t deter Satoru, though, because as you do, his hand slides under your knee, and next thing you know, he’s pulled you into his lap. His face is deliciously flushed, pink hue under the pale skin. He looks up at you, long fingers tightening around your thighs.

“We should waste less time like that,” he says.

Shoko likes to say he’s insufferable, and you can see why. Everything all seems to come so easy to him, and you’re defenseless against the way your heart races. When his eyes are on you, it feels like you’re the only person in the world. You’re not usually the type to indulge in that idea, but, ah, what’s the harm, as long as you know how to come back to earth later on?

You shake your head as you take him in.

“How are you even doing that?” you ask, mildly peeved.

“Haven’t you heard?” he grins widely. “I’m a genius.”

You roll your eyes at him. You’ve heard about that, of course, about how he maintains stellar grades without breaking a sweat. You just hadn’t seen that in application until now. In class, he’s usually asleep, or taking great joy in bothering the teacher. You’ve never seen him try to get something.

“Well, where’s my question?”

You sigh, putting your arms around his neck. You left your notes on the table, meaning that you might be less prepared than he is, actually.

“Descartes famously said—”

“Cogito ergo sum. C’mon, rational doubt is at the heart of science. I’m starting to think you’re just trying to kiss me.”

You do want to kiss him, but you have the self-control to shrug.

“Well, if you don’t want to—”

His mouth is on yours before you can think of how to end that sentence. He kisses you hungrily, hands gripping your hips as he tries to pulls you closer to him. Your chest presses into his, and you tighten your hold around him, fingers running through his hair. He grunts when you pull on it slightly, tilts his head back a little more to give you better access to his mouth, and when his tongue brushes against yours once more, you can’t help but to rock your hips against his. The friction makes you gasp into his mouth, and one of your hands falls down to his shoulder, fisting his shirt as you try to find better support.

“Fuck,“ you hear him mumble underneath you, right as you feel him grow hard. He pushes up against you. His fingers dig into your skin, one hand slipping under your shirt to run over your skin, leaving a trail of fire behind. It moves higher, brushing against your bra.

Against your better judgement, your hands travel down his body, tracing over his muscles. You feel him twitch under you, and when you roll your hips once more, with much more intent than the first time, he groans.

“Satoru,” you whisper, though even you don’t know if it’s a plea for him to stop or to keep going.

His eyes widen, and you feel him lift you up easily, pushing you onto the table. You lean back slightly, resting your weight on one hand. He’s red all over now, from his ears to his neck. His pupils are wide, his lips swollen, his hair messy. He looks like sin.

You don’t want to think about what you look like.

“C’mon,” he says. “Last question.”

“Haibara’s in the living room,” you point out. Even you know where this is leading.

“He’s dead asleep,” he merely shrugs. He’s mesmerizing, but you note that the glimmer of amusement that always dances in his eyes. This feels— serious.

“Um,” you say, licking your lips and watching how he bites his as his grip on your waist tightens once more — like he’s holding himself back. “Confucius—”

And then, the front door opens.

Gojo clicks his tongue and reluctantly steps back as you jump down from the table, beelining for the bathroom — you know that kiss is written all over your face.

You glare at yourself in the mirror. Your body’s still tingling, and you’re aching with want, now that release has been denied to you, but you know better. You’re supposed to know better. You take a few seconds to comb through your hair with your hands, and when it no longer looks like someone’s, well, kissed you senseless, you cautiously step back outside.

“We got you some fuel,” Shoko announces loudly, before getting shushes by Geto. He points in Haibara’s direction, who’s started snoring slightly.

“Thank you so much,” you say sweetly. “I’ll— Why are you wet?”

Gojo deadpans as he looks at you but, well, there’s water dripping from his hair, down his chin, and onto the shirt your hands were fisted in just a few minutes earlier, so, you think the question is valid.

“He was splashing water on his face when we got here,” Geto supplies helpfully. “Gojo runs hot.”

“And now it’s all over my floor,” Shoko mutters. “Next time, just wait ‘til the bathroom’s free, huh?”

Gojo looks like he has something to say just on the tip of his tongue, but he glances at you and seems to swallow it back.

“If anything, I made it cleaner,” he proclaims, leaning back on his chair. “Shoko, how long has it been since you cleaned in here? We really need to find you a partner who’s willing to do that stuff, otherwise you’ll keep living in fil—”

Shoko’s pencil case lands right in the middle of his face.

“You absolute brat,” she spits out, “I can’t believe you’d have the nerve to tell me something like that when you rely exclusively on Geto to—”

The bickering continues, but you tune it out. Under the table, Satoru’s knee brushes against yours. It’s almost hesitant at first, before he leans his leg against yours, when he realizes you’re not moving away. This isn’t the smart choice, either, but, ah, you’re always, always the smart girl. Is it so bad to have a night of fun? Is it so bad that you want to know what it would feel like to have him, even if it’s just once?

He’ll break your heart, the voice of reason says in the back of your mind, but then Satoru looks back at you, checking to see if you’re laughing at how he’s making fun of Shoko and, well.

You think you’ll let him.

Any and all feedback in the form of asks, reblogs, comments, tags is highly encouraged and appreciated~ If you enjoy my work, interactions are what keep me writing and motivated!

I haven't written anything in months and I think it shows but, well, I have to restart somewhere lol, so I hope it was still fun for you and you enjoyed yourselves here for a little while. Thank you for reading <3

prequel

[massiveladycat]

i will never get over people laughing at octavian's death personally,,, he was SHOT INTO THE AIR!!! thats so painful. all the burns and the impact, plus being flung from a cannon and probably slamming into gaia (literal earth goddess) plus festus (gigantic metal dragon, i bet that HURT) and leo (pretty sure leo was burning)

he was a kid and he was annoying to some people and he was usually antagonized but he didnt deserve to die OR go out in that way. the gods are a thousand times worse than octavian, and apollo told him that he'd be a savior of new rome, but people still justify them. not to mind there are much worse people in the PJO universe (gabe, LUKE)

octavian ily they could never make me hate you EVER. idc what you say he could have been redeemed. did he do bad things? yes. but he was so deeply influenced and the day meeting with leo and the others, in which i remind you octavian literally was watching new rome get blown up (no wonder he was livid, his home was on FIRE).

like come on. octavian is a complex character and people aren't willing to admit that he could've been better and he was just a literal teenager in the sake of hating him because everyone else/pjo characters hate him.

he is such a tragic character imo because he grew up in new rome and all he wanted to do was protect it (and he was highly ambitious and aiming for praetor, i won't deny the fact that he was selfish but that is a quality that can be REDEEMED) and sure the way he went about it was messed up but most of his actions (except killing that one centurion) were justifiable

btw im not saying octavian's like an angel or anything im pretty sure i remember him "killing" a 5th cohort centurion once but then she was revived which . . . what was the point of that?? was it just to like make us hate him more?? huh??? and then was it even ever talked about again?? also yeah he blackmailed hazel thats not good also judging from the wikipedia it only said frank suspected octavian because.. he didn't have his spear?? what?? reminder that there is proof that a lot of pjo characters are unreliable narrators and for all we know octavian could've screwed up somehow and left his spear somewhere (just saying i'd do that too ngl)

also "I am the savior of Rome! I was promised!" i didnt know why but that quote DESTROYED me but now i know that it was because he genuinely believed he was doing the best for new rome and he'd finally have someone's praise and they'd praise him like they praised percy and reyna. pretty sure his mental state was not very good in that scene either and nico and will just let him shoot himself out of an onager on accident. also are we just going to gloss over the fact apollo told him that and encouraged him he was doing the right thing?? of COURSE octavian trusted apollo on that and believed it was the truth; apollo was his ancestor and someone he worshipped as an augur and trusted in for omens and prophecies and allat

yeah. octavian's an asshole. but he was a kid and he couldve been redeemed. then again i am a huge octavian apologist and im not saying you have to have the same opinions as i do also i will not be responding to any asks in my inbox im 2 tired to deal with that!! anyways dont go and insult people or me if you think the opposite thats fine !! i was just bored and found this in my drafts so whats the harm of posting it because im not going to get sent threats over this right,,, right??????

[fallstaticexit]

Prev / Next / Beginning

TW: Internalized Homophobia / Transcript / AN under the cut

AN: Here we are, just one more post before we conclude part 1 of this bittersweet story. As I've mentioned before, this story consists of three parts- Part One - Youth | Part Two - Uni | Part Three - Wife.

Transcript

Nancy Narrates: [As a treat for the few students who stayed behind, the nuns took us into to the city to shop on Christmas Eve]

[It was the first time Vanessa and I spent alone time together since I started dating Geoffrey]

[I’ve never been happier]

Nancy: [blushes] What?

Vanessa: [whispers] Do you feel like we’re being watched?

Nancy: Oh, Sister Agnes? [gulps] She’s right behind me, isn’t she?

Vanessa: [laughs] I’m serious! Let’s ditch the group.

Nancy: And risk getting a mark? Or worse, sent back home?

Vanessa: [shudders] Having to spend the rest of the break with my father? No thanks. Guess I’ll behave myself- for now anyway.

Vanessa: Sooo, what did you get your boyfriend for Christmas? A thong? One of those string thingies for his glasses?

Nancy: [snorts] I got him a broach.

Vanessa: You’re fucking with me, right?

Nancy: What? It was really nice, and very expensive.

Vanessa: Sure, if he’s your grandfather, Nancy!

Nancy: [sheepishly] I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I don’t know if I’m even doing this right. Shouldn't it...feel like something?

Vanessa: What do you mean?

Nancy: Holding hands and kissing. I thought it was suppose to feel like fireworks, like everything is burning and achy. I only felt it once...the first time, at that party.

Vanessa: Oh.. [looks away] Maybe he just needs practice...

Nancy: Maybe... Vanessa, I wa-

Vanessa: Hey! Let’s get some hot cocoa!

Nancy Narrates: [I wish she knew how much I missed when it was just me and her]

[No matter what, she will always be the sun to me]

Vanessa: So, are you going to tell me what’s in those bags?

Nancy: Maybe you should Guess?

Vanessa: Very funny, Blondie. I thought we weren’t exchanging gifts?

Nancy: [pouts] Does that mean you didn’t get me anything?

Vanessa: That’s because we said we weren’t when we were shopping! I could have gotten you something!

Nancy: [chuckles] It’s ok! You really didn’t have to get me anything. I just wanted to get you something I think you’ll like alot.

Nancy: Ta-da! I wanted to officially welcome you into the League of Blondes.

Vanessa: [cackling] No fucking way! This is the best Christmas gift ever, are you kidding!! [digs through bag] What are the scissors for?

Nancy: I was hoping you’d cut my hair. We can both have a new look.

Vanessa: You’re full of surprises, Landgraab. Let’s do it!

Vanessa: You’re being sooo quiet but your thoughts are sooo loud. What are you thinking about right now?

Nancy: Sorry. It’s nothing...

Vanessa: Tell me. Please.

Nancy: No, it’s fine.

Vanessa: Come onnn, please?

Nancy: What happened with Angela?

Vanessa: [huffs] Ah. I was wondering when you’d ask about that.

Nancy: Then why didn’t you just tell me about her?

Vanessa: There’s nothing to talk about. Pretty sure you heard the story.

Nancy: Sure, from everyone else but not from you. I want to hear your side.

Vanessa: [sighs] My side. We were best friends. We did everything together. I loved her a lot. All eyes were on us... so, I guess that’s how everyone noticed how close we were. People were saying things about us, and I was scared my father would find out and think I was like that. So, I turned on her. I called her names. I shunned her. I ruined her life...

Vanessa: It got so bad that she left the school. I never heard from her again. [voice cracks] You have to understand... if my father thought I liked girls, he would kill me. I could never let anyone think I’m like that! I’d rather they all thought I slept around with all the boys in school than think that. I had to do it...

Nancy: Do you?

Vanessa: [sobs] W-what?

Nancy Narrates: [My heart was racing. It just slipped out. And then I said it again, and that time, it felt like I was asking myself]

Nancy: Do you like girls?

Vanessa: [whimpers] I...no!! I’m not...I’m not a lesbian! I swear, Nancy! Please, believe me.

Nancy Narrates: [All that time...I had thought I was the one terrified of what it meant to love her. She was terrified of loving me too]

[This is what kissing should feel like]

Vanessa: [softly] Will you stay in my room tonight?

Nancy: Yes.

Nancy Narrates: [I had so many questions I wanted to ask her. So many things about myself I wanted to share, but there was one thing I wanted more]

[stellamancer]

limitless (satoru gojo x reader)

notes: uh. should be working on my halloween fic lmaoo. but uh. thought i'd bang this out. inspired by a conversation with @shotorus about the names we use to refer to certain characters in narration. lmao.

contains: fem! reader (the only physical trait is that reader is shorter than gojo, gojo almost uses a gendered term for reader, but is cut off), established relationship (me: coughs up blood), typical gojo antics, nickname usage (darling, honey, sweetheart, babe), part of the infinite loop fic verse

wc: around 720

"...I have a question."

You look at Gojo expectantly. Normally, he just says whatever is on his mind without pause, without filter, so you don't get why he's standing on ceremony right now. "Yeah?"

"We're dating, aren't we?" he asks.

You nearly spit out your drink. He's not wrong; for better or worse, he is your boyfriend now. The fact of it is actually kind of unbelievable when you think about it. Not just you dating Satoru Gojo. But you dating Satoru Gojo. If you had told yourself that it would have come to this ten years ago, even five years ago, you would have thought yourself a liar.

Now he's the one giving you the expectant look, his lips curved upward that little smile that always manages to get your blood boiling. The cocky bastard probably just wants you to admit it.

You consider saying 'no' just for the hell of it.

You decide not to. It feels almost as if you’re pulling teeth when you respond, “...we…are.”

Gojo’s mouth puckers and you brace yourself knowing full well that he’s about to start whining about something. There’s always something with this guy…"If we’re dating, then why am I still just 'Gojo' to you? I call you by your first name!"

"You've always called me by my first name," you dead pan.

"That's because I've always loved you!"

You roll your eyes. You know that's a lie, but you don't intend to argue with him— at least not head on because you know that it’s just going to lead to a dead end. "No, you love disregarding proper social etiquette. Or rather, you don't see the point in it."

"Oh, darling, you know me so well!" Gojo gives you a saccharine smile and you almost gag.

"Don't call me that."

He pouts. "Well, if you say I always call you by name, shouldn't I call you something else to show how special you are to me?"

"...no, actually, just my name is fine." A nickname from Gojo sounds dangerous. The thought of being called some cutesy nickname in front of everyone you know is mortifying. In fact, Gojo would do it solely to embarrass you.

So, naturally, he ignores you. "If darling is no good, what about... babe? Honey?"

"Gojo, really, you don't—"

"Sweetheart? My love? Oh, I know, I bet you'd love to be called pr—"

"Satoru."

He immediately stops talking, his mouth hanging open in stunned silence. You didn't think that that would have that much of an effect to be honest. For once, it feels like you have the upper hand. You make sure to savor the moment because you know they are far and few in between.

"Just my name is fine," you repeat. "...okay?"

He gulps and answers, "...okay."

You try not to let your mind linger on the fact that his voice just now was lower than usual. "Good. So—"

"Say it again."

You blink. "Huh."

"My name," Gojo says, his voice thick with emotion. "Say it again."

When you don't say anything he takes a step toward you, the infinite cosmos in his eyes staring you down. You feel defiant. It's not fair of him to ask you anything when he looks and sounds like this. Gojo takes another step closer and you think that if you're adamant about not giving in to him you better do it before he gets too close.

"You've... " you start and hate how breathless you sound. This bastard knows exactly what he’s doing to you. "You've hit your daily limit."

Gojo pouts and takes another step. "Well, that's not fair."

"You're not fair," you retort.

He doesn't argue and you take that as Gojo admitting that he's playing dirty. "I think you should up the limit."

You hold your ground as he takes one more step closer.. "No. You think there shouldn't be a limit."

Gojo chuckles and leans down to bridge the rest of the distance between you. He cups your cheek, bringing your face closer to him. Your breath stills as you feel his own on you and it’s damn near intoxicating. His mouth is barely touching yours and your thoughts shift from trying to keep the banter going to how the slightest movement from either of you will result in a kiss.

“You’re right,” he murmurs, lips brushing against yours. “There shouldn’t.”

[spencersssockss]

Entomophobia

Summery: Spencer says I love you to you for the first time and you get terrorized by a beetle.

Warnings: not many besides the fact that there is lots of cute fluff, mention of spiders, and Beetles, and that’s it!

Word count: 700

A/n: this is super short but I hope you guys enjoy! ❤️❤️❤️

Spencer rushed out the front door quickly after hearing your blood-curdling scream. There You stood on one of the chairs book in your hand.

“Y/n, what's wrong?” he asked standing a couple feet away from you.

“It's a bug, it's really big!” you trembled. “It tried to climb up my leg,” you added tears threatening to spill.

“It's okay, let me get it for you,” he replied taking a step closer to see what kind of bug it was.

“Oh,” Spencer said as he stepped closer to the bug on the porch below you. “It's just an Eastern Hercules Beetle, it's harmless,” he said before picking it up making you shriek in horror.

“No, no, getaway, it's gross and scary,” you begged watching as Spencer walked it over to a tree in the front yard and put it on a branch.

“There, it's gone now,” Spencer chuckled. He knew he had weird phobias with germs and all but it was hilarious seeing you be so scared of a harmless little creature.

“It's not funny,” you pouted taking a step back when he offered a hug.

“No hug?” he asked eyebrows creased.

“Nope, not until you wash your hands,” you reply marching into the house with the book in your hand.

“Fine then,” Spencer mumbled before washing his hands in the kitchen and following you into the living room.

“Okay, you can hug me now,” you say smiling as he wrapped his arms around you in a large hug. “You're my night in shining armor you know that?” you ask smiling once again.

“Just because I picked up a harmless Beatle that you accused of terrorizing you?” he asked smirking into your neck.

“Yup, I'm honestly more afraid of bugs than I am Hotch, and that's saying something,” you say giggling before Spencer pulls away from the hug.

“No way, I think hotch is much scarier,” Spencer replies before sitting down on the sofa, gesturing for you to join him.

You sat next to him and he pulled you on top of him allowing you to rest your head on his chest.

“To help you get over your fear of bugs we are going to watch a documentary about them!” he announced clicking on some insect video and pressing play.

“This is going to give me worse nightmares than any case I've ever worked on,” you groaned eyes widening as a tarantula appeared on the screen.

“On no, not a spider,” you groaned before the narrator started.

“The funnel web spider is incredibly venomous. This Australian spider has a venom that is packed with 40 different toxic proteins. Though a bite from one of these creatures is certainly capable of killing a human, no deaths have been reported from a funnel web spider in Australia since 1980.” the narrator spoke before the images of the bites from one appeared on the screen, making your stomach churn.

“No, no more, I would much rather have to deal with my fear of bugs than continue to see that gross monster on the tv,” you groaned standing up.

“To be fair, I'm pretty sure I put the wrong one on,” Spencer replied before standing up and following you to the bedroom.

“We should just cuddle,” you spoke before climbing into your bed and crawling under the sheets. Spencer crawled in beside you, wrapping his arms around your waist. The two of you sat in silence for a while before you felt something crawling up your legs.

Of course, right after the documentary. You tapped Spencer's shoulder only to find out he was sleeping.

The light crawling continued before Spencer jumped up out of bed and chuckled at the sight of you curled up in a ball too scared to see what might have been crawling on your leg.

“I got you, you should see the look on your face!” he laughed before sliding back into bed.

“Not funny,” you scolded eyebrows furrowing.

“It totally was,” he replied as you laid your head in the crook of his neck.

“Your adorable,” he spoke running his hands softly through your hair. “I love you, you know that?” he asked kissing your forehead.

“I love you too,” you smiled.

“Even though I think the fact you are terrified of bugs is hilarious?” Spencer asked his hand resting on your lower back.

“Even though you think it's funny and it's not,” you replied pecking his lips gently.

[queer-ragnelle]

Why do you hate the Once and Future Knight? I decided not to pick up the book because of personal preference but I’d love to hear your rant on it

Hi anon!

I’m assuming you mean The Once and Future King by TH White?

There’s nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said before I’m sure. But I didn’t read the series until I had already read many other Arthurian tales and I really don’t understand the love the series gets. The negatives don’t outweigh the positives, and worse, the lasting impact of TH White’s characterization choices on subsequent retellings is a stain on the literary tradition that set us back too far to comprehend. Putting my rant below a cut because I went off and the subject matter is disgusting.

First and foremost, the bigotry is astounding. The racism, the misogyny, the ableism and every other prejudice and cruelty you can think of are staggering in their variety and magnitude. It’s vile. It’s inexcusable. I don’t read modern Arthurian retellings to be bombarded with that in every single chapter. TOAFK is not “a product of its time.” It’s a product of a deeply unhappy and hateful man. Plenty of earlier writing is vastly kinder to Palomides and Guinevere and Morgause and Mordred and Lancelot or any other character unlucky enough to be depicted by TH White. Literally the Medieval source material is more nuanced than that. Morgause get behind me.

Secondly, the anachronism is an annoying stylistic choice at best and yet another tool for bigotry at worst. Why are Mordred and Agravaine likened to Nazis? Like seriously what the hell? It’s not enough for them to be antagonists, the text has to invoke the Holocaust? It’s so extreme it rips the reader right out of the story and calls to mind the most horrific parts of history for no narrative benefit whatsoever. Baffling and bad.

Thirdly, the prose just kinda sucks. It’s rambling and TH White will pause the narrative to stand on a soap box to talk at the reader about his views. He’s anti-war. Fine. But of all characters to use as a mouthpiece—King Arthur? The warlord King Arthur? Make it make sense.

Fourth, most tragically of all, so much of what TH White did in his series is reflected in stories told to this day. Every other retelling has a cover quote comparing it to TOAFK. (It’s supposed to be a compliment!) To put it in perspective…

You ever read a retelling with evil neglectful parent and rapist Morgause/Morgan? TH White’s fault.

How about added incest between one of the Orkney bros and their mother (which sometimes results in someone other than Gaheris killing her, say, Agravaine or Mordred)? Thanks, TH White, that’s just what Arthurian Legend was missing, more incest.

Ever see disabled, crippled, bad seed Mordred? TH White started that trend.

What about Guinevere assaulting Lancelot when she learns about Elaine getting him drunk and raping him? TH White really said “Lol what if Guinevere hits Lancelot and spits in his face while he’s crying?”

And the racism! TH White walked so Thomas Berger could run (derogatory). Discussions of race are so intense and so frequent and so random like one minute the narrator has paused the plot to talk about how war is bad and now it’s slandering Native Americans? Brother this is Medieval England what is even happening right now? Oh, look, another N bomb. The antisemitism! Weren’t you just comparing Mordred to Hitler? What do you mean the Orcadian/Scottish characters are evil because of *checks notes* “the incalculable miasma which is the leading feature of the Gaelic brain?” [Queen of Air and Darkness chapter 5] Thanks TH White for stripping Lot, Morgause, Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred of all nuance, a condition from which they have, literally, never recovered. Of course there are some retellings since that write one or two of them with a crumb of nuance, but they’ll never be like they were in the Vulgate. Not all at the same time. I feel sick.

It goes on and on. I have to stop listing examples or I’ll get pissed off. But frankly, more people should be pissed off about it! I’m tired of seeing five star reviews on storygraph and goodreads accompanied by a review excusing the most bigoted garbage I have ever read in a children’s book. It’s vile and everyone should feel bad about defending it. It’s inexcusable. This wasn’t a case of good-intentioned inclusion with dated language, this was an author going out of his way to be hateful. Period.

Big names in the fantasy book community like Daniel Greene should not be awarding five stars and leaving an uncritical review.

Far too many readers acknowledge the racism and then rate it five stars anyway. Go to Hell, Spencer.

Here’s some from storygraph with, of course, praise for Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s pedophilic power fantasy Mists of Avalon, another piece of hot festering sludge everyone should stop talking about. Kill the legacy already. The real life victims have suffered enough.

There also seems to be a trend in these reviews that excuse the texts bigotry by referring to how “old” it is. Which is crazy to me for many reasons. TOAFK in its final form was published in 1958. That wasn’t that long ago. Also racism has always been racism, misogyny has always been misogyny, ableism has ways been ableism. Plenty of authors came before this and really make TH White look like a clown.

Let’s promote them. In reverse!

John Steinbeck wrote The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights in 1956 (published posthumously in the 70s, don’t go by that date). His depictions of Morgan and Guinevere are nuanced and fascinating, not to mention some original characters including an old granny who teaches Owain to be a warrior! This book also has a morally gray sun-powered Gawain without insulting his heritage, an emotional and thought-provoking Lancelot without marking his sin with a facial deformity, and a really sweet Marhalt who doesn’t often get much spotlight!

John Erskine wrote Restoring Palamede in 1932. He does exactly what the cover says, and writes a story about the Muslim knight Palomides beginning in his own country, living with his parents whom are both named, and follows him as he learns the ways of the world and finds an ally in his friend Brangaine! Tristan and Isolde are compelling here and while Tristan can still be a jerk to Palomides, it’s not the mask-off bigotry we’ve seen…elsewhere.

Howard Pyle wrote one, two, three, four books between 1903-1910. Two thumbs up from me. No notes. He drank his respect women juice, drew them with loving care, named so many previously unknown, and gave them voices. He was kind in his portrayal to Palomides and even some other knights of color from India. Morgause survives the narrative! We love to see it!!!

Henry Newbolt wrote Mordred: A Tragedy in 1895. A fascinating examination of family ties, all five Orkney brothers here AND their wives Lyonors, Lynette, and Laurel! (Minus Ragnelle bc life is unfair.) Guinevere and Lancelot are tragic and heart wrenching. Arthur struggles against his son Mordred and their destiny in a way that doesn’t outright demonize either side. It will rewire your brain.

Richard Hovey wrote his poetry between 1891-1900. A complex and interesting Guinevere and Elaine who are not enemies, Lancelot close with Galehaut during the war, destroyed by his torn loyalties between Arthur and Guinevere, Gawain who loves his friend Lancelot with all his heart, and so much more without tearing anyone down!

Oscar Fay Adams wrote his poetry between 1886-1906. Here we get a wide variety of character focus, with title-featured names from King Lot to Dagonet to Lamorak to Lionel. Each one is more fascinating and nuanced and fresh than the last, from a tour of Lot’s castle and meeting each inhabitant to Lamorak on Grail Quest learning to forgive himself from “sweet” Sagramore.

William Morris wrote his poetry between 1856-1910. All of it is on the Camelot Project but I also have this scanned book. Here we delve into Guinevere’s trial as she calls out those who have wronged her, lonely Galahad on Grail Quest relating to his father Lancelot and praising Palomides in his steadfast hunt of the Questing Beast, there’s even a poem named for Palomides himself!!!

Anonymous wrote Moriaen in the 13th century. It follows Aglovale’s illegitimate son Moriaen, who is of African descent. As he travels around Britain looking for his father, Moriaen meets many people who are afraid of his dark skin. BUT! All the Knights of the Round Table leap to his defense, even threatening townsfolk who try to demonize Moriaen for the way he looks and refuse him service. It is, essentially, an anti-racism story from the Medieval era. Not to mention healer Gawain’s care and attention given to the sick and disabled. That’s not even the moral/focus of the story so much as Moriaen’s journey, but it’s there and worth mentioning.

So here we are with a whole list of stuff to read that predates TOAFK and surpasses it. The last one is only sort of a joke. But it’s there to make a point about how inexcusable TH White’s racism really is. If Anonymous could give a black knight like Moriaen the narrative respect he’s entitled to for existing as a representation of real human beings that look like him, then TH White was capable of it too. Progress is not linear. This is not to say Medieval times were “better” than society today. But to write off any problematic story of the recent past as “a product of its time” as an excuse to make oneself feel better about liking it, well, I don’t know what to say. Maybe reflect on that. And while that marinates, read something else.

[datura-tea]

Why is there much Ulysses hate? Like I don’t understand if you don’t like him…that’s fine but he’s got a damn fine voice and a cool look, and a lot of people like terrible characters Vuples whose done way worse shit and looks twelve doing it.

hmm i can think of a few reasons...

he's the face of a dlc that introduces a backstory to your blank slate of a player character - a lot of people don't like that apparently, even though to me it's a very very juicy addition to my courier's history hehe

he speaks so densely! so much symbol and metaphor and a lot of things that he says contradict each other. i love it but i'm a creative writing major who loves unreliable narrators :)

let's face it, a lot of gamers just don't engage with the material. they just want to go through with the game with as little friction as possible

he's black and some of the fandom is.... well. racist. and they can't take the idea of an intelligent, well-spoken black man challenging them and their player character, unfortunately

idk what else rn but there are probably more reasons. god knows i get enough weirdos telling me why in my askbox. i just ignore and delete them tho lol so they don't bother me :))

[petalsofyouth]

bees that flew away | ran haitani x reader

warnings: drugs usage and alcohol consumption, implied self-harm, unreliable narrator, mentions of a rape (nothing graphic, it's just there), sweet gentle love.

wc: 16 473

author's note: i started writing it on the verge of death and it shows. in the middle of writing it i felt fine and finishing it i was dying once again. oh, and, also! it's a bit unedited. i doubt there are some actual crucial mistakes, but there must be something i overlooked, i'll get to it tmw. so bear in mind that it's unedited. i just wanted to post this, because otherwise i would delay it and delay it and delay it all over again.

_ The room is foggy and you wonder if it’s from five - you counted - lit cigarettes or it’s just your tired drunk brain. It wouldn’t be the first time you conjured something out of nothing. Shaped it in between your fingers and gave it form. Brought it to life.

Your lips quiver and you press them together, averting your red high eyes from you don’t know who. You probably look pitiful and scared because Haruchiyo reaches over and snakes his long arm around your shoulders, hugging you closer to his body. It’s hot in here, but for one reason or another, he is still wearing his favourite old leather jacket. Now, hours into the party, its surface absorbed all the nasty smells of this huge house in Yokohama. It stinks and you gag. 

His long bleached hair smells even worse and you gag again. This time closing your mouth with your palm and he looks at you, worry in his hooded eyes.

He should offer you a glass of water and maybe a ride home, you think. If he was a better - maybe normal - friend. But he does neither of that. He takes the joint from his lips and holds it close to your mouth. When you don’t move, just staring at him as if you don’t understand what he wants from you, he sighs and smiles.

Sweetly.

Haruchiyo is a sweet guy. Your best friend.

Deep down the fuckery that he is he is indeed very sweet and kind; pure.

“Come on,” he urges you, tapping on your shoulder. “Relax. Tensing up and thinking won’t do you any good. Be nice. Open your mouth.”

You do just that and when he places a cigarette between your lips you inhale. Toxic green smog invades your lungs and the nausea subsides. Once again you feel light and careless. You feel almost happy. The knocking on the back of your head and in your heart dies. Killed by your own stupid hands. If Rindou were here you suppose he would’ve been very mad at you. 

For killing and for not caring. For pretending. “Truth or dare?” 

The girl speaks to you and you know that. You feel her stare on yourself and if you weren’t so high you would see the expecting, oh so spiteful, glint in her eyes. If you were sober you would’ve noticed it and probably still would’ve done nothing.

That’s just the way you are. 

“Truth.” She licks her glowing with gloss lips and smiles. Her friend, a girl with uneven bangs and the longest hair you’ve ever seen in your life, just beneath her hips, giggles. They share a glance. A knowing one. The trap they settled for you closing with a loud thump. 

On the right side, with his arms across the girl's shoulders sits Ran Haitani. She’s almost between his legs, but not quite, and yet there’s a striking familiarity that surrounds them. Maybe it’s in a way his thumb caresses the bare skin of her shoulders or maybe it’s her leaning even more into his broad chest when she catches you watching them. 

Either way your hands shake and it might be the alcohol or weed or something entirely else. You don’t bring yourself to care. You simply can’t. 

“So,” the girl speaks. Despite the music and the fog around your senses you can hear her clearly. “Is it true that there are burning marks on your upper thigh?” You tense and beside you Haruchiyo tenses too. But the girl continues, “Is it true that you burnt yourself because you hate yourself? Is it true that you always do it high because you are a fucking coward to do it sober?” Your eyes are open and no matter how much you want to close them and squint them hard, you won’t. You stare at the girl as she spews your silly little sins out like they are nothing; like you are nothing. “Is it true that you wanted to fuck Ran, but he said no, because you are..?” 

She never finishes her sentence and for the rest of your life you can only guess what insult she had prepared for you. 

The table that stood between you falls to the side when Haruchiyo’s Docs comes in contact with it. Ashtrays, bags and glasses scatter on the hardwood floor and you stare at them for quite a time, unable to look at anything or anyone else. The girl screams and her friend screams too and suddenly you aren’t that high anymore and you want to get out of this house, of this party. Out of the sight of all those people. Your body trembles and Haruchiyo, who tightly holds your hand, nudges you to stand up. You do as he asks, because you're tired and because you’ll go anywhere he’ll take you. If Rindou was here, he would’ve hated you not fighting back, but he is not and you are glad there’s one reason less for him to be disappointed in you. “Pathetic fucking excuse of a woman,” Haruchiyo spits at the girl and you tune out, losing yourself in the broken glass on the floor. It’s pretty with myriads of lights - lives - in every broken shard. They are colourful and full of hidden senses you don’t understand. 

In the corner of your vision you notice Haruchiyo raising his free hand. The girl screams again and this time when you finally raise your eyes, you see her face and pretty white t-shirt with one of Sanrio characters on it wet with whatever alcohol Haruchiyo had in his cup. A few splashes of it hit Ran’s cheek and arm too, but it’s hard to say what he is thinking. He was never one to betray his mind and show it off to everyone and besides you don’t look at him for too long. The cup and the remnants of a joint goes straight to the floor too. Haruchiyo steps on them and curses again. 

“Tame your fucking bitch, Haitani. Next time I won’t see that she’s a woman.” With this you leave. Hand in hand, with bitter hearts, you swim between the people and friends, until you are out of the house, in the fresh air outside. The night that meets you is starry and cold and so it’s very beautiful. Both you and Haruchiyo, stand on the side of the street, near the house in silence, clearly absorbed in surroundings. There’s a black cat watching you across the pavement and somewhere in the bushes is a cicada. Or maybe there are many. You have no way of knowing. The smoke of the cigarette - a regular one - hits your nose and you wonder how in the world have you missed the familiar click of Haruchiyo’s favourite ZIPPO lighter. His older brother gifted it to him when he was barely fifteen. The gift is quite questionable and Haruchiyo is not very sentimental, but he always has it with him. There’s a naked woman engraved on it and he fooled you to believe that’s why. The door behind you sways open, but none of you is interested to know who it is. Maybe it’s no one important. Maybe you both should leave and forget this night like many others. But it’s Kakucho and he gently places his huge brown jacket across your shoulders and so you stay for a little bit longer. His harsh presence cuts the night in two and what happened before suddenly turns into an ugly illusion. The cat yawns and you are reminded of how late it actually is.  “True,” you say after the night digs dipper and the smoke of Haruchiyo’s cheap cig envelopes you. 

The boys are quiet. Kakucho turns his head to look at you and you smile shyly under his curious gaze. It’s not like anything really matters. 

“It’s true. Only I never wanted to fuck Ran. I just wanted to share the love I have for him.” Haruchiyo sighs, dropping unfinished cigarettes onto the pavement. You hope the cat's paws won’t touch it and burn. As it hurts when it burns. Very very much so. “Who the fuck cares if it’s true or not?” “I hate to admit it,” Kakucho sighs pretentiously, a kind smile smudged across his lips, “but I do agree with Haru. Who the fuck cares?” Drops of alcohol on his cheek. Little perfect pearls. Wet black blouse. Cold dead eyes. He doesn’t look at you. He never does. He used to, but not anymore and besides it was so long ago, it’s like it’s never happened. Old images of false memories your brain conjured by itself with a sole reason to feel something; anything at all. 

The cat disappears, night swallowing it whole, and you wish it would do the same to you. But beside you two boys bicker so loudly it would never happen. Their voices tie you to them and despite your strong wish to disappear into thin air, you are glad they make you stay. “Do you wanna get going? You are crashing at mine, right?” Haruchiyo asks, stretching out his hand, palm up. You don’t need to think about it, but you still do, taking a little pause before you reply. “Yes. I can’t show up like this at home. Mom’s gonna cry again.” None of these boys know what it means for a mom to cry. And yet they understand the ache and the heartbreak. The sacred prayer to be a better child someone somewhere could be proud of.

Before you part ways, you and Haruchiyo go to find his parked motorcycle and Kakucho his old sporty car he bought with money he probably stole from someone, you shrug Kakucho’s jacket off your shoulders. “No. Take it. You can return it any other time. I don’t mind.” He smiles at you and his smile reaches his eyes. 

_ 

Haruchiyo’s apartment is small, but it’s only his and that is something to be proud of. 

The bathroom is all fogged up from the hot shower you just took. You slip into a pair of clean boxers, old grey sweatshirts and plain white t-shirt. They don’t smell like anything, but they are so undeniably Haruchiyo’, your heart swells. You love your best friend to death. 

“I hate the post high,” he murmurs when you sleep under the duvet next to him. “How are you feeling?” “Like shit and worse.” 

He giggles, but then he grows serious and his hand slides across the bed. He is searching for your hand, to take it into his and calm you down, to show his love. You help him find it. “Your scars are just scars and she is just a bitch. Don’t think about her.” When you don’t reply, he adds. “I know you do. You are breathing strangely.” And when you don’t say anything else, he speaks again. “I have never spoken about those things with anyone. And I can give my head that Rindou hadn’t either. I don’t know how she knows.” 

Those things that are your feelings, your inner world and ugly cracks all over your body. 

Those fucking things. Involuntarily, without your mind's consent, you curl into yourself. Cold attacks your limbs like thousands of small invisible needles and you weep, and Haruchiyo understands why and for what. All the reasons are so plain, they are written in black ink on white paper. You hate that you are so easy to crack open. You want to be something else entirely. 

“I love you,” he shifts closer to you and soon you are one body, “However you are. Okay?” His long beautiful fingers hold your own hands near his bare chest. He twirls your many many rings and swipes his thumb across your skin. Haruchiyo is a gentle creature and you don’t know where it all went wrong and when sleeping pills in his cupboard became dust to snort up his nose. 

“Okay.” 

He smiles at that and checks the window behind you. It’s still dark. The dawn - nowhere in sight. Good. So so so good. Before he closes his eyes, he presses his lips against your damp forehead and then under each of your eyes, kissing the tears and headache away. Somehow he manages to do just that and you fall asleep with a light heart. _

Two summers ago, on the warm evening of the last August day, your careless youth slipped away from you.

It’s an irony that it happened when the sun was setting and a small part of you remained forever imprisoned in that pleasant August day, while another you strode forward to some distant place in the night, where you shouldn’t have been at all. 

You were wearing a pretty sparkling dress and you were all dolled up and beautiful and yet that wasn’t enough.

With your hands behind you, supporting your body and legs stretched forward, you sat on the porch of the Haitani’s house. The sun had already dipped behind the grey buildings and Roppongi, the heart of nightlife in Tokyo, was just summoned back into existence. Sometimes it felt like during the day this bright area was almost dead, barely breathing, due to the sheer constant of blinding lights it birthed at night. 

The all too thoughtfully magazine under your butt did little to protect you from the coldness of the ground. You shivered uncomfortably and gazed at the boy standing in front of you. Ran was always a dream. So handsome. So mature. So perfect with all the hard edges of his character and soft plump of his lips. 

So so so so so. 

It was embarrassing how in love with him you were and it was more embarrassing, almost devastatingly so, that you fell for him the first day you met him. You still remember how the three of you - Ran, Rindou and you - stood near the vending machine under the metal roof of the small bookshop. It was heavily raining then and you were waiting for the droplets to stop. For the storm to cease and for you to go home. You remember Ran’s beautiful face and you remember how he lit up a cigarette and you remember how his body shivered because he was cold and how he smiled when he caught you staring at him. How he said nothing and how that pretty smile of his never left his face until you closed the door of your home and bid them goodbye. 

That day you were supposed to go to a party. Ran was supposed to drive you in his new shiny car and you were supposed to have a good time. Your best friend was already on the train to Roppongi, just one station away and Rindou was still inside the house, torn between white blouse and a grey t-shirt. He didn’t want to appear too casual and yet dressing up never sat right with him. 

Maybe if one of them were with you nothing would’ve happened and maybe you would’ve stayed. 

But none of them were. Only Ran and his stupid smile that fell off his soft lips the moment you confessed. The frown settled on his face then, and he was silent for a very long time, until he spoke and it became dark. 

“You know, I don’t do sloppy seconds. You kinda are my brother’s. It's like… I am sorry. It just won’t work out.”  

Once warm air quickly turned dry and you were suffocating. Heart beating too fast and not enough to spread blood across your cold frigid body, you stood up from the porch and without a mere word strode down the road. Ran didn’t say a word. He didn’t go after you. He didn’t call. And if you were to turn back, you would’ve known that he didn’t even look after you as you were slowly disappearing between the building and despair. 

The rest of the evening passed in blur. There’s no recollection in your mind of how you ended up in that particular bar and how you spent the little yen you had on you. Till this day, you believe it is your brain that is protecting you from sleazy hands of men across your body, shielding you from the force of pain that overtook you once they had your way with you. You don’t remember much because you were drunk and high, but you remember when Rindou ran into the toilet of that bar and looked away from your abused body splattered on the floor. And you can still hear the sob your friend let out when she saw you. And if you try hard enough you can still feel the love of Rindou’s blouse when your best friend dresses you up in it. Her warm hands on your marked dirty skin.  

And of course, you remember the day after, when you woke up in her bed and you both sobbed together, until numbness overtook you and you surrendered to it like a warm hug from the life of your life. 

Since that very day, two summers ago, when your little heart was broken and your youth bid you a gruesome farewell, Ran Haitani hadn’t spoken to you at all. It’s like instead of you there was a blank waste of a space and somehow you could understand him. You could justify his silence. 

_ 

The headache after a hangover is never kind. Mixed with a loud banging on the door and muffled - thanks God - shouts of the Rindou it is truly the worst. 

The inner sides of his fists are red, but irritated skin shows barely an ounce of the frustration and anger that bubble in Rindou’s throat. His always so pretty face, now scarred by fury, is what gives him away and by the force with which he kicks off his boots, you can tell he wasn’t trying to ease himself or hide how he is feeling. “What the actual fuck,” he shouts and neither Haruchiyo who stands near the still open door, nor you still in bed under thick blanket can’t tell if this is a question or a statement. 

His body rigid and eyes burning an unfriendly fire Rindou throws his bag on the ground near the wooden dinner table that Takeomi brought in Haruchiyo’s apartment - or rather picked it up from the garbage -  and strides through the only room to you. “Get up and strip,” he commands and his voice so unnerving, so angry and forceful leaves no space for you to retreat to. You hate when he is doing this, but you understand why and his quivering lips and red dust across his cheeks are enough for you to forgive him. It’s hard for him too. 

Loving you and caring for you is hard. But it’s not a new found truth so it’s easy to fathom it in your bones.

You shed clothes that aren’t even yours, easily. One by one they pile up near your legs, a protective shell broken and discharged, until you stand there in your panties and palms for a bra. Haruchiyo curses and averts his gaze. He despises these little checks-up Rindou does and he resents that you are letting him do them every single time. Not once you said “no”.

Smooth hands glide across your skin. Between legs, under your arms, right down the spine. Optical examination ceased to be effective long ago when you put makeup on the newish wound you inflicted upon yourself. Now, Rindou had to be sure. Now, he needed your safety ensured by his own two hands. You wonder if he does all these, because he feels guilty. Because he thinks what happened to you is partially his fault. You had this conversation with him already and it ended in you sobbing and him so angry you were almost afraid of him, but not nearly. Rindou, too, is sweet and kind. Maybe a little bit more so than Haruchiyo. 

That’s why you aren’t asking anything anymore. Instead of a question you puff out a little air from between your lips. Rindou’s head shots up and he looks at you, his eyes hidden behind the thin metal rim of his glasses. You suppress a laugh. Something in between his white and blue locks charges you with merriness. 

He watches you as you press your lips together and adjust his glasses higher up his nose. He is not amused, you can tell that much, but he isn’t angry anymore and that is a relief. And he let you touch his glasses, something he never allows anyone to do [except you, but not when he is in a bad bad bad mood]. So, you decide, the storm is over. The waves are calm. 

“Not even gonna ask what you are laughing about,” he mumbles, inspecting your ankles and when he finds nothing, he stands up from the floor, not before picking up the clothes on the floor. 

“Your eyes,” you make a vague gesture with your fingers in front of your own face, “They were just hidden and you looked so… I don’t know… Never mind, Rin.” In front of you in the kitchen fighting with a kettle Haruchiyo snorts. There’s a herbish aroma and something almost too sweet circulating in the air and it’s so strong it startles you. Too absorbed in Rindou you didn’t notice the smell before. Another Haruchiyo’s tea concoction. Hopefully, this time successful. 

“Did you two get high yesterday?” Rindou asks, going inside the kitchen - it’s hard to tell where the bedroom ends and kitchen starts since Haruchiyo’s apartment is a studio - and peeking over Haruchiyo’s shoulder. “You laugh even more in the post-haze than you do while you are at it.” The silence that settles is murmuring all the nasty things that happened yesterday right in Rindou’s ears. He looks between the two of you exchanging glances and sighs. 

“Whatever. Honestly, I am not even interested. I am here this early only because your mom called.” At this, you stop, your sweatpants half way your legs. You would’ve called Rindou out for lying, because he is here not only because of your mother’s call, but because he simply can not stop caring for you. But then, when your parent calls Rindou it’s never a good thing. It’s always about your scars, your secrets and your lies. 

This time, however, you know why she called him and you sit down on the bed, feeling like the smallest tiniest human being in the whole world. You hate this feeling of a deep humiliation. You want to burn yourself to not remember the ache in your tightened jaw and the disgusting sweat on your clammy palms. 

“If this is about the blades under my bed I didn’t buy them to… har… cut myself. I bought them for postcards.” 

He doesn’t buy it. He bites his lip and shakes his head, waiting for you to continue. “I am telling the truth, Rindou. I bought them to cut out postcards. I… I…” Hot tears pool in your eyes and you hate that he doesn’t believe you and you so badly want to pity yourself, but you can’t. Can’t do this. Because it’s your own fault no one trusts your words and promises anymore. When they look at you and pity you it’s done by your own hands. Hands you too want to burn. 

“Oh, baby, stop,” Haruchiyo helps you pull your sweatpants up and then he ties the drawstrings for you, his body - a shield between you and Rindou, “you didn’t cut yourself with those blades, did you?” “No, I swear, I didn’t,” you repeat it a few times and the only thing that makes you stop mumbling is the pain that seeps through Haruchiyo’s eyes into your heart. 

“Well, good to hear, but you will have to buy a pair of scissors for your postcards, because I threw away those blades you hid under your bed.”  

A clammy hands of desperation tighten around your neck and you want to scream. From frustration and from anger, from despair. Was it like this back too? Your every word carefully weighed and put on the pedestal to judge? You don’t think so. For better or for worse you can’t remember how it was before, but you wonder when everyone will just give up on you. 

With a loud screech against the chair against the floor, Rindou stands up. He takes a few steps and gently shoves Haruchiyo away from you. His long white hair swaying in the air. Haruchiyo smiles at you, reassuringly, kindly and the pools of grim pain evaporate from his beautiful eyes. Love heals, you think. So then, why do you remain sick? “You know how much I care about you, do you?” Rindou asks, cupping your face, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. “I’ll do anything for you to be healthy, happy and well. If it means I have to be harsh with you then I will. And if it means you will hate me somewhere on the way, so be it. But I won’t let you down again. Get this in your head. I. Am. Not. Letting. You. Down. Ever. Again.” Haruchiyo turns away and gets to his kettle and tea. And you finally silently cry cradled into Rindou’s warmth. Humiliation washes away with salty tears and the ever so heavy guilt crashes upon your shoulders. It’s better than anything, you think. Because that means you still care too and that means you are alive and well and there’s hope that one day all the check-ups and blades and tears will be in the past. 

You believe in this. 

Haruchiyo’s tea turns out not so bad and you and Rindou have two cups, one and half each. 

_ 

That day you come home late in the evening. 

You still wear Haruchiyo’s clothes and have Kakucho’s jacket thrown over your shoulders. The sneakers you place on the shoe rack - dusty black Adidas - are yours. This random sudden thought makes you happy and for the first time in a while you bubble with excitement. Over shoes. It can’t be normal. It’s not normal. Probably just a lingering side-effect of weed or bottled up emotions in which Rindou effectively made a hole once again. Inside the living room, under tonkatsu, sits your family. They are watching TV over dinner. You see an empty plate and an empty space reserved just for you and your giddy happiness holts. You had dinner with Rindou and Haru already and you aren’t hungry. Guiltiness spreads across your lungs like a web of poisonous spiders. 

Your mother is the one who sees you first. She is wary and tired when she looks at you, but this is nothing new. Your father turns back to look at you too, he nods and returns to the TV as soon as he can. He says, you should join them and eat something, you must be starving. You nod and wave at your little sister. She waves back. 

You go inside your room.

No one said anything about new shining scissors you had in your hand that Rindou bought for you. 

No one came to check on you and you didn’t have dinner together. 

_ You skip school for the next few days. 

There’s no particular reason. You just don’t feel like going. 

In front of you, there’s a void and it’s luring you in. Black colour, so inviting and beautiful. Inside of a space avoidant of anything and everything, where no air is floating, you are blossoming. The slightest aroma of laundry detergent and fresh baked cookies are so hard to resist and this is exactly what this imaginary [not so] place of yours smells like. You wish you could stay there forever. 

You almost do. 

But then your phone rings and the number is unknown. Yet, you have the slightest hunch of who it could be. That’s why you pick it up. 

“Hey! You have no idea how hard it was to get your number. You do have some seriously overprotective friends,” Kakucho laughs echoes through that night where you met a black cat to now  and then right into your ear. 

You hum, holding your phone in the safest place between your ear and shoulder, “I guess you could say that. Why are you calling? Oh! I am sorry I totally forgot to give you your jacket back. Do you wanna meet up somewhere? I am free now.” 

He laughs again and you notice that his laugh is boisterous and contagious. It’s almost childish in its raw sincerity. You haven’t heard people being that happy in a long long time. In a reminiscence the corner of your lips stretch up on their own. “What about… Can you be at Shibuya station in twenty minutes?” “I can try.” “Cool. I'll see you there then!” 

He hangs up just as abruptly as he called and the taste in your mouth is not of sweet abyss cookies, but of metal and caramel. It’s exciting in the most lazy manner. 

Outside, running down the street, to catch the bus on time, you notice the vast blue sky that is so clear it looks like it’s made of glass. You stop on the crossroad, hands on your hips, and take a few shallow breaths. Running was never and will never be your forte, but you stare at the infinite beauty that covers the whole earth and all people living on it, and wonder why haven’t you got out of the house earlier. 

_ Kakucho takes you to a nice barbeque place. 

It’s a chain restaurant, so the food is quite cheap and nice. You order two bowls of rice, beef, soup and kimchi. Kakucho gets himself Sapporo beer and you ask for iced lemon tea which he claims doesn’t go well with meat, but still smiles when you sip it. 

He is sitting opposite you in a small booth made for two people only. He is wearing a black turtleneck and plain jeans that can’t be that expensive, but they do look like he paid more than twenty thousand yen to get them. On the back of his chair hangs yet another leather jacket. The one he gave you sits in the Mitsukoshi bag under the table near your leg. 

In everything he does, Kakucho is effortless and confident. He grills the meat for you and he carries the conversation for you too. He asks you about school, about your hobbies, your likes and dislikes and even learns what your favourite colour is. 

Half through this spontaneous dinner you understand that this was never about returning his jacket. At least for him. But then, it’s his dark black hair that he spontaneously decided to grow out almost two years ago after he got tired of seeing that ugly bald dude with a scar in reflection every morning. [This you too learn over the food and while you want to tell him that by no means he can be considered ugly, you suppress yourself and listen to his soothing voice carrying you to yet another story already.] They are so black, they almost have this blue-ish inky feeling to them. And somehow looking at him so smiley, so kind and so handsome, so welcoming and accepting, so invested in every few words you say, he reminds you of those beautiful warm summer nights. Not the one that happened two summers ago, but all the ones before that. It’s a burning sensation and it calms you. 

You think, if he wants you might give him a chance. 

It’s dark when you go outside and back to the metro station. 

“Next time I’ll see you I’ll bring my car. I feel really bad, but my car is in the service. The engine has been acting up.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kakucho,” you say counting the colourful kaleidoscope of the stained glass window of the random shop, you pass by. You connect every piece to seconds that fly away and they make beautiful constellations. “Just think it’s a good thing you are taking me home then and we are going by foot and not driving there. I am bad with directions. But now you are going to remember where I live and next time you can pick me up right from home. You know, just to pay for all the walking we did today.” He bites his smile back, lips pressed tightly together, but it fights him and reaches his eyes. They shine. _ “Since when are you and Kakucho going out?” 

You sit on the floor of Haruchiyo’s apartments with a scissor in your hands. Bright patterned paper, stickers, glue and so many other things you sure are two boys in the room with you don’t even know the name of, lay in a circle surrounding you. It’s messy, but Haruchiyo who lays on the bed, behind you and watches every single creative step you take, doesn’t seem to mind. 

In fact he never does. 

“We are not going out,” you mumble, eyes focused on cutting the most precisely shaped heart without an outline. “We’ve been hanging out. That’s all.” Rindou doesn’t seem to be convinced. He glances over to Haruchiyo laying on his stomach, blond hair a curtain, and sighs. 

“You do know, he has a thing for you?” “Well, I mean I kinda do, but I am sure it’s not anything serious. Who would’ve been in lo…” “He punched Ran at that party and they haven't talked since then.” 

The scissors stop and the bright yellow heart falls to the ground. It’s nicely and evenly cut out, but something about it isn’t right and you can’t tell what it is and you are spiralling and nothing can stop you now, because fire is nowhere in reach. You scratch your left thigh. 

“I didn’t wanna tell you, but…” “I am glad Kaku did it. I am sorry Rin, but it was actually very nasty there and if not for her,  I would’ve killed his bitch first and then kill him,” you hear the springs in the old mattress squeak and then Haruchiyo plops right next to you, making a space for himself between glue bottles, colourful tapes and you. “Ran never told her anything, because he didn’t even know, and I never told Ran or anybody about it. It wasn’t my brother’s fault she ran her mouth. For all I know Ran and her were never even together.” “Oh, really? Then how the fuck does she know?” The anger rising up in Rindou scorches you and you wince, but boys being boys, playing their own little war don’t notice it. “How would I know that? I just know that even if Ran knew he would never speak about it with anybody else!” “For fuck’s sake, Rindou, I know he is your older brother and you always admired him and…” 

The words bleed. The wounds they leave suffocate. You plaster a yellow heart over a red cardboard. You draw millions of hearts around it. You wish they’d stop now, but you know them both well enough, to know they won’t. You know how much Rindou loves Ran and how much Haruchiyo thinks everything that happened to you is because of Ran. But it’s not. What happened to you has never been Ran’s fault and you won’t let anyone think that. Not even your sweet pretty Haruchiyo. “I believe it,” you say loudly enough to stop them. “In fact, I know it wasn’t Ran who told her. Ran is not like that and… I… I just know he didn’t know about it. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Ran and it’s not his fault. Neither it’s his responsibility or yours.” Splashes of alcohol across his cheek and wet t-shirt. The look on his face. Of pure horror and so many regrets. It wasn’t Ran. It could never be him. 

Rindou and Haruchiyo mend over the sweet sour chicken you make for them. They laugh, and joke and make those stupid boyish remarks only male in their twenties can. But you forgive them for that and for everything else too, like they do the same for you. 

It’s when Rindou examines your newest red card with yellow heart and I LOVE YOU RINDOU written across it, he brings the subject of Kakucho back. “Just so you know, I won’t hesitate to add another scar to his face.” Haruchiyo snorts, “Aren’t you two like best gym buddies?” “Yes we are. But he doesn’t make me postcards. And want it or not, but my loyalty lies with my brother so we aren’t speaking either.” 

Haruchiyo never comments anything on it and neither do you, but for the rest of the evening and well into the night when you lay down in Haruchiyo bed and try your best to sleep, you can’t help it, but think where does your loyalty lay? To what latitude does it extend and what seconds are most important to you to get back to them over and over again. _ 

It’s summer and you are in Kyoto. You are in your last school year and life has never ever been more beautiful. The green around you has the most vibrant colour and the sun above you is the warmest it has ever been. You close your eyes, spread your arms and melt. If you had to choose a moment to live in forever it would be this. 

There’s a festival going on in town. You hear music and people laughing. You smell chicken and something very very sweet. But despite this cacophony of smells and sounds, you also hear birds chirping and because of that your heart beats twice as fast. It’s a pretty feeling and you hope your heart will stay this way forever. 

Ran finds you kneeling in front of the small flower cart in front of the flower shop. You are so engrossed in the scenery of random shapes and ethereal feelings to them, you don’t notice him at all. Or so he thinks, because it’s very very difficult for you not to sense Ran’s presence.

It’s even harder not to feel his lazy stare on you and it’s impossible to not be burned by his crooked hazy smile as he watches you pecking tender petals with your fingertips.  

“Where’s Rin?” You ask, eyes focused on the bright pink flower. Ran takes a step, then another one and then he squats by your side, shoulders touching, the flower unnoticed. “With Kakucho, your two friends and Haruchiyo at a sportswear store.” “What?” Head snapping to the side, you study his face, to see if he is teasing you and while his lips are stretched in a smile, you don’t think he is. 

“I know. I am surprised Haruchiyo tagged along with them,” he stops talking, his lips form a straight concerned line and the crease between his blonde eyebrows makes you want to press a fingertip in there to soothe it. 

But instead of you reaching out to him, it’s him raising his hand to your shoulder. You hear a little buzzling near your ear, see the blue vast sky and people swarming behind Ran and you feel so warm, so safe, so i-wanna-freeze-this-moment. And you don’t know why your heart clenches the way it does and why your hands get clammy. 

“It’s a little bee,” Ran says, eyes fascinated by the small creature sitting on his finger. “Probably mistook you for a flower.” He laughs and shakes the bee away. It falls in the air, but as if remembering it can actually fly, spreads its little tiny wings and goes off. To the crowd. To the festival. To so many shared happy moments. 

“Do you want to go eat something? I am starving and on my way here I saw a decent looking place that serves yukke.” “Can we get Yatsuhashi after?” you stand up first, your head a bit dizzy from squatting for so long. Ran grins and nods, “Anything you want.” It’s on the way to the more than decent looking, but high-class restaurant that Ran takes you to, in the middle of your conversation that you remember about the flowers you were so fascinated with. There was no tag on them and you weren't sure they were even for sale, and yet you wished you went inside the shop and asked. Everything needs a name to stay. Today, Ran is eager to provide you with one. “It’s camellia. The flower you were looking at. Did you like it?” 

The sun is still high up in the sky and people are still walking. The Gion Matsuri festival will last for another three days. “Since when can you tell flowers?” 

You are genuinely interested and maybe that’s why Ran responds. You are sure he wouldn’t otherwise. 

“Mom used to have a book on flowers. Encyclopaedia. Was obsessed with them and how do you think she came up with the name for me and Rin? Obviously took them from there. It was the only thing that remained after she left. Along with our names.” 

“Well, you and Rindou remained too and then that old apartment of yours.” The smile blooms on his face again. He points at the restaurant with his finger and leads you there, “That apartment was actually of our beloved father. I wanted to set it on fire, but Rin talked me out of it.” 

Somehow you know once again he is telling you the truth. The fire, him and Rindou, and the book that for one reason or so many more others he kept and read so many times, he could tell camellia apart from other flowers. 

“Anyway, do you think bees migrate?” Inside the restaurant almost all tables are busy, but Ran finds you a perfect place near the outdoor garden for two people. You get a haunting feeling like it was waiting for you. “You mean migrate like birds do?” “Yeah,” he says casually overlooking the menu, “Oh, they have your favourite iced lemon tea. I always thought it’s amusing how you never drink anything hot.”  

“I don’t like hot things. They burn. I hate it when it burns,” you do and you don’t think you’ll ever change. “And to answer your question, I don’t think bees migrate. I’ve never seen them flying around freely like birds.” “I’ve never seen a single bee in Roppongi. Today's gotta be my first time.” You end up ordering a lot more than you both can eat. It’s always like this with Ran and you think you know why. You think you understand him, and his questions and a lot more things he tries to keep confined in that heart of his. 

Like an encyclopaedia of flowers and bees that flew away.  

_ You and Kakucho will never end up together. Not in this universe, not in any other. He is the first one to break it to you, but you were the first to realise. 

The truth is swallowed under bright cold stars. There’s not much light on the pier where you are lying down on the cold grey cement, but the roar of crashing waves and flickering lights of bulk carriers’ lamps are enough to guide you home. If needed. 

“I feel like I could love you, but you won’t let me,” he says and these words are mere whispers that take the form of a knife. Dull or sharp doesn’t matter. It still cuts your skin in two and you bleed. This is nothing new. 

“Maybe you are right,” is all you say. Your hands on your belly, you imagine sharks, three of them, emerging from the water and ripping you apart. They have five rows of deadly sinful teeth that will shred your flesh in seconds before you become part of them and the sea. You won’t die and you’d feel pain until sun blasts and the Earth will pause to exist and you with it. But no sharks come out and you are breathing. 

“I still want to be your best friend, though,” Kakucho turns to his side, prompts his head on his palm and peers in your face. “If you want to, of course.” 

Under his gaze, you think he’s searching for something. You want to tell him not to, because he won’t find it there. There’s no fight left in you. It’s all in vain, all in vain! “Nah. Those roles are taken,” you are only half-joking, but he doesn’t have to know that. “You can try though.” “Oh, I will. I will try my very best. I still like you. It’s not like it will go away any time soon.” If sharks do come, you pray, please don’t kill Kakucho too. He deserves to live a long nice life with a person who will love his gentle soul. But again, no sharks come, and you and him are alive and well. And an hour later he drops you off at home and you wish you won’t see him again and regret your inability to make people feel love. _ Haruchiyo’s hair is the prettiest you’ve ever seen. You’ve known him since you were eleven and every single hairstyle he had he owned. He was a young cheerful boy then, and a quite pretty young man now. Sometimes, you wished you could be together. You think both of you could make it work and maybe both of you would, if there wasn’t Rindou in between of you. But, today, there’s no Rindou and Haruchiyo’s head is in your laps and his clear bright eyes, almost transparent in their intensity, look at you and you only.  

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, hand finding yours, fingers sewn together. “Nothing much,” you lie and he accepts it, because he knows what goes in your head.

He sighs then, a tired loud sigh ripped right from his chest, just where his heart is. He tears himself off you, and sits opposite you, stretching his legs on each side of you. 

“If you want, we can, but I do agree with Kaku, you will never love anyone, even me, like you love that beanpole. And hurting me will break your heart more than… Ah, you understand what I mean, right? And sex won’t solve anything either. It’s gonna make everything worse. And I am willing to give up anything I might feel for us, but not you and what we already have. I love you and I love your happiness and it’s not with me. Not in that way.” “Wow,” you giggle, face hot with tears. Haruchiyo smiles. His kind, beautiful smile makes him even more ethereal than he already is. With this angel white hair. 

He leans in and kisses you on your lips. Hands on your wet cheeks, he doesn’t wipe them away, but hold them there and you feel them. They are cold and sorrowful. They are happy. 

“Let’s go eat something. I’m paying. And if you want we can rent a movie to watch before we come back.” I do, you say and he nods. He kisses your forehead and helps you stand up. Haruchiyo is your best friend and you don’t really suppose you are destined to become something else. And it’s good. It does feel right. 

_ The school is somehow not how you remember it. It’s even more dull, grey and ugly. You so badly want to drop out and never come back, but you can’t disappoint your family and friends more than you already have. You suck all your regrets and unpleasantries in, and continue to carry on. 

Today, you are all alone. Haruchiyo isn’t in Tokyo and neither is Rindou. They went to that stupid DJ convention in Osaka and you, sitting in the cafeteria with your store bento box in front of you, wish you were with them. They are for sure having a lot of fun. 

Unlike you. 

It’s not a recent thing, but you are craving company, because thoughts inside your head are suffocating you. You see fires, fireworks and sharks with fairy lights. You feel waves and your little sister stares at you. Your skin pops off, wrinkling and coming off in ugly distorted layers. 

You need this to stop, until you do the unforgivable and this is betraying Rindou to whom you promised not to do anything with yourself. You promised to go to school and study and be a good girl. Just for this week. Until he comes back and it gets easier to breathe. 

Maybe, you should call Kakucho and go out with him. He won’t say no. You know that well and that’s why you don’t call him. He is too good for you and your haunting voices in your mind. 

Everything seals in, when your friend finds you in the cafeteria and invites you to the party. It’s a small intimate gathering she promises and it’s gonna be so fun! We can dress up and have a little fun. We haven’t hung out in so long. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! We are going to have the best night ever. 

You don’t think twice, you need to relax and shut your shaking fears in your head, lock them away and preferably kill. So, you say “yes” and it makes your friend so happy, she spills her orange juice on your bleached jeans that your mother washed yesterday. _

The party is awful and your heart screams at you to get out before it’s too late. 

But your friend holds your hand and you feel safer and she claims she knows a lot of people there and they are nice and then, she would never let anything happen to you. The last part is true, but there’s only so much a young girl in her twenties can do. People she knows are a group of men. They look like rock stars, smudged eyeliner and long hair, multiple piercings in both ears. There’s no way to tell their age, but you don’t think they are that much older. A strong smell of weed and alcohol doesn’t scare you either. It feels familiar. 

With a few drags from a blunt you levitate, head in clouds, river of shitty bitter drink in your stomach, you levitate. You laugh and giggle and let the boy with orange bleached hair throw an arm around your bare shoulders. His touch isn’t anything, it’s barely there. 

Until it’s not. 

Until, his hand slides to your breast and he squeezes it. Once, twice, you lose the count. You feel sick, smoke disintegrated from your head, alcohol still in your blood. All the scars you carry on your body itch. You breathe in and breathe out, and the boy mistakes it for excitement. He grins, eyes foggy and greedy. 

The bile rises up in your throat. You shove it down, to your stomach. The friend that promised to be there for you isn’t here anymore and you can’t pinpoint the moment she left. Hazy thoughts and remnants of what she said to you before going upstairs with one of the boys are still there, but they are melted in the hold and attention forced on you. 

When the boy turns you around and kisses your neck, you’ve had enough. With a smile on your lips, and wobbly legs, you push him away, hands on his chest and he groans unsatisfied and hungry. He dives right back, fingers latching onto your waist. “I really need to use the restroom,” you whisper again and again and again. “I really need to. Please. I’ll be back. Just let me go.” He doesn’t and his friends laugh behind you. Is there no one to help you? No one to not let that awful night happen again? “Please, I just want to go to the restroom,” you plead and this time he releases you. You flee away. With trembling hands and shaking heart, you flee away and run to the bathroom. It’s vacant and it’s dirty, but it will do. It will do until you think of how to escape that party and get home. To your mom, to your dad and to you sweet little sister. To everything good and innocent that still lives in you. But now, you cry. You sit on the dirty floor in the house of a person you don’t know with a dress ridden to your mid thighs and cry. You cry for betraying Rindou’s trust, because once you are out of here, you’ll cut and then you’ll burn yourself and this time you hope it hurts so much, you won’t be able to feel anything for weeks. You hope it scars your body so ugly everyone will finally turn away from you. But firstly, you need to get out of here and this is almost impossible, because that guy wants you and waits for you and you promised to be back. Swallowing, you reach out for your phone. It’s in your bag. It’s fully charged and when you are about to dial Kakucho’s number, because he’s the only person to come and get you now, it rings. You answer before you see the name of the caller. “Hey! Why weren’t you answering my calls? Where the fuck are you?”

It’s Rindou and you know everything ends here. “I am fine. I am just at the party with…” “Are you crying? What the fuck? Where are you?” You sob. Because he is harsh with you and because he has every right to be. 

“Rin, I am sorry, I… that guy… I don’t want you to worry about it. I’ll call Kakucho and he…” “Who? Did someone hurt you? You need to tell me where the fuck you are.” “He just… Rin, I can’t… Why are you in… I am sorry… I want to go home.” He is panicking. On the line, in another city, his heart breaks in two for you. “I need you to tell me where you are. Tell me where the fuck you are.” You tell him. The address, the way to the bathroom and even what you are wearing. You have no idea why you are doing this, because Rindou is no god and he can’t get to Tokyo, to you, swiftly. Today, he won’t save you. But he promises you he will and then he hangs up, only to call you a couple of minutes later and talk to you about anything and everything, before you are safe. Before you are you again. _ The lightning that shoots through your body is so strong and powerful, you straighten up against the door and stop breathing. Outside is eerily quiet. The music is no longer playing and people aren’t speaking. It’s like the world died and you are the only one left. “What is it?” Rindou asks after he catches you not listening to him telling you about the new DJ set up he and Haruchiyo saw today at the exhibition. It’s pointless asking him, because you do know the answer to your question, but you do ask anyway. “Who did you call, Rindou?” “Ran. I called Ran. Is he there?” 

His voice is soft and comforting, but it does little to calm your wires of nerves.  Suddenly the world is very crispy and clear. “Rin, I don’t think I am ready to talk to him and…” “Listen here,” he interrupts you, taking a long pause, “It’s just Ran. My older brother. The guy you knew since what? Five years old? I don’t know a better person I can trust you with than him.” “It’s not that… it’s just… I am not ready… I don’t think…” A knock on the door never lets you finish the sentence. Rindou is babbling up on the phone again, you can hear him, but you can’t comprehend what he is saying. Slowly you open the door. You feel safe. You start breathing again. _ Ran doesn’t take you to your house. He doesn’t speak to you when he escorts you out of the house, your hand in his, and he doesn’t speak to you once he stops near KFC, gets out and gets back with two large bags he throws in the backseat, neither does he say anything when he makes the last stop at convenience store two blocks away from his and Rindou’s apartment. 

Two stops and thirty minutes ride, you don’t hear his voice even once. I am with her, is what he said to Rindou when he found you and took your phone from your hands; it still sits in the right pocket of his sweats. 

And you, you don’t try to talk either. Instead, you watch him. You caress his face with your eyes and try to spot if everything is different since you last saw him this close. Two summers ago. 

You don’t find anything new and it’s disappointing and relieving at the same time. Inside the apartment everything is still. He flickers on the light in the living room, places bags with food and drinks on the table and turns to you, standing where he left you. In the corridor. “Go and take a bath. Puke if you want and then come here. We’ll eat and we’ll talk.” When you don’t move he adds. “Go and wash yourself, I’ll bring you fresh clothes in a minute. Go.” The shower does help you. Water and soap feel nice on your skin and it’s not the cleansing you wish it was, but it still makes you feel better. Less anxious and more grounded. It also washes your worries away and you can’t help, but blame it on the weed wearing off your body. You are happy you are sober now and you wish it was something else that sobered you and not a random guy groping you at the party you shouldn’t have been at, at all. You don’t puke and you rinse your mouth with green mouth wash that you find on the sink. Haruchiyo has the same one at his apartment. You think if he is already aware of what happened. You should call him tomorrow and say you are okay, you are fine. Nothing bad happened. You suppose Rindou has told him, but you want to reassure him yourself. Ran sits on the floor when you emerge from the bathroom, wearing black sweats and grey t-shirt. You know it’s his clothes and you know when he raises his head and sees you wearing them, the corner of his lips tug up. He is quick to lower his head again, eyes on the chicken and fries neatly divided between two plates, as he motions you to come join him. 

This time you do it without hesitation. You eat in silence. Words on the tip of your tongue you so desperately want to say something, but it’s not your turn to talk and so you wait, until he gathers up and says what he has to say to you. “You are staying here. I already called your mom and told her you are with me so you don’t have to worry about it. I also spoke with Rindou and he’ll stay at the convention until the end. He won’t return tomorrow as he initially wanted.” You don’t say anything back. The fast food Ran bought is delicious and this apartment with him in it is a pleasant nice memory you dissolve in. You sip on your beloved iced lemon tea and you hope this moment of the night will never end or it will snatch you away. Imprison you in its comfort. “How do you feel?” His purple eyes never leave your presence and while the question is expected, you never wanted him to ask you that, because for once you don’t want to lie anymore. You are sick and tired of lying. “I am fine now, but I don’t think I’ll be tomorrow morning when I leave and I’ll probably get worse when I am home and alone.” He hums to that, shaking his head. His hair is parted in two nicely done braids. It’s longer than you remember it and yet it’s the same. “You won’t go home tomorrow morning. You are staying here until the answer to that question is I am good. Until I see you are better I am not letting you go.”

“Ran, I don’t think it works like that.” “Then, we’ll make it work like that.” 

That puts an end to your conversation. Together you wash dishes and he returns to his room, while you slip in Rindou’s bed and close your eyes. Violence is never an answer to you, and maybe Ran didn’t mean to enforce anything on you, and that’s why he didn’t close the door to his room as he always did before [you remember it so, but he might have changed, it’s been years after all], but you want to try. You so desperately want to feel good, you are willing to do anything. _ The next morning comes and you are the first to wake up. Ran’s room is dark and silent. The door is still open. There’s no sound coming out. Everything is still and motionless, but alive. That’s how you know he is actually home, inside his room sleeping peacefully. 

You don’t move around much. You don’t want to wake him up, because you do remember how grumpy he gets when someone disturbs his sleep. So, instead, you return back to Rindou’s bedroom and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Your phone is still in Ran’s possession and you are quite bored. Not that you can do much with it, but you could have messaged Rindou or Haruchiyo. It’s better than doing anything and in Rindou’s bedroom there’s nothing much to shorten the time you have until Ran wakes up. 

It’s around noon when your back gets so stiff and you just simply can’t fall asleep again no matter how hard you try, so you get off the bed and stride into the kitchen. The cupboards don’t have much and it’s even worse than at Haruchiyo’s house. That boy at least has a collection of tea, instant coffees, chicken take-outs leftovers and rice. All Haitanis have are a pack of rice, one cup of instant noodles, a carrot, two cans of spam and five eggs. It’s all definitely courtesy of Rindou. Ran solely survives on deliveries and eating in those favourite posh restaurants of his. 

It’s another hour and a smell of grilled spam that lures him out of the bed. He crosses the corner that separates his bedroom and kitchen, and with a heavy blanket across his shoulder and droopy eyes that are ready to close any second, stares at you. “What are you cooking?” 

“Rice with spam and eggs.” “I didn’t know we had eggs. Good. I’ll be right back.” 

He disappears into his room and then reappears a second after and goes straight into the bathroom and you standing in their little kitchen for the first time since yesterday shrink in size, feeling very very small. It’s all too strange, you comprehend, mind spiralling and angry and so frustrated. So so so strange for you to be here, in Ran’s and Rindou’s kitchen, cooking a miserable attempt at breakfast at noon, for yourself and a guy with whom you once were so close, but then you haven’t spoken in almost two years and now… 

You freeze, hands raised mid-air, and mouth slightly parted. Breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. 

Now… Now, there’s rice on the stove and you need to reach for bowls, which should be in the cupboard right in front of you. That’s if they didn’t wake up one day and decided to store their dishes in the drawer next to the fridge.

Now, you need to turn the stove off, so the spam will stay crispy, and not turn into an ugly tasteless black  coal. You need to do all this and that’s what you do. Ran is back to you in almost no time. He watches you carefully, and you wonder if he sees your worries in your trembling hands and bitten lips, in how you avoid his intense gaze. But if he does, he doesn’t say anything. Wordlessly, he helps you by taking both of the bowls, leaving you to grab chopsticks and soya sauce. 

He settles on the floor and you sit next to him, putting a comfortable distance between the two of you. 

It’s very Ran to not turn on the TV. He eats quietly, throwing a small praise your way, that means nothing, because it’s just an appreciative humming and a couple of pleased curses. You eat too, because there’s nothing else to do and you are kinda hungry. It’s also is a distraction enough not to send you down your torture tunnel again. You welcome it happily, grabbing the opportunity with both hands. You welcome Ran staring at you too. You suppose you are acting as the TV for him today. The thought makes you smile. “Yesterday, when I arrived, no one would tell me who was the guy that made you uncomfortable by touching you,” he starts, confident with purple eyes never leaving you. “They only spoke when I kneeled one of them down and stepped on their fingers.” The rice in front of you, sticky from the yolk, dances. You wish you could dance too, but you haven’t had a good dance since the last party with Haruchiyo and Rindou almost two weeks ago, where Rindou got so drunk, he couldn’t remember what his name was, but he remembered you. That moment was sweet and you think the moment now isn't really so, but your mouth suddenly tastes like cotton candy and it’s a pleasant feeling. A great even. 

“I broke the fingers of the guy who touched you yesterday and I broke every single finger on the hands of the guys who touched you that day. It was a mess, but there won’t be a day now in their lives, that they won’t feel the pain and that’s all I wish for.” “Ran…” The bowl is too heavy for you to hold and the rice isn’t dancing anymore, nor does the world move and you doubt anything exists past this apartment. The white noise and deafening eerie silence envelope you in their deadly hug. But you don’t want them to touch you. You want to swim in Ran’s eyes that carry no remorse or guilt or pity, but acceptance and comfort. Tenderness seeps through him like the sand of the broken hourglass. If he suffocates you with it, burying you under him, you won’t mind it. 

You won’t mind it at all.  “You don’t have to say anything,” he laughs, clearly amused by your lack of reaction or from the plentiness of it. “Good.” “Yeah, good. Finish your food and let’s go grocery shopping. We don’t have anything to eat in this house and Rindou’s stack of shochu isn’t much to my taste.” “He still has a stack of shochu?” “That’s the only thing you are worrying about?” “No, but…” “I am teasing you. Yes, he has. It’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.” Well, it seems like nothing much changed in their apartment after all. Bowls in the cupboards and stacks of shochu, and everything else in between. 

Two years after last visiting, you feel like it was just yesterday. A nice revived warm memory. You hope it will linger for a little more, its light pleasantly warming your cold hands. _ Your phone is somewhere inside Ran’s room and he isn’t willing to give it to you. It’s also a no trespasse territory so you don’t dare to go in there and take it yourself. “Did Rindou call?” You ask on your second day spent with Ran. It’s raining outside. Quite heavily so, but inside this little cute cafe that serves only coffees and cheesecakes, it’s warm and safe. “He called me,” Ran says, cutting his lemon cheesecake in half and transferring the piece to your plate. He cuts off part of your strawberry one for himself too. “Asked what we were doing and how are you doing. Don’t worry about him. He is getting drunk, high and probably has a couple of girls in his bed to warm it. I bet he is having a good time.”

“It’s good then. I want him to have a good time.” Ran hums, takes a sip of his black coffee that obviously doesn’t taste good at all and observes you. Eyes squinting and all. It would’ve been uncomfortable before, but it’s not anymore. In these two full days you spent with him in his apartment it’s almost like all those years before. “Your other friend called though and sent lots of messages.” You don’t have to ask to know who this friend is and Ran understands it very well, because he continues without waiting for you to ask who he is talking about. “I answered him and told him you’ll stay with me. Apparently what I did at the party reached him.” 

Never once he looks away from you, waiting for anything from you. A small frown, barely there sigh, tears or glossy eyes. But nothing comes, so he asks. Simply, because he desires to know. “Are you upset? I can give you your phone back if you want to call Kakucho. I know you’ve become close since that party.” There’s nothing you are feeling. No sadness, no remorse, no heart in the stomach. It stays in your chest where it’s supposed to be. So you shrug and put a little bit of yellow cheesecake on your spoon. You taste it, the back of the spoon hanging from your mouth. It tastes good. Really really good. 

“I am not upset and we are just close friends. Nothing more.” “Nothing more?” “Nope.” “That’s good. Anyway, do you want to rent something to watch later today?” It is good and yes you do. Of course you do. 

_

With his hair up in a messy bun, loose strands falling all over his face and glasses always falling off past his nose bridge, Ran looks ridiculous. You tell him just that. 

He also looks very domestic, very warm and safe, but you aren’t about to tell him that. He understands it anyway. 

_ On the fourth day of getting back to Ran he leaves the apartment very early in the morning and doesn’t return until the evening when the clock strikes eight. 

It’s very boring without him there. With nothing to do you read Rindou’s book about healthy food and when you finish it, you read his handouts about the importance of music in western world. Both food and music are dull topics to you, but with nothing to do it’s better than just sitting on the sofa and waiting for Ran to come home.  You also watch TV. MTV with loud pop and all the same techno music and then some soap opera with an all too obvious plot on TBS. You even tune in on the football match on TBS Sports and find it a bit entertaining. 

But then the match ends and Ran isn’t home yet and you have no idea where your phone is so you could’ve called him [you don’t have his number], so you get up and get to cooking. Cooking is nice and it’s creative enough for you to lose yourself in it. You notice a pack of shaving razor’s on the kitchen countertop and wonder how they even got there. 

You take them back to the bathroom. When Ran does come home it’s dark outside and he doesn’t look any different. It’s raining again and his hair and clothes are a bit wet, which makes you think that he didn’t use his car. You so want to ask him where he has been and why has he left you alone, but you don’t dare. 

You stare at him from the safe space of Rindou’s room. Watch him take his coat off, then his boots and then he is right by your side. “I wanna see your scars,” he asks, almost pleading, and this is so unlike him, so not Ran and everything you know about him, you think you heard him wrong, but he repeats, “I want to see you. You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” And you aren’t. You were never afraid of Ran and his vicious, sometimes cruel, nature, because to you he was never like that. You never saw him as a person capable of turning another human being's fingers into a bloody mess that won’t ever heal. To you, Ran is Ran. Beautiful sleepy eyes and gentle touches. A never ending worry for the people he loves and all the knowledge about flowers he once read in the encyclopaedia of his gone from his life forever mother. 

Without saying anything, holding onto each other’s gaze, you strip to your underwear. Your scars ugly tissues of messy skin, are wanting to be hidden. They scream at you and cry and rebel. They promise you, you can hide them under other scars, more brutal, more deadly, more deep, but you don’t believe them anymore. 

Nothing ever will steal them away from you. They are now you and you have to carry them for as long as you live. No sharks or stakes are the option.

Cold fingers burn your warm skin. Ran’s hands glide across every patch of your existence that once were wronged by you. He finds every single one. On your arms, your legs and thighs. Your ribs and lower back. He doesn’t say anything, but his hands tremble and that is enough for you to understand everything. Him and his reasons. 

When he claws your waist with his fingertips and brings you close to him in an impossible tight hug, you start crying. Your own hands fist the plush of his sweater and you want it gone, because you need to feel him close to you. Skin to skin and nothing apart. 

The pressure from his fingers is painful, and if he presses more, he’ll leave blooming bruises, but you won’t mind it. You wouldn’t mind it at all, because just this once it’s so nice to be safe and sound in the arms of someone other than Rindou or Haruchiyo. It’s so nice, so so nice, to want something more and not be afraid of it. 

It’s like blooming camellias and stinging honey bees. 

_ Fully dressed with sanrio cookies Ran got at 7-Eleven, you sit near him on the floor, on the Rindou’s blanket you spread across it for warmth and comfort. Your tears have long dried and the Ghibli movie is now playing on the TV. The room is dark, the rain is still falling and Ran is slowly falling asleep. 

“You know, I’ve never rejected you,” he yawns, laying down. “That summer. I didn’t reject you. I thought you and Rin had something going on between you and that’s why I said what I said. Maybe if I were to… Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Let’s just watch the movie.” Ran doesn’t make it to the end. He dozes off right at the moment when Chichiro boards the train and suddenly you too lose interest in a magical movie with so much sense behind its gentle animation. For a couple of seconds that stretch into an endless drop of water you bring your knees to your chest and stare outside the window. The view is nothing much. A grey building and dimly lit street lamp. Not a soul passes under the windows and you don’t hear any voices or laughs. No steps or coughs and rustling of clothes. Maybe there’s a black cat there somewhere, but its paws are too soft to make any noise. It most definitely won’t reach the second floor. Especially with rain meeting the pavement and cars and roofs, and maybe cats, but hopefully not. 

That night that summer it was raining too or so you were told, because you don’t remember. Drunk, high and very very sad you were brought into Haruchiyo’s apartment where he cared for you as best as an eighteen year boy could about an eighteen year old wronged girl. And in that crumpled dusty bar in Roppongi another act of love was happening. More vicious and more cold. Rindou has never told you about it, but you know him and Ran well enough to know that they did it together. Haitani brothers and all. 

You are too lazy to go to the kitchen and put sanrio cookies in the cupboard where they belong so you place them on the table near the TV. You grab the remote and switch the movie off. Darkness envelops the apartment, but you are used to it and then there’s that street lamp with its light and Ran. Slowly, you sneak under the blanket and curl next to him.

His breaths are even and methodical. His heart beats the same and he is very very warm. He is asleep and you so desperately want to sneak into his dream and live there. Meet the bees and blooming camellias along with other beautiful flowers he knows by heart. It must smell so good there and it must be day. Full family at the table and everything is good. Cats can be heard from miles away and fire is never burning the skin, only purifying. It never hurts there. 

Just like it never hurts near Ran. 

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Ran turns on the side, arm hooking across your waist and brings you closer to him, his body and his peace, “You are waking me up with those thoughts of yours. It’s gonna be alright. We are… I… It’s… I…” Whatever he said is lost on you, because he falls asleep again. This time, in his arms, in his warmth, it’s easier for you to close your eyes, because after many many days you are eager to open them again. _ This time, you don’t wake up first, but you wake under an intense gaze and hand caressing your face. He doesn’t stop when you open your eyes, curiously, looking at him and you don’t stop him when he leans in and kisses you. Slowly and sweetly. Besides drunk games at parties where you pecked a couple of boys, you’ve never ever kissed anyone, because you loved them. And right now doing exactly that - kissing the person you love, - your chest burns and you are not sure what you are supposed to do and how to suppress all those whimpers and moans you are so readily feed Ran with. 

Somewhere in the kiss, right after he hugs you impossibly closer to him, both arms around you, he smiles. The flame in your chest is now fire, and so you push him away. “What?” He asks leaning in again, this time pressing wet open mouthed kisses across your jaw. It makes it harder to speak, breath uneven and clogged, “Why are you smiling?” Surprised, he looks up, “I thought you were gonna ask me what the kiss was about, but you so you, and… why do you think I am smiling?” He waits for an answer and your brain runs kilometres in a millisecond, but you can’t come up with a decent answer that is not embarrassing or humiliating and full of self–doubt. Instead, you want to kiss Ran more and you want him to hug you tight again, hands holding you together, in one piece. And so you do. And it feels nice and it feels beautiful and right. And probably you should have had a conversation about all these before, but as he said you are you and he is Ran Haitani, and you kinda like doing everything in mysterious complicated ways only understandable to you. So you kiss more and he kisses across your face and under your jaw and then your neck where he plants bites and hickeys that bloom right away. Pretty shades of purple.  Only when you are sitting on top of him and his hands slide under your [his] shirt, does he stop. Hair a wild mess, he tilts his head and retracts his hands from your bare waist moving them to your face, which he cradles with all the gentleness in the world. He searches for something, anything, in your expression, but only finds swollen lips and pretty eyes that hold all the stored love they never gave away. And he crumbles, falling so hard and so fast, you hear the air crying and flowers blooming in his chest. 

Right at this moment, you both know, he’d do whatever you want and this will either be the best reward of his life or his demise. [As if you ever would let the last happen]. Ran presses a small barely there kiss to the corner of your lips and nudges your cheek with his nose. He takes a deep content breath full of the meaning you don’t catch on. Not because you don’t understand, but because you can’t, because he holds your head to his and kisses that sweet place right below your ear. Because he whispers, asking you, “How do you feel?” “Good. I feel good, Ran. I really really do,” you breathe out, hands clutching onto his shoulders. You can’t see his face, he buries it in your neck, inhaling your very being into himself. Storing you and what you are to the depths of his heart to where he will never let anyone reach. 

Your skin absorbs his smile and it makes you happy. So happy, you believe, if you died right there in his arms, an army of bees and the prettiest pink camellias would swerve from your ashes and Ran would name them all. 

_ The afternoon was spent exchanging lazy kisses and tender caresses. The time passes and the rain continues and when you stand outside of Haitani’s apartment building waiting for Ran who forgot his card upstairs, you inhale the wet aroma of pavement and green leaves and everything seems fine. Uncertain and wobbly, but fine. 

You actually believe that if sharks would come right now and try to swallow you for the first time ever you would fucking fight them. And they would back off. _ “You know, we should have ordered,” Ran complains in his small accusatory voice that you haven’t heard in so long. “You are soaking.” “Maybe. But then the poor delivery guy would’ve suffered and the food would be cold and…” Ran gives you the look. The one you haven’t forgotten, but could never crack up before. Where he believes you are very cute, but hella naive and a bit stupid. Now, though, you know what this small smile with a very relaxed face means. Now, that you know, you just nod embarrassment overflowing, and turn away from him, cheeks hot and hands trembling. He notices it all. He finds you endearingly cute. So cute, he wants to tear you apart. “You know, let’s just eat our burgers and get home.” “Burgers and fries, Ran. You did order fries, right?” “Yeah. Yeah. And fries. I just really wanna get you home.” _

“Say it again,” Ran murmurs, tenderly kissing your right cheek. His hair is still wet from the shower and his skin is slightly tinted red from the hot water. The huge tattoo that splits his body in half is more evident than ever and you find your gaze lingering there, tracing pretty shapes of it. 

He doesn’t wear much. Only sweatpants. And straddling him, legs hugging his hips, you can clearly tell that there’s nothing under them. Only him and his bare skin.  The smell of his shampoo and gel shower lingers in the room and it’s unclear if it’s from him or from you since you’ve been indulgently using his toiletries this whole time. Not because you always wanted to be closer to him, but because there was just no way you’d use Rindou’s mint one. Vanilla and bergamot it is then.

And now, all senses high and elevated, you claw at Ran’s naked shoulders, letting him slowly mouth your neck and you throw your head back, and you inhale this pleasant aroma that will forever remain you of these days and you desperately try to compose yourself. Dissolving into him would be easier, but you want to remember every single moment and every single sensation, and so you stay. “When was the last time you had sex?” In his question there’s no shame or hesitation, and it’s good. Really good. Because Ran doesn’t want to hide his intentions and pretend nothing is going to happen since this morning it was clear you would be under him today.

 “And with whom. I wanna know who had you last.” There’s slight fear in his last demand and you want to wonder why, but you stop yourself before your mind could create impossible scenarios and trap you. You pull back a little, peering into his face. You need to know why he is asking you this and as if he understands you, he leans forward pressing a soft kiss to your lips. 

“I am asking, because I need to know how hard I can go and what you can take from me.” His hands, warm and attentive, slide under your shirt. You too wear nothing under it. He doesn’t seem too surprised when he finds it out. Instead, he stops at the small of your back and hugs you closer to him. “I don’t want to hurt you or make you do something you aren’t ready for.” If not for the gentle fire in your heart, you would’ve cried. But you drop your head down, unable to look him in the eyes anymore. There’s something in them you aren’t mentally prepared for and Ran should be fearing about it more, than he does about sex. “I am not afraid of you and you won’t hurt me.” You say and then something possesses you and you cradle his face in your palms and you hold the whole world there and he isn’t aware of it and everything hurts, but in a good sweet way. “Can we kiss some more? I really like kissing you and I like you. You asked me to say it again and I will. I like you, Ran. So so so much.”

Ran kisses wet and sloppily and he grabs at your waist so clumsily, so unsure and so uncertain that it sells him immediately away. He has never kissed anyone like this and now that he has it has him spiralling. And so out of his mind, he pulls you closer, his bare chest against your [his] t-shirt and he does it again, and then again and again, as if could possibly merge with you, because being like this seems so so so far away to him. He wants you closer and it physically hurts him not being able to. And so he takes a good look at your flustered face, your perfect collarbones picking out of the loose clothing and dives in to kiss you again. This time he doesn’t stop only at your lips, but he mouths across your neck, guiding his tongue across the bruises he left this morning. He smiles all the way down to your collarbones and his smile makes you smile too, and despite you being quite shy and awkward you grin, melting in his happiness. 

If that’s how love feels, it feels good, it feels right and it might help you. It should. You want to give it the power to.

Somewhere between losing yourself in each other completely and starving hands, Ran hooks his fingers under the hem of your t-shirt and lifts it upwards. There must not be enough of you for him and so he wants more. But you freeze, heart beating so fast, it’s going to burst any second now, and Ran understands. He puts a gentle sweet kiss on your lips and presses his forehead to yours.

His breathing is ragged and fast. 

“We don’t have to do anything. It won’t be good for you if you feel…,” he starts, but you take all those words with your mouth on his. You don’t want to hear what he has to say, because you know what it’s going to be. And you don’t want your fear to overwhelm you, because that’s what has been living inside you and that’s what you’ve been trying to carve out of your soul. With razors, scissors and knives. Never with love or understanding. You slip away from him. You take off your shirt and place it near you on the bed. Ran watches you. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, but not any move of yours passes by unattended by him. He glides over your breasts and there’s a slight jerk under you and suddenly you want to hide yourself. You almost do, but then you think better of it and you raise your hips and you try to take your sweatpants off, but Ran stops you. “Don’t,” he murmurs, flipping you on your back. “Don’t. I wanna do everything myself. I want to undress you myself. And I want you to kiss your body and I want to play with your tits until you lose your mind and then I want to eat you out and make you cum, because you fucking deserve it. Because this fucking tension needs to go the fuck away. Okay? And then I want to kiss you and then I want to fuck you and I will watch your face as I do it. I’ve always wanted to see your sweet pretty face under me. Always wanted to hear how you will scream for me and how insanely perfect you’ll be with my cock inside you. Okay?” You nod and he does exactly what he said. And Ran is attentive and careful and very very kind. He talks you through everything and doesn’t push your buttons even though a couple of times you secretly wish he did. That night it’s only one round. Mainly because he is too exhausted and sleepy after he cleans you up and dresses you in his boxers and a new clean t-shirt. 

You don’t change sheets though and decide against opening the window. Because it’s heavily raining outside again and because none of you wants to get up from the warm bed and lose the comfort of each other. “Is it too early to say that I love you?” He whispers, taking a full deep breath. 

You think it’s not, but you say that it is and he laughs seemingly seeing through your small insincerity. “Okay. Then you should ride me tomorrow morning. I deserve it after today.” “You know, Ran, I think this is too, too early to ask of me.” “Really?” “Well, yeah.” “But I kinda already asked and I kinda already…” A loud thunderstorm slams Tokyo and you get startled. Your body is aching in all the pleasant ways and you don’t have any capability in yourself to continue this ridiculous conversation. You press a kiss to his chest and hide yourself in the crook of his neck. You are safe and you are in love and pain is still there, and memories will never die, but pink camellias are blooming and bees are going to return. _ Rindou is not supposed to get back next afternoon, but he does. 

It’s still raining and Haruchiyo is at his back complaining about how much he hates humidity, because his hair gets all frizzy and ugly. [Not that someone particularly cares about Haruchiyo’s hair, but Rindou is too tired to argue with him, so he just hums.] Because he understands where Haruchiyo comes from and he is also still tipsy. 

Yesterday, before boarding the bus they did drink a little too much. But the bar they camped in in the night, ditching the comfort of the hotel, was nice and the girl that sucked Rindou off in the back alley behind that said bar, was pretty much exceptional, so he won’t complain. 

Besides, he and Haruchiyo, but Rindou more or so he believes, were too worried for you to stay in Osaka. All the girls in the back alleys be damned, they need to see you and make sure you are alright. Short unconstant messages from Ran - “oh, she is fine”, “don’t worry i got her” and “she’ll be just fine” - were not cutting the white patch of horrors off for him. 

Rindou needed to talk to you. He needed to do his little check up and maybe [most definitely] buy you some expensive patterned paper and a couple of cute storage boxes. And because he feels generous enough you’ll stop at Daiso and buy all the stickers you want too. 

“Does it smell like mackerel or am I tripping? Again,” deadpans Haruchiyo taking off his soaking wet shoes. He dumps the sports bag with all his clothes next to Rindou’s and waits for him to take his last evening white now grey Adidas sneakers to go check into the living room. It does indeed smell like grilled fish and vegetables inside the apartment. Tofu and spring onion. He tries his very best to remember when was the last time their apartment smelt of homemade food and simply can’t. To his own dismay, this special cosiness of familiarity and domesticity were more native to Haruchiyo’s studio.   But that’s only because you spent a lot of time there. 

Getting high, getting creative and being you. It clicks and responds and suddenly everything makes perfect sense and they could’ve stayed in Osaka for two days more as planned. 

So when they enter the living room and find you picking out bones out of the fish, Rindou is not surprised. He is not surprised when he notices that it’s actually Ran’s plate in front of you and this small act of service is for him and him only. And he is so not surprised when his own brother doesn’t pay any attention to them staring at you both. His thin lips curled into a tiny smile, chin prompted on his hands as he watches you knowing there won’t be anyone else. 

And there never were. 

It’s all so simple and so fucking stupid. 

“Rindou! Haru!” You notice them, of course you do, and you set the chopsticks aside and run to them, somehow hugging both of them at such an awkward angle, the hug doesn’t last long. 

In the back, Ran clearly rolls his eyes and drags the plate with the boneless fish to him. It makes a disturbing screeching sound. 

“Weren’t you supposed to be back much later? Like in two days?” 

“We changed plans,” Rindou replies without an ounce of venom or disappointment of whatever else he is supposed to feel right now at his brother’s not so inviting tone, “But I guess we were wrong to rush.” Near him Haruchiyo snorts, Ran laughs a little and you with your neck and collarbones a perfect constellation of purple flowers, get so shy, Rindou himself cracks a smile. 

It’s evident where he is looking and what he is reading from it all, and your hand - trembling as per usual - flies to your head, in a poor attempt to cover what can be seen from miles away. More than anything, at this moment, Rindou wants to tell you that there’s nothing you should be ashamed of, nothing to worry about in his presence. 

Hickeys, cuts, bruises and all the blemishes are evidence of feelings and we people are meant to feel them. We are meant to experience them in our own ways. 

But he can’t say that now. He’ll do it later. 

Now, he throws his arm around your shoulders, kisses the top of your head and excuses himself to the bathroom. 

He needs that hot fucking shower now.

_ Three days later the rain stops. 

Haruchiyo goes home the day after they arrive from Osaka and you spend two more nights at Haitani’s. 

You leave when it’s sunny and not so cold for January. Ran offers you his long grey coat and a deep kiss to your lips. At that Rindou rolls his eyes, but he is smiling and so it’s fine. 

They both promise you they’ll stop by your apartment in the evening to go have dinner together. You all settle on something french. It’s weird how today your wants align and you aren’t about to pass this extreme luck of not quarrelling on where to eat.

[You feel like today is going to be a nice day.]

Your parents are home. Your little sister too. The house smells like butter and caramel. They probably had something sweet and nice for breakfast. The last time you ate with them together in the morning was so far away you can barely remember it. It saddens you, but only a little. 

“What are you watching?” You ask your sister. She sits on the floor, her legs inside the kotatsu. It seems to be a new one, because the wooden frame is white instead of dark brown. You’ve never noticed they changed it and you don’t know why. Something might have happened to it or perhaps your mom just wanted a small change. She can be like that sometimes. 

“National Geographic,” she replies without turning her head. “Is it interesting?” You genuinely inquire and she gives you a weirded out look. She shrugs, “I guess so. You learn a lot of things about the world we live in. Like did you know that all flowers have meanings behind them? Yellow roses mean friendship, tulips mean perfect love and camellias symbolise romantic love, adoration and care. It’s pretty cool. Don’t you think so?” 

From the kitchen with two puddings and small all too familiar from childhood silver spoon in her hands emerges your mother. She has a sweet hesitant smile and her face is so lovely and you missed her so so so much. She sits next to you and opens the pudding for you. You think that if she was to feed you, you’d gladly accept. Any neglected love you can take from her you will. “Oh, and bees… that don’t fly south. They actually never fly away,” your sister says and your mother laughs for one reason or another and there’s tears in her eyes and what your sister just said makes no sense at all to anyone, 

but you.  [Maybe tomorrow will be the same too.]

[tossawary]

Regarding "The Hobbit" film trilogy, even if I ended up personally disliking and resenting how much time and focus the elf characters (and others) ended up taking away from the dwarves whom I think deserved more focus as rich internal characters (I know that studio pressures are a factor in that terrible love triangle and so on), I still... vaguely appreciate the effort to create and include named female characters like Tauriel, when the book is sadly lacking in them. I think she's fine, actually. Comparatively, there are many other elements in these adaptations that I think are much, MUCH worse.

But still, if you want to add female characters to this story, the obvious answer to me seems to be to just make half the Company into dwarf women? (With similarly fancy beards and other facial hair! Because I think that's fun.) It's just... so much easier?

Do NOT come at me with that "dwarf women are rare" bullshit. Unreliable narration. Logistically unlikely. Also, if you believe that "men are the warriors and craftsmen, the women stay at home" is how dwarf society strictly functions (boring, honestly, on top of being incredibly sexist), I could argue that the Battle of Azanulbizar and other struggles probably left a significant dent in this dwarf group's male population, leaving behind many widows and mothers without children to pick up the work. The battlefields have come to and TAKEN both Erebor and Moria from the dwarves. I see no good reason why dwarf women would not have equal investment in reclaiming their home and the gold. Many of the Company are not presented to be formally trained warriors, anyway.

Now, ideally, we could do way queerer stuff in terms of both romance and gender here, but we know cowards with veto powers would not let this happen. Still, I feel like basic genderbending would have been a very doable move and is, actually, a very reasonable ask of an adaptation that would have added some depth to the story even if you didn't acknowledge the change at all.

Like, preferably, this would be an adaptational change that would be directly addressed. Maybe all of the Company appear male at first due to traveling that way (and assumptions made by humans and hobbits), then Bilbo might learn that some of the Company are dwarf women when he becomes closer to all of them. We could have a brief scene acknowledging that dwarf women are fighting these battles for their pasts and their futures too. It doesn't have to be a big thing! They can just be there. Existing. Participating.

I even think it would be fun if two of the dwarves were actually an older married couple traveling together, instead of brothers or cousins, because loving married bickering and battle couples are fun. You can have running jokes in the background about how Smaug's invasion ruined their wedding day, and going back and forth with "you never take me anywhere nice" @ each other whenever they're stuck in Goblintown or the Mirkwood dungeons. (I like seeing good marriages & partnerships in fiction and established couples going on fantasy quests together. I just think it's neat.)

But another (sillier) direction is that you could just cast some actresses in beards to play some of the dwarves, then leave the fact that some of these characters are probably dwarf women (traveling as men) as a fun detail for the audience. Bilbo is either too oblivious to notice or much too polite to bring it up at all. It's canonically compliant to the text this way!

Now, obviously some few people would have complained that Tolkien's work was being ruined by "political correctness", but they complained anyway about Tauriel (when there are MANY other bad choices in these movies), and what worthwhile arguments could they have possibly made against genderbending some of the THIRTEEN dwarves? Like, most casual fans I know cannot NAME the entire Company, who get so little character development in the book that the films had to come up with unique designs and backgrounds for most of them anyway. Bro (directed towards someone objecting to the idea of including female dwarves), be real, there's no way that you honestly cared this much about "Nori the Dwarf" before right now.

[randomfoggytiger]

React: A Late-Canon Reviler Gives the Revival a Try (Founder's Mutation), Part II

This is gonna be quick and dirty because my keyboard’s acting up--

IT’S A CONTINUATION FROM MY STRUGGLE I?????????? NO WHY NO, PLEASE NO. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

WHY do those glasses not fit anymore?? If Mulder lifts his eyebrows, they don’t even touch his cheekbones. But they were fine last episode, what happened. 

Mulder reminding us about William in yet another opening monologue. I may have the memory of a goldfish, Mulder, but I don’t have brain damage. 

I’m already so tired. 

Narration, narration, sudden voice change and drop, “Bringing Scully and I back together”-- okay, that’s straight-up David's voice. 

Oh, good. A bloody eyeball. How marvelous. 

If this is the brain Morse Code episode, I will throw hands. 

I’m Dr. Sanjay. We’re both too tired. 

WHAT’S WITH THE SHAKY CAM AS DR. SANJAY DETERIORATES. 

I’m not gonna be nit-picky… okay, I am. 

The X-Files has a certain style, aesthetically. Because of that, one has to operate inside the rules in order to cleverly bend them. Shaky cam AND close-up break two rules back-to-back.

This "modernization" isn’t a limbered stretch so much as a spinal dislocation. 

Ghost in the Machine and Blood 2.0, I see. But worse. 

The “Sanjay losing control” scene is… not too different from similar 90s ones.

But that’s the problem-- the visuals have updated, but not the method. And that leaves us with the impression that the director or screenwriter or both are either amateur or outdated. 

It’s also incredibly cluttered and confusing. Not confusing in a way that would expertly translate the meltdown in Sanjay’s brain, but confusing in a way that bombards us, the audience, with compounding “lost in translation” errors. 

Okay, welp, he’s dead. 

WHY do Mulder and Scully sound so old? Was it absolutely necessary to suck the life force out of the actors every time they walked on set? For Pete’s sake, I’ve heard more life in David’s voice while reading a Lexus ad. 

Okay, DD’s picking up a bit, and GA’s compensating with her expressions but none of this is engaging. 

Minor nitpick-- and I know both actors complained about wardrobe later-- but the second Mulder gets pants that fit him and Scully remembers to finish buttoning up her top, the sooner I’ll get a glimpse of the old show. Just sayin’. 

His pants will eventually swing to the opposite tragedy, copping a feel while forcing him to do a little Marilyn Monroe shimmy.

I shall call them Patriarchy Pants.

Scully knows Indian?

She really is the series’ language OC, isn’t she. 

Mulder got this informant to trust him by flashing his puppy eyes. I mean… it’s always worked on Scully. 

Speaking of which… where’s Scully? 

I’m wracking my brain, but I thiiiiiiiiiiink it’s consistent, even pre-S9 canon, for Mulder to sneak off and fill Scully in later. So, no complaints. I think. 

What is it about the comedy scene that didn’t work…? 

Hm. 

‘Kay, so, if this guy (Gupta, looked it up) is no longer a repressed homosexual-- like he chastises Mulder for being-- then why was he so skittish in the bar? 

He didn’t know Sanjay was dead, so therefore he didn’t know he was in danger (note from the future: he isn't in danger... which explains his skittishness even less.)

So, is his jumpiness because of repressed or hidden homosexuality? But he says he's out and urges Mulder to come out, as well.

Perhaps he's saying one thing and living another, i.e. pretending to be out and proud to save face in front of Mulder.

But then... that would be the comedy in this scene-- that he would have to eat his words (ex. another guy opens the door on them and Gupta makes a big fuss trying to cover up the homosexuality of it all-- “no homo” dialed up to 11, etc.) 

So, he was either scared to be on a hit list-- yet wasn’t aware he might be on one-- or scared of being outed-- yet didn't signal this in his actions or dialogue.

If this is Gupta’s only scene, it was a waste.

It was a waste of an introduction, regardless. But.  

Oh, Scully’s doing an autopsy, got it. 

Characters are playing by their strengths, got it. 

Also, forgot to note, Mulder sensing the guys in the bar were bad news points to his years spent on the job. A great touch.

…Unless, now that I think of it, Gupta invited him to a gay or hookup bar, consequently making Mulder look like an out-of-touch old buffoon. Which… fits his characterization in My Struggle I, but I hope for better things. 

I didn’t see any tension in Scully’s arms while pulling the instrument out of Sanjay’s ear, but, ya know, there weren’t perfect moments in OG canon, either. 

Gupta’s still here, okay. (DD getting away with a bit of humor by having Mulder act slightly out-of-place chuggin down in a bar-- I see you.) 

IT IS A GAY BAR. 

MULDER’S AN IDIOT, CONFIRMED. 

“He lived two lives.” Okay, that’s f-- “In two separate places.” NO, no, nonono-- get back over the unsubtle line before I whip out the broom, shooshooshooshooshoo.

Wait, why is Mulder explaining the autopsy results instead of Scully?

Even when he had a… siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

Even when Mulder had a brewing theory in mind, he always let Scully explain all her results before asking pointed questions, hearing her findings, then craft a theory and run it by her.

Here, Scully says, “Broke fingers to find words on palm/instrument went into these parts of the brain” and Mulder says “It went in at that angle then turned at this angle/insert theory.”

When it SHOULD be: Scully explains fingers and cause of death, Mulder points at the pics and asks why the instrument’s angle changed, Scully says “it went in 90 degree angle then turned 60 degrees”, and Mulder concludes “Like he was hunting for something.” 

The shots widen out or cut back for shock value, it seems. Sanjay’s body is shown obliquely until Scully says she “looked everywhere” for clues, which prompts the camera to cut to a wide shot and hang on his sawed-open skull. The timing’s oddly comedic, the music is light, and nothing about the scene meshes. It quickly pancakes, leaving us and the characters with dead (heh) air.

The dialogue leans “we’re gonna do this next” telling rather than natural conversation showing. 

And-- I’ve gotta be frank-- I’ve not caught an ounce of chemistry from DD and GA aside from the scene where they were talk about phone stealing and Indian languages. 

The car scene contributed nothing... except a kid accidentally fell over the hood. Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal covert set-up, I tell ya. 

Sanjay’s other apartment scene was… weird. They walk around, find pictures of experiments on kids, barely react, trip the silent alarm so the police show up--

Sorry, no, wait. The police show up ASAP, in THIS part of town? NAH. Not happening. 

Okay, the scene where Mulder has a… brain… thingy WORKS because it uses just the right amount of “new trick”: closeups without disorienting lens action slapped on top. THAT’s how you integrate a modernized technique into an older show; and it fits seamlessly into The X-Files. 

SO WHY DIDN’T THEY DO THIS FROM THE GET-GO?

Also, Scully may have had cancer, but she never had migraines. Those seem to be reserved for Mulder. 

Oh, we’re in Skinner’s office now. I guess. 

The clips are so poorly paced, switching or holding or integrating at the weirdest times. It even undercuts Mulder’s quips or Scully’s reactions. 

On a side note, DD and GA probably had a hard time finding their characters-- as they mentioned for both IWTB and the Revival-- because all they had to work off of was plot regurgitation. ....What do you do with that? 

I love the touch of Skinner playing hardball until Corporate Interest Guy leaves, then immediately switching to, “I assume you’re going to need [classified] copies, right?” 

…

…..

…….

Scully really doesn’t have much to add, does she? 

OH, we’re in the basement now. We're just... here. The first scene of these two back down here and they're just. Here. ...'Kay.

Mulder and Scully talking over his experience is the closest I’ve gotten to mature MSR… and it’s ruined by Scully stating the obvious, “There were no sounds. I didn’t hear anything.”

LOOK, OKAY? Mulder became CATATONIC before with these exact same symptoms and was only saved by a secret science mumbo jumbo brain surgery, WHY ISN’T SHE WORRIED. It’s equivalent to her getting a nosebleed and just wiping it away, no big deal. 

“Mulder, what are you hiding?”

He’s not hiding anything, Scully, he’s telling you. 

But if he were, that’d be outta character even for Beanpole Sneakybritches. By this point, he’d have a functioning theory to share with the class-- which he did, lest we forget-- or developed a taste for Hercule Poirot drama while holed up in depressed isolation, I guess. (Which you left him to, Scully, so this is your fault, tangentially.)

Which would be stupid. 

 (Note from the future: He was hiding something, but it didn't make sense how he leaped to that conclusion, anyway; so, logically, he has nothing to hide from her in this scene.)

But when's that stopped the show before?

“What are you hiding?” 

“Sanjay heard sounds right before he died. It could be you, Mulder.”

WHAT. 

Scully and Mulder established in the lab that Sanjay heard noises right before he died. 

Mulder heard noises. 

Tells Scully in the basement. 

Scully: “I didn’t hear noises.” No reaction. 

Scully: “What are you hiding?”

Mulder explains his frequency theory.

Scully doesn’t see how it fits. 

Mulder: “What are you hiding?” 

Scully: “Sanjay heard sounds right before he died. It could be you, Mulder.” No reaction. 

PLEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE END MY SUFFERING.

16 min. in. 

Been typing nearly an hour (a dying keyboard’ll do it to ya.) 

“This is dangerous,” Scully says, flatly. 

“When has that ever stopped us?” Mulder asks, brightly. 

He is quite literally trying to pump life back into her-- WHO directed GA this way? You can tell which scenes she is given freer reign in (more natural, less muted) and which ones she is more tightly “guided” (less alive, more dead.) 

How is she spry enough to be a field agent? How is Mulder? Skinner hasn’t aged a day but these two have been MOWED. DOWN. DD and GA aren’t like this in real life, so what gives? 

Our Lady of Sorrows, go away. 

It’s Karen Kosseff except it isn’t. 

Mulder and Scully sneakily scare the daylights outta a Conservative-adjacent medical personnel with the dreaded threat of an “Obamacare” witchhunt... and at this point, the social commentary seems performative rather than intelligent. 

I’m not gonna break it down by politics; but suffice to say, while Mulder and Scully were never above a little “campaign of misinformation”, but they've never stooped low enough to fearmonger-- in fact, they looked down on those who did. 

CC-- he wrote this episode, too, right?-- turned them from FBI agents with ethics into Secret Agents with a dose of Krycekian immorality. 

Just when I think I’ve “found” MSR, the writing snatches them back from me.

…And ANOTHER THING. 

Ever since IWTB, Our Lady of Sorrows has been an awful, horrible, no-good, close-minded facility stuffed to the brim with egos and bottom-of-the-barrel intelligence. At least they’ve been upgraded from “let the kid die” psychopaths to “OBAMACARE?? INVESTIGATING OUR SAINTED, CONSERVATIVE COLLEAGUE????” Which makes them stupidly impressionable and stupendously ignorant of the law. Which they would know… because it affects their hospital. 

There’s no hint (thus far) that Scully has some dirt on them and maneuvers them into compliance by hinting at certain shortcuts they wouldn’t want investigated. No. Instead, she weaponizes their faith-- calling the guy they want to interview a “godsend”-- despite sharing it, and despite taking all matters of belief very seriously; then lets Mulder slip in the Obamacare line because… Conservative medical professionals would cow in the face of that implication instead of, I don’t know, stonewalling to protect their ranks? 

It’s such a silly, nonsensical line. 

I just want old Mulder and Scully back, is that too much to ask for?

And the lady almost stonewalled, anyway. It was pure luck that Scully pulled the right emotional strings. 

UGH. 

“I’ll agree to relay a message,” Not-Karen says… then walks off before asking what that message would be. …Sure, fine, that makes sense. 

Pregnant teen or young woman and….

And….

WHAT, IS THIS A CONTINUED PLOT POINT???????????

ANOTHER PREGNANCY PLOTLINE?????????? DO THE POWERS-THAT-BE NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO TUBES OR JARS OR WHATHAVEYOU TO GROW THEIR EXPERIMENTS, OR DID THEY ALL COPYPASTE THE EVES' AND DR. PARENTI’S VERY SPECIFIC NICHE?????

Hate the camera angles, too, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. 

Used and abused women, dismissed young mothers, callous Catholic hospitals…. It’s so… vitriolic. And all so poorly handled. 

“Desire is the devil’s pitchfork,” oh, great, the Catholic nun? lady is eeeeeeeeeeevil, who would have knooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooown--     

WHY. DOES. MULDER. SOUND. SO. OLD. 

No wonder DD and GA think the series isn’t really about happy endings, they were shuffling around like geriatric Eeyores half the time. 

Scully pushing back against Mulder protecting her from the incubation theory right after he tells her the incubation theory: in a word, disjointed. She needed to confront him BEFORE he spells it out to her-- 

…My brain melted and I lost the thought…. Wait…. Nope, it’s gone. 

“Is this what you believe happened to me, fifteen years ago? When I got pregnant, when I had my baby?” WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAT. 

“Mybaby”??????????? After all this time, MY BABY. 

WHY ISN’T GA ACTING APPROPRIATELY, SHE’S GIVING US NOTHING DESPITE BEING THE SOLE EMOTIVE PERSON ON THIS TEAM. 

IF THAT LINE IS MEANT TO IMPLY SHE’S CREATING DISTANCE WITH “MY BABY” BECAUSE SHE THINKS MULDER IS DISOWNING WILLIAM, YOU’VE NOT ESTABLISHED, AT ALL, THAT RETICENCE IS PART OF HER SELF-PRESERVATION-- NOT ONE TIME, SINCE THE REVIVAL STARTED. 

AND IF THAT WERE THE CASE, SCULLY WOULD HAVE ACCUSED HIM DIFFERENTLY: NOT FLAT AND TIRED, BUT FLAT AND ANGRY. WHERE’S SCULLY’S ANGER THAT SHE’S HAD FROM DAY ONE, THAT SHE LOST RIGHT AFTER EXISTENCE SAID HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER????????

GIVE ME GUMPTION, GIVE ME SPIT, GIVE ME FIRE, GIVE ME RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION!!!!

SO THEY ABANDONED THE INCUBATOR TALK TO TALK ABOUT HER REGRETS, I GUESS. 

THERE WAS NO POINT A TO POINT B, WE’RE JUST HERE NOW.

I don’t mind the rehash-- Mulder and Scully both had a habit of doing that, back in the day… but I’m not getting any of MULDER or SCULLY from these two… Revival robots. 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, this is the “what could have been” episode. Thanks, I’m gonna hate it. 

“Do you think he could have been an experiment?”

“I don’t know,” GET OUTTA HERE, ACTUALLY GET OUTTA HERE. 

MULDER’S WHOLE ARC IN ESSENCE-EXISTENCE WAS THAT HE KNEW THE MATH ADDED UP TO BEING WILLIAM’S FATHER (though the writers did their best to obfuscate that issue) BUT WAS AFRAID SCULLY’S BABY WOULD BE BORN WITH SURPRISES. INSTEAD, HE WAS A NORMAL, HEALTHY BABY; AND MULDER CALLED HIS SON A MIRACLE BECAUSE OF IT.

BEFORE SEASON 9 RETCONNED IT, ANYWAY. BUT EVEN THEN, WILLIAM WAS UNDENIABLY HIS MINI MULDER.

Even in IWTB, how many years later, Mulder still considered William theirs. 

Also, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait. 

Pause. 

Rewind. 

Stop. 

Mulder misses William but had to put that “behind him.” 

That. has got to be. The most. antithetical statement to Mulder’s character that I have ever. Ever. heard. 

You can’t have it both ways, CC: Mulder can’t be pushed by the ghosts of his past into wrecking his and Scully’s relationship, twice (IWTB and the Revival), while also putting HIS CHILD behind him. 

nnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOnonononononNONONONONONONO.

THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. THAT MAKES NO SENSE. 

YOU’RE A LIAR, A LYING LIAR LIAR FACE. 

THAT’S NOT MULDER. 

MULDER WOULD NEVER SAY THAT. 

SCULLY MIGHT, BUT EVEN THEN SHE’D STILL BE LYING TO HERSELF. 

Scully was shattered into a million pieces in My Struggle I, and Mulder is obliterated in this one. 

How. 

Absolutely. 

Lovely. 

Also, again, Scully isn’t emoting fear or terror for her son. At all. 

NORMAL SCULLY VOICE??????????????????????????????????

NORMAL. SCULLY. VOICE????????????????????????????????????????

WHAT. 

I’M, I’M, WHAT. 

FOR THE FLASHBACKS, BUT NOT FOR THE SERIES????????????????????????

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

The cutback from the flashback-dreamsequence-whatever to Scully just… sitting there. Not napping. Not dreaming, just. Thinking, I guess. 

But the sequence was obviously a dream, so. 

Can you imagine if she snapped upright from her dream, possibly at her desk? The gifs sets that could have been made mirroring this moment to Mulder’s nightmare in Paper Hearts. 

THERE’S THE SAME “OPEN THE DESK DRAWER TO SEE A PHOTO” MOTIF, TOO. 

...WHY IS THAT ASSISTANT WALKING LIKE SHE'S ON A CATWALK?

That actress said, “This is my big shot, I’m gonna stick out” (literally), and dressed to kill. 

…Or she’s a piece of commentary on the Evil Scientist Doctor and the male gaze, or something. 

Guys, no facility would have kids kept behind glass cages for their entire lifespan. 

That’s dumb. 

Scully tells the scientist he’s testing (trying to isolate) for alien DNA. He shows them out. 

Agnes (the teen or young mother) got killed and her baby taken, of course. 

At least Scully’s no longer pretending medical people aren’t stealing babies or creating mutants, I guess. 

I GUESS. 

Mulder had to wiggle his way over to the printer because his Patriarchy Pants (first sighting!) are too tight. (Told you his fashion swings in the opposite direction.) 

Mulder said, “This is my skinny jean era”, and I think I’m traumatized. 

Syndicate wanted to colonize the world with alien-human hybrids, says Mulder. And though it was unsuccessful--

(HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT)

--he doubts they stopped trying. 

So, that sweeps away the Supersoldiers, I guess. 

Since, y’know, the Revival said the aliens were never involved to begin with. 

So it was just the government making a hoax of the government hiding aliens but pretending they weren’t but really were but weren’t. 

Got it. 

What did Scully’s study about all European men being traced back to three individuals in the Bronze age (that’s a reference to Shem, Ham, and Japheth, isn’t it CC?) have to do with Mulder’s point other than for her to talk about her study. 

An illustrative hypothetical:

Mulder: “Everyone loves juice.” 

Scully: “I read a paper last year that found the three most favored juice flavors tie back to the Whirligig tastebud genome.” 

…’Kay.

I HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES LEFT, LET IT EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND. 

Jackie (Evil Scientist Man's “insane” wife) doesn’t like cats and threw an apple at it. …Why’s there a loose cat in the “mental asylum”?

They put in the spooky track from the original show-- the tinkling symbol sound-- when she recounted her daughter breathing underwater, but I liked that bit. 

Good filming, good bit. 

Jackie was being used for experiments, crashed her car, was forced via the brain thingy to cut her child out, the end. 

…Oh, right, this plot was supposed to be about Sanjay. 

My bad. 

You forgot, too, didn’t you. 

…Why doesn’t Jackie like cats again? 

(Note from the future: Jackie feared her biological daughter because she had supernatural abilities; and ran away hoping to save her son from the same experimentation and fate. ...But her son? (or her daughter?) already had powers and forced her to cut him out??? by manipulating her brain????????? to find his way back to his sister??????????????? Even though he was a baby??????????????????? (She still doesn't know this and wishes she could see him again...????????????????????????????????????????)

This is such a BAD. SCRIPT. 

It has no direction, it swings wildly from topic to topic, nothing really connects together, it’s all… nonsensical garbage. 

Mulder gets closeted at a gay bar, the Catholic lady hates men and thinks unwed mothers are damaged, women are made to cut babies out of their stomachs, Mulder put William behind him, Scully has a waking dream instead of a sleeping one, aaaaaaaaaaaaand… Jackie hates cats. 

No, you will not get a logical explanation for any of this. 

Awwww, look, Jackie’s talking about her missing boy because she thinks about him “every day” but hasn’t seen him since and so does Scully, of course, and Mulder can sense that so he, looks, too, and this case will make him cling to William’s memory again and--

One word. Riverdale. 

“All my training-- everything that I know about psychology--” WHAT. Scully, you’re a medical doctor, not a psychologist. Definitely not a psychiatrist. 

So Mulder can read x-rays with medical accuracy, and Scully can read Indian and diagnose someone’s psychological state. 

Great.  

Just peachy. 

By the way, if you’re wondering why Mulder keeps getting bumped into or keeps peripherally noticing janitorial staff at each location, here’s your payoff (NO, IT WASN’T HAMFISTED, YOU JUST DIDN’T NOTICE THAT THIS WAS A PLOT POINT AT ALL, IT'S SO CLEVER):

The janitors work for a larger company that also services the hospitals. And Sanjay’s company. 

….Eh? Eh? Clever isn’t it??

NOITISN’T. 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so the kids are dying and inadvertently killing… off… their… parent? Or something? Or the reverse?

(Note from the future: Jackie feared her biological daughter because she had supernatural abilities; and ran away hoping to save her son from the same experimentation and fate. ...But her son?-- or her daughter?-- already had powers and forced her to cut him out??? by manipulating her brain????????? to find his way back to his sister??????????????? Even though he was a baby??????????????????? And she still doesn't know this, hoping to see him again someday...????????????????????????????????????????

THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY THE TEEN/YOUNG WOMAN WAS ALSO FORCED TO CUT HER BABY OUT AFTER BEING HIT BY A CAR, per the baby's instructions. Because that's what the episode says happens.

DO THESE ALIEN BABIES HAVE SOMETHING AGAINST VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER OR WHAT????)

Guys, this is dumb. 

Mulder’s stupid sunglasses. 

But he looks goofy overall, so I’ll CHOOSE to be endeared rather than angry or petulant.  

(IchoosethisIchoosethisIchoosethisIchoosethis--)

Wait, why does Mulder keep getting affected by the brain thing?

More importantly. 

The episode is setting up a few, blatant parallels:

These parents are having brain problems.

Their kids are experimentation kids.

William's probably an experimentation kid.

Which is stupid, but would then prove Mulder is the biological father.

They will sacrifice this parallel to the plot but also because Scully, not Mulder, ends up being the one to communicate constantly with William.

Which would prove William-Jackson is still Scully's biologically.

(Note from the future: This complete theory is debunked in about two seconds; but will be recycled later for Scully's Morse Code seizure. Wonderful.)

It’s all. 

So. 

Stupid.

Stupid sunglasses. 

I…

I died laughing. 

Guys. 

I’m gonna include a clip because it’s so goofy. 

Context: Mulder’s brain thingy is acting up, so Scully has to run around to find a kid-- Kyle-- so he’ll… help? her partner. Hence, we have Gillian trying to keep up her Revival smoker voice whilst running off and shouting, “KYyyYYyyyyYYLLllelleleee”:

This is The X-Files. 

Weep and gnash your teeth in torment. 

This is old. 

Sorry, Mulder’s ears should be busted by now. Gimme fic where he now has to use hearing aids.  

They grabbed Kyle and stuffed him in the car. 

Ahh, this is the scene where Mulder looks back at Kyle and someone mentioned it looks like Mulder looking back at William in another, better universe (post here.) 

Okay, so, this kid doesn’t mean to hurt people by communicating with his mind, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut was or wasn’t responsible for Sanjay’s death (who was helping him.)

Scully decides “LET’S PRETEND TO HAND HIM OVER TO HIS EVIL SCIENTIST DAD IN ORDER TO FIND HIS SISTER” and that sound and reasonable. As reasonable as a starving pig at a pie fair. 

Wait.

The kid was a janitor.

Sanjay was helping him.

Sanjay was working for Evil Scientist dude.

Sanjay was trying to figure out where the kid's sister was, or he knew where she was but wasn't telling the kid?

The kid-- Kyle-- accidentally killed Sanjay because his... powers were outta control?

And... the kid can connect with different people's minds and that's how he hacked Mulder's brain (which retracts my biological theory... until, again, Scully's Morse Code seizure reinforces it.)

But the kid attacked Mulder when Mulder and Scully questioned his mom... didn't he already know who Mulder was?

And the kid kept pressuring Sanjay to find his sister, so much so that Sanjay hadn't been able to sleep well or function in weeks?

So, this kid's... questionable, at best.

Evil Scientist, M.D., pretended to introduce the kid to his sister, but Kyle wasn't BAMBOOZLED nor FOOLED. 

Oh, btw, this kid is Jackie’s son. Looks an awful lot like William-Jackson... but anyway. (Jackson's storyline is brazenly ripped off from CC's own material, wow-- right down to the "never saw my son again" line. The writers have charming things to say about adopted families in The X-Files.)

Now he’s running around the hospital looking for Molly (the sister who scared Jackie because she can breathe underwater, etc. etc.)

Reunited with Molly.

Now the kids are throwing the adults with their minds and killing Evil Scientist Badman with the brain thing in order to stay reunited, I guess. Like the Eves. (Another rip-off recycle of their own source material.)

SO, anyway, the Evil Scientist Father died a very gruesome death. 

Cut to the place swarmed with FBI. 

Another guy said, “Skinner, keep your sfjfkfsdfksj behind the red tape.” I think. Can’t understand him. 

Guys, this is the first Mulder-and-Scully posturing I’ve seen since the series began. Praise be, they’re not mannequins. 

Here's the Mulder and William "could have been"s.  

See, guys? His faith is back. He’s choosing to remember his son and reengage with his past~. 

Yeah, and where did THAT come from. 

To recap:

Mulder had depression sometime after 2012, so bad that it made Scully… leave, I guess (which would have been a death sentence for someone with a temperament like Mulder’s.) 

But he shouldn't have had depression after 2012 because 2012 just reset the Colonization clock (according to he, himself, and his theory.)  

So, he’s got "no reason" depression, then disconnects from Conspiracies and shoves away memories of William. 

But he hadn’t had a breakdown or disconnect from reality before My Struggle I (which made Scully’s decision to leave even stupider.) 

And Scully worries he’ll have a breakdown in My Struggle I. 

And he actually didn’t leave Conspiracyville despite also leaving it and knowing things he shouldn’t and not knowing things he should. 

Following?

Conspiracy guy calls up Skinner who calls up Scully who calls up Mulder; and he and she don't hesitate to investigate despite putting “that life” behind them. 

There were no aliens, period, only men in government wearing suits or planting false memories or whathaveyou. 

He’s still got depression but doesn’t, actually, in My Struggle I despite Scully thinking he does and worrying he’ll have a breakdown despite knowing he left Conspiracyville but not coming home, etc. etc.

Both are let into the FBI.

Still following? 

He put William behind him but engages in conspiracies now (despite still engaging in them while not engaging in them-- you get it.) 

Let me reiterate: Mulder. put someone that he loved. behind him. 

Mulder makes peace with the thought that William’s his son regardless and daydreams about movies and rocketships. 

And that’s that on all his hangups, I guess. His crops are watered and his depression is cured. 

And now he and Scully are installed at the FBI... despite the unlikelihood either of them would pass the physical tests, let alone the training they'd need to requalify. To put them on the field otherwise would be very, very dangerous... right, Skinner?

The End. 

Just make this easier for me next time and beat a bat over my head. 

I do have another nitpick. 

Mulder is too downcast in his “happier times” flashbacks, especially compared to Scully’s buoyant, sweet, upbeat persona. So, basically, he has a stunning lack of imagination, I guess. 

Which, jokes aside, is an interesting thought: Mulder creating realities in his mind so convincingly mapped onto his current one that it’s even more devastating to snap out of them and face each and every unsatisfying day.

Also, both he and Scully have the same sort of nightmare....

This had BETTER be Jackson’s way of reaching out to them for help, or so help me I’m going to label these moments as narrative clickbait. 

EYYYYYY, we got an actual Mulder “NO!” It sounded like him, too! FINALLY! SPIRIT! SPUNK! THE MULDER ESSENCE. 

Oh, yeah, that William can get yeeted-- he doesn’t fit my headcanon, anyway. 

Mulder's sitting upright, too, without having woken from a nightmare.

…So this was a deliberate choice on the filmmakers’ part. 

So this is setting up for something. Like William communicating to them BOTH in waking dreams. 

We all know that won’t happen, but, anyway. 

CONCLUSION

YOU’RE NOT GETTING ME WITH THE HAPPY FAMILY TIMES, YOU MANIPULATORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

YOU CAN’T TAKE ME ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE. 

Also: very rarely do I like movie kitchens, but Mulder's... it's alright.

Lastly: again, I am so tired. 

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!  

[misguidedasgardian]

Wild Cats (Part XIII)

XIII. The promised land

MASTERLIST

Summary: The light at the end of the tunnel… you don’t know if that is good or bad 

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Zombie apocalypse AU, living dead, zombies, guts, blood, guns, injures, cannibalism, mentions of rape, might miss some warnings 

+18, MINORS DNI

Notes: I was planning on rewatching (I’m on season 6), to write this, but like I said, I want to separate a bit from this, so… I’m narrating with a bit of mistakes, but, since I got three more people playing here that weren’t here before (Tyresse, Beth and Reader), things are bound to be different, right?.

This was surreal

You were on the way to a community that had walls, 800.000 dollar houses on it, running water, facilities, dance groups, families, you name it.

After being on the road for months, after executing a man that was trying to rape Carl and then another who was going to beat up Daryl to death, after being offered Sanctuary only to be a trap set by literal living cannibals, only to be throw back in the wild, making your group turn completely feral you believed

(the turning point being when you ate those dogs)

If this was another trap, you didn’t think you’d survive it.

You were so tired, not only physically, but also mentally, your brain had gone into survival mode too many times already that you were exhausted, a type of exhaustion that didn’t went away with a good night's sleep.

And now it was worse, not because you wanted to prove yourself for the team, but because now you cared so much for them that you were terribly stressed not only for yourself but for Daryl, Judith, Carl, Rick, and all the others.

But if this was real…

Gods please let it be real

You needed this, you deserve it

Well, did you?

You felt a light squeeze on your shoulder, you looked up at Carl, who smiled at you

“We are going to be fine”, you chuckled, ruffling his hair and wrapping an arm around him

“I should be the one telling YOU that, little dude”, you said with a soft smile

“Why do you always walk behind the group?”, he asked softly when you released him, you realized you didn’t quite have a good chat with Carl since the first days of you meeting him

“Well…”, you started, “It’s a position from where I can assist if someone needs me, and have a complete view of what is happening…”, he only hummed, “I can make sure nobody is left behind…”

“Well except you”, he said

“Right”, you conceded, “also from there I can…”

“Take care of everybody”, he said, you only nodded

You were concerned, to say the least, when things seemed too good to be true, they probably were, they probably were a lie, and you were betting your lives on this one

Well, you weren’t gonna last anyways if you kept going out there in the wild, and you had two kids to think about, so, for Judith and Carl was worth to try…. But Rick… was a bit mad… 

itw as understandable, after everything that happened, whatever you felt he felt it ten times more, as he had kids, and he was the ringleader, the one that made decisions 

So yeah, you could understand him… how he reacted when you met the man who was going to take you to Alexandria. 

Maggie and you had to coerce Daryl to get a good sleep after spending most hours of the night fighting against the strength of walkers and a storm, and then he stood watch for the lot of you to sleep

You stood on each side of the archer until he leaned into you and sneaked a couple of hours of sleep, Maggie smiled at you, nodding and leaving the two of you, you cuddled him against you, under your arm as he had done, and once he had closed his eyes, you took the liberty of actually, caressing his hair softly, lulling him to sleep

“I’ll keep watch for a couple of hours”, you promised, him only humming in response.

This is the second time he slept this close to you, and he realized, he never slept more comfortable since this shit show started.

He was the hunter and main protector of the group, and he deserved his rest more than anybody. Maggie looked at you and nodded, and accompanied Sasha outside of the barn, to see what was going on out there.

You catched Rick staring at the both of you, and you shared looks, he only smiled at you, it was a smirk more like it, he barely nodded at you, like giving you permission. And with a subtle smile he took Judith from Carl and cradled her against his chest.

You felt his calm breath on the side of your face, and you thought about how nice it felt, how nice he was. How much you liked him

You barely knew him, but at the same time, you felt like you knew him for forever, how he accepted you and took you in, how he always made sure you were alright, trough being a bit mean, and frustrated, but Maggie was right, he cared for you… his soft demeanor of the past days, his pretty eyes… and you wondered if you could ever… if he would… if he would like you as much as you liked him…

Your thoughts were interrupted, when Maggie entered the barn back

“Hey guys…”, she said, Daryl stirred awake. Behind Maggie came a man you didn’t know, “This is Aaron, we met him outside…”, in a second, everybody was standing to attention, and guns were being unlocked. Daryl grabbed his crossbow and pointed right at the unknown man. “He’s by himself, we took his weapons and we took his gear”

“Hi!”, he greeted. “It’s nice to meet you”, he was weirdly clean, he looked like he was out here for a trekking experience in a easy path, not in the middle of the apocalypse

“You said he had a weapon?”, asked Rick, Maggie passed him his gun, he checked the ammo on it and then he looked up at him, “There’s something you need?”

The group became hostile towards this guy, he looked all too well kept and you didn’t buy it either, that he was alone, this might be a trap

“He had a camp nearby”, said Sasha, the look in her eyes told you he wasn’t buying it either, “he wants us to audition for a membership”

“I wish there was another word”, he said, raising his hands, proving he meant no harm, “Audition makes it seem like we are a dance group, that is only friday nights”, he was terribly nervous, perhaps because all of the guns pointed at him at the moment, “and it’s not a camp, it’s a community”, you looked at Rick, who did not seemed impressed, “... i think you all would make valuable additions, but it’s not my call, my job its to convince you all to follow me home”, he saw the faces of the group, you were not buying it, and Rick seemed positively rabid with the look he had going on 

You were all weary of this stranger, sharing concerned looks amongst yourselves, he was weirdly calm, like he was some sort of messiah 

“I know, if I were you, I wouldn’t go either…”, he explained softly, he seemed weirdly nice, if anything, “Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack? Front pocket, there's an envelope”, Sasha weirdly did as he told her, “There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last…”

“Nobody gives a shit”, interrupted Daryl

“ You're absolutely 100% right. That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a 15-foot-high, 12-foot-wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so…. Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc…”, Rick had walked over to him and punched him in the face so hard he left him on the ground 

“So we're clear, that look wasn't a "let's attack that man" look. It was a "he seems like an okay guy to me" look”, protected Michonne

“This wasn't a very good start”, you muttered, watching him 

“We got to secure him. Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is”, commanded Rick, Daryl took his pack and turn it over into the ground, many items fell out

“Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction, They're coming for us… We might not know how or when, but they are”, you didn’t know who he was talking about, but you took your gun out of your holster and walked to the back of the barn towards a small window to see outside 

“Me and Sasha, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've”, Maggie tried to explain, and you were glad you weren't the only one who thought Rick was taking things a bit… cray cray

“Anybody see anything?”, he asked, ignoring Maggie, and Michonne for that matter

“Just a lot of places to hide”, said Glenn, that, as Daryl was right there with Rick, checking the other glassless window of the barn

“All right, keep looking. What did you find?”, Rick asked Carl

“Never seen a gun like that before”

“It’s a flare gun”, he said back, the man who identified as Aaron groaned, waking up

“That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick”, he smiled, he actually smiled 

“Sit him up”, you walked towards the man

“You’ll have to forgive us”, you said more calmly, Rick looked back at you, “the last time someone offered us sanctuary, they tried to eat us”, Aaron frowned, not really getting the main gist of it.

“You're being cautious. I completely understand”, he said lightly, he was good at his job, if it was in fact recruiting people 

“How many of your people are out there? You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?”, asked Rick

“Does it matter?”, you could tell he was getting frustrated 

“Yes. Yes, it does”

“I mean, of course, it matters how many people are actually out there, but does it matter how many people I tell you are out there? Because I'm pretty sure no matter what number I say... eight, 32, 444, zero... No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me”

“Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face”, said Sasha

“How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you on the road?”, he tried then

“How long have you been following us?”, asked Daryl

“Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamers on your trail. Long enough to see that despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other. You're survivors and you're people. Like I said, and I hope you won't punch me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world”

“How many others are out there?”, asked Rick

“One”, Rick didn’t buy it, neither did you, “I knew you wouldn't believe me. If it's not words, if it's not pictures, what would it take to convince you that this is for real? What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch”

“I'm not sure how the 18 of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in”

‘We drove separately. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us”

“And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?”, asked Carol, who, as the rest, was not convinced.

“East on Ridge Road, just after you hit Route 16. We wanted to get them closer, but then the storm came, blocked the road. We couldn't clear it.”

“Yeah, you've really thought this through”

“Rick, if I wanted to ambush you, I'd do it here. You know, light the barn on fire while you slept, pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me”, it amde sense, what he said, but Rick, again wasn’t buying it, who were though, was Maggie, Sasha, Tyresse, and Michonne 

“I'll check out the cars”, Michonne said softly

“There aren't any cars!”, insisted Rick

“There's only one way to find out”, she said softly

“We don't need to find out”, he said, and your stomach growled on protest 

“We do… You know what you know and you're sure of it, but I'm not”, she said

“Me neither”, Rick then looked at you, and you nodded, accepting Maggie’s words 

“Your way is dangerous, mine isn't”, insisted Rick

“Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do”, said Michonne 

“Then I will, too. I'll go”, said Glenn. Rick then seemed to see reason

“Abraham”, he called, the ginger understood inmediatly

“Yeah. I'll walk with them”, he said firmly

“Rosita?”, he asked then

“Okay”, she said softly

“If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?”, he asked Glenn 

“We got what we got”

“The walkies are out of juice. If you're not back in 60 minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want. If we're all in here, we're a target”. He insisted, as the selected group exited the barn to go to their mission

“I've got the area covered”, said Daryl heading out as well, you followed im closely 

“All right, groups of two, find somewhere safe within eyeshot”, Rick commanded as the rest of you followed you to take a lap around the barm. Tyresse and Beth stayed back, Noah, Carl and Carol went one way, youw ent with Daryl

“Was that necessary?”, you asked him, “the hostility?”, he turned towards you, he seemed on edge

“Remember what I told ya’ in Atlanta?”, you thought long and hard, and you nodded

“That I’m part of the family, and that I can’t go around trusting people”, you said softly

“That’s right”, he said, “so you tell me what’s goin’ on in ‘ere”

“He seems nice”, you reasoned

“Yeah, that knocked up lady from Terminus seem’ alright too!”, he said quickly, you chuckled

“I know we have been through hell, he just… seems nice, you now, there are still good people out there”, you said softly

“I know”

“What if you had pulled a gun on me?”, you asked, “or you would have liked Rick to do it to me?”

“He did”

“Well yeah”, you said with another chuckle, “but… you get what I mean…”

“Those in there”, he said, pointing at the barn, “are the only ones that matter”

“I agree”, you said softly, you grabbed onto his hand, “you and our group, is the best thing that has happened to me since this started”, you said convincingly, “and I will do anything in my power to take care of you, alright?”

“You don’t need to…”

“I know”, you said with a soft smile, “we are badasses”

“It’s badass”, he said, you looked at him, “we are badass”

“Alright”, you laughed, “eyes on the treeline”, you mocked, as you kept watching the surrounding of the barn.

You returned to the barn shortly after, after making sure there was nobody out there. 

“This, this is ours now”, said Rick, pointing at the little 

“There's more than enough. It's ours whether or not we go to your camp”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?”, asked Carl

“If he were lying or if he wanted to hurt us... but he isn't, and he doesn't. We need this. So we're going, all of us”, said Michonne

“Somebody say something if they feel differently”, said Rick, talking to all of the group 

“I don't know, man. This barn smells like horse shit”, said Daryl

“Yeah. We're going”, said Abraham

“So where are we going? Where's your camp?”, Rick looked at each and every one of you, and you all silently agreed, so he only nodded, turning to Aaron, who was grinning happily

“Well, every time I've done this, I've been behind the wheel driving recruits back. I believe you're good people. I've bet my life on it. I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet”, he explained softly

“You're not driving. So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how”, every step of the way was going to be a discussion, a struggle, you could already see that

“Go north on Route 16”, he said simply

“And then?”

“ I'll tell you when we get there”

“We'll take 23 north”, sometimes, Rick was a prick, “You'll give us directions from there”

“That's... I don't know how else to say it... That's a bad idea. We've cleared 16. It'll be faster”

“We'll take 23. We leave at sundown”, he sentenced 

“We're doing this at night?”, you asked, Michone got close to Rick again

“Look, I know it's dangerous. But it's better than riding up to the gates during the day”, insisted Michonne

“If it isn't safe, we need to get gone before they know we're there”, said Rick, and he had a point, but it only makes sense if you knew the area you were going, otherwise… you only had the element of surprise on your side.

“No one is going to hurt you. You're trying to protect your group, but you're putting them in danger”, said Aaron, he was not making himself any favors

You didn’t look the best, if anything, you look like mercenaries who had deserted their army, turn roge and forced to roam over in a dessert for the last months, and you had proven to be anything but friendly to this guy, and yet… he insisted, if I were him and saw us coming, I would have run in the opposite direction.

Was this a trap? a group sent this guy to make us fall in their trap, but why? to protect their territory? to eliminate possible threats? made sense. You caught Rick staring at you, and you realized you must have looked concerned. 

“Tell me where the camp is, we'll leave right now”, insisted Rick, but Aaron got quiet, he didn’t say anything, only looked down “It's going to be a long night Eat. Get some rest if you can”, he said to the group.

You felt cooped up in that barn, you wanted some fresh air, and Daryl was right, it did smell like shit in here, so you stepped out of the barn.

Michonne and Maggie followed you, surprisingly

“What are your thoughts on this?”, asked Michonne, and you cursed yourself, because your face was sometimes really transparent

“I don’t know”, you confessed, “I wanted to believe him, I do, but then… Why us? we look like shit, and we have treated him as such”

“He said it, he said he was watching”, said Maggie carefully

“Look, it adds up, but still…”, you said, “if it is a trap, I’m not sure we can fight it, we are so tired… dehydrated”

“Rick listens to you”, said Michonne, “we want to know what you think”

“I think it's worth the risk”, you assured them both, “because if it's real… it sounds pretty damn awesome”, they smiled, and left you alone.

You sat on a fallen tree, and looked at the beautiful day ahead of you, you took a deep breath, these moments, where you could actually take a breath and not smell the dead… were appreciated.

Nightfall came pretty quickly, and soon, you were walking towards a couple of cars, one of them was a big RV, the other… an old thing, cadillac maybe?

“Michonne, Glenn and I will drive with him”, said Rick, “you go on the RV”

“Where's your partner?”, you asked Aaron, he looked everywhere frantically, but there was nobody out there.

“He probably went back when you took the cars”, he said with a nervous smile, “let’s go”

They got in one car, you all entered the RV, Abraham drive, nobody fought it on it

You opened the emergency gate on the roof, and you managed to stand on what was supposed to be a kitchen table, to look ahead from above, and that way, see possible threats, you grabbed a rifle with a silencer and a telescope. You felt pretty cool, like some sort of sniper

You started the journey when it was already late, and the car was in front of you. As you took the road Rick had said you would, Abraham got a little behind them, as he should, keeping distance in case of an emergency, or if they hit the breaks for any reason 

“HEY!”, you slammed the roof, as the signal you had agreed and Abraham stopped. You saw a huge herd of walkers and the car in front of you crashing against them

“I saw it too!”, Abraham said, he turned the camper away and returned

“We need to go get them!”, fought Carol

“That is not what we agreed on!”, said Abraham, who had received clear instructions from Rick, you had his kids, so homemade sure they were going to get out of this safely

Abraham returned to an intersection, and took the road Aaron first told him to take, you were mounting guard again, as you took the new street, the night sky was lit up with a red light

“Who fired that?”, you asked, slapping the roof again

“It’s them!”, said Rosita, from inside. 

“We’re going!”, demanded Abraham, and the RV took speed down the road.

It was a small town, the bengal was set off by a water tank. From your oint of view, you saw a small herd of roamers, surrounding a car, they had definitely found something… or someone, from there, you took out a bunch of them, before Abraham hit the breaks and everyone got out, you jumped out of the RV, landing dangerously close to broke something, but you didn’t

A man was hiding under the car

“Help!”, he asked, once he saw the threat had been diminished pretty quickly, “I’m Eric, I’m with Aaron!”, you took out your ax, and took out the rest of them, as ROoita and Daryl helped you 

Maggie slipped in and help the man to get out of under the car

“I think I broke my ankle!”, he said. Like Aaron, he looked like he was just out on a hike near a fancy town, he looked clean, and well kept.

You helped him up, and towards an old supply store, where Maggie tended to him. Daryl waited outside for the rest of them. Eric had been the one to fire the flare, so, it was a matter of time until they saw it and came too.

Because they were sure to be back, soon

You kept Carl company, as he was terribly nervous, in an alley, waiting for Rick with Daryl and you, and soon, they came in, running down the street, on foot. 

Daryl whistled, and they whistled back, that is how you knew it was them. 

Aaron came running looking for Eric, you guessed he was his partner, and not only for this run. 

“Is everyone alright?”, asked Rick

“Yes”, said Maggie, “everything is fine”, it had been a good scare, but you were all fine, and that is what mattered. Aaron came out of the room where Eric was soon after

“Excuse me. Everyone”, he called your attention, he looked at you quickly, and nodded, “Thank you”, he said, “You saved Eric. I owe you. All of you. And I will make sure that debt is paid in full when we get to our community. When we get to Alexandria. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not do any more driving tonight. Maybe we can hit the road tomorrow morning”

“That sounds fine, but if we're staying here for the night, you're sleeping over there”, demanded RIck, and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes

“You really think we got to do that?”, asked Glenn

“It's a safe play. We don't know you”

“The only way you're gonna stop me from being with him right now is by shooting me”, said Aaron, you smiled. Glenn grabbed Rick, and whispered some things to him. 

“All right”, he said relented.

You didn’t realize how tired you were until everybody started to look for places to sleep for a couple of hours. You went to the second floor, the whole building was crappy, but from there, you could keep watch.

Daryl followed you

“It seems that if I want to sleep I need to be close to you”, he said, surprising you

The night was calm, a bit warm, and the skies were clear.

One of the best things about the apocalypse, if it was any, is that there was no more “pollution” of any kind, not light, or noise pollution. So you could see the stars

“I’m flattered”, you said softly

“You are a good lookout”

“I’m just trying to play my part”, you said softly, he stood by your side, in a kind of balcony, made of steel tubing, like emergency stairs from the old buildings of cities

“Yeah, me too”, he said, you felt his gaze on you, and you tried to look away

“This community…”, you started, “sounds great”

“Yeah”, he said, “if its real”

“I think it is”, you said surely, “and if it's not, we can keep going”, you assured him, “as long as we are together… we will be fine”, you really believed that

“I dunno why…”, he said slowly, “I keep coming back to ya”, you looked at him, Daryl was a man of short words, and despite it sounded a bit bad, he said it so gently, that you understood what he meant, you were drawn to him too, in a way you couldn’t began to understand

“I like it”, you confessed with a shy smile. You shared smiled and looked away immediately, feeling a bit embarrassed, “Whatever happens tomorrow, or any day”, you said, “you can come back to me”, he only hummed approvingly

You both took turns to sleep, without saying much else, sometimes with Daryl, you didn’t need to say anything. 

The very next day you woke up and were ready to leave, you ate canned beans as breakfast, as Aaron was telling everybody that they had manage to have chickens and ate fresh eggs everyday, that sounded amazing, and most of you climbed into the RV, to start the journey to Alexandria

It was a ride for a couple of hours, that wasn’t the issue, you liked road trips, or at least, you used to like them…

You got seated in an area that was supposed to be for eating, and Daryl had gotten inside just behind you, he was going to follow you

“Daryl”, Carol called him, signaling for him to sit with her on the other side of the camper and he did, so you just smiled at Eugene and Tara, who got seated by you side

“Have you ever played Seven-card stud?”, he asked you both, and you immediately engaged with him

“Stack ‘em”, you mocked

“You don’t say it like that, you say rack ‘em when you want to play pool”, teased Tara, you laughed

“So what do I say when I want my cards dealt”

“Deal me in”, says Eugene

“Yeah, if you are from the south”, and a fun argument ensued while you started playing cards 

“Stares and squares. It's aces, cuatros, neeners, and two-eyed jacks”, you chuckled as you tried to understand what he meant

“So there's 14 wild cards? Are you serious?”, asked Tara, who was not impressed, you also believed Eugene was teaching you something where only he could win

“Serious as two copulating dogs”

“Copulating dogs are serious?”, you giggled, and you started laughing again, it looked like you were drunk, laughing at anything funny you said. 

“Look! DC!”, you jumped at the window like a simple tourist, you had never gotten to see the capital of the United States, and even from afar, and in the middle of the apocalypse, it looked great. 

You kept driving, amongst giggles and nervous laughs, the three of you tried to keep it light, but you could tell the environment inside the RV was a bit tense, nobody knew what to expect. 

“We are here”, the camper went to a stop and you came back to your senses, watching over the window. There were some abandoned buildings, you got out of it, to see the promised land, the big walls, and a huge gate.

When you saw the gates and the people there to open them, your social anxiety of old came back, quicker than you expected, and you felt dread… and suddenly it hit you… not because they might kill you, or try to eat you, but because you didn’t really wanted to meet more people, or talk to them… or care for them… you took one last look at your group, and wished you could stay the same as you were now, all eighteen of you.

18, such a nice, round number, could be divided by 9, 6, 3 or 2, you liked those numbers, even. 

You sometimes were certain that you had an undiagnosed OCD to some degree. 

When all of you walked towards those gates, you took a step back, Rick noticed, immediately, as did Daryl

“Hey”, he said softly, “what’s going on?”

“I dunno”, you muttered, you didn’t want things to change, you didn’t want to meet new people, you were getting so tired by this point… 

“It’s fine”, he said softly, “it’s gonna be fine”, you nodded. And took a step forwards, signaling that you were fine, you just had a bit of cold feet.

As you stood there, waiting for them to open the gates, you heard a loud noise that made all of you jump and point your guns, but it was only a possum. Daryl shot it, killing it instantly. You all turned to the man who opened the gates, who seemed… horrified, to say the least.

“We brought diner”, said Daryl, raising up the dead possum, you chuckled

Post chapter notes: I realized… because I rewatched… that I really downplayed those weeks on the road, they were completely feral by the point they met poor Aaron. I would have liked to have a couple more chapters with my eighteen, but… this story must go on, I already had them jumping through hoops, jejeje

taglist! @crazyunsexycool

[dancingdonatello]

Howdy! I don't know about you,but I have this weird fear with needles. Specifically shot esc needles,I have peircings and a tattoo, and im fine with those. it is more of a fear/hostility when it comes to anything like a shot. What if the turtles (doesn't matter which variation) have a sick lover that needs one? Of course there's no sweat if ya don't wanna,just curious!

rottmnt x gn reader

Raph passes out with you. Even if he somehow keeps consciousness, he makes it worse by freaking out more than you do or loudly narrating how close the person is to piercing your skin. The situation goes from 1 to 100 with him there.

Leo does it so quick you never know what was even happening in the first place. You freeze up when you see the needle in his hand but he just laughs and says he already stuck ya with it.

Donnie tries to cure your fears with exposure therapy. It goes as well as you think it does. You end up punching him any time he comes near you with a needle and a doctor surgical mask on. When you actually have to get one, he holds you down or ties you up to keep you still. -100 points for him.

Mikey is probably the best equipped for this, naturally. He distracts you, holds your hand, talks you through it while whoever does the shot to you.

Honestly the best boyfriend out of the bunch.

[suzukiblu]

currently having EMOTIONS abt your 'Billy adopts kon and it goes p good actually'. Billy's there just like oh man I'm rambling they're gonna think I'm so lame...meanwhile I as a reader (and presumably also Kon and possibly the other characters present??) are actually going 'oh my god. oh my god he's known Kon for like one singular minute and already arranged a flat according to his best predictions of Kon's needs/wants, gave Kon FIRST PICK OF BEDROOM, and has freely offered to learn how to cook AND how to drive for the sole purpose of taking better care of Kon'. like. oh my god. oh my god. Billy is so precious and I want to give him a hug. I hope Kon isn't too overwhelmed or suspicious due to Billy's enthusiasm tho lmao. (pls could there be..more? more Billy adopts kon, if possible?) anyway I love ur writing. thank you. idk how to ask from a sidelong but this is tryingahandinholdingapen btw :D

I gotchu, friend, lol. @tryingahandinholdingapen But yeah I love a good unreliable narrator, one way or the other it's just so fun peppering in all the bits of "the actual situation that the narrator is oblivious to", hahaha.

Rich people are weird, Billy decides, then sets the swiss rolls and zebra cakes and rest of the strawberry shortcakes on the counter in case Kid Flash is still hungry or Superboy wants any of them and closes the pantry. Batman’s just doing his best, he guesses. Though Billy hopes he knows how to coupon, if he’s always buying brand-name. 

Well, he’s Batman. It’d be weirder if he didn’t know how to coupon, Billy figures.

It looks like Superboy ate all of his snack cake while Billy and Kid Flash were in the pantry, at least, which Billy hopes means he liked it. He doesn’t know how much real food Superboy’s had, but Batman’d said he should be fine eating solid stuff and not just whatever he’d been getting in his cloning pod. Though Billy’d still asked if they could get some bottled smoothies and protein shakes and stuff like that to keep in the fridge, just in case. He figured those might be easier for him to eat and digest, if it came up. Or like, maybe appeal to him more, if nothing else? 

Billy has no idea, honestly, he’s just doing his best here. The wisdom of Solomon is pretty useful but it’s not really, like, that much of a parenting guide. 

He is not going to cut Superboy in half. Like, ever. Like he understands the idea of that story but also it is an insane and incredibly freaky story and he is just not invoking it, ever. Just no way.

“If it’s alright, Captain, we should get going. We’ve got a bit of a drive to get home,” Mrs. West says, then sighs as Kid Flash empties the boxes of swiss rolls and zebra cakes in lightning-fast succession, though he leaves the strawberry shortcakes alone. Billy checks in the fridge and offers him a couple of the more filling smoothies–peanut butter and banana should be more filling, anyway, even with a speedster’s appetite. He steals those from convenience stores sometimes, when he can. He can’t be Captain Marvel all the time. 

Well–maybe he could, he guesses. But he does miss being himself, sometimes.

“Thanks, man,” Kid Flash says eagerly, then immediately shotguns both smoothies. 

“Wally,” Mr. West says in exasperation as Mrs. West sighs again. “Don’t eat Captain Marvel out of house and home.” 

“It’s okay, we’ve got lots of food!” Billy promises cheerfully. “I work with Flash, I know how hungry he gets. I bet it’s way worse when you still have growth spurts to get through.” 

“It is so much worse,” Kid Flash mutters vehemently, eyeing the empty smoothie bottles in his hands accusingly. Billy gets him another peanut butter banana one on principle. He really doesn’t want Kid Flash to be that hungry. It’s . . . not a good feeling. 

“We appreciate it, Captain, really, but we’ve got snacks and a cooler in the car,” Mrs. West says. 

“Oh, good,” Billy says, relieved. Mr. and Mrs. West both give him strange, inscrutable looks, then glance back to Superboy. Billy wonders if he likes peanut butter banana smoothies. Though if he liked the snack cakes, there’s strawberry banana ones too, so that might be better? And strawberry kiwi, but that’s probably less filling. “Superboy, do you want a smoothie too?” 

“No,” Superboy says. Billy pauses again, then gets him a strawberry banana one and tosses it over. Superboy catches it, eyes it, and then opens it and takes a sip.

Okay, Billy thinks he’s getting the hang of this. But also they should probably talk about how “no” needs to actually mean “no”. Like, for Superboy he’s sure it’s just like that phase when toddlers want to say “no” to everything no matter what, but it’s still important for him to understand. Billy doesn’t want to accidentally upset him or overstep because Superboy doesn’t know how to really say “no” to something.

Yeah, they definitely need to talk about that, he decides.