#nothing if that was the case. He's not supposed to be that cruel anymore (and i do believe he cares about aku to some extent) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solomons-finest-rum · 11 months

Text

“As The Crow Flies” (Alfie Solomons x fem!Reader) — PART 2

SUMMARY — By all accounts Anna Gray died in Australia and had no business standing in Alfie’s living room, nor calling the man “darling” for that matter. But there you were, identical to the picture they took when they shipped you off to the colonies.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — Thank you to everyone for words of encouragement and for waiting for the update 💗💗💗💗💗 Goodness, that was one hefty break. I hope the next part won't take me as much, but I can't exactly promise it will be fast, sorry about that. I think this is a part 2 out of 3 and then I'll do an epilogue, but that is still more of a draft than a plan.

WORD COUNT — 2,708

Masterlist

Tommy sat beside Polly in utter silence, watching the cigarette slowly burn between her fingers to the point where the heat nearly touched the skin. Tommy observed it with morbid fascination because it was something other to do than to stay with his own thoughts. And he would not dare to speak to Polly first—not after the news he had brought her this evening.

The clock chiming in the hall let them know it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, but still neither of them moved. The fire went out long ago and Tommy wondered in his solemn silence if Polly would accept a blanket.

“How could you tell me she was dead?” Polly suddenly asked the question Tommy had been dreading for the past hour and then she flicked the cigarette butt straight on the carpet.

Tommy dared to look her in the eye then and immediately regretted that decision when he was met with nothing but hurt and steel-like anger.

“They told me she was, Pol. I went to the parish myself, saw the documents myself,” Tommy replied calmly.

That signature state of calm didn’t come to him as quickly as it used to, he noticed. These days it required more and more effort; or perhaps the things he chose to do got worse with time.

“Fucking nuns,” Polly hissed and shook her head. “You should have pressed them harder! Should’ve made them talk!”

“Then what, hm? Threaten them? Put a gun to their head, eh? There was nothing else they would have told me, Pol, they didn’t know.”

“I don’t care what! We shouldn’t have just abandoned her like that. Now look what happened, she’s a hostage with another fucking monster, just ready to put his paws on her whenever he pleases!” Polly stood up abruptly and Tommy wondered for a moment if perhaps he shouldn’t slip some laudanum in her drink. She looked frenzied, her hair in disarray and eyes bloodshot. The way Tommy saw it, she was half-ready to walk to Margate on foot and kill Alfie herself.

“Polly,” Tommy moved to stand in front of her just in case she had any ideas. He put both hands on her shoulders to reassure her. “Polly, look at me. Alfie Solomons, yeah? Alfie Solomons is just about the last man you’d find putting his hands on anybody that didn’t ask for it, all right? I swear this much.”

“Jesus, I don’t care what you swear anymore, Tommy!” Polly scoffed and tore herself away. “The man is insane, you said so yourself—many times in fact! We all remember what he did to Arthur! Or have you forgotten?!”

“No,” Tommy replied stiffly. “Perhaps he’s insane, but he’s not cruel to women, Polly, never has been. He doesn’t have the reputation.”

“Well, neither do you, that doesn’t mean one wife’s not buried, the other’s escaped!”

Though Tommy would never admit it, that hurt immensely. That was the problem with people who loved him, he supposed. They knew exactly where to hit to draw the most blood. He willed his face to return to the stony mask it was before.

“But your daughter is not buried and she isn’t gone,” he said. “She’s alive, Pol, I saw her with my own two eyes. She’s alive and we can get her back.”

“Well, that’s not exactly possible now, is it?” she scoffed and turned her gaze back to the fireplace as if some ghostly apparition beckoned her to it. “You said she didn’t know you, I bet that fucking animal has her caged.”

“That’s not true. I saw her, Pol, she looked well.” Tommy felt like stressing that might help. “She has your eyes and your wit and I swear she cooks somethin’ awful, but she’s no prisoner. Alfie is…” He hesitated then, because it wasn’t exactly a comfortable thought to consider. “She’s got him wrapped around her little finger, Pol. You can’t say no to her, eh? Just like I can’t exactly argue with you neither.”

That brought Polly back, even if just to glare at her nephew with fury.

“Pol, I swore to you once I’d bring your children home and I haven’t changed my mind.” Tommy took her hand in his and to his relief this time Polly didn’t pull away.

“I don’t think Alfie harmed her,” he insisted. “I don’t think she’d let him. Polly, she looked tough. Hardened by life. She’s a woman grown, Pol, and I know she can take care of herself. You said so yourself, eh? It’s grandfather’s gift, reading people. Well, I read her tonight and I know Alfie, too. Something happened to her, that much’s clear, but there’s nothin’ evil happenin’ to her in that house.”

That seemed to satisfy his aunt because she finally took a deep breath that actually made Tommy feel like he could breath himself.

“Why would he tell you to lie to me, Tommy?”

“How do you mean?”

“Why would he think you wouldn’t tell me? That you’d play his game.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But I know what he wants in return and to be honest his plan wasn’t as delirious as I’d take him for.”

“I don’t care what you discussed with that man, that’s of little consequence,” Polly scoffed. “We are going to get her and we are going to get rid of him once and for all, Thomas, because no one fucks with the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders and no one fucks with the family! Do you hear me?!”

“I hear you.”

“Good. Now get up!”

“So we’re goin’ today?”

“Today!”

Tommy nodded and gently navigated her back into the armchair. He rang the bell for the maid. In the agitated state Polly’s house was currently in, Tommy was sure the servants weren’t really sleeping.

“And get Michael,” she ordered. “I don’t care what that peroxide tramp says about it, he’s coming with us.”

Alfie stood on the porch and smoked his pipe. He let you squeeze his arm in anger while trying to sneak concerned glances in your general direction. Tired of being treated like a spooked horse, you glared at him until he stopped with all the concern. You were tougher than you looked and you would very much appreciate it if Alfie finally admitted it.

“You alright?” Alfie asked you for what must have been the twentieth time and you nodded stiffly instead of a reply.

“Darlin’, I mean it, all right, ‘cause if you ain’t tryin’ to make me bloody worried then you’re doin’ a splendid job regardless, yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Right, that’s just fuckin’ uncalled for, that…”

“No. Someone’s coming.”

You pointed then to the faint shapes on the horizon, which, judging by the noise, must have been the Shelby Bentleys.

“Get the binoculars, Alfie.”

“I’ll get the fuckin’ shotgun is what I’ll get.”

“Alfie.”

“I’ll do as I damn well please in my own house, woman!”

“So your brilliant means of operation is just bullets, is that it? What the hell did you expect, that Tommy would just listen to you?”

There was a clear measure of challenge in your words and all you two did then was just size each other up, trying to see who would call the bluff first. Finally, your husband grumbled his best catalogue of swear words and brought you the binoculars you asked for.

“It’s the Shelbys,” you confirmed.

“Like clockwork, that lot,” Alfie scoffed. “You tell them one thing, they go the opposite fuckin’ direction.”

“Some clock that’d be,” you chuckled. “We knew they’d come. That’s why we’re here.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

The pipe now abandoned, Alfie checked the barrel of his favourite handgun and reassured himself with the number. The only problem was the Shelby threat looming on the horizon and what looked like three cars, no doubt packed to the brim with Tommy’s henchmen.

“And you’re certain he will help us?” you asked.

“‘Course. Like I said before, right, Tommy’s nothin’ if not reliable.”

“That’s quite generous coming from you.”

“Just ‘cause he shot me doesn’t mean we ain’t kin now.”

“I am many things, dearest, but a Shelby isn’t one of them.”

“Ah, well, too bad. And too late to call the cavalry off, I reckon. If ya changed your mind…”

“That’s not what I meant.” It was your time to scoff. “These people are not my family. You are.”

On a rare occasion when Alfie Solomons found himself something close to emotional, three black Bentleys finally arrived at the quaint Margate cottage. You instinctively grabbed your husband’s arm again. He didn’t flinch, not even when you dug your nails into the skin, hard enough to draw blood.

“Right, gentlemen! And lady. What a lovely surprise, innit.” Alfie beckoned with his other hand, waving the gun about and leaving very little doubt as to the quickness of change in his intentions were the Shelbys not to play along. “Let me simply say: shalom… All right. Welcome. Yeah, that is the message for today, or so one might hope.”

What would undoubtedly be another inspired monologue had to wait, however. As soon as Tommy escorted Polly out of the car and her eyes met her daughter’s, Polly’s knees gave out. Tommy and Arthur caught her just in time and held her up on both sides.

“Anna!” Polly cried. “Oh dear God, it’s really you! Anna!”

You stood still like a statue, at which point even your husband turned to look at you with a mix of concern and fascination. You let go of his arm and focused on Tommy.

“Mr. Shelby. You brought an army this time. Am I to expect a shootout?”

As cold and unmoved as Tommy tried to be, it proved to be hard with a sobbing woman on his arm.

“Or am I to understand you’re here to kidnap me?” you pressed. “Please don’t say my chicken was that spectacular, I won’t believe it.”

“Anna.” Polly squeezed Tommy’s arm and took a step forward. Alfie uncocked his gun. You sighed and wished he hadn’t, since the entire Shelby ensemble now followed with the same.

“What the fuck is the matter with you, you fools! Put the bloody guns down!” Polly seethed and marched towards the house with a newfound purpose in her step. “Anna. Come down from there. You’re coming home with us.”

You looked at the woman you knew was your mother, though now only by name. Your heart didn’t know her and your head was too preoccupied to care.

“That might pose an issue,” you answered. “Because I am home.”

The next person that got out of the car, however, seemed to finally make you shake off your stony demeanour. You couldn’t quite help it, because his face was the first you could actually say was known to you.

“Michael!” you whispered and then rushed down from the porch before anyone could stop you. “Oh dear God, you’re alive!”

You fell into your brother’s steady embrace and though the force of it nearly made him stumble, he held you firmly and wouldn’t let go—not even if the devil himself tried to claim you both again.

The tearful reunion was so quiet that no one apart from you and Michael could know what words were exchanged. While the Shelbys weren’t exactly the type to interrupt, you could tell that Alfie was out of patience.

“Are we just about finished, then?” he inquired. “Forgive the interruption, yeah, but it’s gettin’ li’l too chilly for my taste.”

Polly took that opportunity to point her gun directly at Alfie’s head.

“Now then, madam,” Alfie chuckled and stood his ground, though he didn’t raise the gun he was holding. “I’d only ask ya to aim better than your nephew, all right, ‘cause I can’t exactly take no more of this.” He pointed to the injured side of his face. “Once was enough, yeah, so if you’re certain that’s what ya wanna do, I won’t stop ya.”

“Shut your mouth,” Polly hissed. “You shut your mouth!”

“Polly.” Tommy took a step towards them. His voice was full of warning and he ordered his men to stand down with a single wave of his hand. “Polly, think about what we’re doin’ here, all right? We came to get your daughter,” he turned to point at you, who now looked toward her husband with a horrified expression. “She’s safe now, Polly, we can take her home. There’s no need for violence, Pol, not today.”

“Like hell you will!” you protested. “Can you stop talking about me like I’m not even here?! No one’s taking me anywhere.”

“Now then, Tommy,” Alfie sighed. “There I was, mate, thinkin’ we had an understandin’, you an’ I. After all these years of friendship, right, you come to my house, guns blazin’, and with your lovely aunt no less, all in pursuit of justice I can’t exactly give, mate, ‘cause I ain’t the one who took Anna away in the first place. So…”

To everyone’s surprise Alfie turned his back to Polly and opened the front door as casually as one might when having a gun pointed at you turns into something of a daily occurrence.

“Might I offer you a drink then, uh, Polly, is it? Right, lemme just say that, yeah, I ain’t exactly one for close family ties, you see, that’s just not somethin’ I was brought up with…”

Alfie’s voice disappeared somewhat as he walked further into the house, completely ignoring the chaos on the porch. You tried to rush back towards the house and stomped on Michael’s foot with all your might when he wouldn’t let you go. Michael roared with pain and you took your chance to run, but this time it was Arthur who stopped you and who, all things considered, presented a much sturdier guard than your brother.

“You let me through,” you hissed.

“Nah, I don’t think so, luv. You’re comin’ with us.”

“Like hell I am!”

Polly, still stunned, turned towards her children and lowered her gun, creating an opportunity for Tommy to catch up with her and take it out of her hands.

“Not today,” he repeated softly. “There’ll be time for vengeance and there’ll be time for justice. But not here, Pol, not now. Arthur, let Anna pass.”

Polly shook her head and spat on the bluish tiles of the porch, thoroughly worn out and bleached by the seaside air. Only then did she notice the curious mosaic right before the front door and the gentle arch forming the words “lethe”.

“I’m not leaving without her, Tommy,” she warned.

“I know you’re not.”

Out of options and out of bullets, Polly crossed the threshold and she hoped the choice would truly erase the anguish from her memory—if only for a moment.

Alfie’s gambit must have been exactly that from the start, Tommy mused, because as soon as the rest of the Shelby clan entered the house, they were welcomed by the maid with a tea tray. Alfie, now comfortable in his usual armchair, gestured for his guests to sit.

Judging by his calm and calculated demeanour, Tommy doubted him and his family had been so unexpected. In fact, he just about acknowledged he had let himself be manipulated not once but twice in what was perhaps the strangest forty-eight hours in a long time.

“Right, now, we don’t know each other well so I don’t know exactly what everyone drinks…” Alfie waved at the maid dismissively and she started to serve the tea as if it was any other ordinary occasion. “Feel free to peruse the bar if you so prefer, Tommy, right, but not you.” Alfie settled his only seeing eye on Arthur, though the elder Shelby brother didn’t seem as prone to anger as Alfie remembered. That was almost disappointing.

You entered the house last, holding your brother’s hand. Michael smiled down at you fondly as if you hadn’t just caused him severe bodily harm. Tommy and Alfie both noted the scene, though neither exactly for the same reasons. Alfie looked just about done tolerating all that whispering between you and your brother and it seemed so was Tommy.

Though neither, exactly, for the same reasons.

“Right then,” Alfie announced. “Should we discuss the terms?”

#peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders x reader #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons imagine #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy x reader

290 notes · View notes

dairy-farmer · 3 months

Note

*Distant sound of frantic running getting closer* *slams door open, eyes manic*

Symbiote AU!!!

Dairy, how have we missed this!? What FOOLS we've been! Bruce! A Symbiote! "Batman" just an extention or suit!

But then? How is there a Bruce Wayne? Simple. His parents found him. Loved their alien baby. Not everyone has to look human to be accepted. BUT! THIS Brucie? A handsome, but sickly man! Because he has no Host? Extremely vulnerable to noise and heat.

Poor, poor Wayne Orphan. Hospitals abroad all his youth.

Batman was an ambush predator. Ten times more terrifying, for having to fight smart. Swallow goons and spit them out. Hijack their bodies like a living nightmare. A true cryptid of Fear.

But ROBIN? Changes EVERYTHING. Dick let's him in. Brucie get "better". He can teach Dick from inside a suit of himself. So, SO much stronger then he's ever been. They are devastating.

Dick grows up. Doesn't want to be US. Wants to be HIM. Arguments. Painful, loud, screaming Arguments.

Jason.

The cycle repeated. But WORSE. Jason leaves him behind. He DIES because Bruce isn't there to take the blow. Isn't there to dig him out and heal him. Too late.

Tim!

Who KNOWS what he is. Who he threatens but can not scare off. Can FEEL the love and support from. Is burned by it. Tries to make hate him, by wearing his body like a suit. Batman has never been so active. So strong.

He knows it leave Tim exhausted. Weak and queasy. Cold and in need of comfort.

He refuses to give it. Alfred is displeased, does it for him.

Dick nearly brings the roof down. Apoplectic. Threatens to take Tim AWAY. To his team across the map. Do better. Or Else.

Bruce is quietly frantic. Has become so used to Tim's body. The comfort and companionship. He... he can't lose this. Not again. He'll go insane. Awkwardly, he tries to do better.

Tim is thrilled.

Tim needs to eat more. He notes. Sleep more. Forgot to brush his teeth. He drags Tim back to do these things. Is wrapped around his flesh and bone. Cuddles around him, as he naps. Rarely forming his deco body anymore.

Finally getting to... to indulge his instincts, he supposes. Tim is not his son. Is his Host instead. It's different somehow.

Puberty is cruel. Hits Tim like a hammer. Sudden new needs and no experience or time to deal with them. Tim is distracted and suffering. Trying to find excuses to... to SEPERATE?! No. No, no, no! He can't do this again.

He knows WHY Tim wants to be alone. Ridiculous boundaries and bodily needs. But the are One. Tim is HIS. Came to HIM and offered! He doesn't need "boundaries" or "private time"! He just needs his needs met. That's easy.

Tentacles while in the shower. Tim ends up on his knees, scrambling against the tiles, as his vigin hole is plundered. His tits and clit teased with in an inch of his life. Good spots rubbed from angles only someone free floating around inside his body could manage.

See? Bruce told you he could fix it.

He can also mimic clothes. Are those REALLY panties? Or is it Bruce, filling up Tim with squirming tentacles and teasing, clit sucking goo? Making him walk around like that? Bathing suit? Or Bruce? Nightshirt? Or Bruce? And what is he doing to the cute little body underneath that "cloth"?

To say NOTHING of the turn the Batman suit has taken. It must be boring. Nothing new. Not to worry, since you're FULLY ENCASED in him? He can do all sorts of things to literally every inch of you. The entire patrol.

While he kicks ass, you take up yours. He swings between buildings. Tim gets railed to orgasm number 4 of the night. Tim can see everything, feeling like he's basicly in public, all while no one can see or hear him. Batman talking to the commissioner about a case, even as Tim is being fucked right infront of all of Gotham's Finest.

Tim doesn't talk about separating anymore, of course. How could he? Who ELSE could give him this? And Bruce needs him! He's Robin.

Just? Bruce fucking his Host so good Tim basicly agrees to make it a permanent arrangement. Batman and Robin. Forever.

-🐼🐼🐼

bruce being a symbiote makes perfect sense- his literal possessiveness fits so perfectly and tim being the perfect little host!

#asks #answered asks #anonymous #brutim

64 notes · View notes

xaverie · 2 years

Text

For those playing along at home, a casual reminder that

We never hear or see Lestat apologize

before Louis takes him back. We get the sense that there was an apology, or that we are supposed to view his actions as apologetic, but the only language suggesting that this is the case comes from Louis (who we have already established is biased.)

Louis says,

"Lestat disappeared after that awful night. Vanished out of a profound sense of shame he would later confess to. Which was just as well, since Claudia and I were in no mood to receive his apologies."

But the following scene shows Lestat attempting to win Louis back with a gift, not an attempted apology.

The closest we get to an apology is Lestat's statement as he attempts to gift Louis with the car, and in narration, Louis says, "For six years in all, these raw and desperate mea culpas came like the tide." A 'mea culpa' is an admission of guilt or error, but is that actually what we saw?

"Louis I don't know what possessed me that night. [...] I was someone I don't want to be anymore. I've changed. Let me prove it to you. I'm nothing without you. I'm nothing without both of you. If you want me to go away, just say so. I'll obey you. I'll leave your life forever. This silence is cruel. And you were never cruel, Louis."

This is a DARVO statement.

It's subtly done, but it's exactly what Lestat is doing here.

Deny: Lestat is denying responsibility and distancing himself from his actions in episode 5 by saying "I don't know what possessed me. I was someone I don't want to be anymore." Whoever did that thing was a different person. Not the real me, not the person who is speaking to you right now.

Attack: "I'm nothing without you. I'm nothing without both of you." In context, it sounds like Lestat is explaining that he needs Louis and Claudia back in his life - which is bad enough because it redirects focus from the what victims need and onto what is best for him. But then we remember the context of the beating, which was Claudia asking Louis to leave Lestat. "I'm nothing without you" becomes a dogwhistle. I become something else, something terrible without you. Which wouldn't have happened if you stayed.

Reverse Victim and Offender: By calling Louis's refusal to speak to him "cruel" Lestat is doing two things. First he is framing this decision as a punishment instead of a safety measure. He cannot acknowledge that refusing contact with a person who abused you is a valid way to protect yourself and heal, because that would mean acknowledging that he is the Offender and unsafe to be around. He has to frame it as a punishment (making it about himself) so he can accuse Louis of cruel and unjust punishment. Of punishing someone who doesn't even exist anymore! He tries to control what would be an acceptable punishment "Tell me to leave" and an unacceptable punishment "This silence is cruel," and claim the latter is abuse that Louis is doing to him. So really, they're equally as bad, right?

as a side note - Lestat never once attempts to make amends with Claudia or pretend to apologize to her.

This is textbook. Between this and Daniel's remarks, the writers are giving clear signals that Lestat is still using abusive tactics to try to manipulate the terms of his relationship with Louis and Claudia. Because the writers are telling a domestic violence story.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc #interview with the vampire spoilers #we have to recognize these things so that we don't fall for them ourselves

805 notes · View notes

munsonsreputation · 1 year

Text

Cruel Summer

steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: [2.1K] this was supposed to be an imagine turned into a short fic LOL

warnings: warnings: no use of y/n, fwb to lovers, cursing, brief talks of sex (no smut lol) reader and steve arguing, reader crying (she's ok), confession, FLUFF.

summary: with you and steve having your little summer fling turned more, you obviously had a price to pay. you couldn't help the feelings that you garnered for the guy and now you couldn't bare to keep your feelings for him a secret anymore. but will steve feel the same or was the last three months just a cruel summer?

A summer fling.

This is all it was supposed to be, but of course nothing is ever what it seems. At least that’s the case for you and Steve Harrington, the quote unquote bad boy heartbreaker of Hawkins that you took a chance on.

What was supposed to be secret hookups at late hours of the night slowly became something more.

It became spending the night in his bed, talking about everything under moonlight that illuminated your nude bodies.

It became him calling you to ask what you were up to on random afternoons, asking if you’d like to come see the newest movie at the theater.

It became you yelling at him to get in the car as you drove down the lake where you both would swim and forget all about your plans.

It became you letting him sneak through your garden gates when everyone was asleep so he could have a good night’s rest instead of listening to his parents fight all night.

It became you crying in his arms when you were having a particularly hard day, Steve whispering sweet nothings into your ear and being there for you.

It was delicate touches, longing stares, and sweet kisses that crossed every line that was supposed to keep a summer fling and falling in love on two separate sides.

In June, you were sure that it was just sex. Hookups in the backseat of his car and tiptoeing back up your stairs, trying not to get caught. Concealing hickies and acting oblivious when the kids across the street asked if you knew their babysitter, Steve. Late phones calls asking if you wanted to come over and have some fun.

But something happened, mid-June he showed up to your house unannounced with a busted lip. He and his dad had gotten into it, and he didn’t know where to go. You were the first person who popped into his mind when he felt the blood spewing in his mouth, knowing that you could be the one to help him. He sat on the toilet bowl lid while you dabbed at his mouth and he told you everything about his absent parents and upbringing.

In July, things started getting more comfortable. You two let each other into your lives—more than knowing about who your first kiss was or what you wanted to be when you grew up. You both were there for each other, making random phone calls in the middle of the day to check up on each other. July was the same month where Steve had found you a crying mess on your bed when he tried to sneak in through your window to surprise you. You both spent the night in each other’s arms—fully clothed—just relishing the feeling of each other and his sweet words.

In August, you knew you were fucked. You fell for him harder for him every day, just longing to be with him and for a moment it seemed like he felt the same. You practically spent everyday together—holding hands, kissing, tickling each other, getting into stupid little fights about little things, making up with ice cream, tight hugs, and mind-blowing sex. All the couple things, but yet not a couple.

Three months of this fever dream and you were sure that now, more than ever, you wanted him for eternity. But you had made a promise to yourself and to Steve that this was nothing more than a summer fling. But of course your heart had other plans, your heartstrings pulled by every memory and moment you two shared, and for once in your life you were terrified of letting go of something you knew was gonna hurt you.

But not for long because as the last few days of summer were nearing, you had a feeling that this was going to end sooner than later.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Steve poked at your side, sitting up from his original position on the picnic blanket where he was laying with his hands behind his head.

You flinched a bit, smiling somewhat as you turned your head to face him with glowy eyes.

He was so beautiful even if he looked like a sweaty mess under the blistering Indiana sun. His hair was still effortlessly falling and his freckles dotting his face like a bunch of sun kisses.

You shook your head, “Nothing. It’s stupid,” turning your head back to the sky, following the clouds wander lazily through the town.

“Hey, come on,” He hovered over your view, warm hands playfully squishing your cheeks, “I thought we told each other everything.”

“Yeah, but this one doesn’t matter,” you shook it off with a small laugh attempting to push him away, yet he didn’t fright, just staying in place where he gawked at you genuinely.

“C’mon. Tell. Me—ee!” He gently prodded, pecking your lips with each word as you snickered for a second, playfully nudging him off you as you sat up.

“Fine.”

The mere thought of you confessing your feelings for Steve was enough to make your stomach churn and your palms sweat. Usually you weren’t like this. You could say how you felt and not be ashamed, but here, you could feel the eyes of the angels above you rolling like they could read your mind and your naïve little thoughts about the boy in front of you.

But you were willing to take that chance to roll the dice on something good or bad. Like the little devil on your shoulder egging you on, telling you to just spit it out even if it could hurt you. And at the end of the day you were more than willing to say it, to say every goddamn thing that you’ve been wanting to say since you fell for Steve, even if it meant breaking your own heart—if it didn’t kill you, it would just make you want him more.

Steve must have noticed how nervous you were since you gone quiet, slowly reaching for your hands he spoke soft, “You okay?” he asked.

You nodded hastily, “Y-yeah, I’m fine,” you lied while your throated tightened, the words breaking, as you could feel your heart pounding in your chest with every second Steve had his hands on you.

“Take your time, baby.” He gave you a reassuring smile with his thumbs rubbing back and forth against your knuckles.

You had to cut to the bone.

Taking a deep breath with your eyes closed, you prepared yourself for everything.

This was it.

Now or never.

You couldn’t keep this a secret anymore.

Your eyes opened, Steve staring at you as he waited with anticipation.

“I love you.” With your voice barely a whisper, the truth revealed itself and you could see the shock and confusion fall on his face.

His thumbs stopped moving against your skin and everything felt like time had stopped.

“I—I don’t understand…” He sputtered, hands falling away from you as you could feel your heart already beginning to break, “I—I thought we said no feelings.”

“I can’t help how I feel, Steve.” You furrowed your brows, scooting away from him as you shook your head, “You made me like this. You’re the one who made me fall in love with you. Is it really that bad? Is it the worst thing you’ve ever heard?”

He shook his head, face concealed with his hands where he smoothed down his features, “We promised. You promised!”

You rolled your eyes, the frustration and anger growing inside of you, “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for screwing this up? Tell me Steve…tell me because I’m trying, but I don’t know if I can lie any longer.”

He stared at you at a loss for words, looking at you like he had seen a ghost and forgot how to speak. An exasperated sigh left your mouth, nodding your head to yourself as you got up, giving him one last look, “I can’t do this…”

With that, you turned around, feet walking fast through the grass and flowers, as you could feel the tears springing to your eyes. His footsteps being only a few feet behind you where you knew he was following.

“Stop running away from the conversation!” He called out, only making you walk faster.

You shouted loud enough for him to hear, “The conversation was over the second you said nothing back to me!”

“Because you took me by surprise! How do you expect someone to react when they just blurt out that they love you?”

You scoffed, wiping your tears that fell down your cheeks with your shaky fingers, “To say something rather than stare at me like I’m a fucking idiot!”

“Stop. Just…please.” You felt him reach for your arm, pulling you back to him where you both met face to face.

Yours covered with hurt. His covered with regret.

You couldn’t hold back any longer, he needed to hear this, “You’re afraid of falling in love, Steve.” you spoke, “Tell me that you don’t love me. That the past three months was just sex. That you didn’t think about spending forever together. Tell me and I’ll leave. I’ll go and forget the last three months ever happened.” Your voice was strong yet weak, your free hand pointing in the other direction, letting him know you were more than happy to go and forget.

Steve’s expression turned to one of surprise and hurt. His narrow eyes accompanied with his pinched brows let you know that you hit a spot, “It’s not that simple and you k-know that,” he said, his voice low and cracking.

“Then what is it?” You harshly pulled your arm away from him, crossing them over your chest while your gaze hardened, trying not to blink and let the tears slip, “Why won’t you let yourself love me?”

He exhaled, shaking his head as he turned for a second, running his hands roughly down his face before looking at you once more.

“Who’s to say that I don’t love!” He said aloud, searching your eyes that widened and your mouth slowly dropping, “How do you know those three words haven’t been on the tip of my tongue since you saw me bleeding? You have no idea how much I love you, but I can’t let myself hurt you.”

Your anger melted away as you blinked and looked into Steve’s eyes. His pleading ones begging you to understand the depth of his feelings, yet you didn’t.

“I—I don’t…don’t understand.” You croaked, shaking your head as you continued to cry like a baby.

He stepped closer, both of his hands reaching for your face where his thumbs brushed your tears away, “I won’t forgive myself if I hurt you. I—I want to be with you…I love you, but I just don’t want to mess this up.”

Your heart ached for Steve. You knew from everything that he told you about his ex-girlfriends that he wasn’t necessarily the best partner, but then again you were willing to take all the risks. To take Steve for the person he was now, the one who spoke about his feelings, not the one from high school who didn’t. You knew him deeply, and you knew that this wasn’t how this story was supposed to end.

You swallowed thickly, sniffles filling the summer breeze before you whispered, “We’ll never know if we don’t try, Steve.” your hands rested on his chest where you could feel his heart thumping quick, “It’s not fair to either of us if we don’t take the chance.”

Steve’s expression seem to soften as he listened to your words laced with sincerity. “You’re right, we gotta try or we’ll never know what could’ve been,” he agreed, taking a deep breath, “I want us to work. I can’t lose you.”

You smiled softly, shaking your head as your hands trailed from his chest to wrap around his wrist where his hands were still on your cheeks, “You don’t have to be afraid, Steve—I’m sure of this and I’m even more sure that I love you.”

He grinned, pulling your face towards him where his lips barely hovered over yours as he spoke, “I love you too,” before finally pressing your lips together.

Your fates were sealed as you two stood there, lips locked under the dwindling summer sky. What once was unbreakable heaven with no rules had now just became everything fragile yet beautiful with those three words. You both knew that this was the price that you two were paying for starting this whole summer fling—but you two would both do it over again and again if it ended up like this.

So maybe a cruel summer was worth the start of a kind forever.

A/N: i hope you all liked this and consider, reblogs, likes, tags, and comments which are greatly appreciated 💘✨💌 if you want to be added to my tag list, leave a comment and let me know!!! and all credits to taylor swift for this fucking addicting song!!!

taglist: @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world @givemeth @steveharringtonswife @fckthtgetmoney @loving-and-dreaming

#munsonsreputation #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington one shot #steve x y/n #steve harrington #stranger things x reader #steve stranger things #steve x reader #steve harrington x taylor swift #taylor swift x stranger things

355 notes · View notes

aihoshiino · 7 months

Note

can i interest you in a penny for your thoughts about aqua and ruby's relationship in the current stages of the manga? ruby's clearly projecting and im pretty sure aqua is kind of blocking that entire conversation? hes acknowledged it but i think hes avoiding thinking too much about it (in part due to *waves hand at entire movie arc* all that)

gosh since you've twisted my arm i have NO CHOICE...

But yeah, I think Ruby is pretty clearly doing a lot of projecting here — the consistency with which she's started calling Aqua 'Sensei' really jumps out to me and it makes me pretty certain she's basically completely overwritten Aqua with Gorou in her brain, completely discarding the 18ish years he's lived as her brother in favour of just viewing him as the doctor who supported her.

This is a two-part process of denial, imo. The first and most obvious is Ruby trying to convince herself that her supposed romance with Gorou can still happen and it's not the first time her sort of naive stubbornness on that topic has come up — we saw this before during the Private arc when it came to their age gap.

Like girl, I respect the cope but he would be nearly fifty old by now. That man would be old enough to be your dad LMFAO.

If Ruby can delulu herself about an age gap of that size, she can easily also come up with an excuse for herself as to why she would be able to date him now he's her brother. I mean, if you think about it, they're not really actually twins, right? They're just strangers who happened to be born together! Since he's really Gorou and NOT!!!!! her brother, there's nothing wrong with it!

It should go without saying that this is a pretty absurd justification and imo, not one I think the manga is wanting the reader to uncritically buy into. Ruby's feelings here are, I think, intentionally being portrayed as naive and pretty childish. The framing around Ruby when she talks about Aqua in this regard is consistently exaggerated and comedic in a way that is a pretty clear signal, at least to me, that she should not be taken seriously.

This could only read more plainly as shoujo brainrot exaggeration if Aqua's chin was seven inches long and sharp enough to cut glass...

Beyond the denial of convincing herself that this romance still has any chance to happen, I also think this is denial in the sense of grief, too. In a very real sense, by entirely superimposing Gorou over Aqua, Ruby is denying that his death has happened at all. She doesn't want to acknowledge the possibility that he could be different now, especially not in any way that is emotionally inconvenient for her. Because acknowledging that this change occurred and that Gorou is no longer the Gorou she needs him to be would force Ruby to accept that her beloved sensei really is gone forever.

It should go without saying but this erasure of Aqua's identity is, of course, cruel. It's a dehumanizing rejection of his personhood. That's not to say that Ruby is A Bad Person for doing this— she's a fucked up kid dealing with a INSANELY fucked up situation and I think it would be unreasonable to expect her to handle all this entirely gracefully. But I also don't know that Ruby is even aware that she's doing what she's doing, because she doesn't quite get that her relationship with her identities and her reincarnation is different to his.

The continuity of identity between Sarina and Ruby is more or less entirely unbroken— she sees herself equally as both girls. More specifically, as Ruby herself puts it in 115, Sarina and Ruby are both 'roles' played by the 'real her'; both equal in weight and authenticity. I think she expects this to be the same for Aqua as well but this simply is not the case, or at least it's not anymore.

My read on Aqua's identity is that while he used to have a similarly unbroken continuity of identity, the trauma of witnessing Ai's death created a split and separated the two. It's not that Aqua is entirely separate from Gorou or entirely unaffected by his past life but Aqua himself & the supporting framing of the manga draws a pretty clear line of distinction between the two of them that does not seem to exist for Ruby and Sarina. In fact, Gorou is explicitly portrayed as a negative, invading force, an unnatural encroacher whose presence in Aqua's life is actively preventing him from finding happiness and stability.

To Ruby, it seems natural for these two identities to comingle, or for one's priorities to cancel the other's out. For Aqua, this same overriding of priorities is the thing that causes him anguish. In fact, I don't think it's too much of a leap for me to say that Aqua does not want to be Gorou full stop.

With all that laid out, I think you can pretty easily see how that conflict starts writing itself. Ruby ignoring and erasing the 18 years that Aqua has lived as her brother to assign him the identity of a man he doesn't want to be... the discomfort of someone he has only ever had familial feelings towards projecting romance onto him... the Squick of it all... no wonder Aqua is doing his best to just not deal with it. I can't really blame him.

Something I also think is informing Aqua's behavior right now is guilt. As he puts it to Memcho in 130, he's using everything he can to ensure the movie's success and I think this also includes manipulating Ruby.

We get some hints at this idea from Crow Girl both in 123 and 127. She sardonically notes "aren't you glad?" that Ruby seems to have reacted so positively to this reveal and explicitly ties Ruby's wellbeing to Aqua being able to make the movie. Later, after Aqua's just witnessed the final script be delivered to the B-Komachi girls, she notes that Aqua has the expression of a person who has made the choice to "hurt people and to get hurt".

Ruby's shoujo brain reads of Aqua's intentions also are important in establishing this, I think -- these clearly read as intended comedy beats to me, both in their exaggeration and the fact that she is so obviously misreading Aqua's character and his intentions because of her rose tinted glasses. As that Netflix show about the cartoon show once said, the thing about seeing someone through rose tinted glasses is that all the red flags just look like flags. In keeping Ruby happy, Aqua is making sure she herself doesn't become inconvenient to the movie's creation.

I think you can see that idea of like, guilt and discomfort manifesting as avoidance in the twins' first proper on-page exchange since this reveal, in 132:

I didn't catch this initially (so sorry to the person on the OnK subreddit who did -- I completely forgot your UN!) but not only do we never get a proper unobscured look at Aqua's face during this exchange but he also never once looks directly at Ruby as they talk. His body language & expression at the end (literally averting his gaze!) just screams discomfort to me.

That's not to say that Aqua revealing himself to her was entirely cynically motivated -- I think he completely genuinely loves her both as her brother, Aqua, and as Gorou, the man who cared for a deathly sick child when she had no one else in the world by her side. But that's just the problem— Aqua's love for her is the thing that makes his manipulation of her so painful. He's taking advantage of his sister's emotional vulnerability and their unique connection to use her in a way that completely betrays and desecrates the bond of trust they should otherwise share. And he's aware that if (or, as I'm beginning to worry, when) this comes out, Ruby is going to crash even harder as a result.

#oshi no posting #oshi no ko #aqua hoshino #ruby hoshino #hoshino family

60 notes · View notes

txtmetonight · 3 months

Text

Two Slow Dancers

call summary ⋆ ★ As a young child, you preached over the thoughts of soulmates. Huening Kai had too, believed that two souls intertwined like puzzles–fitting perfectly. But sometimes, it’s almost too fitting to be true.

pairing *. * Huening Kai x Fem! Reader

genre⋆ ★ Angst

warnings *. Death, Cheating, Blood, Pregnancy, Bad Grammar, Crude language

call duration⋆ ★ 6.1k

a/n*. * Zoowemama 😍 finally wrapped up this series lol i'm js a bit late but whatever. ermm hyuka is an asshole ngl :(

taglist ⋆ ★ @kflixnet//@oreoqueen // @woncheecks//@probably-too-obssessed// @matcha-binz

The Mitski Diaries Masterlist

The idea of soulmates is beautiful.

It’s astoundingly astronomical how the stars believe that two fated souls are meant to be intertwined, are supposed to be carried with one another while death does them apart, in their graves with smiles on their faces because... they had each other. You like the word “each other” for it means you wouldn’t have to die at the hands of loneliness, strangled by its cruel hands, which you beg for it to stop.

Though you detest the word “had”.

Your mom has your dad. Your older brother has found your sister-in-law. And your friends were dating their boyfriends, some already turned into fiancés. And you had Huening Kai, arguably the sweetest boy you’ve ever met. You were supposed to have him, but you had him.

The walls of your bedroom walls were non-existent with personality, not a splotch of color that you could find for you wanted to wallow inside of your broken heart. You were to not make it past the age of twenty-one because your soulmate doesn’t love you anymore. You are dying of a broken heart and cannot do anything to stop it. And so, you cry.

You suppose that you hate Kai, but you really don’t. You can’t because that’s what fate had written down for you. A tale of despair between a couple that couldn’t hold much of a spark even through what the universe had chosen for them.

You and Huening were a special case. And it hurt horribly the day that he had admitted that he had strayed off the path of love for you two. You weren’t the best with feelings, so you let him go as you watched with shame and a burning face that you wanted to melt off. He didn’t hold you in his heart anymore...but you still do, so what are you supposed to do now? Laugh? Forget?

The answer was to do nothing at all and wait until your last day.

And tomorrow is it.

Does it smell like a school gymnasium in here? It's funny how they're all the same

You don’t prefer the new layout of the school gym at all. It crawls and picks at your skin in the way that the floorboards are now a shade of dark brown, and the walls are plastered with flourishing paintings that in your eyes look hideous. But the smell of familiarity still stuck in between the crevices of the gym, holding nostalgic memories that hurt to uncover.

The floor underneath you squeaks, but there is no one except for the meek moon there to listen to the way that your feet drag, unable to lift them for their heaviness has grown with immense dread that burns. The heavens twinkle in delight...at the way that you sorrow. But you’ve grown accustomed to the way that they laugh, drinking in that they will soon gain you through for such pathetic reasons.

You’re just a bit early but you wanted to swallow the tremor in your throat before you officially meet him. And you want to hide how weak you’ve been getting; you can barely even stand up on your feet for too long before collapsing and your breath seems to run out faster from your lungs with a fervor that makes walking seem like a laborious chore.

You want to stay strong, to uphold an image that you want to be. Wanted it as a mask. But you couldn’t afford it, nope not at all. Not even as hard as you tried, with your memories of heartbreak holding you back.

The bleachers are cold, and the stairs lead up into a cloud of darkness that you couldn’t peer through even as much as you squinted. The bottom step is made from wood, the only thing that wasn’t even bothered to be renovated, and you cross your legs, patiently waiting for the man of the hour.

You’ve already exchanged goodbyes with your family, have done a few days ago just before you locked yourself in your room, mindlessly hovering over the pictures that the walls held, smiling faintly every once in a while. And you find yourself doing it once more, scanning over the gym where you spent four years of your life, rotting away, piece by piece.

The door creaks open amidst the silence, but you don’t jolt. Footsteps echo immensely, bouncing off the walls before they abruptly stop, leaving you to slowly snap your head to the shadowy figure that occupies just near the end of the bleachers. That’s where you used to meet up with him, just as the bell rang. You grin.

“That stupid team is taking up all of your time with me!” Kai grumbles, pulling you closer by the straps of your backpack. Hair a mess and face flushed, you giggle at him and pull off your sweaty headband to launch at your boyfriend, who whines. “Are you not proud of me for making it in?” You snort, looking up at him to find him staring down at you with a soft smile that makes your heart churn.

“Of course, I am. You’re so sexy when you perform.” He dodges your hits with loud chuckles but then quiets down into a large pout. “It’s just that, I feel like we don’t spend that much time together anymore. And they’re like...stealing you away from me. Just say that you want to date your team and be over with it.”

“Oh hush, stop being dramatic.” You reach over to place a chaste kiss on his cheeks, but he smugly turns his head to connect his lip with yours, which you don’t complain, pressing into him. “And plus, we have all the time in the world to be together. I’m yours, no?”

You quickly avert your eyes as your stomach aches and stare at your shoes instead, tapping quietly.

It's funny how you always remember

“Do you still dance?” The voice booms, and it’s comforting yet alienable to you. You take a second to pause, watching the figure walk closer and closer to where you currently sit. “No. I had to give it up.” You don’t provide an explanation, but you’re sure that he knows why.

“It was your whole life.” He rasps and suddenly you don’t think you’re ready to see him, because the moonlight lights his face up with a luminous glow, he almost looks like a fucking angel.

Your body reacts to the sight before you even realize it, and you lurch painfully as tears prick your eyes, coughing quite violently into your palms. A stingy smell of metal meets your nose, but you don’t pay mind to it the way that Kai does, eyes wide with a fearful shadow on his face. Turning to him, you wipe the liquid on the stairs and scoot over just a bit.

“So were you.”

“I’m sorry.”

You shake your head and sigh, patting the space next to you. He hesitates a little but stalks over with long, slow steps, his hands curling into tight fists that pierce his palms before he relaxes them again–a habit you’ve seen countless amounts of times. Your eyes trail up over to his hair, and you notice that it’s a soft brown, just like he used to have it when you were with him and it makes your fingers tremble when you know that dyed it on purpose just for you. He knows.

It was blonde just a few days before–but you’ve always liked brown on him.

Kai is stunning and has always been, but he seems unreal as he sits down next to you with a golden face and soft smile that you can’t rip your eyes from, however hard you try to. And the way that he stares at you, penetrating your skin with a sharp glare that melts you inside, sends rolls of lightning down your back.

“How have you been?” He’s tender when he speaks and gentle as he lifts his fingers to brush away a strand piece of hair from your face as if you were going to break if used much force. Yet the contact leaves your muscles spasming with pain, softly trying to grasp your leaving breath. Huening flinches too, pulling his hand back with a light gasp. “Oh no, I didn’t know that was going to hurt.”

You can’t help but pull a smile and chuckle. “That’s alright. Honestly, I’ve felt worse before.” His eyebrows furrow but he doesn’t say more except to encourage you to answer his previous question with a shaky grin.

“But...I think I’ve been fine? How about you? You’re dating someone aren’t you?” His lips turn at your words, and he softly grasps your hand beside him, your eyes widening at his sudden reaction. This time around your lungs don’t choke, but you think that you’re being drowned alive as Kai’s eyes drown with unexplainable tears. But you don’t do anything, instead, you intently watch him try to get words out, gaping like a pitiful fish.

“Fuck I don’t even know why I’m crying...I just... I’ve been doing good too.” His flushed cheeks carry words that he couldn’t say and so you move just a little closer, but it feels wrong, especially when he another woman that he had at home waiting for him...but it wouldn’t hurt to indulge, right? “I shouldn’t have asked to meet up, should I? I’m sorry” You whisper, rubbing his cheeks.

“No please don’t. I’m happy that I’m with you right now. I’ve missed you so much.”

His words leave a blowing punch to your gut, as you lurch into him, gripping his hands tightly as you start to sob. Kai’s touch awakens sparks up your back, which just worsens when he pulls you closer to him, hugging flush against his chest. You feel like you’re floating as if you’re traveling between time and space, as if everything around you is actually okay...

“Baby please don’t cry” Your boyfriend whispers in your ear, threading his fingers through your hair, wrapping his arms around your trembling figure. He’s warm like a blanket but that doesn’t stop your onslaught of tears that burn like acid on your cheeks.

Kai places his hand over yours and pulls it up to his lips to gently kiss before his other hand comes to wipe away at your face. His own eyes are overflowing but he stops them for you, trying not to crumble. You sniffle and bury yourself in his neck, trying to calm down your racing heartbeat.

You’ve never preferred to cry in front of others, rather liking to shed tears in the depths of your room but with Kai, you think that you’re safe with your feelings. You think that he’s the one for you to get rid of your sadness, the one that you’re going to love the most because he was Kai and possibly crying was quite stupid since he was your fucking soulmate.

Not your neighbor’s or your desk mate, he was yours. And maybe that’s why you were crying right now, but you didn’t want to dwell on it too much.

“I think that this such a bad time, but I think that you’re really pretty right now.”

Choking on a sob, you lift your head from the crook of his neck to stare at him with a curious look, lips puckering into a pout at his sudden confession that leaves his face in a sheepish matter. “W–what?” Grabbing his cheeks, you furrow your eyebrows. “I don’t know why you’re sad, but god I can’t help it. You’re so beautiful and it hurts that you’re crying.” And before you know it, his lips that were just on the side of your jaw pulls you into a slow kiss, soft and tender.

Just like right now.

And we've both done it all a hundred times before It's funny how I still forgot

After you two had parted ways on behalf of Kai, your lips would burn each time you wanted the affection of another. Maybe it was the universe refusing your attempts at another love or maybe you just couldn��t move on, but Kai’s lips on you right now are soothing but it churns something heavy deep in your gut. You’ve forgotten how he tastes like candy and how his lashes flutter shut, cherishing the intimate moment and the way that fingers paw at the base of your neck, asking for something more.

You want to blame it on the instincts or the muscle memory at the way that it doesn’t take you a second to push yourself into him, but you knew that you craved his touch for years on end, battling with serious heartache that will eventually end with you in your demise.

Demise.

Using your fingers, you gently push Kai’s face away from yours with wide eyes, chest stuttering rapidly. His own eyes draw big, but he doesn’t do anything to move his palm away from where it sat on you, instead, it feels as though he is digging it deeper into your skin. “You don’t love me.” You mumble, almost cry. “You’re not my soulmate anymore or else I–”

“Would’ve lived. You would be next to me right now and you would be healthy and breathing just fine, and definitely not coughing up blood because god forbid you have it easy!” He gets loud at the end, and his words bounce off the walls, diminishing into nothingness. “But I want you to pretend.” Kai breathes and it makes you mad, furious. “I don’t want to fucking pretend! This is my reality and I–I just...”

You initiate the kiss this time. And he hesitates just a little before he leans in. This time around though it’s a bitter feeling of guilt, that fills up your senses and you can tell that Kai felt the same in the way that he squirms around.

A woman quite pretty and just his type doesn’t know her boyfriend was kissing his ex-lover. Was sitting dolled up for him as his hands roam around your face for a feel of something. You feel bad but you can’t stop as your heart slowly stops as the night becomes young and perhaps that’s how you’re trying to rekindle it again. By kissing him.

You suppose that you hate that word now too.

“I wish that we could go back again.” Kai pants against the corner of your mouth, finally pulling back a bit to observe you. You don’t know what to say so you avert your eyes and kick a spare gum wrapper from the floor.

“Whatever I guess.” You’re awkward but it’s unfamiliar to you when it’s with the person you’re with right now. You’re left speechless and so is he in the way that he nods his head and leaves not a word hanging in the air after you, and you realize that he’s right. You want to be young again without a thought in the world.

You want to talk again, and not through the monkey’s mouth like you were doing right now but through your actual teeth and tongue that used to chatter nonsensically. You want to breathe through your nose, not through an elephant’s trunk and you wish to be you again. Just you; but you assume that you’ve lost yourself years ago.

It would be a hundred times easier If we were young again

Only twenty-one and you feel old, dying from blood that cannot be filtered through your veins due to a decaying love story that cannot be revived. The boy in front of you knows it too, but he still tries as he grabs your arm again, palms gone so cold that they stick to your skin like ice. “We have more time.” He says and shakes you out of the daze that you find yourself getting into recently.

But as it is And it is

“You’re right. Do you want me to leave?”

He shakes his head ‘no’ and rises to his feet, steady as he holds his hand out for you to take. “I want to take a walk and I’ve been longing to dance with you right after.”

Your fingers curl up against his palm before you’re forced to reel back once more, retching into your elbow as tears prick your eyes, the dark gym flashing into and out of view. Kai is behind you with pats of sympathy that you detest, yet you let him hold you up securely against him.

“You’re okay” He whispers, and it takes you back to when he used to calm down the anxious tremors that used to encase you whole and it takes you a second to not let everything crash down when you realize that he was the one who was able to cake it down to a mere once in a while occasion where you would have internal panicked spikes of a heartbeat.

With his comforting words that used to rely based on reassurance and love, you can’t find the affection when he says it now. It’s just you two, but it feels like others are crowding around you with jeers possibly along with the universe and those above taunting you. Because just like he said, they wouldn’t let you have it easy–to be the last ones out.

We're just two slow dancers, last ones out We're two slow dancers, last ones out

The gym is square in shape but is jutted out in some places to make room for the front doors and the locker rooms. So, when you and Kai walk, you must avoid the cracks in the wood and instead circle around them.

You don’t know how time has passed along so fast being with him, but you realize that the clock had always ticked faster, since the very beginning, you just weren’t ready. You weren’t sure–or rather prepared if you wanted to spend your time with the man beside you, spend your last breaths with him but the way that he stuns you to no limit makes you swallow down morsels of regret that coat your throat.

He’s quiet and so are you, which lets you have an eye of proper observation of the boy next to you. Kai, who you know from the bottom of your heart, is older than you last saw him.

It hurts you think. Perhaps more than the scalding pain in your lungs that choke for proper air.

He’s stayed the same height, but he’s grown into his face, more chiseled features that make you sway because–you couldn’t see him turn into the twenty-one-year-old he is now.

And you’re stuck staying the same, while he gets to change even more, which is not particularly fair yet when you press a soft kiss to his jaw (you’re sure your body moved on its own to blind you from the internal mess you were creating) you wouldn’t want him to have it anyway for fate has already played its tragedy covered cards.

“You’re pale” He rumbles before he places his palm over your forehead. “And warm too. You have a fever.” And for some reason when he says it with a quiet voice, it pulls back more weary wrinkles into his face, and you wince. You must wonder how you look to him. “I suppose so. I’ve been at my sickest recently.” You mutter, throwing in a weak smile.

And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down You see it on both our skin

“How much does it hurt? On a scale of one to ten” He says, holding up ten fingers which one is enveloped with your own hand, bringing both of his arms down at the same while he chuckles. “I dunno. Right now, I would give it a... seven point five?” Kai nods solemnly and suddenly you feel small underneath his gaze. “Is that so? I wonder how it feels?”

“Really bad” You nervously laugh, swinging your arms back and forth in a constant rhythm. “It’s been harder to get out of bed, I just wish...wish that I had more time.”

“I wish I could give you more time, to live longer. I’m sorry that I can’t.”

You nod but you’ve fallen into a certain comfortable trance that the conversation is deemed normal to you. Odd and craving for more but no emptiness that leaves your heart desolate. The talk is sentimental and rather than wishing that you had more time to experience the world’s wonders you want more time to chatter with your heart’s content. Talk for years and years with your soulmate. You believe that you deserve it.

“Do you remember the first time that we met?” Kai softly asks, coming to a halt in front of the doors that lead to the outside corridors. You twinkle and say, “How could I not.”

You were running late. And in your first year of high school too. The clock screamed that it was currently 8:03 but you were supposed to be in your homeroom by 8:00 and you pray that Mr. Yoon accepted your tardiness with a flourish of his hand.

You’re drenched with sweat and your uniform is tugged wildly and your hair is askew with bits of it falling in your face, but you don’t pay any mind as you try not to crash into the lockers from your crazy sprinting.

“Oh god!” You cry as you find that out the main doors to your science hallway, where your homeroom sat was locked and so you take a quiet of a big U-turn and make headway to the gym (which an older senior slipped to you was the way to escape the looming locks that the doors had to prevent tardy kids from getting in).

Fortunately, the first-day tour had paid off and you knew that the gym was exactly a hallway down to the left, so when you skid off, your feet landed you exactly in front of the door, tall and brown with a few splinters sticking out.

“Please be open, please be open, please be open!”

And it was open. But not by you, but by a lanky boy withholding stacks of papers.

Perhaps you were blind because of the exhilaration in your veins, or he was just clueless about the desperate girl outside of the door, but you both head butt each other with a hard push, both falling to the ground with a loud grunt of despair. But that quick rush of anguish turns into something more magical. You feel as though you’re on cloud nine, fireworks bursting in your veins as your eyes blur in and out to adjust to the brighter look of colors–a more glowing appearance of the world.

Your fingers tingle and your tongue swirls with a hint of sweetness that you just couldn’t put your finger on. And the ache on your forehead had turned into a pulsing feeling of coolness. Since you were young, you’ve heard and read about the feelings of love and how pure it could be, but you think that the words that have spilled into your ears haven’t given justice to how exactly refreshing it was.

“Holy...are you okay?” A voice sweet as honey makes your spine shiver with glee. “Yeah, I’m alright, but oh no! I’m late!” You cry, rising to your feet with panic but you’re suddenly held down by a gentle hand.

“It’ll be okay. Let’s go the nurse’s office and say that we had a nasty fall...but all my papers that I was supposed to give out fell.” A boy with the most stunning features you’ve ever seen, pouts at the fallen papers, and your heart practically jumps out from your chest, unable to stop smiling.

You would wonder if he had felt the same explosions as you, but the way that he trembles from the graze of your hand over his shoulder speaks wonders to you.

“I’ll help.” You assure.

“I–thank you.” He breathes and suddenly he can’t seem to take his eyes off you, making you feel warm inside. “You’re very pretty.” The unknown boy says, and you flush which makes him laugh.

“What’s your name?”

The boy smiles and throws you an eyebrow raise. “Huening Kai. But everyone calls me Kai!”

Grabbing a piece of paper from the floor you respond with a small pep in your voice. “Yeah? Well, I’m (Y/n).”

The first date you two shared was in the nurse’s office.

And many more followed after that yet too less for your liking.

You don’t even realize that you’re crying but you’re happy. Happy to be where it all started. The gym was the home that your heart lived in and the place that it chose to die. It’s warm.

Turning your head to Kai, you’re startled to find him already looking at you with a glossy look and a mouth that betrays itself to speak its true words that itch his teeth. You wait patiently though but the silence allows the jarring sound of a ringtone to pierce the air and fade the sentence on the tip of Kai’s tongue.

"I–oh fuck, Yuna’s calling me.” Kai’s voice stutters and your stomach drops into reality once more.

We get a few years and then it wants us back

You’re falling once more, drenched in cold water at the way that his fingers leave your touch, how his lips quirk up into a smile that used to be dedicated to you, and how his tears dry up so easily without a hint of anguish. He’s sweet and you’ve always known that he spits out candy compliments that were sickly as sugar, but it stirs a burning sensation deep in your throat.

And maybe it’s not even how he loves her, but how he makes it so that all of it was an act–that you were a complete fool for thinking that he had an ounce of adoration for you or even pity.

He’s the one that kissed you so softly and sweetly first, but he talks as if you were nothing to him like you weren’t the one that he was supposed to be destined for.

“Hey sweetheart...I’m hanging out with a friend right now.”

You can’t feel your legs anymore. The bones in your knees have turned into jelly, but you can’t do anything but woefully stare at him with a longing look of gloom.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise. Hang tight, I’ll make it up tomorrow for Valentine’s Day, how does that sound?”

Perhaps you’re going to faint because your vision suddenly spins like a carousel. You’ve always found it ironic how you’re born on the day of love and yet you’re going to die because of it. And now you crave to celebrate your birthday extravagantly instead of wallowing in your sorrows as you did in your previous years.

You wouldn’t be too old, would you? To toast a to yourself?

It would be a hundred times easier If we were young again

But you chuckle at how you’ve been through it all on Valentine’s day; born, lost your other piece, and soon enough die as you choke on the waters of love. You feel the thorns of the red roses that grow in your stomach filled with envy and yearning, cut into your esophagus, releasing ruby red to drip into the pits of your stomach.

“Good night. I love you.”

But as it is And it is

You don’t realize that you’re on the ground until Kai cries at you, hurrying by your side as you sew out copious amounts of blood that your body refuses to keep, all the burning endearment that you’ve held to Kai being let out.

“Hey baby, oh god, you’re alright.” His fingers wrap underneath your waist to pull you up, uncaring of the red that splatters his shirt. You feel like you’re on fire, as you scratch at chest for any type of relief, sobs ripping from the bottom of your guts.

He pecks your cheeks then your nose, and the corner of your mouth before he moves his lips to your forehead. Huening is certainly frantic with his touch and usually, you wouldn’t mind, but you want to squirm.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, alerting you of how much ever time you have left in your life. 30 minutes. "Oh gosh...” You manage to rasp out, crying at how terrified you feel. Kai must’ve sensed the fear that rolls off you in waves because he hugs you as tight as he can.

He’s an asshole but you can’t help but love him. And it stabs you in the gut.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay” He chants but you shake your throbbing head, trying to get up from the icky floor. “You can’t–you don’t know that!” You wail but Kai doesn’t pay any attention to your protest, gripping your hand so you don’t fall onto the ground again. It takes you a second to not wobble, using his shoulders as support when you close your eyes. He kisses your head again and stays there, swaying.

“I fucking hate you.”

Kai doesn’t react. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re a...a horrible asshole.” You splutter before you grab him by the collar of his shirt and kiss him. He matches your desperation, even as the taste of metal coats his tongue. He pulls away for a second and crawls his hands over to your face, cradling you in his cold palms.

“I want to dance with you. Just one last time.” When he said that before, you weren’t sure if he was serious but as soon as you nod, he rubs his hand down your sides to place on your hips.

“Just one last time.” You repeat back to him.

Kai is swift with his feet but not as fast as you. His hands swing with grace, but they don’t beat the way that you make your arms float. Or how you swivel around, flying with charm. You two are in your room, dead at night, but a soft slow song plays its notes. You feel love in the air.

The pads of your boyfriend’s fingers thread against your skin, pressing into your waist. He spins you around, but his eyes never leave your own pair, and he thinks that you look like an angel like this. An angel in his arms–he’s possibly the luckiest boy in this world. He ghosts over your neck before he moves away so he can tug you into him once more.

Kai presses lingering kisses all over you just to hear more of your giggles. And once the song stops singing, leaving a quiet atmosphere in its wake, you trip into your bed. It’s warm next to him, and cozy and you would like to spend anything here next to him for the rest of your life.

To think that we could stay the same To think that we could stay the same

It’s the same this time around, but his touch on you is cold. Your sneakers squeak on the ground and you’re definitely not poised with your moments, but you wonder if Kai sees you as beautiful as you were in your element when you were younger. You spin and try not to fall, but you trust him to not let you trip over your own torment.

There’s no music this time except for the beating of your heartbeats, one slowing down and the other racing with adrenaline. You both are growing apart as you two did before, not in sync with anything anymore. You kiss his neck and feel the goosebumps that arise.

The moonlight watches with tears in its eyes and the wind comes to a stop, letting you two soak into each other in peace. The grasshoppers hold their head down in pity and two doves stare into the depths of the lake, hearts aching. And you’re growing weak with each passing moment which Kai can feel in his arms.

His tears start to plow down his flushed cheeks.

To think that we could stay the same

Your vision starts to fade in and out, but you don’t give up, leaning into the boy. He coordinates your arms to place them along his nape, pulling you close. You’re dying and you know it more than ever how life seeps out of the pores of your skin. Yet you feel a sense of tranquility, dancing slowly with the love of your life.

“I love you.” You whisper, nuzzling into him. You’re trying to calm his breathing down as he sobs. He cries and cries while you slowly mumble sweet nothings into his ear, closing your eyes which he realizes before he slams his lips onto your mouth.

Blood fills your mouth with agony and your lungs wheeze unable to get anything, but you don’t pull away, relishing in his honey mouth.

“Oh fuck! I’m so sorry. So sorry about–about–Yuna! And everything. I’m such a horrible person.” Kai howls, eyes widening as your arms go limp around him. Your legs give but he keeps you upright against him.

“Am I just a friend?” You ask.

He shakes his head wildly. “No!”

You weakly laugh at him. Your time is up. “Then good. I’m your soulmate. You’ll remember that won’t you?”

But we're two slow dancers, last ones out

“I’m so sorry (Y/n)” Kai mumbles, holding out a bouquet of flowers for you to take. “What...what do you mean that you don’t love me anymore?” You say voice cracking in the middle, gently pushing away the flowers in his hands, his eyes falling down to his shoes in shame. His silence says a lot and you take a step back. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel that spark anymore.”

You scoff and angrily wipe the tears away from your face. “I’m your soulmate, you just can’t–”

“I’m so sorry.” He cuts you off, eyebrows dipping down. He still looks so beautiful in your eyes and so you sob. Kai places the flowers by your feet and turns to walk away, opening the doors of the gymnasium to escape into. You feel discarded as you watch him, but you want to throw one more word in before he leaves you to be. There’s a burning sensation in your lungs.

“You better remember that I’m your fucking soulmate the next time you...you date someone else. Because I know that there will be no one as good as me, no one else that will make you feel like that!” You scream, throat raw. You're hurting everywhere when he whips his head around, tears glinting in his eyes, making you hiss pathetically.

“I know.”

When you fall against him, he stumbles onto his legs, your heart-stopping in its glory. A shrill silence follows through before it’s cut by his screams of pain. He feels your death through his veins as the universe spoon-feeds him the truth. His tears feel acidic on his skin but the ones that roll down your cheeks, are more painful than imaginable. His heart tears into two.

“Happy Valentine’s Day...and birthday, love,” Kai says into your neck, pressing kisses into where you would be able to feel your heartbeat, hoping that they could revive you.

We're two slow dancers, last ones out

Kai has never thought much about having a family–except with you. But here he is in the hospital room with his wife, tears running down his face. Yuna thinks that he’s happy, and he believes that too, but he knows that there’s a lingering sense of prickling at his heart.

February 14th holds a special place in his heart for many reasons that thinking too much about brings great pain to him. Yet a baby should drive happiness, no?

He’s now a father to a wonderous daughter.

But as he stares at her, he wonders if he’ll actually ever love her. He’s having doubts. He drags his attention to his wife who is not his soulmate but a woman that he loves. But she’s not you. He doesn’t have a family with you, have kids with you...so will he ever harbor great attraction to them. Like he does to their mother, he knows that he doesn’t love her as deeply as he did with you.

“What should we name her?” His wife asks, staring at his brown hair that got mangled in a mess.

A name leaves the tip of his mouth, eyes widening before he realizes what he just uttered.

“(Y/n).”

She smiles and the deep veins of hatred infiltrate just a little bit deeper. But when the little girl in his arms yawns, he finally cracks. And when he sways with her, just after her mother falls asleep, he dances with love.

Two slow dancers, last ones out

It’s alright. He’ll love her forever because he couldn’t do it with you.

35 notes · View notes

swallowerofdharma · 3 months

Text

Yashiro’s Cruel God part four

There are probably brilliant analyses out there about the first part of this manga and what I say might as well be just an uninteresting repetition. But we analyze things for ourselves first, to understand them better, to make sense of a story for ourselves, so I’ll give it a try anyway.

Continuing my thoughts on Doumeki and another digression: You’ll be fine. I’m a man and you’re different from your father, right?

If there hasn’t already been a tension within Yashiro between his nihilistic tendencies and his yearning for change, the story wouldn’t be possible. If Don’t Stay Gold is the original one-shot where Yashiro appeared as a background character, when Saezuru begins that some story is repurposed masterfully as a critical starting point for a Yashiro that is now a main character: This setup would become nothing more than a knife that gets thrown right back at me. You can already see this is going to be brilliant writing. When Doumeki was introduced, Yashiro had to be at a point where he was ready to let go of Kageyama, but - at same time - the fact that he had wished for them to be more than friends, that this was something he had remained open to, despite his past and despite his failures, was essential to show a believable story of him falling in love with someone else. What about Doumeki then? I have been asking myself, what are Doumeki’s motivations for being so persistent?

Yashiro is captivated immediately by Doumeki’s eyes, he makes a comment about it and later, in chapter 4, Yoneda captivates the readers too with a beautiful page with no words that isolates Doumeki’s eyes in the rear view mirror of the car, while his gaze is focused on a melancholic Yashiro. The previous sequence, at Kageyama’s clinic, was in large part framed coherently with Doumeki’s point of view as he witnessed for the first time Yashiro interacting with his doctor friend. In chapter 23 Yashiro realizes something unexpected about Doumeki. The English translations of this dialogue varied, I’ll reference here the official translation: The truth is, we’re not similar, at all. From the beginning you were always different. That’s why you look at me like that. With different eyes than his. Yashiro’s expression here is fearful and lost, because he only had those few points of reference, and those he cared for most were his parents who had abandoned him and Kageyama who had rejected him.

After Yashiro was injured on Doumeki’s watch, Nanahara orders him to cut his finger off. Needing medical attention, he goes to Kageyama and tells him about what happened. The doctor’s reaction here is so cold and heartless that if at this point you care for Yashiro at all you can’t help feeling really hurt hearing his words.

The source of Kageyama’s cruelty is his ignorance. He doesn’t know Yashiro well or rather he has built a static image of him and he can’t shake it; he constantly shows how shortsighted he is when it comes to his supposed best friend. And I remember reading people’s thoughts about the symbolism of the contact lens that Yashiro stole, so I think that was sufficiently discussed. I’ll add my two cents to this topic, because I find it interesting the detail of Kageyama being the son of a doctor and becoming one as well, not a very good one he said himself. When his classmate Yashiro told him - in that awkward and nonchalant way of his, another product of the distorted reality that his parents left him with - about the abuse he had endured from his stepfather, Kageyama stops touching him, doesn’t get closer anymore. I think that in his mind, because he had already internalized attitudes that come from medical practice just from his father, in that moment Yashiro stopped being someone he could touch because he became a “case of child abuse”, someone he needed to emotionally distance himself from. I wonder if there are readers doing the same. When Yashiro goes to his father’s wake, Kageyama is happy to see him there, that his classmate cared, but later Yashiro, so unaccustomed to his new delicate feelings, fumbles badly for the right words and any potential connection falls flat. Yashiro didn’t really need confirmation that Kageyama wasn’t straight, he had understood that much, or that the reason he was rejected had to be a different story. Kageyama’s shortcomings now and later are tied to his inability to perceive Yashiro as a full person, capable of yearning, of changing, of suffering from something else rather than the obvious. Yashiro becomes a “mental case” and the good doctor can’t do anything much about it, since it isn’t his specialty. He’ll stay as a friend, but unkind. And when Doumeki discovers that the only person Yashiro is attached to could be so unsympathetic to him, he is angry. Doumeki doesn’t confront Kageyama, for Yashiro’s sake, mostly, for reasons of hierarchy and responsibility, he needs to treat respectfully someone who is on equal standing with his boss. The ones who confront Kageyama are Kuga and Nanahara and it works: when Yashiro brings Ryuuzaki’s girlfriend to the clinic, Kageyama’s perception of him has changed and readjusted.

Doumeki could see glimpses of Yashiro’s yearning, of Yashiro’s love, and he is still determined to see it through now as he was before. He won’t let go or accept lies from Yashiro and about Yashiro. Doumeki isn’t just foolishly in love and enduring everything that comes with it, he wants to know. His motives are layered with the stubbornness that comes with detective work, after what happened between them in chapter 25, he wants to confirm that Yashiro reciprocated his feelings, because he also needs to prove himself that he isn’t a rapist, he isn’t just like his father. He fully committed to it. Only if we acknowledge our selfish reasons, we can really be honest about our feelings, about how we open ourselves to others, how we want them, and all the things we want from them. Yashiro and Doumeki aren’t letting go of their feelings in part because they need a confirmation that they are good enough. And that’s why this story surpasses the romantic premises about love and makes sense from a very down to earth, realistic perspective of how grown men behave, too.

We established that Doumeki is someone who was looking closely at Yashiro since the beginning and won’t stop looking for the truth until he is satisfied. The root causes of his conviction and commitment are various but ultimately go back to his sense of failure regarding Aoi. He aimed to be and became a policeman and failed to see something that was right under his eyes. To be continued…

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru analysis #yashiro #doumeki chikara #yashiro x doumeki #yoneda kou #eri reads saezuru #is Doumeki cute? I can’t tell #I am generally not attracted to manly men with lots of masculine energy even in their gentle giant form #Nanahara calling out Kageyama is another big big point in his favor #but I still want someone near Yashiro who would not pursue him romantically #Kageyama’s notorious shortsightedness #not a fan of him #look at how the glasses make it so you can’t see his eyes when he looks at someone else #but you see them when he looks down: two sides of what he is saying #he doesn’t want to admit he cares for someone like Yashiro but he really cares #and Kuga knows that Yashiro was a formidable competitor

36 notes · View notes

intotheseas · 3 months

Note

Hello 👋. I hope you take requests. I have just a little tiny one. I would give my arm and leg to see someone being brave enough to call us a MUDBLOOD in a way Ominis and/or Sebastian could hear. Ahhhh, the angst and drama would be perfect for a crippling insomniac reader (like myslef) Thank you so much in advance. Love your work btw

One, I'm honoured you'd say that, so thank you! Two, absolutely! Writing violence is kinda foreign to me, so this is short and I'm sorry if it's awful haha. Also, I hope you don't mind but I took this as an opportunity to play around with present tense a little. Here's what I came up with. Hope you like it! :)

Tainted - 1,014 words - contains graphic violence, read below the break or here on AO3.

The library’s floor-length windows cast the last of the sun’s light across Sylvia’s table. The dusty smell of books and sound of pages turning surrounds her, lulling her into a stupor. She’s yawning, diligently scratching the last of her essay onto parchment. Plans for a night spent by the fire with her friends Ominis and Sebastian form in her mind when a malicious voice speaks behind her.

“Can’t believe they let that filthy Mudblood into Slytherin. It’s like this school doesn’t stand for anything anymore. What’s the point of being proud of your house when they’re allowing any old trash in now?” The voice is cruel, mocking. Clearly, he wants her to hear.

The bitter words cut at Sylvia like a blunted knife. Mudblood? Yet another thing to learn about this strange new world. Compared to the orphanage she spent her life in, Hogwarts is another beast entirely. Coming in as a fifth year has been intimidating enough, but the politics and prejudices of wizardkind mystify her. She assumes she’s supposed to feel insulted, but it’s difficult when she doesn’t even know what the word means.

Sylvia turns around to see two older Slytherin boys leering at her and sniggering. Probably seventh years, she guesses. She meets their eyes, an eyebrow raised. “Sorry, Mudblood? Care to explain?”

They stop laughing and glare. “We don’t speak to subhumans,” one retorts. Venom drips from his voice, and Sylvia’s a little surprised at the overt malice in his eyes. She hasn’t spoken to them once, yet they clearly hate her. “Do all of wizardkind a favour and go back to the muggles. Your kind isn’t wanted here,” the other boy says. They rise from their seats, passing her in a huff, the latter knocking his bag roughly against her shoulder.

She stares after them, bemused. Insults are nothing new to her; she’s more than used to hearing things like “worthless”, “peasant”, and “pity case” from muggles. They stopped hurting a long time ago. Growing up in an orphanage quickly taught her to fend for herself and stay out of petty arguments. Sylvia shrugs, returning to the last words of her essay.

Later, she relaxes in front of the fire with Sebastian and Ominis. The warmth is comforting as they joke and share a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. Sylvia has a soft spot for Ominis and picks the nastiest beans out of his pile, furtively puts them in Sebastian’s for a laugh. His expressions when he tastes the earwax flavour are all the reward she needs. It’s a comfortable dynamic the three have built in the months since Sylvia came to Hogwarts, marked by a love language of banter and trust.

She’s about to open another box when a hand grips the back of the sofa, knocking against her shoulder. “Dirty fucking Mudblood, already getting cosy with Slytherin boys, huh? Bet you’re as easy as your blood is filthy.” She turns back, meeting the eye of the older boy who taunted her in the library. She’s about to tell him she doesn’t know what a Mudblood is, but Ominis is already on his feet and facing the boy, his wand out. His face contorts into a livid scowl.

“Pardon? Care to elaborate, Williams? Or perhaps you’d prefer to fuck off.” His voice is icy.

Williams sneers. “No surprise that the Gaunt blood traitor would defend the Mudblood. Is it just the two of you, or do you share her with Sallow?”

Sebastian barks out a laugh. His arms are crossed, a defiant look on his face. “Why? Are you interested in joining?”

Sylvia leans over to Sebastian, whispers. “What on earth is a Mudblood, anyway? He called me that earlier in the library, too.” He looks back at her, the humour gone from his eyes.

“It’s pretty much one of the worst things you can call someone,” he mutters back. “Means someone who has magic but was born to muggles. It’s supposed to imply their blood is dirty.”

Sylvia laughs. “Wait, that’s supposed to be hurtful?” She turns around again, tilts her head up proudly and meets Williams’ eye. “Why should I feel insulted by something I have no control over? If you wanted an excuse to talk to me, you could have just said hi, you know.”

Williams’ jaw clenches, his eyes narrowed. “Know. Your. Place. Mudblood,” he spits. His fists shake at his side for a moment, and then he slaps her, hard. The crack of his open palm against Sylvia’s face stuns her for a moment, and when she gathers her wits, both Ominis and Sebastian are already on top of him.

Ominis holds the boy down by his robes while Sebastian lands blows on Williams’ face. “Call our friend a fucking Mudblood, will you? How’s this feel?” William’s head smacks against the stone floor with a loud crack as Sebastian lands one last punch. Blood trickles from his mouth, bruises already blooming across his cheek.

Sebastian stands up and spits on him, his face a mask of utter disdain. “It’s filth like you that taints the name of Slytherin, not muggle-borns. Fucking disgusting.” He looks at the crowd gathering to see the spectacle. “Anyone else want to call anyone a Mudblood?”

No one speaks.

He kicks Williams’ side and returns to the couch, grabbing the box of sweets from Sylvia. Ominis joins them. “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he murmurs. “Utter pettiness. If that happens again, come to us. We’ll take care of it.”

Behind them, Williams crawls toward the exit to the common room. Sebastian turns his head casually. “By the way, Williams, you tell anyone about this and they’ll hear all about what you’ve been calling Sylvia!” he sings. “Hope you have Wiggenweld handy!”

“You guys really didn’t need to do that, but…thanks,” Sylvia says. She feels warmth spreading in her chest. It’s a little foreign to her, but not unwelcome. Maybe it isn’t so bad to depend on others, she thinks. She picks out the grossest beans from Sebastian’s pile and tosses them into the fire.

#hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy ominis #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #hogwarts legacy imagines #hogwarts legacy requests

27 notes · View notes

elvensorceress · 1 year

Text

Wednesday WIP⚡️

tagged by @alyxmastershipper @spaceprincessem @jobairdxx @hippolotamus @messyhairdiaz @ebdaydreamer @monsterrae1 @sibylsleaves @911onabc @honestlydarkprincess @spotsandsocks @rewritetheending @wikiangela @buddiearemydads

tagging @heartbeatdiaz @shortsighted-owl @bigassdiaz @rose-buddie @wh0re-behavi0r @babytrapperdiaz @fleurdebeton @cowboy-buddie @eddiescowboy

from Catching Lightning (which is now over 30K 🫠) Eddie returning home from another failed date...

Eddie drives home in the rain to an empty house, and what does he know about any of this? Maybe he’s not cut out for this. Maybe he’s supposed to be alone. The rain is mocking him but maybe it’s not wrong.

Everyone dies alone.

He texts Chris goodnight and doesn’t receive displeased messages from Pepa this time, but the raining picks up and turns into a storm that knocks out power to his whole neighborhood and leaves him in the dark.

There’s lightning in the dark.

And thunder loud enough to make his house creak and tremble. He curls up in his bed and his hands are fine. They’re not shaking like the house. His lungs aren’t wailing like the wind. His stomach is tight and tense, churning acid and emptiness, but he had a strong margarita and no dinner. Everything tastes like metallic fizzing on his tongue. There’s no flavor to anything. He didn’t want to eat, and it’s probably good that he didn’t because there’s lightning outside and he just feels like throwing up.

His phone has only 24% power left and he shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t. He’s a grown man and it’s just a stupid storm and everything is fine. They’re not out in the bad weather. Lightning doesn’t strike twice?

It doesn’t have to. It kills everything on the first try.

Eddie was sore and bruised black and burned in a faint fractal for a week or so, but it was nothing like what happened to Buck.

Nothing is happening to Buck. He’s fine. He’s probably still on his date and fucking his new girlfriend in the middle of the storm. Or something equally stupid. Eddie’s not going to do anything. Because he’s fine and nothing is wrong.

And somehow his hands have other ideas because he’s picked up his dying phone, typed and sent a text before he’s even realized what he’s done.

Hey. Did your power go out? Ours went out. Mine I mean. Chris isn’t here. Everything is dead.

It’s stupid. Eddie is being so fucking stupid. And the longer he stares at the words and the little “delivered” under them without it changing to “read,” the worse it is.

Everything is dead. Everything. Everyone dies alone and lightning kills everything and Eddie doesn’t know how to feel, how to spark, how to chemistry, how to magic, how to build, how to love.

The things Eddie knows are gunfire. Helicopter crashes. Car crashes. Bombs and explosions. The earth collapsing and burying him alive. Freezing cold water. Drowning. Bleeding. He’s always bleeding. And then he’s ripped in half by cruel sudden nightmarish electricity.

The same kind that cracks and flashes outside his window. The only light that exists anymore. Because everything else dies.

He has to breathe. Frank taught him breathing. Inhale for eight seconds, hold for five seconds, exhale for eight seconds.

There are sounds, noises that aren’t thunder. There’s a light thumping near his bedroom door. On his bedroom door? Eddie didn’t lock it tonight. He didn’t need to. He usually doesn’t in case Chris needs something. But Chris isn’t here tonight. And Eddie’s too overloaded to shock or startle when his door opens. He doesn’t look. It’s dark. He can’t see much.

But he knows who sits next to him and touches him gently.

Eddie reaches, feels around for that hand resting on his arm. It turns like it might hold his, thread with his, weave them back together. Eddie doesn’t settle on his hand. He finds Buck’s wrist, curls his fingers around it, and presses below his thumb. Until there’s a radial pulse beating steadily against his fingers.

He has a pulse. His heart is beating. His heart is beating he’s alive his heart is alive.

There’s a sob that breaks out of Eddie’s chest. And then he’s crying. He’s crying and can’t stop.

“Hey,” Buck says. Gently. Sweet, soft, worried. Full of something that sounds like, feels like love. He touches Eddie the same way. A hand on his arm, a hand on his side. “Come here.”

Eddie doesn’t know reasons at this point. He doesn’t know arguing. He only knows needing to feel how Buck is alive.

Eddie sits up and Buck meets him with arms that close around him and hold him tightly. And he’s warm and alive and solid and breathing and real and Eddie breathes in the citrus vanilla coconut that lingers on him, and his own heart beats and beats and beats.

“It’s okay. I got you,” Buck whispers and rubs a hand over Eddie’s back and then strokes Eddie’s hair as he cradles the back of his head. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”

Eddie doesn’t ask how Buck knew, but of course he did. And with Buck in his arms, holding him tightly, the storm outside isn’t loud anymore. It’ll fade and burn out. Buck is safe. He’s alive. The tension melts away and Eddie is done crying and panicking. He’s not alone.

“Here. Scooch over.” Buck nudges him gently until Eddie moves backward into more of the middle of the bed. Buck takes his place, Eddie’s usual spot on the right side of the bed, and motions for Eddie to lie down with him.

It makes Eddie’s heart beat too hard. It’s not used to beating anymore. But Buck tucks his socked feet under the covers and he’s wearing dark gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved navy blue shirt. Clothes he sleeps in. And when Eddie lies down beside him, Buck directs Eddie’s head onto his own chest. Until Eddie can hear the clear, rhythmic thumping of Buck’s heart.

His heart is beating.

It’s loud and perfect and drowns out everything else. A fresh wave of tears leaks from Eddie’s eyes, too sudden and too much for him to stifle it.

#buddie #buddie wip #wip wednesday #jenwyn wip #fic: catching lightning #911 #always need cuddles #they are required #my kingdom for the quarantine snuggles

119 notes · View notes

dihydromorphinone · 26 days

Text

ᯓ ᡣ𐭩 i can't wait to taste you..

after watching her for over a year, tanner can't control his urges anymore and he goes to claim what, he thinks, is rightfully his.

— tanner x reader, reader/character is implied to be female and in luna's place, not really smut but very suggestive it was supposed to be a smut though, kinda dark themed(!!) but it is consensual somehow TT, stalking references, i'll definitely write a part two with smut 👅, been writing this for four months;; kinda feel like i could've done better

if you like it pls reblog!! ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

an: i wanted to try something new hehehe tell me if you like how it's written!! also dude... tanner voicelines are so cannibalistic and sexy,,, and i feel sooo bad i drank too much and i was sitting outside drinking beer with some random ahh guy at 3am and I'm pretty sure that something i took today got laced >_< this is my comfort fic yall.

tonight was oddly peaceful. the state of Montana, especially that one – someone would say cursed – town was the complete opposite of peace. with the sudden increase in crime; murder, kidnappings, disappearances mostly the city was covered with terror. the blueblood killer was definitely a real threat, a threat that is wandering free on the sickly covered in fog streets, while the poor citizens are left in the dark – and though he enjoys the exposition he has, for tanner it wasn't enough. it's never going to be enough.

he's cruel. psychotic, even. what sane person would happily murder so many of its own kind? none. and yet, there he was. enthusiastically setting feet rhythmically on the pavement, the heels of his elegant shoes making a barely audible 'click-clacks'. so much passion in each step; the same passion which drives him to inject toxins to humans and toying them with much visible sadism. tanner – the blueblood killer, had a very distinctive way of looking at the society. for him, it was nothing else than scum. trash, refuse; all the same. no human mattered to him. he treated mankind like a child would treat its toys; fun, but only for a moment. then the toy, or in tanner's case, a human can be tossed away into some corner, because it won't serve his purpose this well again. his definition of fun, however, was as cruel as he was. stalking, trespassing, closely observing his prey's emotional reactions and how the body and mind react separately depending on the circumstances and substances. his fun ends when the victim dies or acts repetitively – so he cherishes every moment of preying upon a human.

he found one exception, though – a young woman living not-so-far-away from his hideout; the captivating lady was a detective, with her home set close to the giant, maze-like forest, where the equally handsome doctor was spending his days, and if he wasn't out satiating his disgusting urges, nights. tanner has been watching her for over a year, falling prey to the female's plush lips, seemingly sweet demeanor and her abominable desires. in their own home, each human feels safe. the only place they can be themselves, do whatever they want to do. tanner pitied them - he always did. but for some reason, he still laughed at people who acted different indoors. he defied the whole purpose of safety, stripping the victim of it.

he stood in the shadows – where he preferred to be, for now. the thrill of being found was growing fonder and fonder on him, but now's not the right time, tanner would always repeatedly tell himself this like a mantra. like a plea to the sober-thinking part of him to let the other, more careless and darker part have some more fun. his thirst, though, for blood and flesh was just expanding more and more... insatiable, one would think. no matter how many victims would be reported, no matter how the blueblood killer's body count would go up, the urge was almost... attached to him.

through the tinted, mostly curtain-hidden windows, he could see her moving around. left and right she swayed, not getting enough sleep and forgetting basic self care because of her almost sick, he thought, altruistic urges. such a good, upstanding individual she was - someone to look up to, to worship... the woman deserved good, proper treatment only. especially from him - all the neglect is happening because his identity, still a secret, was wanted. tanner almost convinced himself that he feels pity and cries for her, being the source of her opposite of well-being, but in the end it's hard to judge and distinguish emotions while being hazed with mad, almost lusting feelings.

there was, however, no time to reflect the past actions, even if they're undoubtedly mingling with the present. he always did whatever his body and mind wanted, more or less heart. but he would be the last one to judge - there was no place for him and his 'sick' assessment. that being said, tanner finally realised he is in fact done waiting. their time together was pleasant and wholesome, but the urge will drive him to further madness if he won't do anyting about it soon. and since this isn't a mind matter, then it would be suitable to satisfy the flesh, disregarding the heart's wishes and indulge in the woman visible through the small gap in the curtains.

but his heart cannot be silenced this fast.

after searching for his trusted syringe and the mix of liquid midazolam and some other drug he put there previously, he cracked a small smile and sighed, being able to free himself after such a long time. his playtime with victims never lasted this long - this was but a miracle, something unexpected and ready to turn his peaceful, murderous life into something even more vile, dangerous and ruined. but the thought of disposing her like a loose trash didn't sit right with him; tanner was almost disgusted by the bare thought of causing her heart to stop permantly. he was having so much fun now, it'd be almost criminal... but, what is going to happen will eventually happen, so reveal himself to her, he shall.

the woman inside the cozy home was unaware of the terror right next her door, but even if she was - it didn't really matter. for her, the most important thing to do now was to catch that damned blueblood killer, to put end to the town's suffering... and her own grief. she's lost many of her friends and few family members to his wicked fantasies, and it only felt right to do something for the rapidly decreasing community. focused on her promethean task, she couldn't hear the light creak of her door and even lighter footsteps right behind her. only after tanner stood behind her, she could sense someone's presence. shiver ran down her spine, as she vividly remembered closing the door and definitely not inviting anyone, especially this late at night. fear paralyzed her, but then came the realisation.

it could be the blueblood killer. either she will get violently gutted, or she will make a life-changing discovery. and so, the captivating lady sighed, and prepared herself for the worst moments of her life. she turned around, surprising tanner. bold. she was definitely bold, unsure of the danger's scale, yet facing it bravely. his heart barely, but still, softened. endearing, so endearing... but it was too much for her. she closed her eyes right before facing him, squinting her eyes. his little plaything was even more captivating, he thought, smiling softly. though, she could never see it.

"who are you?" she asked, knowing well the answer is going to be fake or she will get no answer at all. or maybe some pistol on her forehead would be all she needed to know before her apparent, incoming demise? but she heard a small chuckle. "i'm the one you've been searching for. pardon me, miss, for keeping you up for so many nights. figured i'd better show myself in person."

his voice was oddly attractive. so pleasant to her ears, so pleasant she almost didn't get what he was saying - clearly, the murderer who got rid of solid few percents of the town's residents was before her, and he was aware of the search. well, it was obvious he will figure it out eventually, but the fact that he exactly knew that it was her... next thing she knew, his fingers were caressing her cheekbones, which made her open her eyes in a second. the sight made her lose her breath for a second.

the blueblood killer was undeniably handsome. sharp jaw, ideally shaped brows, perfect face ratio... not a single thing was wrong. he'd definitely pass as a model, or an angel, though the circumstances made her think of him as the devil. his appearance made it easy to sin. tempting. he was clearly her type, and deep inside of herself she was having a moral battle. she couldn't help the train of thoughts, all vile and lusting, all due to the bare sight of him. that didn't go unnoticed - tanner, as the aspiring master of knowing human reactions, realized she was captivated with him as much as she was with her. the syringe in his other hand, placed behind his back, almost fell to the floor. sweet, so sweet; it seems the paradise's gates won't be opened for him only.

"i've planned some fun activities for the two of us. don't worry, honey, you won't die. yet," the murderer smiled at the woman, terrified and enamored, still gazing at him. oh, how absurdly sweet she was... a perfect mix. with his large, gentle movements he still was caressing her cheek, but slowly moved down to her neck, tracing circles and various shapes. the lady was stunned - and tanner will also be as stunned as the detective, if he regains his mind clarity. but that did not matter; not for now, at least. she's here, next to him, looking at him with lust behind the pretty, sweet facade...

suddenly, the lady felt a sting on her neck. she hissed, and tanner shushed her, continuing to inject the tranquilizer liquid through the syringe. "this will only hurt for a while, i assure you. i wouldn't let you suffer for more, that is - unless you want me to," his poor, horrid jokes made her think about the event briefly, before losing consciousness. this is awful - she is awful, for even considering this monster as a human being, someone that could even potentially become her crush. but the shame can wait, she thought, as the man dressed in white lab coat and red tie came closer to her face and hovered above her, waving his hand as her eyes became droopy and eventually closed.

"good girl," tanner told her, though she couldn't hear those affectionate words. the effects were visible shortly - as if it were not for her perpetrator and his strong, muscular hands she would surely fall down, hitting herself and creating a possible injury. not today, tanner thought, not happening ever. why should she injure herself if the feared master of terror was always for her disposal? but even he wouldn't cut her too deep. the precious flesh of hers shall not be tainted with foolish, mortal-only limited bruises.

having his prized lady in his arms, he spared a few seconds more to admire her unconscious body. not like this was the first time he's seen it - this time was different, though, as he never actually held her like this. tanner closed his eyes swiftly, took a small, but deep breath and contemplated what to do next. it would be a shame to waste the precious liquid he just injected, though it was as precious as she was.

tanner knew her home well, sneaking inside when she wasn't home, and he was about to exploit this knowledge, just as he was about to exploit the sweet, sweet detective he oh-so-adored. holding her as softly as he could, but firm, he moved in the direction of her bedroom, clearly having some sort of a more detailed plan now. after entering, he put her still unconscious body on the big, fluffy bed and then went back to the living room to turn off the lights. should add some more vibes, tanner thought, grinning from ear to ear, as if it was his first time feeling happiness.

awakening from her slumber, she felt as if her wrists were restrained. and soon, she would learn her assumption was correct - although, it wasn't rope or anything extreme as she feared, no.. it was a fine, soft material, silk probably. sitting nice and tight on her skin. in her circumstances, getting tied up was the least she could worry about, and soon, she would find out; as the man's figure hovered over her body, multiple terrifying scenarios flashed her poor mind yet again. but was it surprising? no, it was expected even. her eyes became glassy, as if she'd cry in a second, at which tanner just... cooed. "oh, what's this now? i told you already, i won't let you suffer by my hand unless you want it," tanner replied, bringing his hand to her cheek and gently caressing her already tear-stained flawless skin.

the word gentle did not sit right with him, obviously. his actions were confusing to the extreme; but she wouldn't refuse anything the man would offer. not like she'd even be able to - but he made her think she has a choice and whatever happens next is up to her. what a cruel illusion - one of freedom and safety, that he won't take anything she doesn't want him to. in his mind, she was already his. equal to him, even, though he wouldn't like to see her running around with some sedatives, tranquilizing random people on the street like he does on some nights.

tanner did not retreat his hand, seeing his darling still conflicted but not showing any signs of reluctance. if anything, she was very compliant, and so he shall make sure she's rewarded for her obedience. "could you.. um.. untie me?" she asked, earning yet another one of tanner's smiles. what a silly girl, he thought, asking questions like this. but do whatever she wants him to do, he shall.

"no thrashing and squirming, okay? and i'll give you a piece of freedom," the man said, to which she nodded. she wouldn't want to cross him, never. bringing her arms closer, he slowly undid the bindings on her wrists, brushing his lips softly on the soft flesh of hers. it was somehow... intimate. the way he presented himself to her; she knew he's dangerous. one wrong move or word could probably get her killed, and yet - the way he is now with her speaks a whole different story. one couldn't just see him as a psychotic, sadistic murderer; not when his actions were those of a lover, not a killer. thinking about him in this way was surely a sin. the woman's train of thought, however, was rudely interrupted.

"stop thinking so much," he murmured against her ear. "no point in being so worried. i came here to do what i wanted for a long, long time, you know?" tanner started delicately biting the skin on her ear, chuckling a bit at his own words. "tonight, you shall become rightfully mine. i was thinking of claiming you in a different scenario but i just can't keep myself away from you, sweet girl." her breath hitched, in fear or excitement - she did not know. the anticipation, his face being so close to her own; she was surely about to go insane after tonight. and as tanner buried his face in her neck, she started trying to regain at least part of her mind's long gone clarity.

he's a murderer. a terrible person. he's creating hell on earth. she knows he is awful and she should scream in terror, but her fleshy, earthly desires are clouding her judgement a tad too much. up to this moment, she knew who he is - a killer. his sly antics tonight made her forget about his cruelty, but she shall see him as a criminal, a murderer yet again - he's going to kill her all the same, the difference will be the weapon of choice. he will stab her relentlessly all the same, but not with any blade or syringe. cursing her coveting mind, she brushed all concerns aside and let him have his way with her.

she's going to let him ruin her, deprave her - and she will enjoy every second of it.

14 notes · View notes

charleslee-valentine · 6 months

Text

For the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fan Works Event Day 5: The Saw is Family

Ship(s): Lefton

Word Count: ~2,000

Warnings: Pregnancy and sexual themes, pregnant ftm trans character, discussion of abortion and miscarriage, implied abusive family dynamics, period typical transphobia, brief misunderstanding about consent.

note: This is the groundwork of an au where Drayton is Sissy’s father who raises her like a brother, rather than being just her brother. Inspired by this post from @fry-house

@texas-chainsaw-fanworks

________

Still living with his mother, it was nothing short of humiliating that he fell pregnant.

Leave it to Drayton to get himself knocked up just as soon as he got even a few folks to recognize his chosen name. Even mama was starting to be willing to call him by something other than a throwaway nickname like “girl.”

Not if he comes home with a round belly.

Boude would be the one to know what to do, but he’s also the one waving his dick around gettin’ people pregnant. One time. Let him get that horrible thing near him just once, and he ends up with child.

He’s heard the horror stories. About men like him so desperate to not carry a little one to term they end up bleeding out in their own bathrooms. That could never be his choice. Drayton’s too much of a coward to take his own shots, let alone perform an operation on himself.

He’ll have the baby. It’s just, he doesn’t have to pretend to be thrilled about it.

Can’t un-dead this rabbit, though he’ll certainly try to ignore it as long as he can.

When mama's sister Nancy was pregnant, she was out working on the farm ‘til she couldn’t even stand anymore. He’s got at least three or four more months in him before he’s resting in bed.

Except Nancy never had her baby. Maybe following after her isn’t the best idea.

Cold, sickening dread settles heavy in every bone that makes up Drayton body. Some things you just can’t wish away. Like the damned organs in his body that make it possible for him to even be in this mess, God knows Drayton tried to wish that the lady parts away.

Maybe this is punishment. A cruel fucking trick from the big guy in the sky himself for changing what ought not to be. Too damn bad God gets to sit on clouds all day while there’s mortals in their human body’s going through the evil he placed onto this earth. So fucking what if being a predestined, pretty little baby factory wasn’t the life Drayton wanted.

Damn it all to hell. Burn the bridges of the past self.

As much as he hates to admit it, if he’s going to be this stubborn, he can’t do it alone.

Already he’s suffocating under the weight. Or maybe he needs to loosen the bandages some. It’s the same damn issue either way, and he needs his boy to help fix it.

Drayton usually pays his visits under the guise of business. Trading meat for dairy, wool for fruit. Just in case the folks are home and he shows up without reason knowing damn well they don’t approve.

Though that cover today doesn’t go as gracefully as he’d hoped.

The packages he and mama wrapped up this morning for the job smelled something awful. Usually it don’t bother him at all, being raised in meat and everything, but he was off the path and hurling up his guts before he was even halfway to the neighbors. Heightened sensibilities.

That’s of course, how Lefty found him. Doubled over in the weeds. Sweaty and pale and a disheveled goddamn mess. No worse than the done deed itself, Drayton supposed. At least this time, he wasn’t totally vulnerable.

Still, he’d like to not be gawked at. He swipes the back of his sleeve, pulled over his hand, at his mouth, “You just gon’ stand there, Enright?”

“Right. Sorry.” Lefty goes into action mode quick, taking both of Draytons hands and steadying him, letting him choose how much contact he needs. Drayton settles for leaning into his side, so Lefty throws one arm around him to support him best he can. They walk together, at a pace set by the weaker one between them.

Growing a human ain’t easy work.

It’s silent until Lefty asks, hesitant but too concerned to let the unknown linger, “You.. alright, Dray?”

Before he can stop himself, Drayton scoffs, “You should know..”

Those big blue eyes sparkle with worry and remorse, “Did I do something?”

If he weren’t relying on him to walk, he’d be pushing the oblivious asshole away, “Oh yes sir. Oh-ho yes…”

Lefty gets him into his yard and sits Drayton down on a random crate, taking away the little excuse package. Thankfully nobody else from the Enright family is home at the moment, won’t be for a while either, so they’re free to talk in the open air. Mama’s lazy ass surely won’t come snooping.

Maybe he shouldn’t say that about her; Drayton’s not the only one going to have a baby. Mama’s six months or so along. Just a few ahead of her son. That’s half the reason he’s fucking terrified. Having kids that close together, they might as well be siblings.

Lefty don’t know the reason yet to be afraid as he should be, so he keeps prodding, “Whatever I done.. Let me make it right, lover.”

He’ll blame the sickness for how red his face gets, a fever at fault for the warmth under his skin. Blame that quickly turns into frustration and lashing out at him, “This one, you can’t fix. Can’t just, fuck it away, ‘cause- ‘cause thats the damn problem, you hear!”

Lefty’s face sinks. The dread and the anguish in his features, tells Drayton he gets the wrong implication.

He sounds like he’s choking, “I’m sorry, I-I thought we both..”

Drayton cuts him off. Angry as he is, he doesn’t want that kind of anguish in Boude’s heart.

“You’d be right, Enright. But it’s your damn hair-trigger got us into this mess anyhow.”

Confusion. Revelation. Something else unreadable. Almost.. pleasant.

“Are you telling me you’re-“

“Yessir.”

“Drayton that’s-“

“Don’t tell me. I don’t need your damn opinions. I’m keeping it, damn it.”

Really, he shouldn’t be as confident as he is. Lefty Enright can be trusted, sure, but that don’t change that he’s an open transsexual, and now a pregnant one at that. A poor little farmer's child in the most fragile of situations, acting like he has total control.

His Boude is more than used to that. Lefty smiles gently, “I was going to say it’s great.”

“You’re not the one lugging it with you.” Drayton counters.

He won’t argue that it’s a positive. Or even that it’s amazing really. Every part of him is just so afraid, so not used to this particular struggle on top of all the others that he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Really, he feels guilty for taking it all out on his boy.

The very same who so heroically offers, “I would if I could. For you.”

Lefty bullies his way onto the crate seat next to Drayton and holds him. Proving even more of his gentle and sweet nature. His face won’t show it, but Drayton knows he’s desperate. Trying to be heard.

His heart wants to give in. So badly. To roll over and show his (swelling) belly and let Lefty have the validation. For the moment, he’ll indulge some, by leaning heavily into his embrace.

Something rises up. Not just bitter bile, but even harsher words. Mostly, dear.

“That don’t make you some saint, you know that? You still got an unwedded man, a queer, pregnant.”

And then he hurls onto the grass. Instant Karma.

Lefty just rubs his back through it. Soothes him. Only argues with him a little bit, “But I’m a lover, right? A partner, who done nothing but care for your little ass. That makes me a father too.”

A father. They both will be.

They’re only young. Not too young to handle it, but life just started for real. Popping kids out is a lifelong investment to no longer goin’ sneaking. Experimenting. Whatever you could call what it is they’ve been doing together.

It’ll be expected that they get married right away. Before this damn bump starts to show itself would be ideal. A nightmare for someone whose legal name on the certificate wouldn’t match the one his favorite people know him by.

Drayton isn’t ready to face those realities. He shakes his head, pulls away from Lefty just a little, “We can worry about that in a few months.”

It’s not outright denial. He wants Lefty involved and that is thankfully obvious. The intricacies really can wait. For the sake of him not losing his mind already.

Lefty agrees, focusing on the present as well, “What do you want from me right now?”

“Take me inside. Please.” Drayton holds his arms up, finally allowing himself to be as weak as he feels.

He’s not expecting to be fully lifted up and carried there, but since he’d just delivered some relatively life changing news, he’ll let that slide as well.

Lefty assures, as strong willed as he is physically tough, “We’ll figure it out, Dray.”

That’s not the part Drayton was afraid of. He never doubted that Lefty would want to do right by the kid. A man who places that much value on his family isn’t going to just kick a child he’d created to the curb.

His partner is maybe another story.

Lefty loves him and he loves Lefty, easy, but it’s not been as simple navigating what that meant when halfway into their almost decade long relationship, Drayton confessed the truth about the disconnect between body and identity. His boy has always been perfect with it, which is what makes it so terrifying. Unlikely as it is, there’s always that whisper that he’s only been pretending to accept it.

Now that Draytons put out, and of course got knocked up on the very first time doing so, there’s no real reason to keep him around. Lefty could pick up the kid on the weekends, settle down with a nice woman. Move the hell on.

They’re so in sync at this point, Boude sort of reads his mind, “I’m not gonna leave you.”

Tears burn in his eyes and ball up his throat with emotion. Drayton just nods a little in acknowledgment of his boy, not saying a word still.

It’s exactly what he was thinking and it still blindsides him. Some wounds, like the ones that come to be when his daddy left years ago, well maybe they never close up.

Lefty can’t take the silence. He tries to prompt, “I lov-“

“Enough.” Drayton stops him there. He knows it already. But talking about it isn’t his thing. Loving somebody is enough without all the sappy bullshit. “I’m not ready to talk.”

Lefty looks sad. Frowns a little bit. But he doesn’t argue. Never does. That sort of makes Drayton feel worse.

But they really will talk. One day down the line. Give it some time and he’ll be ready.

He places a hand on his belly. The baby is too small to be moving yet. Probably about the size of a pebble. There’s time. Mama will have her baby first, almost like a trial run.

Yeah.

They’ll be able to do this.

Shaking, Drayton takes Enright’s hand. He doesn’t know what to do with it, it’s awkward, but he wants to show him, in some minute way, that he gives a shit about him too.

A small smile is all the acknowledgement he gets. It’s enough.

Hopefully it’ll be enough to save them until Drayton is ready to talk more. Best he can do now is stay curled up in Lefty’s arms for the few hours he’s able. Going back home at the end of the day won’t be easy, it never is, but neither will parenthood be, so. Guess it works out anyhow.

#tcmfanevent #lefton #lefty enright #drayton sawyer #tw pregnancy #my writing #my moodboards

20 notes · View notes