#sid: okay so you definitely do

[monicahar]

“what are you doing?”

you comically cower behind his back even further.

“hiding.”

“...why?”

“because there's a flipping lion in the room with us, JING YUAN. that's what.” you snap back angrily.

if you're wondering how you got into this predicament—it's not that far from being akin to a kidnapper leading on a child with sweets and delicacies.

under the guise of work and a few promised cuddles, he had made you follow his steps into his home—now with you glued to his body like it's your own lifeline. the snow-white lion snugly lies down by the only exit of the room you're both occupying—having just introduced herself when it came to jing yuan for a few pets, scaring the bejeebers out of you when its fur had grazed the back of your thighs all of a sudden.

the lion only shows confusion yet complies when jing yuan coaxed her to go away for a few moments. in other words—for you to take a breather.

in response to your much evident suffering and growing impatience, a mirthful laugh escapes him, craning his head to look at you over his shoulder to throw you a small mischievous grin “it's just my cat. i don't see the problem.”

“that's fully grown lion, you scoundrel!” you hit his back weakly, whisper-yelling as if said lion would attack you if you spoke any louder. “a-ah...it's looking at me weirdly. it's definitely thinking of how delicious i am!”

“mimi is very gentle. i doubt she's thinking of such a thing.”

you sink further in his shadow when the lion catches your wary gaze with a tilt of its head. “jing, please. it may like you, but i doubt that a territorial species would enjoy having a stranger around its person bubble.”

“you're free to leave anytime, darling. i'm not forcing you to stay.” he says coyly.

“with how your adorable little mimi is standing right by the door—i doubt i can leave of my own accord.”

“so you think she's adorable? good to hear that.” oh, now he has selective hearing?

“jing yuan. please.” you kneel down and tug on his robes pleadingly, catching him off guard to the point he has now decided to fully turn towards you in mild surprise. “i really don't know how to deal with this! i don't dislike her or anything, i'm just super scared that she won't like me and would—”

“calm down.” your lover couches down before you, hand raising to pat your head. “she doesn't bite. i promise.”

“how are you so sure?” you question incredulously, ignoring the way your heartbeat quickens at his actions. “even if she's domesticated, she's still an animal that thrives on her own survival instincts.”

“dearest, would i really have taken in a pet if it was openly feral?”

“yep. you would.” you reply in a heartbeat.

his eye twitches in return.“ahem—okay, so as i was saying,” standing up to his full height, he stretches out a hand towards you, staring at you softly as he does so. “we both know i adore delicate and gentle things, [name]. mimi is exactly that—hence why i didn't mind taking her in and burdened you with meeting her.”

you raise a brow. he shrugs, opting to resign upon your obvious reluctance on the matter.

“truthfully, i wished to see my two favourite companions to bond and get along with my own two eyes,” he heaves an apologetic huff, a tad bit disappointed whilst you only stare in surprise, “but if you're really uncomfortable with it then i suppose i shouldn't force you.”

he helps you up with ease when you finally put your hand on his, hastily padding off the dust that was caught in your clothes upon kneeling down.

grasping your hand comfortingly to calm your nerves, you hate that it work flawlessly upon his touch.

“let's go?”

you were about to nod—until your gaze catches the lion's once more.

...pretty eyes.

snowmoon.

your heart clenches at the realisation.

“on second thought...” you trail off, watching as the mammal sits up in anticipation at your eye contact. jing yuan raises a brow at you, “i think i'll try interacting with her.”

he huffs out a deep chuckle, “really, you don't have to—”

“mimi?” you call out, leaning sideways to look past behind your lover's tall figure. he does the same, turning his head over his shoulder to look at the same direction you're fixated on.

the lion perks up, and starts walking towards you. you grin, but not before whispering back to jing yuan,

“if she actually bites me, we're breaking up.”

“no promises.”

you finally pat the lion's head after about an hour of excessive whining it'll bite you, finally havin found the courage to actually see it as a mere domesticated cat whilst glaring daggers at the owner.

“mimi...attack that bad guy.” you point at him, face still looking smug as ever.

“she won't listen to y—” said lion pounces on him.

idek what this is fiakehwjbsksbw i cant write no more man,,,,*/proceeds to make another jingyuan drabble in google doc

[bruisedboys]

dead wrong — steve harrington x reader

summary: steve harrington is down horrendous for you, his best friend. his love is not as unrequited as he thinks.

contains: best friends to lovers, mutual pining (but mostly steve pining), steve’s pov, fluff galore, idiots in love, reader is good with the kids, reader is a skater like max, reader hurts her wrist and steve is a worried lovesick idiot. cw! descriptions of wounds/blood, mentions of hospital, reader wears steve’s clothes. she/her pronouns used.

a/n: first long fic yay!! I am extremely proud of this so pls love it 🤍

fem!reader 5.3k words

gif by @barneswayne

Steve Harrington is totally, most definitely, not in love with you. Just friends, he thinks, best friends. Best friends who hold hands and sit far too close together.

Speaking of, you push further into Steve’s side, your scent washing over him. Your hand squeezes Steve’s, and he thinks, never mind. Maybe he is in love with you. So in love with you it fucking hurts.

A chorus of shouts erupts around him. You and Steve are watching Eddie, Robin and the kids play beer bong, only without the beer. It’s soda. Dustin starts doing a stupid victory dance while half of his peers laugh and the others cringe. Steve cringes. You laugh. All high and lilting and adorable. Steve has to remind himself to breathe.

He brings your joint hands to rest on his knee. Your rings push into his skin, almost like harsh reminders that he can’t hold you like he wants to. He frowns.

“Steve?” Your voice brings Steve out of his thoughts like it always does. You give his hand a shake. “You okay?”

Steve looks up and prays you can’t see the hopeless devotion in his eyes. You’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, with your messy hair and your eyes lined with glitter. Rosy cheeks, glossy pink lips that he stares a beat too long at. He’s known you for years, and yet he’s never gonna get used to how gorgeous you are. He swallows, forces his eyes up to yours.

“I’m okay,” he says, though he’s really not. He never is, because you never won’t look like that. “Are you?”

There’s another explosion of noise from the soda-pong players, but you don’t seem to notice. You frown like you don’t believe him. He’s being too obvious, he knows.

“Yeah, I’m good. Are you sure, Steve?” You stretch your free hand across your torso to touch his face. Steve heats like an oven under your hand as you press your palm to his forehead. “You’re not feeling sick, are you? You feel sort of hot.”

Steve grabs your wrist, harder than he means to. He loosens his grip guiltily when you give him an alarmed look.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, lowering your hand gently. He can feel your pulse, only just, underneath his fingers. It’s damn sure slower than his. “I— uh, no. I’m not feeling unwell. It is pretty hot in here though.”

A total lie. The only reason he’s burning up is you.

Your frown deepens, a push of your bottom lip that makes Steve want to kiss you. It’s such an overwhelming feeling that he has to blink multiple times to make it go away.

“Oh,” you say. You look around the room and then back at Steve. “Do you want to go outside?”

Steve has a bit of a dilemma. If he says yes, he’ll be alone with you. He can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing. If he says no, he’ll have to stay in this stuffy room with yelling teenagers and ping pong balls flying at him every five seconds. He decides on the first option.

“Sure,” he says as nonchalantly as he can. Then, to make you laugh, “Smells like boy in here anyway.”

You giggle. Steve feels like copying Dustin’s lame victory dance.

“You’re a boy, Stevie,” you say teasingly.

He wrinkles his nose at you. “No, I know, but it’s like … adolescent boy.”

You laugh loud, your mouth pulled up in a staggering smile. “Oh, okay,” you say, as if anything he just said made any sense.

Steve is starstruck for a second before you’re pulling him up from his seat, your hand in his a familiar, heart-aching weight.

Steve finds himself sitting side by side with you on the hood of his car. He can’t exactly remember how he got here — on the way, all he could think about was your hand in his and the fact that your thumb kept brushing over his knuckles in very distinct lines. Whether you’d meant to or not, he doesn’t know. He hopes you did.

“Any better?” You ask quietly, stretching your pinky across the small gap between your hands to tap his.

Steve feels something like an electric shock where your skin touches his. It baffles him, how such a tiny touch can cause such a big reaction throughout his body. He stares at your hand when he answers.

“Much,” he says honestly. He looks up at you. “You didn’t have to come with me, you know. You can go back in if you want.”

Secretly he hopes you’ll stay here with him forever. But that would be selfish, and if Steve is anything when he’s with you, it’s not selfish.

“Eurgh, no.” You pull a disgusted sort of face that makes Steve grin. “I could barely stand it when you were there. Without you, I think I’d die from the smell alone.”

Steve laughs. Really laughs. The words without you, I think I’d die, float around his brain like fish in a fish tank. When he’s done laughing he catches your smile, all pretty and wide, and his heart does one of those funny backflips that he’s never gonna get used to.

Steve watches as you brace your hands on the edge of the car and push yourself up the hood, pulling your shoes up to rest on the metal. Your skirt is short enough that Steve can see half of your thighs, more when you shift yourself like that. He stares for two seconds too long and then feels so guilty he almost apologises.

Instead, he says, “Aren’t you cold?” He points at your skirt but doesn’t look.

You shrug. “No, not really.”

With a sigh you let yourself fall back against the hood of the car. Your skirt rises even more and a half inch more of your skin is exposed — Steve feels like the universe is out to get him. His only escape is to fall back next to you, his right shoulder brushing your left one. You smile when he does, head rolling to the side to look at him. Face to face now, Steve can feel every small breath coming from your parted lips.

“See any stars?” He blurts, because your face is much too close and he’s scared if you look at him like that any longer, he’ll kiss you stupid.

You look up at the dark, empty sky and wrinkle your nose. “No.”

“Wait, look, there’s one.” Steve lifts his arm to point at what he thinks is a star.

You squint in its direction. “That’s a plane.”

“What? No it’s— oh.” He trails off when he realises the ‘star’ is moving. It disappears behind a cloud a second later.

You laugh, breathless and pretty, and drop your head onto Steve’s shoulder. Your perfume fills the air around Steve and he has to stop himself from leaning closer. You bring a hand up to fiddle with your necklace, a cheap, plastic ‘S’ charm that sits directly on your sternum. The fake diamonds are falling off, half of them gone already, but you’ve refused to take it off after all these years. Steve has one of your initial, too. You got them from a dollar store when you were twelve and pinky promised to be best friends forever.

You slip your necklace safely beneath your top and then stifle a yawn behind your hand.

Steve gives your elbow a nudge. “Tired?”

You shrug one shoulder and then droop further into Steve’s side. Every point of contact between you burns.

“You’re tired,” Steve says matter-of-factly.

You make a noise that’s probably meant to be a sound of protest but comes out more like a tired moan. Steve chuckles lightly, reaches over and rubs your arm.

“Alright, sweet girl. Let’s go home.”

‘Home’ really means Steve’s house, because you’ve left your car there and because you’re over so much it’s become your second home. By the time Steve is pulling up the driveway, you’re so dead beat he doesn’t even consider letting you drive yourself home. You practically hang off his waist as he walks you both inside.

“M’tired,” you mumble as you pass the living room.

Steve has to bite back a laugh. “Uh-huh, I can tell.”

You look up at him and squint like you know he’s laughing at you. Then you say, “Can I sleep in your bed?”

Steve’s heart skips. Sure, you’ve slept in his bed before, but every time you have Steve lay awake for at least half the night. He’s not above admitting that he’s watched you sleep more than once. He’s seconds away from telling you to take the guest bedroom when you pout dramatically.

“Please? You’re so warm.” You push into his side, your arm tightening around his waist like you don’t ever want to let go.

Steve hates himself for nodding, but he can’t help it. “Yeah, okay.”

He drags you up the stairs and into his room. Your makeup and stray jewellery is strewn across his dresser — you’d gotten ready at Steve’s before the party. If you could even call it that, Steve thinks. He plants you on his bed and you fall back immediately, eyes shut tight as your hair splays across the sheets.

“You’re like a zombie,” Steve says amusedly, his gaze all fond and mushy as he looks down at you. “From like, Day of the Dead or something.”

You pull a face, faux offended but your big grin gives you away. “Ew. I’m not that ugly, am I?”

Steve hums long and high like he’s thinking about it. This makes you gasp and throw a hand to your chest like he’s wounded you. Before Steve can get half a laugh out a pillow is hitting him straight across the face.

“Hey!” He exclaims, glaring at you. You’re still lying down, eyes screwed tight like you’re pretending you didn’t just brutally attack Steve. He laughs because you’re fucking adorable. “Zombies don’t throw pillows, Y/N.”

Your words are plagued by a yawn as you say, “This one does.”

Steve sighs at your antics, picks up your murder weapon (his pillow) and replaces it on the bed.

“Oh no,” you groan suddenly, like you’ve remembered something awful, hands flying to your face in despair. “My makeup, Stevie. M’too tired to take it off.”

Your words stick to each other like taffy in your tired state. Steve remembers the last time he let you sleep in your makeup. He didn’t hear the end of it for days. He’d rather avoid your wrath this time round.

Steve sighs, knowing full well he’s about to put his foot in it. “Well, will you let me do it?”

You open one eye blearily and look at him. “Would you?”

Steve shrugs, though the thought of being that close to you makes him feel nauseous. Luckily, you’ve closed both eyes again so he can blush all he wants. Plus, he’d do anything for you. Even endure the overwhelming urge to kiss you breathless.

“Sure thing, babe. I’ll get the stuff.”

Steve ends up sitting on his bed with you across from him, crossed legs pressing up against his. You’re sitting so close you’re almost in his lap. He ignores this for the sake of his dignity.

You’ve got your eyes shut and your hair up in a clip. A lock of hair has tumbled out of its knot and Steve pushes it away from your face, fingers hooking behind your ear and lingering. He keeps his hand on your jaw as he raises his other hand, a wet cloth ready to clean your sparkly makeup off.

“You sure about this?” He asks hesitantly. He’s dead terrified he’ll do something wrong, like get glitter in your eye.

You smile softly, your eyes staying firmly shut. “Yes, Steve, it’s fine.” Your tone is half reassuring and half exasperated.

Steve bites the bullet and goes right in, pressing the wet cloth to your cheekbones first. You’ve got blush and glitter there, sprinkled on your cheeks like fairy dust. He smooths the cloth along your skin and it comes away sparkly and pink.

“Okay?” He asks, pausing worriedly.

You nod slowly, your head starting to droop in his hand. “Yeah, Steve.”

Steve grins fondly at your face, screwed up in exhaustion. He tightens his grip on your jaw to keep your head steady, thumb hooked under your chin. Carefully, he begins to dab at your eyelids, also painted with silvery glittery eyeshadow.

Your face dewy and makeup-free, Steve thinks you’ve never looked prettier. So pretty it drives him mad. He stares, really stares, for far too long but he’s worried if he opens his mouth, breaks the silence, he’ll never get to see you like this again. Your hair all messy pretty, your eyes shut and eyelashes kissing, your pink lips turned in a half smile.

He’s not surprised when your soft voice drifts into his thoughts.

“You done?” You open your eyes, eyelids heavy and head heavier.

Steve snaps out of it. He lets go of your face quickly, slides off the bed even quicker.

“All done,” he says, almost tripping over his own feet.

You smile, seemingly oblivious to his clumsiness. Or maybe, it’s just happened so often that you’re not surprised. Either way, your smile is sickeningly sweet. Steve is torn between the desire to kiss you or run as far away as possible from you.

Your voice matches your honey-smile when you say, “Thank you, Stevie.”

You reach out to touch his forearm, your hand a heavy weight on his skin as you wrap your fingers around his arm and squeeze.

He grins lopsidedly, and he’s sure he looks like a lovesick idiot but he can’t find it in himself to care. “You’re welcome.”

You drop your hand and Steve’s arm suddenly feels cold as ice. He wants to touch you again but knows he shouldn’t. He strides to his bedroom door and pauses to turn and look at you.

“I’m gonna get you a glass of water,” he says. Your eyelids are drooping again. He laughs fondly. “Get in bed while I’m gone, zombie-girl.”

Your giggle follows him all the way to the kitchen.

When Steve gets back, a glass of water in each hand, you’re still as a statue on your self-appointed side of the bed. You’ve swapped your outfit for a grey t-shirt that you totally stole from him but deny every time he asks about it, and the shortest shorts known to mankind.

He switches off the light and shuts the door with his heel. Pointedly avoiding looking at your bare legs, he rounds the bed and sets the water down, then bends over you.

“Y/N?” He whispers.

You hum softly, though Steve can’t tell if it’s a hum of acknowledgement or just a sound you’ve made in your sleep. He leans closer, listening to your breathing. You’re awake, only just.

He brushes his hand over your upper arm, touch as light as a feather. He thinks he feels goosebumps on your skin but doesn’t have time to wonder why. You’re lifting your chin slightly, lips parted.

“Goodnight, Stevie,” you whisper, so quiet he barely hears you. Steve’s heart swells. “Thanks for … everything.”

A few moments later you fall silent and your breathing grows steady, and Steve wonders how the hell you always fall asleep so fast.

He rubs your arm, kisses your forehead because he knows you won’t remember this part. His lips buzz as he pulls away. “Goodnight, sweet thing.”

-

You’re outside Family Video. Steve emerges from the back room and spots you so fast it’s like he’s got a third eye. He’s both shocked and pleased — he hadn’t expected to see you until after his shift.

You’ve got the kids with you. You and Max are zooming around the carpark on your skateboards while Dustin and Lucas are poised on the hood of your car, poring over comics.

He watches you skate with Max. Like some lame rom-com cliche, your hair is blowing in the wind and Steve swears you’ve moving in slow motion. You’re laughing and joking with Max and Steve stares and stares. Stares until Robin sidles up next to him.

“What’re you— oh.” Steve can hear the smirk in her voice even though he refuses to look at her. “What’re they doing here?”

Steve shrugs and makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound, moving to the counter to put down the box of videos he’s carrying. Robin follows.

“You’re not gonna go say hi to Y/N?” Robin asks slyly. Steve can hear in her voice what’s coming. “You’ve been staring long enough.”

Steve blushes furiously despite himself. “I wasn’t staring.”

“Oh, sure.” Robin hoists herself onto the counter, peers into the box of videos and picks one out at random. “Just like you weren’t holding her hand on Tuesday night?”

Steve can’t exactly get himself out of that one. He snatches the video from Robin with an annoyed tsk, slotting it back into the box. Her laugh is devilish.

“You are hopeless, Steven,” she says, whacking Steve over the head as she hops off the counter.

Steve rubs his head and glares at Robin. If looks could kill she’d be dead meat. “That’s not my name.”

Robin gets this look on her face that Steve knows all too well. He wants to pummel her before she’s even said anything.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, all sarcasm. “What is it, then? Stevie?”

Steve’s blood boils. Only you’re allowed to call him that.

“Y’know what, Robin?” He says loudly. He turns on his coworker, seething. She’s totally nonchalant, a stupid smirk on her lips. “Why don’t you just leave me—?”

“Steve!”

A shout of his name from the door. He turns and finds Lucas standing there, looking panicked.

Steve’s brow furrows. Then he notices you and Max are no longer whizzing around the carpark. “What—“

“Y/N fell,” Lucas says, out of breath. “We think she hurt her wrist.”

Steve’s heart drops. “Shit.”

He goes flying out the door and into the parking lot. You’re sitting on the concrete, one knee pulled up to your chest, your skateboard dormant next to you. Max is kneeling over you, and Dustin has graciously abandoned his comics for your sake.

“Y/N!” He damn near shouts. He runs over to you and Max and gets on his knees. He’s probably just ruined his jeans on the concrete — he doesn’t give a single fuck.

“Y/N,” he says frantically, a tentative hand landing on your shoulder. Both your knees are scraped something awful and a nasty gash blooms on the outside of your wrist. Steve’s worry is loud and his heartbeat twice as much. “Y/N, are you okay? What happened? What’s—“

You look up. Your eyes are shining but you’ve got a dopey smile on your lips.

“Steve,” you say breathlessly. You blink and a tear falls from your eye and over the bump of your cheek. “Hi. Good to see you.”

Steve stares at you in horror. How can you be making jokes at a time like this? You laugh wetly and Steve looks at Max, totally alarmed.

“What happened?” He demands.

Max is much calmer than he is. “She went over a bump or something,” she says. She’s rubbing your back and Steve feels a rush of gratitude for the younger girl. “Fell on her left arm. Her wrist might be sprained or broken, but—“

“Broken?” Steve repeats. He’s pretty sure his soul just left his body.

“I said might,” Max says through her teeth.

“Y/N?” Steve slides his arm around your shoulder, carefully avoiding your left wrist, which you're cradling in your uninjured hand. “Y/N, baby, can you get up?”

You make a noise like a scoff but it’s muffled by your sniffly nose. “‘Course I can.”

Steve helps you anyway, Max on your other side keeping a firm hold on your jacket. You hiss as you straighten your legs, knee-wounds sprouting fresh blood. Steve bites down on his lip so hard he almost bleeds himself.

“Are you gonna take her to the hospital?” Max asks. There’s genuine worry in her eyes that Steve barely sees. Dustin, Lucas and Robin appear, looking equally worried.

Steve puts on a brave face. “Think so. What do you think?” He asks Max. “You’re the skateboard expert.”

She grins so quick Steve almost misses it. It disappears when she looks at you in your bloody and bruised state. “Yeah. Just in case.”

Steve walks you over to your car, half dragging you. Not that you need him to, he just can’t bear for you to hurt any more than you already are. He deposits you in the passenger seat, ducks his head in to pull your seatbelt across your torso. He’s seconds from ducking back out when you stop him, your uninjured hand on his chest, right over his racing heart.

“It hurts,” you say, quiet enough that only Steve can hear. Your eyes are welling up again. Steve feels like crying himself.

“I know,” he says, nodding vigorously like it will make a difference. “I know, sweet girl. It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be okay.”

At this point he’s talking to himself as well as you. You nod in an exhausted sort of way and Steve presses a kiss to your cheek. Slow and soft and as close to your lips as he’s ever kissed. He has to take a few seconds to compose himself before straightening up and turning to the others.

“I gotta take her,” he says, sending an apologetic grimace in Robin’s direction.

Robin nods once and surprisingly, doesn’t say a word. She looks about as sympathetic as Steve has ever seen her. He turns to the kids.

“Help Robin,” he says. He’s trying desperately to make his voice sound normal but falling short of the mark. Everyone notices but nobody comments. “Don’t mess up the store.”

He gives a grateful smile to Max and then rounds the car, hopping in and starting the engine.

-

You’re half asleep on Steve’s couch, your head in his lap. You’re wearing his yellow sweater — the one he bought only because you’d said he’d look good in yellow. You’ve just woken up from a post-hospital nap and Steve’s hand is in your hair, brushing slow strokes over the side of your head.

He’s feeling a lot of things. Relieved, for starters. The doctor had said it was only a sprain, they’d bandaged up your wrist and you’d left the hospital in far better conditions. Steve was in far better conditions, too.

Steve looks down at you, at your bandaged wrist and the huge bandaids on your knees and thinks, fuck. He thinks his heart is about to claw its way out of his chest. He doesn’t think he can take this love thing any longer.

You stir and take a long breath, turning your head in Steve’s lap to look up at him. Your eyes are tired but you’re smiling.

“You okay?” Steve asks softly. He doesn’t want to break the silence. It feels good, to sit in silence and comfort with you. He runs his fingers through your hair again.

You nod. “Mhm. I’m good.”

“Hurting?”

You shift in his lap. “No, not right now.”

You fall silent and Steve doesn’t know what to say. He wants to tell you how worried he was about you, but you could probably tell. Anyone with a pair of eyes could tell he was nauseous-level worried. Then he thinks about telling you he loves you. It’s a stupid reason, really, but it was all because a nurse had asked if he was your boyfriend. He’d wished he could say yes.

“Steve?”

Steve hums and meets your eyes. You move to sit up and Steve helps you, knowing you won’t let him stop you. A firm hand between your shoulder blades, his palm sliding down your back as you straighten yourself. You shift so you’re facing him, your legs crossed beneath you and your injured wrist resting in your lap. Steve is careful to avoid your wounded knees.

“What is it, babe?” Steve asks quietly. He brings his hand up to caress your cheek, dragging his thumb over a spot where your tears had smudged your mascara earlier.

You melt into his hand, eyes falling shut as a long, deep sigh falls from your lips. You raise your good hand to cover his, holding it to your face. Your hand burns stars onto the back of his.

“Is it your wrist?” Steve asks. You’re acting strange. He puts it down to your injured state. “Your knees? Do you want more ice? New band-aids?”

He’s being a total worrywart, he knows, but who can blame him?

You shake your head, eyes open but cast down. “No.”

“Just feeling bad?” He asks through a frown. In a strange parallel to a couple of days ago, he lifts his free hand to press his palm to your forehead. You feel warm but not hot.

“It’s …” you start, then trail off. Both yours and Steve’s hands fall to your lap.

Steve’s concern spikes. You’ve never been one to hide anything from him. “Yeah?”

“Um, it’s … it’s silly but—“ You take a deep breath and let your eyes raise to Steve’s. You get a look on your face Steve doesn’t quite understand, but it makes his heart leap to his throat anyway. “You know today, when that nurse asked us if you were my boyfriend?”

Steve laughs embarrassedly, too loud and too sudden. So you’d been thinking about that, too. He pulls his hand away from your lap and rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, that was kinda weird, wasn’t it?” He says, though it wasn’t really. Almost every new person he meets thinks you’re dating him. “I was—”

“I wanted to say yes, Stevie.”

Steve stops talking abruptly, his mouth slamming shut. He hadn’t really known what he was about to say, anyway. He searches for words but all he comes up with is a garbled, “What?”

You laugh, all soft and slow and distorted by fatigue. You raise your hand to rub your neck, a mirror of Steve only a moment ago.

“I wanted to say yes,” you repeat, like it’s obvious. Even the second time, Steve doesn’t believe what he’s hearing. His chest feels like it’s on fire, worse when you say, “I want you to be my boyfriend.”

For once in his life, Steve has nothing to say. He gazes at you like you’re some sort of angel on earth. Maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe he’s in some cruel dream and he’s about to wake up with his chest aching.

“I …” Steve‘s voice catches on the words. His throat burns so he mustn’t be dreaming. He tries again. “Y-You … you do?”

He’s not even embarrassed by the stuttering. Just when he didn’t think he could be any more in love with you, you giggle. He was dead wrong. His heart grows about three sizes too big for his chest.

“Yeah, Steve,” you say, fondness smothering your fake exasperation. “Do you … do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

What Steve wants is to kiss you. He wants to kiss you til you can’t breathe and then some more after that. Silently, he takes your injured wrist in his hand and gently shifts it so it’s out of the way, resting on the couch cushions. Then he grabs your face, fingers splayed over your jaw and neck. He can feel your pulse. It’s almost as quick as his. He leans so close he can hear every breath you’re taking.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispers, his lips ghosting over yours. “That okay?”

You laugh a giddy, breathless laugh, surprised at his suddenness. “Please do.”

He slams his eyes shut, darts forward to kiss you and fucking misses. Your noses bump. A surprised giggle bubbles from you and Steve goes red.

“Wait, I’m sorry—“ He tries again, tilting your head to one side and angling his head to the other. This time it works perfectly, and your giggling is swallowed up by Steve’s mouth, lips fitting together like they were made for each other.

You sigh and go all melty and Steve’s heart skyrockets. It feels like everything in the world is falling into place. It’s years of longing, eternities of lingering touches and offhand compliments and longing glances all rolled into one life changing kiss. Your good hand has jumped to Steve’s chest, first bunched in the material of his t-shirt and then spreading over it, palm atop his wild heart. He thinks he might die on the spot. Or like, catch on fire or something.

Steve is losing breath but he won’t stop just yet. He drops his hands to your shoulders and pulls away a hair’s breadth. Then he dives back in for one, two, three kisses that you respond to with all the eagerness in the world. Your kisses are so lovely they make him light-headed.

When Steve pulls away (for oxygen, nothing less) you chase his lips with yours. He laughs, all fondness. He’s dizzy with love.

“Woah, hold your horses, cowboy,” he says through a woozy laugh. He’s finding it hard to speak. He barely hears himself. For all he knows, he’s talking in an alien language.

“Sorry,” you whisper, not sounding very sorry at all. “So … was that a yes?”

Steve has to laugh. He can’t help it. “Are you kidding? Yes, Y/N. That was a yes. I—“

He’s rudely interrupted by someone banging on the door. He thinks he knows who it is. Only one person he knows knocks that hard.

He sighs morosely but he can’t keep the grin off his face for very long. “I’ll get it.”

He heaves himself off the couch and makes for the front door. You stop him before he gets very far, a hand in his bicep.

“Wait, Steve.”

Steve turns, puzzled. “Yeah?”

You’re lifting your chin up, lips parted. Steve knows exactly what you want.

His grin grows impossibly wider as he bends at the waist to kiss you once, chaste and slow and just as perfect as the kisses shared moments ago. When he pulls away you’re smiling so big he’s worried you’ll get stuck like that forever. He wouldn’t mind.

Another round of banging from the door. Steve sighs, squeezes your good shoulder once and then marches to the front door, just about ready to kick the intruder off his front porch. He opens the door and finds his suspicions were correct. It’s Dustin.

He’s holding a handful of flowers that look suspiciously similar to the ones that grow in Steve’s mom’s garden.

“Those for me?” Steve asks. He shoots his arm out to stop Dustin from barging in, hand gripping the door frame.

Dustin pulls a face. “Ew. No, they’re for Y/N.” He steps aside and more kids appear, plus Robin and Eddie. Eddie’s van has been parked haphazardly in Steve’s driveway. “Can we come in or are you gonna stand there and guard the door like that all night?”

“She’s tired.”

“But we bought chocolates.”

“Well—“

“Dustin?” You call from the living room. Oh, great. Now Steve’s gonna have to let them in. “S’that you?”

Dustin beams and gives Steve an expectant look. Steve drops his arm with a defeated sigh and Dustin goes marching in like he owns the place. Max, Lucas and even Mike follow. Mike, who never shows up to anything. Though Steve shouldn’t be surprised. You’re Mike’s favourite, out of the older ones.

Eddie comes next, then Robin, who stops to give Steve a grimace.

“Sorry,” she says wryly. “They really wanted to see her.”

Steve shrugs good-naturedly. He’s on cloud nine and much too happy to care all that much. He follows Robin into the living room and finds everyone crowded around you, Max on your side and Dustin getting down on one knee to present you the probably-stolen flowers like you’re the Queen of England. You look the same as Steve feels — kiss bitten and with your head in another world. But you’re pleased by the company, he can tell.

Dustin moves to give you one of his bone-crushing hugs and Steve goes all panic mode.

“Please be careful with her!” He says urgently, his panic obvious under the usual demanding tone he takes with the kids.

But you’re laughing under Dustin’s hug, and Steve can’t stay mad when you look like that. You meet his eyes over a mop of curly hair and your gaze goes all mushy and sweet. Steve’s legs feel like jelly. If he keeled over dead right now, he wouldn’t be surprised.

He’s sure someone will see but he doesn’t really care. Grinning from ear to ear, he mouths, “Love you.”

He’s said it before, of course he has, you’re his best friend in the whole entire world. This time though, it’s all the more different. It’s better. You flush, oblivious to the noisy chatter around you.

“Love you too,” you mouth back.

Steve can’t stop smiling for the rest of the night.

thank you for reading! feedback is appreciated!! reblog this and I’ll kiss you on the mouth mwah

[monzabee]

third time's the charm (social media au) - mv1

masterlist

Summary: The one where you are there to celebrate Max winning his third title, and the whole world is there to witness it.

Pairing: max verstappen x reader (model used: mun ka young)

Warnings: none other than some cursing, internet being the internet

Request: "First of, in love with your social media au works. Could you do one with Max where reader is a K-pop idol (solo) and one of the biggest artist both in Korea and internationally, ever since she debuted (early-middle 2010s) she's been associated/sponsored by Red Bull. So she and Max have secretly been together for a year or two until someone caught Max in Korea and everything starts unfolding. (Ps. fully understand if you aren't able too❤️)"

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms. 

ynofficial

Liked by yg_ent_official, iconnews, jennyrubyjane and 982,927 others

ynofficial: excited for this weekend's schenanigans, can you guess where i'm heading?

jennyrubyjane: not la??😿

ynofficial: 아니, 곧 만나러 갈게 약속할게😭

user: is it paris? new york? london? THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE ENDLESS

redbullracing: can't wait to have you with us again!

ynofficial: 감사합니다 🥹🫶

user: SHE'S GOING TO A F1 RACE, AGAIN??

user: she's just like me i swear

comments on this post have been limited

ynylnfans

Liked by kpopworld, ynnews, and 325,746 others

ynylnfans: Y/N at the airport this morning, going to the qatar gp!

user: the queen of airport looks😭

user: love the way she makes that ludicrously capacious bag work🫡

user: oh to be y/n and travel the world while looking this good

view all 6,625 comments

user: see everyone is sad because we have to share her with the f1 girlies but i'm just glad we're getting looks

user: her fashion game on race weekends have been on point

ynofficial posted a story!

ynofficial posted a story!

ynofficial tagged location: losail international circuit

Liked by maxverstappen1, ynylnfans, f1wagss and 827,637 others

ynofficial: how does the saying go again? third time's the charm✌️☝️

user: no way, no actual way

user: have you not seen her story...

user: i knew she was a red bull girl, but i didn't know she was THE red bull girl😭

user: okay but when is the new album dropping?? the kids need music

the comments on this post has been limited

maxverstappen1

Liked by danielricciardo, landonorris, ynofficial and 836,547 others

maxverstappen1: the past couple of days with ms yln

user: i'm so confused right now🤨

user: where is the race content and who is this man??

user: i can't believe this post just called me single in all the languages ever

ynofficial: always a pleasure🫶

maxverstappen1: ❤️

view all 21,536 comments

danielricciardo: is this why you said no to hanging out?

maxverstappen1: what do you think?

ynofficial

Liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo, yg_ent_official and 998,625 others

ynofficial: date night with one mr verstappen

user: I NEED HER WARDROBE, RIGHT NOW😭

user: girl, i get that you're happy and in love, but please drop a song or something😭

ynofficial: after date night?👀

user: i never thought i'd be jealous of max verstappen but here we are

view all 32,746 comments

maxverstappen1: ❤️

ynofficial: 🥹

ynofficial

Liked by yg_ent_official, iconnews, jennyrubyjane and 982,927 others

ynofficial: third time's the charm. out this friday. enjoy🤭

user: OH I KNEW IT

user: i can't believe we're getting a song about sid from ice age

user: sid and the dragon babies

redbullracing: are we invited to the listening party?

ynofficial: of course!🥹

user: finally, it's been so long😭

maxverstappen1: oh i definitely will

ynofficial: i know you will🙃

view all 542,243 comments

user: damn, this right after the hard launch of the century??

[chelseachilly]

hey!! it's officially been just over a year since i created this blog and wanted to do something as a little celebration of that. i never thought i would spend so much of my time thinking and reading about footballers but very grateful for the little community on here that's still obsessing and writing about my chelsea (and former chels) boys 💓

i do have some more fics of my own in the works (check out my masterlist to see the ones i've written so far) but in the meantime, i wanted to share some of my favourites i've read! this definitely isn't a complete list and i'm sure i'm forgetting some, but i hope you all enjoy this compilation of wonderful fics (it's mostly ben and mase but some others as well!)

ben chilwell 🩵

big news by @gagaslonina

therapy by @gagaslonina

support by @gagaslonina

the cursed last step by @carlottawllms

we'll be alright by @carlottawllms

come back stronger by @chilwellspulisic

forbidden to me by @neverinadream (18+)

my champion of europe by @babygirlbenji

that's my daddy by @babygirlbenji

snowflakes on the glass by @whorekneecentral (18+)

reunions and surprises by @tommyspeakycap

welcome to the family by @tommyspeakycap (18+)

mason mount 🤍

looking after you by @mountsmase

coming home to you by @mountsmase

mornings like this by @mountsmase (18+)

take the pain away by @pulisicsgirl

caring for you by @pulisicsgirl

breathe, you're okay by @pulisicsgirl

our life changing moment by @tsimvkas

easy with you by @carlottawllms (18+)

someone to you by @carlottawllms

the moment he knew by @carlottawllms

winter sun by @mountttmase (series, 18+)

always there by @mountttmase

home is where the heart Is + always meant to be (2-parter) by @mountttmase

ships in the night by @mountttmase

anytime you need me by @masonmtxo

thank your missus + part two by @masonmtxo

as well as every fic by @sid-vii, she's been reposting them on her new blog so i recommend you read them if you haven't already <3

christian pulisic 🩶

flustered assessments by @pulisicsgirl

sleepy by @pulisicsgirl

his girls by @pulisicsgirl

running home to your sweet nothings by @captainpulisic

is it cool that i said all that? by @captainpulisic

better with you by @tsimvkas

birthday surprise by @thoseboysinblue (18+)

be mine by @thoseboysinblue (18+)

cold hands by @thoseboysinblue (18+)

other footie boys 🖤

unauthorized posts by @gagaslonina (levi colwill)

summer getaway by @yellowkitkieran (andy robertson)

not just the physio by @tommyspeakycap (andy robertson)

feeling some type of way by @tommyspeakycap (andy robertson, 18+)

secret secrets by @gagaslonina (conor gallagher)

[holy-puckslibrary]

just a lil firefighter!sid fluff for y'all :)

gif from @ehghtysevenarchive + per this ask and others

Surely, the chief of Canada's oldest fire department has more important things to do on a crisp morning, the last one preceding a fresh week, than this. He most definitely does. And, yes, Chief Crosby is known for his pragmatic approach to, well, everything.

But neither carries weight here—not when she calls.

Leaky faucet, dead car battery, unreachable spider... It doesn't matter. One ring, and he's rushing home. He can't pin-point when the pattern began, likely sometime shortly between the day you moved into town and his first off-day, but it's a routine he's come to enjoy despite the extra strain on both his schedule and his body; Sidney never thought sharing a property line could be so tedious or time-consuming.

He knows he shouldn't enjoy the distraction as much as he does. You aren't together, Sidney doesn't ever allow his imagination wander that far, but he can't help it. He can't help but help. He rarely turns down anyone in need, which has done wonders for his reputation within the community, but with you... With you, it's different, and embarrassingly so.

He doesn't have the words to explain it. Not that he needs to, it's written plainly across his face.

There's a reason you're regular fixtures in the town's gossip column.

When he arrives on scene—not ten minutes after his F-Series crawled down the gravel drive—Sidney shakes his head and laughs. Collecting his cell and his radio, he slips out of the truck, watching as you fret like a mother hen.

Still in your slippers, you're stood at the base of a decently-sized red spruce wedged between his yard and yours, your crumpled face angled up into the yellow-green needles. You're the very picture of worry, wringing your trembling hands and muttering to yourself.

A stray kitten caught in a tree, that's what's got you in a such a state.

"Well, this is a new one," he bellows in lieu of a greeting, slamming the door shut as his boots hit the ground.

Briefly, your glassy eyes dart in his direction. You're midway through your customary apology when he arrives at your side and quiets you, just as he always does.

"They're more than capable of holding down the fort for however long it takes to rescue our new friend, okay?"

"I know, but what if—"

"But nothing," Sidney huffs, and he dares to take you by the shoulders. And, externally, he ignores the way you shiver under his palms. "If I didn't think it was safe for me to step out for a couple of minutes, I wouldn't. You believe me, right?"

You nod, bottom lip pinched between your teeth.

"Good. Now, how 'bout you keep an ear on this," Sidney sets the clunky satellite radio in your hand, "—and I'll grab the ladder from the shed?"

He doesn't really need your help monitoring the channel, but he knows you'll feel better if you feel like you're doing something. Like him, you find comfort in your utility.

In less than a minute, Sidney re-emerges, rounding the corner with a ladder in hand. You're in the same spot, now fidgeting with the radio, anxiously dumping it from one palm to the other and back again. He follows your gaze to line up the simple equipment necessary for the rescue operation.

Sidney's heart swells as you quietly step forward to spot him.

Lucky for everyone, the ball of orange fur is on the branch nearest to the ground. Sidney needs only to step up onto the first wrung to safetly coax the frightened creature into his waiting hands, he's back on the ground not long after.

He gives the kitten a gentle parting scratch under the chin, then transfers the purring fluff to you. The soft bundle takes to you immediately, nuzzling into your chest like that's where it wanted to be all along.

"I think he likes you," Sidney observes with a cheek-numbing grin.

Your lips are tipped up at the end and there's fan of happiness rooting itself around your eyes. Your mouth opens to reply, but before the words come—

"Well, would you look at this?"

Across the quiet street and a few houses to the left sits an audience of two. Both of which are now cooing as loudly as two ladies in their sixties can manage. Coffee cups in one hand and their cellphones propped up in the other, they fawn over the two of you as if it's live theater.

Sidney curses their sons, who he'd completed the explorer program with as teens, for enabling this technological torture.

"Smile, you two! Oh, Denise is just going to eat this up," one of them, a spitfire in a 4'11 frame by the name of Mrs. Bouchard, exclaims to her co-conspirator, Ms. Johnston.

Then, to no one's surprise and Sid's chagrin, they giddily type out their respective messages to the local paper's equally-nosy editor-in-chief.

"Looks like we're front-page news again," you hum bashfully.

The tabby mewls in your arms. You curl into the little bundle of fur, lips landing between its delicate ears.

Sid studies you in his periphery as he slips in and out of heady contemplation, ultimately deciding he doesn't mind as much as he once did. "That we are..."

—

eek! wait, why do i luv them already 🥹

as always, i would really appreciate if you reblogged my work, left a comment or dropped by my inbox w some feedback :) fandom runs on engagement, and so do writers!! thx a mil in advance!

READ MORE OF THEM HERE!

[tonkatsubowl]

love sick.

✱ warning — the reader is the yandere.

how would the xianzhou boys react to you as a yandere?

blade is definitely into this side of you. however, there are times where he had to calm you down. it was surprising that someone like blade even knew limits...especially when it came to necessary manslaughter.

"y/n." you ignored blade's voice, the warmth of a deceased woman's blood splattering upon your visage as you took another one's life.

this "innocent" woman in particular got a little too bold and tried to flirt with blade, trying seducing him to a form of prostitution sale. of course, he was immensely loyal to you... but he wasn't surprised for the woman's death, as he saw this coming. was he upset at you? definitely not, for he would do the same thing if a man touched or spoke to you in a disgusting way.

"y/n." he called again. "she's dead."

his hand reached towards your shoulder, stopping you in place. you breathed the fresh scent of iron, your distraught and psychotic eyes casting towards blade, and immediately your gaze had softened. decorated with blood, an innocent smile creeps towards your lips as you turn to embrace your lover.

"i just wanted to make sure she learned her lesson too." you reply, snuggling your face into blade's chest, smearing the woman's blood from your face all over his clothing.

"i'm sure she did. but now we have to bury the body."

"she doesn't deserve a burial," you nearly snap, "i'll just burn her body to crisp."

blade's gaze softens, pressing his thumb against your lips, "shh. take it easy, y/n. i'll handle it."

your eyes sparkle, but you nodded. you knew kafka didn't like seeing you in this mess, but you enjoyed it whenever you came back to the stellaron hunters and kafka had a handkerchief in hand. though, she did scold you a few times... and now blade doesn't want you to have that sort of attention from kafka.

dan heng would definitely try to find ways to not trigger this side of you. he knew you have a good heart and you would do anything to help and save the astral express team, but whenever it came to other women flirting with him and trying to seduce him... that was when you snapped.

you definitely couldn't control this side of you, and himeko and welt would continue to deeply monitor your well being whenever these sorts of things happened. there were multiple incidents where you've taken a few lives because they simply looked at dan heng's direction... but you've improved a bit? you were at least killing women and random people who decided to flirt with your lover, rather than anyone who sneezed in his direction at least.

"y/n, please..." the sounds of you ripping a woman's head apart from her body echoed through the halls, covering your body with her beautiful blood. you breathed, smiling through it all. unable to think.

but dan heng couldn't stop you. he was too late.

"y/n!"

it was an innocent saleswoman who used flirtation to gain sales, and it was nothing more... nothing less. it was purely business related. but your jealousy got the best of you.

his voice finally snap you back to reality, your hand raised to stab her one more time came to a stop. you drop your weapon, looking to dan heng. your eyes softened, no longer were they... so psychotic. so evil.

"ah. there you are! i was looking for you," you innocently beamed, waddling up to him as if nothing had occurred.

right, this was an issue, too. you killed, and you don't remember what happened. or rather you just acted like nothing happened.

"are you okay? i really missed you," you innocently said to dan heng as you embraced him, his arms reluctantly returning the hug.

if he didn't return the affection, you would become worse.

"i was moreso worried about you, but i missed you too," dan heng said in a soft tone, "let's clean you up."

he'll have to report another incident to welt and himeko.

jing yuan has monitored your well being for a while, and has used different methods of therapeutic sessions to help you maintain this side of you... or get rid of it. he knew you had a killer instinct that's hidden inside of you that you cannot control, whatsoever. and it was... terrifying. not even yanqing or fu xuan really trusted you, even doubting their general because of you.

"get rid of them. they're going to cause you trouble." fu xuan would say to jing yuan. and boy, if you heard that? a life would be taken away. and it wouldn't be yours. you were significantly stronger than fu xuan, which was why she tends to stay away from you.

yanqing didn't want to make a comment. he knew you were always listening at one point. there was an incident where you nearly killed fu xuan because of her comments, but after some restraint, magic and a bit of therapeutic sessions, you had... improved. a bit. just a bit.

"i believe in them." jing yuan would say. "i never want to give up on them."

and even if you were currently killing some random woman right now for talking about wishing to be wed to general jing yuan, he would still love you. he would try to change you.

"that's enough, y/n."

he came to retrieve you after knowing you were headed out to kill this woman. your hands stopped as he reached out, grabbing your wrists, pulling you closer to his chest. "that's enough."

you breathed, leaning into his touch, innocently smiling faintly. you were finally "awake", no longer focused on a mere corpse. "oh, jing yuan," you cooed, "sorry, i got distracted. i was heading out to grab you a drink, and—"

"it's alright," jing yuan murmured, eyeing on the corpse. goodness, you were getting collectively worse with these murders. never had he seen these types of deaths before, even in his years on the battlefield. "let's get you back home. i'll have the cloud knights clean this up for you."

it was time for some therapeutic sessions again.

[tpwkwriter]

pease do where Harry took her v card last night and the morning after like when shes bleeding and harry being really caring and protective

Warnings: mentions of the deed, cursing, fluff<3

—————————The morning after————————

Y/n sat up in the empty bed, the bed where her Innocence had been taken the night prior, her T-shirt and his boxers where the only things clad on her body, her hair felt scruffy, and her bones definitely had an ache.

Flashbacks to evening before y/n wasn’t sure she’s felt so many butterflies and flutters in her stomach in one night.

Her mind kept going back to the way his hands roamed her body, they way his forearms would be either side of her head, he was just so Devine.

“What’s on your pretty mind?” Said a voice throwing her out of thought.

Harry entered the room placing a cup of water on her bedside table and a kiss to the top of her head.

“Y’alrigh?” He asks plopping down next to her.

“Mmm” she smiled, taking a sip of her water

She leaned her head on his bicep which further elevated her comfort, he pressed another kiss in return.

“Want me to run y’bath” he asked

“Yes please, and can y’add some of that lavender stuff, will help with my legs” she bashfully admitted.

“Y’legs?, y’in pain?” He asks, eyebrows furrowing and now moving to look at her.

“Just a Bit achy, just how is is H, don’t panic”

“M’sorry love, was as slow and gentle as I could be” he muttered into her hair

“You were amazing” he added

A red colour stained her cheeks as he continued to utter these words and pressing kisses to her like there’s no tomorrow.

“Want that bath?” He offered again.

“Yes please”

—————————

Y/n slowly made her way towards the bathroom, though standing up was definitely a challenge.

“Shit” she winced standing up from the bed.

“Slowly love” Harry said, gently putting a hand on the low of her back to guide her.

Once y/n got into the tub Harry thought this was an ideal time to properly clean the bed and change the sheets.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t overthinking last night, was he too rough? Was she okay? Did he check on her enough?

Y/n sat in the tub and seeing her red raw inner thighs made her let out a small chuckle at the memory of the night before, it somewhat felt surreal that her virginity was taken by someone who she adored so much, Harry shew her so much love and attention that it made her heart race 10x much.

“Y’okay beauty” Harry called from the bedroom, knocking y/n from her reminiscing.

“Yes love, come sit with me” she answered.

Normally y/n was a very private and shy individual, but there was something Harry carried with him that radiates safety and comfort and after the previous night his words made her feel so beautiful.

Without a word he presses a kiss to her forehead and proceeds to sit on the closed toilet Sid which sat next to the tub.

Y/n loved admiring the beauty that was her boyfriend, her eyes drunk him all in and enjoyed it thoroughly.

“Thank you for last night” Harry admits knocking the train out of her mind.

“Harry” she began

“Thank you, you treated me lovely” she stressed wanting it to get through his head.

“S’jus, such a vulnerable moment and you shared y’first with me” he smiles.

“And there’s no one else I would’ve rathered” she said looking directly at him.

“Love”

“S’true” she sighed.

“Y’gonna make blush n shit” he chortled.

“That’s because your just a big sap” y/n teased

A moment of comfortable silence washed over them enjoying the bliss of simply just each others company.

“Love?” Harry asked.

“Hmm”

“Was last night painful?” He asked his green eyes filling with slight concern

“Harry-“ she started.

“Y/n” he answered a slight more serious and deeper tone.

“Baby, only a teeny bit it’s normal, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bleed slightly in the bathroom after but it’s so normal Harry-“

But he wouldn’t take that.

“What?” He asked eyes pinching closed and tighter as each word rolled off her tongue

“Baby stop beating yourself up-“

“I made you fucking bleed?”

“Harry listen to me”

Clearly lost in his own brain overthinking the worst things ever.

“It’s normal, before you I was a virgin it’s fine, harry it’s not your fault you didn’t cause anything, hell it didn’t even hurt, m’used to periods and much worse love so stop letting your brain win”

Harry looked up at her, her beautiful eyes and face were the death of him.

“Fuck love” he said quick to move off of the toilet lid and kneel beside the tub to level with her face.

“I love you so much Harry, your the best boyfriend, I felt so safe, so loved in your arms last night, as sickly as that sounds” she quietly said while studying his features.

“I love you y/n, I never want to hurt you, cause ya pain ever ever ever” he rambled.

“I know silly, now gimme a kiss you big sap” y/n requested.

A kiss she received.

——————————————————————————

[reareaotaku]

can i request some Max Goof headcannons? I've seen so many of Bradley and I feel like Max needs some love 😭

He's literally so much better than him too. [I have a draft of someone who requested NSFW for Bradley 😭😭]

Max is a fun and loving guy, not to mention a little shy

He saw you when walking around campus one day and was smitten

Who were you?

He had to do some investigation

Now- He's not a stalker, bbbbuuuutttt-

Okay, so maybe he figured out your schedule and dorm room, but it's not like he would go there- At least not your dorm room

He plans to run into you 'on accident' and strike up a conversation

And that's exactly what he does. You were walking, not paying attention to where you were going and ended up running into him

You profusely apologized, telling him you should of been paying attention but were distracted

"No, no. It's fine- I wasn't paying attention. I'm Max." He holds out his hand and you shake it

"Y/n."

After that you started to run into each other a lot more

You started to strike up conversations, becuse he seemed nice enough

Told you he liked to skate and you seemed impressed so he sid he could show you some time. You blushed, a little embarrassed by the suggestion, but happy to take him up on the offer

You kind of just thought he told you he could skate to impress you and didn't actually know how to- But boy were you wrong

Your jaw was on the floor as you watched him

"Wow, you're really good!"

He blushes, rubbing the back of his neck, "Aww, well, shucks- Thanks"

He's the first one to make a move, but it definitely takes a while. There was still a part of him that thought you didn't like him

He nearly fainted when you said 'Yes'

He's the perfect guy and is quick to defend you against jerks, like Brad

You're incredible in his eyes and anyone that doesn't see that is wrong/incorrect/ignorant

[malk1ns]

Most definitely talking about Sid's upcoming heat and Sid's yapping that he doesn't need any help but Geno knows he will get a call the first night of a whimpering and desperate Sid

👀

"Stop scenting me," Sid snaps the second Zhenya sits down.

Zhenya rolls his eyes. He hasn't even caught his breath from his last shift. Fuck this altitude, and honestly, fuck the Avs too, Sid's cozy little friendship with MacKinnon be damned.

"I'm serious," Sid continues, scooting down the bench to make room for Rusty, who practically dives over the boards to avoid a too many men. Zhenya obediently scoots along with him, grabbing Rusty around the waist to keep him steady.

"Thanks," Rusty wheezes, and Zhenya pats his shoulder before turning back to Sid.

Sid's glaring at him. He hates being ignored under normal circumstances, and it only gets worse when he's careening towards heat—a fact that Sid is strenuously denying.

"Sorry," Zhenya says, making his eyes big and ducking his head. "Smell good, Sid, can't help it."

Sid's eyes narrow. After so many years, he's wise to Zhenya's tricks, and he's apparently not far enough into pre-heat to fall for them anyway. Zhenya adjusts his mental calculations forward a day. "I don't know what you think you're smelling, but it's not me. I'm not due for another two weeks, and we talked about this. I don't need you this time."

"Okay," Zhenya says placidly, tapping Sid's knee. Sid's cute when he gets all worked up and indignant like this.

"Hey—" Sid sputters, probably picking up Zhenya's amusement, but then coach is tapping his line in, so Sid can't do anything but glare as he swings over the boards.

Zhenya watches as he swings a big arc towards the goal, changing direction so abruptly that the d-man shadowing him loses an edge and hits the ice. Sid turns to snap at the guy, and Zhenya readjusts his math again, this time back a few hours.

Pissing Sid off always makes things move faster.

-

They drop the game in OT, but that's okay. They played well, better than they have since the trade deadline, and the shock of losing Jake is finally starting to wear off. Sid doesn't look hollowed-out whenever he looks to his left any more, and Bunting is the exact type of yappy, determined presence on Zhenya's wing that he's always played best with. The postseason is still a reach, but suddenly the games they're playing seem like they mean something again, and that's all Zhenya wants, really.

Playoffs are nice, but Zhenya's old enough now that he doesn't live and die by each individual season anymore. If he can keep his production up for a few more years, avoid major injury and quiet the people who constantly call for him to be traded, he'll be happy.

Well. That, and getting Sid to finally admit that what they've been doing for nearly two decades now isn't just friends helping each other out. But Zhenya can be patient on that front.

Seeing Jake in Carolina colors is hard, and Zhenya discreetly wipes his eyes during the tribute video. Sid doesn't bother, staring up at the enormous new jumbotron with shiny eyes. The win makes it easier to stomach, though, and Jake stops by the locker room after the game, lingering well past when the Hurricanes' bus must have left for the hotel.

He and Sid talk for a long, long time, tucked away in a hallway while Rusty and Zhenya linger, ready to head off any media that comes this direction. They're left alone, though, and when Jake finally slips past them, he's knuckling at his eyes. Zhenya politely doesn't mention it when he pulls Jake into one last hug.

Sid's marching for the parking lot, and Zhenya has to hustle to catch up with him. When he draws even, he practically trips over his feet—Sid smells ripe, fertile and alluring, like he's minutes from dropping into heat. Surely he feels it by now.

Sid slides him a sharp glare. "Don't fucking start," he mutters, angling away when Zhenya leans towards him. "You were right, okay? But it doesn't mean anything."

Zhenya takes a deep inhale and consciously steps to the side, giving Sid his space. "Call if you need," is all he says, cutting towards his car and speeding up before he can give into the impulse to manhandle Sid back to his house and his bed and keep him there.

"I won't!" Sid calls across the garage. Zhenya shakes his head.

-

It doesn't always go this way. Sometimes Sid invites him back, sends him texts like i think it's starting soon and would you mind...? as if any alpha in their right mind would turn Sidney Crosby in heat down. He gets squirrelly when it happens too many times in a row, though, acts like Zhenya's going to hold him down and bite his claim into Sid's neck without permission, and tries to put distance between them.

It never lasts, though.

Zhenya's in his pajamas and glasses, settling in with his Kindle, when his phone rings.

"G," Sid whimpers over the line, and Zhenya sits upright, the sound of a distressed omega plucking at his instincts even at a distance. "G, where are you?"

Zhenya fists his hand in his duvet. "You say you don't want," he says carefully, listening to Sid's gasps, wondering if he'd managed to get something from his toybox or if he fell into it so fast that he's using his hand. Sid doesn't take care of himself like Zhenya would if they were mated, and he's come over more than once to Sid on his belly and whimpering because his own fingers don't get him right.

That's what Zhenya's always been for.

"I didn't mean it," Sid whines, voice muffled. "G, I need you."

Zhenya pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at the screen. Not even ten, and they have an off-day tomorrow. "Sid, you say I stay home this time," he says, but he's throwing his blanket back and getting up. "You change mind?"

"I was lying," Sid moans, frustration edging into his voice. "I was...G, please, you..."

He's falling deeper into it now. Zhenya hesitates; Sid had sounded so sure, more than usual, but...

"Geno," Sid says, practically a sob, and the decision is made. There's only so much his own instincts will allow him to ignore, and Sid calls him every time—if he didn't want Zhenya coming over, he shouldn't be calling.

It takes Zhenya a few tries to remember Sid's new door code, but when he steps inside, the smell of Sid's heat practically bowls him over. Zhenya has to stop and breathe, adjust to the overpowering sugar-and-marine salt permeating the air, before he can walk without stumbling to Sid's bedroom.

"Oh, Sid," he says, pausing at the doorway.

"Please," Sid begs. He hadn't gotten to his toys after all, and he's practically twisted in a pretzel, two fingers stuffed inside himself while his other hand strips his dick. He's come once already by the mess on his stomach, but his dick is so hard it's purple, and his face is twisted in agony, not pleasure.

"Shh," Zhenya croons, voice dropping to alpha-register all on its own. He's across the room and stripping his clothes off before he's even registered it, but when he gets hands on Sid's torso Sid takes in a deep, shuddering breath and relaxes.

"G," he mumbles, looking up at Zhenya through tear-damp eyelashes. "You left me."

"I'm sorry," Zhenya murmurs, gentling Sid onto his back, pushing at his shoulder until his hand slides free. His fingers are shiny with his own slick, and Zhenya pauses to suck them clean, eyelids fluttering at the taste. Sid watches him, chest heaving, and when Zhenya lets Sid's fingers drop from his mouth, Sid trails them down Zhenya's face and chest, resting his hand over Zhenya's heart. "I'm here now," Zhenya says, leaning down to kiss Sid. "I'll take care of you."

"Yes," Sid sighs as Zhenya slides into him, letting his legs butterfly out and his head loll to one side.

Zhenya stares at Sid's neck, exposed and there, and practically bites through his lip, fucking Sid harder. He wants to bite Sid so, so badly, has for years, but Sid always pulls back just when they're on the precipice of turning this into something more, always ices Zhenya out when it starts to feel too serious, and Zhenya's not going to push—it has to be Sid's decision.

Something of what he's feeling must be leaking through, because Sid opens his eyes and looks at him. His eyes are blurry; he's deep in it now, and every exhale is a half-purr as Zhenya's knot starts to grow and catch at him with every thrust. "Mmmm," he moans, the perfect picture of an omega submitting to his alpha, but the way he tilts his head to expose his neck is all purposeful, as is the way he coyly looks at Zhenya.

"Sid," Zhenya groans, grinding his teeth. He can't stop himself from dropping to his forearms and getting his nose into the crook of Sid's neck, licking frantically over Sid's scent glands. The smell of them blooms in the room, heady and intoxicating, and Zhenya's thrusts go ragged and desperate as his knot swells. "Sid, please." He feels drunk, he doesn't even know what he's asking for, opening his mouth around the meaty muscle where Sid's neck meets his shoulder.

Sid's hand is at the back of his head, but he's pushing, not pulling Zhenya back, and Zhenya's teeth dig into Sid's skin. His "bite me" is barely audible, but it's the loudest thing Zhenya's ever heard, echoing over the roaring of blood in his ears and their breath.

He bites. The world falls away.

-

When Zhenya swims back to consciousness, his knot still hasn't gone down. Somehow, Sid had managed to get them on their sides, and he's petting over Zhenya's sweaty back, nuzzled up against Zhenya's chest and humming.

"Sid?" Zhenya croaks, eyes flying open when he remembers. "Oh, fuck, Sid, I—"

"Shh, it's okay." It's Sid's turn to soothe Zhenya, purring until Zhenya's heart slows down. Zhenya's nostrils flare as he inhales, and all he can smell is happy, contented omega.

"We..." Zhenya's floundering, head spinning as he tries to put the pieces together.

"I asked you to do it, bud," Sid says. He sounds quiet, but sure. "I wanted it. I was..." He sighs, and Zhenya can feel him shrug. "We can talk about it later, but...I was talking to Jake, and he said, you know, we're lucky—it doesn't matter what happens, because in the end we always have each other. And then I got home, and I was thinking about how he's right. You've had plenty of chances to leave, and you never did. And you always come when I need you. So...it felt stupid, to be pushing you away still."

"Sid," Zhenya groans, half infuriated and half overcome with fondness. If they weren't still knotted together he'd pin Sid down and bite at his sensitive, ticklish stomach as punishment until Sid was laughing and kicking him away. "You say to me when you think these things, like, don't make me come run over so late, scare me like I do what you don't want."

Sid shrugs again, and now he smells smug. "You always come when I call," he says, and Zhenya can't even argue that point.

He wouldn't want to, anyway.

[marnerparty]

stupid islander

Mat Barzal x Crosby!reader platonic!Trevor Zegras x Crosby!reader platonic!Jamie Drysdale x Crosby!reader

yncrosby

Liked by barzal97, jakenbake20 and 17,992 others

yncrosby love watching this loser with these losers (don’t ask about the ring) (but someone please tell the old man to get instagram)

Tagged trevorzegras and jamie.drysdale

View all 217 comments

jamie.drysdale I don’t even know about the ring

yncrosby I’ll tell you later

alexnylander we’ve been trying to tell him. never works

yncrosby he’s so stubborn

user1 crosby siblings > anyone else

tysmith_6 I think you should give it up

yncrosby ty how could you

kletang_58 best sister award goes to yn

yncrosby damn right

user2 anyone notice mat barzal liked?

yncrosby who?

barzal97 ouch

trevorzegras does the kid like me again

yncrosby not sure Trev. not sure

trevorzegras wow thanks for the reassurance yn

yncrosby 🫶🏻

penguins what a game tonight!

ny_islanders just wait for Wednesday 😈

tysmith_6 first mat, now the islanders?

trevorzegras 🤨

jamie.drysdale care to explain?

yncrosby it was one date

barzal97 oh yeah?

tysmith_6 get out of here

alexnylander I’m telling Sid

barzal97 shit

yncrosby

Liked by mitchmarner, user2, and 21,544 others

yncrosby this barzal guy kept getting in the way of all of my pictures. asshole

Tagged barzal97

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barzal97 right because your camera definitely wasn’t looking for me

yncrosby watch it 13

barzal97 ok babe, I see how it is

tysmith_6 hahaha, babe? thought it was one date

yncrosby 1 date … 2 dates … 7 dates, I don’t really know

alexnylander 7!? WITH THE ENEMY!?

yncrosby yours not mine 🤷🏼‍♀️

user1 probably using him for money

barzal97 other way around tbh

alexnylander just showed this to Sid and he says, and I quote “my sister will not downgrade her last name, he can become a Crosby”

yncrosby Sid acting like he didn’t know

barzal97 did he know?????

yncrosby of course, he’s my brother

barzal97 babe he’s gonna beat me up what the hell

jamie.drysdale who knew barzal was whiney

yncrosby me. I knew.

trevorzegras why do I not hate this

yncrosby and this trev is why you’ve always been my favorite 🫶🏻

user2 I bet she’s the best girlfriend

penguins but yn, think about the rivalry🤦🏼‍♀️

tysmith_6 damn these penguins moderators really enjoy the drama

barzal97

Liked by yncrosby, nhl and 54,880 others

barzal97 God I love this girl

Tagged yncrosby

Comments on this post have been limited

yncrosby love you most matty ❤️

barzal97 impossible love

jamie.drysdale 🤢

trevorzegras jamie get tf out

jamie.drysdale you’re on HER side!?

trevorzegras uh, yeah. made that very clear

alexnylander thank god Sid can’t see this

yncrosby oh stop

user1 I hate this

trevorzegras hey that’s my kitchen

barzal97 it’s a good kitchen

tysmith_6 can we keep it pg?

yncrosby we literally kissed?

tysmith_6 too much for the kids (jamie)

jamie.drysdale rude

yncrosby oh we love you jim jam 🫶🏻

user2 yn’s nicknames >>>>>

Liked by yncrosby

yncrosby

Liked by trevorzegras, user1 and 22,448 others

yncrosby someone tell me this wasn’t a bad idea. I just can’t say no to him 🤦🏼‍♀️

Tagged barzal97

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barzal97 don’t even pretend you didn’t want him too

yncrosby I did! but I don’t think it was smart!

barzal97 but who cares! we have a son!

alexnylander mmmm not quite

trevorzegras IM COMING OVER TO SEE MY NEPHEW

yncrosby OKAY

alexnylander what does Sid think?

barzal97 he’s literally here playing with him

kletang_58 Barzal has balls when he knows Sid can’t see this eh?

yncrosby back it up kristopher

jamie.drysdale now I can’t hate Mat

yncrosby because of the puppy?

jamie.drysdale yes! he made me an uncle

barzal97 hey whatever works

user1 does this puppy have a name??

yncrosby Captain!

nhl welcome the newest Penguins/Islanders fan!

Liked by barzal97

tysmith_6 dang this is getting serious

yncrosby as a heart attack

yncrosby

Liked by jamie.drysdale, ty_smith6 and 22,499 others

yncrosby happy one year to my literal heart and soul. I love you forever Mathew ❤️

Tagged barzal97

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[cherrywhite]

TSV Fan Favorite Survey Results

Last week I made a small TSV survey for the heck of it and ended up getting way more results than I originally expected!! Wanted to share the results.

When I'm in a "Who's your favorite TSV main character" competition and my opponent is Carpenter 🤯 (Okay but.. is anyone surprised?)

Fun fact: for a while Hayward had only one or two votes and idk why that surprised me so much. Though I'm shocked he got more than Faulkner overall

Top 5 minor characters, as voted: Val > Shrue > Sibling Rane > Gage > Sid Wright

Also unsurprising! Though I regret that I didn't word the question as "Pick up to 5" instead of top 5. Val almost got 100% of the votes in this category... off by 4.. I respect you but also who are you 4 I just want to know

Top 5 side characters, as voted: Acantha > Nana Glass / Greve > Charity / Elgin > The Homesick Corpse > Chuck Harm (though Cross came very close to tying!!)

Acantha at the top is also unsurprising! Though.. looking at the top one.. looks like we all have a thing for old ladies, huh? Definitely my mistake in that I didn't add Em and Vaughn in there to begin with💦 Shoutout to the one person who voted Helen. Also, we love to see that Daggler got 0 votes.

Favorite God, as voted: Th Cairn Maiden > The Many Below > The Trawlerman > The Watcher in the Wings > The Saint Electric

The Beast that Stalks in the Long Grass and The Last Word each got one vote. Also, The Chitterling got a vote. Henge, the god Hayward mentions in s1, the one that takes things people wish to lose, got two votes! :D Idk why, but it's such an unexpected pull to me, it makes me happy to see it was remembered!

Top 5 s1 episodes, as voted: Chapter 4 > Chapter 7 & Chapter 15 > Chapter 1 > Chapter 13 > Chapter 3, 8, 11, & 12 (tied with 3 votes)

Fun fact: of season 1 episodes, only 4/15 episodes weren't picked as someone's favorite!!

Top 5 s2 episodes, as voted: Chapter 24 > Chapter 29 > Chapter 19 > Chapter 17 > Chapter 23

Also not surprised because chapter 24 is also my favorite (probably my most relistened to episode and it still makes me cry). Though, I will say, I was surprised chapter 20 didn't have more votes since that one also seems to be a favorite writing wise!

Fun fact: of all s2 episodes, only 1 episode wasn't picked as someone's favorite! (okay, idk why it's important to me to point out, I just think it's interesting!! Though I can admit I could probably phrase it better. I think the fave episodes are spread out pretty evenly for each season though, which is really neat in my opinion.)

Top 5 s3 episodes, as voted: Chapter 46 > Chapter 38 > Chapter 37 > Chapter 36 (we are not immune to a good tragic love story, I see) & Chapter 43 > Chapter 44

For a while, Chapter 38 had the most votes which I thought was.. idk how to better phrase it, but.. sweet. Because Carpenter's returning home episode was the fave of s2 and if Faulkner's returning home episode had also been the fave... something something we sure do love these terrible siblings, huh? But! Unsurprisingly the finale is the big fave of the season. How many of us have recovered from it??

Fun fact: Of season 3, only 3 episodes weren't chosen!

Boooo I shouldn't have given y'all the option to abstain from picking!! "Don't make me choose," you cowards!! /lh

mandatory link to this recommendation

Favorite episode title:

Hi. So, um. I'm an idiot. And didn't realize that Google Form automatically turns short answers into a bar graph. So unfortunately, the results for this one is..well

And half of these are the exact same title with slightly different phrasing 🙃

BUT I'm nothing if not determined so I went through and organized everything though I didn't make a pie chart. Needless to say. I think we all know the favorite episode title (care to make a guess?)

Favorite episode title: But We'll Never Be Rid of Each Other (25%)

Its Wrath Shall Scald the Sun came second with only 9% of the vote. We sure do love our doomed siblings, huh?

[whateverloomis]

I dont know if you know her but can you do a billy x reader x stu with a reader who is lile hrh collections personality-wise?

She is very protective of the boys and whenever theres someone making them feel less then she just makes the person feel stupid and cry 💀

I feel like they would love the chaotic nature of their s/o amd have them do the calls just to make the victims cry

I don't know who she is, sadly :( However I came up with a little list based on your description! Hope you like it anon 🫡💖

🔪Fem reader who's protective over Billy and Stu🔪 (18+ content)

Note: Use of YN and (she/her) pronouns || Unedited

• She would definitely kill someone if she had to in order to protect the boys, and they would do the same for her.

• Stu is more vocal about his feelings, and when he told YN about Casey Becker dumping him for Steve she was immediately in to get some revenge and have fun while doing so.

• The calls Casey received the night of her death were made by YN. She served as the perfect distraction in order for the boys to execute their killings perfectly and without getting caught.

• She'd ask humiliating questions and say the most gruesome things.

"Let's play a guessing game... Who's the dumb blonde victim?"

"I'm gonna chop you up to pieces..."

• Once they got away with that killing spree, and any other kill they had planned, the boys praised YN.

"You're always so good to us baby."

"Tell me who you want to get rid of baby, we'll take care of it for you tonight."

• Billy was complicated when it came to feelings and expressing when he was upset or angry about something.

• When all three of them were planning to kill Sidney Prescott, YN was all for it. She didn't like the girl anyways. YN had to put up with watching Billy pretend he loved her and hear about how he couldn't get her to have sex with him.

• "I can't get her to give in and I'm starting to get tired of this shit." He'd say over and over, and YN would fuck him instead just to take his mind off of it for a little while.

"Fuck, you're so good to me baby."

"Yeah, just like that... Fuck, you feel so good."

Billy would praise YN while she was on top of him, riding his dick and letting him thrust up from underneath her. Use her.

• "When I close the front door, Stu will come out of the kitchen and you'll climb down the stairs so we can corner Sidney, okay baby?" Billy told YN the night they planned to kill Sid and she couldn't help but worry about him. About Stu. Her boys.

• She had to keep them safe. Stick to the plan and make sure everything went smoothly.

• She'd die for the boys if it was necessary. Anything to keep them alive and well.

[opposums-love-arson]

Scream Queen Book 1: Conventional Final Girl

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Stu Macher x Reader x Billy Loomis

Okay so basically let's just cut to the chase, the main character "(y/n)" is Sidney Prescott's little stepsister, yeah? Well, what happens when she takes Sid's place as the final girl? A whole lot. Disclaimer: All rights reserved to the copy righted owners of the Scream franchise. The only creative input I had in this fan fiction was the part of (y/n), almost everything else can be found in the movie. Follows the movie very closely. I mean the actual movie, not the script. Obviously switching out some parts to fit the narrative. It takes a couple of chapters to really get it kicking but I promise it gets good. *NO SMUT* these are still high school students and I do not want to overtly sexualize KIDS! And if you make the argument of "I'm not a kid" I'm 18 been there, done that, don't try it.

  "Hello, who is it?" I asked into the large telephone. 

"No one in particular..." Sounds like another one of the boys' prank calls.

"Okay Mr. No one in particular, any reason for the call?" 

"No reason in particular, just wanted to talk." 

"Hmm okay then talk," I said as I swiveled around in my chair.

"What's your favorite scary movie?" The raspy but oddly pitched voice asked. 

"Oh I've got plenty but you might want to sit down, it'll take a while." 

"I've got time." 

"Ya know, stuff like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw. Then there's creature features like The Thing. B-horror like Slumber Part Massacre or Sleepaway Camp." I finally finish my rambling when I hear my step sister and her boyfriend in the other room. 

"Do you really like scary movies?" 

"Oh yeah definitely but I think it's mainly because of my step sister's friends?" 

"Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah, I mean I always liked horror but they really got me into it. Especially our friends Randy, Billy and Stu, they're crazy about that stuff!" I said as I flopped down onto my bed. 

"What's a pretty girl like you doing with all those guys?" 

"They're not a lot of guys, if anything it equals out our group," I said, completely avoiding the whole 'pretty girl' thing... that was kind of weird. 

Hearing a knock at my door completely startled me. 

"Oh um hey I have to go but feel free to call me back anytime," I whisper into the phone quickly placing it back on the body. 

It was obvious the person on the line was saying something before I hung up but I didn't bother to listen 

  In popped Neil's head from the other side of the door. "Hey kiddo who ya talking to?" He said as he looked around. "Hm? Oh no one, what's up Neil?" I asked, now back in my desk chair. Neil was a good guy, I'm glad he and my mom started dating, they actually just got engaged! I think I was more excited about it than my step sister, Sindey, she's still grieving. "Just got done talking to your sister, I'm going to hit the sack, remember I'm not back until sunday. Cash on the table and call if you need anything," He said waiting for me to say something. "Alright got it Neil, have fun at the expo!" I waved him off before he closed the door. 

  My mom and I didn't move to Woodsoro until she really started dating Neil. It's always just been her and I for as long as I can remember, but it feels good to be part of a complete family again. I missed our old home at first with all my friends and family but Sid quickly took me under her wing. I met all of her friends including Stu, Tatum, Randy and Sid's boyfriend Billy. I'll admit it was weird at first because they just saw me as the little step sister but once Randy and I went on a ranting debate about which was the real pioneer of Slasher; Texas Chainsaw or Black Christmas, it got a lot easier. Even though Stu and Billy were pretty cute I'll never be used to Stu's wild energy, nor Billy's slightly shady behavior.

  The next morning didn't go quite as expected... There were reporters, cameras, and news vans posted up all around school. Sid and I were freaked the moment we got off the bus. She was looking around bewildered by everything going on until we spotted one woman in particular, Gale Weathers. To say the least, Weathers was a total bitch towards Sid's mom's name. 

"Can you believe this shit?!" We heard a voice pop up from behind us. Sid totally jumped. 

"Tatum, what is going on?" Sidney asks, waving her arm out to the school. 

"Yeah, since when was Woodsboro flooded with reporters?" I looked over at Tatum, crossing my arms over my chest. 

"You don't know?" Tatum asked both of us, a hint of amusement on her face.

"No," Sid and I said in unison, still confused. 

"Casey Becker and Steve Orth were killed last night," She said with a harsh but light tone just above a whisper. 

"What?! No way!" Sid softly exclaimed. 

I was too shocked to say a single word so I just listened. 

"And we're not just talking killed, we're talking splatter movie killed. Ripped open, from end to end," Tatum talked about it with entertaining ease, like it was just gossip. 

I think I'm going to be sick. 

"Casey Becker, she sits next to me in English," Sid said looking over at her best friend. 

I think you mean sat, Sid. I thought. 

"Not anymore," Said Tatum with a wobble of her head. 

She went on saying, "It's so sad, her mom and dad found her hanging from a tree. Her insides on the outside." Shoving her hands near her stomach. 

"Oh my god," Sid said as she reached for the back of her neck, probably to feel the goosebumps that appeared. 

"Do they know who did it?" I finally asked, feeling the urge to know. 

The two looked over at me with Tatum saying, "Fucking clueless, I mean they're interogating the entire school? Teacher, students, janitors." 

"They think someone at school did it?" Sid asked

"They don't know, I mean Dewy was saying this is the worst crime he's seen in years. Even worse than-" Tatum paused when I nudged her side, "Well, it's bad." She finished. 

The bell signaling the start of the first period rang.

"C'mon Sid, we gotta get to class..." I said as I lightly grabbed her hand, giving it a slight reassuring squeeze. 

"Yeah, alright..." She responded, removing her hand from mine. She's just going through a lot right now. 

  Sitting through the first period is weird when you have a seat that was right behind a dead person. Not Casey Becker but Steve Orth. He'd ask me for a pencil or notes every day because he forgot his. Claimed it was because of football practice. Soon enough the five minute bell for next class rang. A class that didn't have any dead students.

  Walking to my locker to rotate my books I was blocked by none other than Stu Macher. 

"Hey, (y/n)," He drawled out my name with a big smile, "Whatcha up to?" 

"Getting my books Stu, same thing you should be doing." 

"C'mon, you're not still upset with me, are you?" He asked with a fake pout 

"Yeah actually I am Stu!" I shouted in a whisper 

"I couldn't help myself, I mean look at you?" He said as he squished my face. 

Swatting his hand away I said, "That's no excuse!" 

"You can be such a prude," he said as he leaned his head on my locker. 

"No, it's called being a good friend with a balanced moral compass that can see when her friend's boyfriend is about to cheat with her." I huffed as I slammed my locker door. 

"C'mon, (y/n)! You can't stay pissed forever! You'll come around eventually!" Stu shouted after me. 

"Like hell I will!" I shouted back. No matter how abundantly clear my feelings for him are, I would never do that behind Tatum's back.

[metalheads-trash-bin]

top n bottom for ur trolls ships 😭

YOOOOO YESSS

Their sub and dom shit can just have “bottom” or “top” inserted and it would still be the same layout. I know it’s not the same thing, but for my thoughts they match up.

Branch and Creek - Branch is a switch with a large dom pref, Creek is a switch with a large sub pref. But every blue moon they might use that 1% that’s the opposite. Creek’s a snarky person until he’s put in his place.

JD and Trollex as a small fling and Chaz - JD was more submissive with Trollex (they never had sex though), he’s a switch with no preference with Chaz. Chaz is also a switch with no pref. JD’s preferences honestly depend on his partner’s.

Poppy and Barb - oooo this is a tough one. Barb definitely gives me bratty sub vibes, she’ll be snarky as fuck until you corner her. Then she becomes a stuttering mess. Poppy loves teasing her. I think they’re another flexible dynamic, with poppy being more dominant typically.

Clay and Viva - we all know Viva has a fucking strap look at her. That woman FUCKS. Clay might try every so often to seem dominant but that doesn’t go anywhere. Viva’s def the dom/top.

Floyd and Riff - Riff’s a switch with a high dom preference, Floyd’s a switch with a slight sub preference.

Hickory and Chaz are complicated exes - Hickory definitely depends on his whole..mindset. Cowboy Hickory? He fucks. Dude’s a dom. Yodeler Hickory? Submissive. Chaz accommodated either while they were together.

Val and Lilith (goth country troll oc) - another hard one. Lilith is definitely more on the dominant lean though. So I’d say her be the dom/top and Val be the sub/bottom.

Sid Fret and Carol - I think Sid and Carol honestly do whatever’s in the mood at the moment. Sid wants to be the top/dom? Okay. Carol wants to be the top/dom? Cool. They just fuck, they aren’t people that I could see having a direct line. They go with the flow, whoever wants to do whatever, they’ll do. If both of them want to do the same thing, rock paper scissors. But when it comes to what’s wanted more, I’d say Sid usually is the one wanting to be the top/dom because he finds it “fun”.

Veneer and Kid Ritz - I don’t think I can share my thoughts on this as these little guys have no confirmed age! In my fic they’re freshly 18 (for them being in rehab type jail reasons, not sex), but since they’re referred to as “teens” in the movies (yes I know eighTEEN has teen in it but still) I don’t wanna accidentally..yk.

Thank you for the ask! This was fun.

[snorlaxlovesme]

if my heart was a compass, you'd be north

Asymmetry is Death the Kid’s main weakness, and Black Star knows it. When he sees Kid’s arm get blown off by Noah in Baba Yaga’s Castle, he knows that Kid won’t be able to fight back. Jumping between them is easier than breathing, and getting trapped in the Book of Eibon is something he believes he can endure. And maybe he can, so long as he believes rescue is coming. But what happens when no one at the DWMA seems to find Black Star’s rescue mission as important as Kid does? Pairings: Death the Kid / Black Star Warnings: violence, suicide ideation, panic attacks, depression Ao3 link: [x] Partners' artwork: @drowsystarlight Neeks [x] @vin420 Vin [x] Happy Chibiverb '24!! In the spirit of signing up for a cute and fun mini-bang in the fandom, my dumb ass wrote 23k words 💀But that's because I had such wonderful partners, with fantastic ideas and even more fantastic art! Make sure to like and reblog their work as well! If for some reason you want to read the whole thing in one insanely long tumblr post, here it is! If not, please use the the ao3 link above

prologue

Inanely, the first thing Black Star thinks as he watches Mifune fall to the ground is this should feel better.

He doesn’t even fully know what he means by that. But when he looks at his adversary, his rival, dead on the ground before him, he expects a sense of completion to wash over him that never comes. Will it ever come?

Tsubaki transforms, holding Black Star by the shoulders as she gently lowers him to the ground. His wounds must look worse than they are, because concern paints her features as she looks him over, like she can’t quite decide which injury to treat first. Luckily, Sid is close by. The bastard was probably watching the whole fight and doing dumb commentary like he did when Black Star fought Kid last. He doesn’t say anything, no congratulations or kind words, just gives him a once over with his dead zombie eyes before holding out his knife and letting Nygus transform. She gets to work bandaging him immediately.

“You okay?” she asks kindly. She’s probably worried about how he would feel after taking out Mifune. And sure, that’s part of it, but not all of it.

Black Star can’t help instinctually posturing. “Of course, I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be?” he asks. He can’t see Nygus’s full face beneath the mask of bandages she wears, but he sees her expression shift when she sees his petulant frown. She has the decency not to comment on it, at least.

Sure, it’s a very loose definition of “okay.” The slice on his foot hurts like a motherfucker, and his eye and cheek are starting to swell up from Mifune’s onslaught of attacks. The wounds on his arms are mostly superficial, but Nygus finishes wrapping them with care before reaching into her medipack for a cold compress for his head. He’s probably not concussed, but whatever.

Tsubaki crouches down and gives Black Star that good natured-smile she always does when she can tell he’s lying to himself. “Of course you are,” she says. Then her tone shifts ever so slightly. A little bit more serious. This question isn’t one she wants answered with a lie. “But are you satisfied?”

That is a better question. And the answer is simple: no.

Will he ever be?

“Tsubaki,” Black Star says quietly, turning to look at where Mifune lays. “Do you think I’m closer to beating God, now?”

She lays a hand on his shoulder, right next to the slash mark through his tattoo.

“You’ve never been closer,” she says matter-of-factly.

That may be so.

But that’s not good enough.

He can still remember the crater in the ground, the rubber heel of a leather shoe crushing him into the concrete.

He looks at Tsubaki, his good eye blazing with determination.

There’s one more person Black Star still has to face.

---

“Where do you think he’d be?” Black Star asks as he races through Baba Yaga’s Castle.

It was easier than he thought to slip away from Sid and Nygus. For all their care, they were never the most observant guardians, and with the battle raging on around them it was easy to wait for them to focus on their comms so Tsubaki and Black Star could slip away.

“I don’t know,” Tsubaki says from her ninja sword form. Her wavelength is equal parts supportive and worried. She knows that Black Star needs this closure, but she’s still concerned about his injuries. Before she transformed, she offered to carry Black Star at least until they got inside the castle, but he laughed right in her face. Injury or not, the great Black Star doesn’t need to be carried.

He still has adrenaline pumping through him from his fight with Mifune. He might be limping a bit from the wound on his foot, but he’s still capable of moving on his own, and most of the grunts in Baba Yaga’s Castle look like they’ve been taken care of already. He sees dark clothed mounds lying on the ground in every corridor he takes, so at least he knows the rest of the teams were doing something while he crushed every other fighter outside.

“Sid mentioned that they still needed to destroy the moral manipulation machine,” Tsubaki says from her weapon form. “If I had to guess, that’s probably where Kid is heading.”

Black Star has no idea where that might be. He never bothered to look at those maps and blueprints that Sid and Nygus had scattered between them. Black Star was a big man, he didn’t need some stupid map.

Soul Perception would be nice in this moment, but that was like the one meister ability that Black Star didn’t have. Not that he needed it. He had his ninja intuition, which some might say was better than Soul Perception anyway.

“Kid’s a god, right? And gods don’t mess around with mini bosses. There’s no way he’s dicking around in one of these spindly spider legs. If he’s anywhere, he’s going to the heart.”

My heart is different than a human heart, Black Star. Maybe shinigamis just feel differently than humans do.

“Black Star?”

Black Star blinks. Without even realizing, he had skidded to a halt.

“Sorry,” he says, breaking into a run again. “Like I said, he’s probably in the heart of the castle.”

Whatever, Black Star thinks, shaking the memory from mind like it was one of the cobwebs that covered every corner of this castle. That stuff was in the past, and this was the present. He’d prove to Kid now just how big of a man he’d become, even with his stupid human heart.

He gets to the heart faster than he would have thought. The corridor he’s been running through opens up into a large room, and at the center sits a complicated looking machine.

“You think that’s it?” Black Star asks Tsubaki.

She doesn’t get the chance to answer, because at that second Black Star hears Kid’s voice, coming from one of the other hallways leading to this giant room.

“Who are you?” Kid asks, and he sounds…scared? That can’t be right. But he sounds rattled, and that is enough to put Black Star back on high alert. He’s been in battle with Kid enough times to know that he’s an extremely even-tempered fighter.

Black Star almost charges ahead, but a sharp feeling from Tsubaki slows him down. He can feel through her wavelength that she’s still nervous about his injuries. And if this person is strong enough to make Kid sound like that, Black Star needs to tread lightly.

It’s not Black Star’s style, and he wants to object, but he’s leaving bloody footprints behind from where the bandage on his foot has already been soaked through. His right eye is almost entirely swollen shut now.

He reluctantly blends in with the shadows, erasing his breath.

“My name isn’t important,” comes a deep voice. “But I know yours, Death the Kid.”

From Black Star’s vantage point, he can see Kid’s expression tense. It’s not unrealistic that someone would know of Kid, he’s the son of Lord Death, but something about this man’s tone doesn’t sound like he knows Kid superficially.

A hand reaches out, and that’s about all Black Star sees before one of Kid’s arms is blown clean off.

Black Star freezes.

In all their training together, Black Star has barely been able to lay a hand on Kid. This man ripped his arm off like he was flicking lint off Kid’s suit.

“Death the Kid,” the man says as Kid falls to the ground, gasping. Black Star can hear the tinny echoes of Liz and Patti calling out for him in their weapon forms. Kid doesn’t move from where he lays.

His adversary finally comes into view. A tall, dark-skinned man with a knowing smile on his face steps from the shadows and looks down his nose at Kid.

“I know all about you, little fragment,” he says smugly. He kicks Kid roughly, flipping him onto his back with his boot. Kid is still immobile, eyes glued to where his arm used to be, hardly breathing. “I know that you value order more than anything. And that all it takes is someone ruining your symmetry to render you incapacitated.”

Liz and Patti’s cries get louder.

“Tsubaki,” Black Star hisses through gritted teeth.

“He could kill you,” Tsubaki whispers back. She sounds terrified. “You have to call for back-up.”

But she knows Black Star would never do that. And even if he did, there’d be no time. This guy could kill Kid. And he might do it now.

“Shuriken mode,” he hisses again, barely able to stop a yell from ripping out of him.

“Black Star, no.”

There’s the shuffling sound of movement and voices coming from the corridor Black Star took to get here. It’s faint, but it could be allies approaching.

But Kid still isn’t moving. His breathing is getting loud and reedy, and his eyes are wide with panic. It’s written all over his face. His symmetry. His symmetry. His symmetry. He’s not going to fight back, and right now there’s no one else around to fight for him.

The mage holds up his hand again, and when Black Star sees a glint of metal, he knows he doesn’t have time to wait.

“Black Star don’t do this—” comes from behind him, because Black Star has dropped Tsubaki to the ground.

It almost feels like he’s seeing himself from outside his body. Black Star leaps from the shadows, red-soaked bandages trailing behind him as he skids between Kid and the enemy. His arm is already cocked back, prepared to punch this asshole in the face—

But something happens. The man seems to register the situation at hand in record time. His eyes flick to the far corridor, then Black Star, then Kid, and within the span of an instant makes a choice. Lightning fast, his grip locks around Black Star’s wrist, catching his punch before he’s even finished his wind-up. Black Star hears Tsubaki scream and flinches, waiting for the pain of his own arm being blown away, but instead a shackle locks onto him.

“What the—”

The other wrist. The metal clamps down and within seconds of Black Star’s approach he’s been neatly detained. He doesn’t even have a moment to process the situation before the man holds up a piece of paper.

A symbol in the center of it glows brightly.

That’s the last thing Black Star sees before he disappears.

-

-

-

-

2. death the kid

The time that passes by feels like an eternity.

DWMA medics approach, immediately working on wrapping up Kid and preparing to ship him back the academy for surgery.

Eternity.

Kid opening his eyes post-operation, seeing Liz and Patti sitting beside him.

Eternity.

Black Star officially being declared missing in action.

Eternity.

-

If Kid had to describe the mood of the scene before him, he’d describe it, bafflingly, as cheerful.

DWMA students whoop and holler in the gym as the impromptu sparring tournament wages on, the losers propped up against the wall with bloody noses and cold compresses pressed to their faces while the remaining contestants re-wrap their fingers.

In one swift kick, Patti drops another adversary, Kim falling flat on her back. Patti presses a knee into her chest and grins down at her like the devil.

“Okay, okay!” Kim wheezes, still struggling to take in a full breath. “I give, God! Get off me!”

Kid can tell from her expression that Patti hoped Kim would last longer. For making it this many rounds she seemed to give up remarkably easy.

“Who’s next?!” she shouts triumphantly, which only makes the crowd gathered around the ring roar louder.

Kid slinks farther back into the crowd, lest someone ask him to participate.

He hasn’t sparred with anyone one-on-one since his last fight with Black Star. Somehow it doesn’t feel right to participate in this kind of playful tomfoolery when he thinks about the condition Black Star could be in right now.

It’s been two weeks since the attack on Baba Yaga’s Castle. Kid only got to see Black Star for but a moment, his shadow casting down on Kid as he leapt in between Kid and the mage who had blown off his arm. Kid saw the determined arch of his back, the fist he had been prepared to throw, the bloodied bandages trailing behind him like scarves, and then in the space between breaths—

He was gone.

Kid picks up the pace, leaving the gym and heading straight for the Death Room.

Lord Death has been cagey about the investigation at best. Not like Kid expected anything different from him, but for this particular case it feels especially egregious. Black Star was already so injured from his fight with Mifune. When he disappeared all he left behind was bloodied footprints in the corridors and Tsubaki’s anguished cries.

He could be anywhere right now, and everyone else is having fun?

The sound of Tsubaki’s voice causes Kid to jump a little, so caught in his own reverie he hadn’t noticed he was passing by the DWMA infirmary.

“Come on, Angela. You have to eat your food, not just play with it,” she says softly.

The adolescent witch Mifune had been guarding is now being protected by the DWMA. Every day it feels like the world is tipping a little further on its axis. Kid used to be able to keep up with these kind of changes, but now it feels like the world continues to spin while Kid is stuck in place.

“I’m saving some for Mifune!” he hears Angela call from her bed. “Will he be here soon?”

Tsubaki doesn’t miss a beat. “He won’t be coming ‘til later, so you have to eat your food by yourself, okay?”

The academy decided it was best to forego telling Angela about Mifune’s fate. With her being so young, the pull of madness caused by her magic was still a very real possibility, and telling her traumatic news like that without a safeguard prepared was too dangerous, especially considering all the other issues the DWMA was dealing with for the moment.

Angela, in all her innocence, doesn’t miss a beat.

“Should we save some for Black Star?”

Ice flows through Kid’s veins.

It takes a lot longer for Tsubaki’s response this time. Quiet and choked, she murmurs. “Your food will get cold if you wait for him. Eat what you can, okay?”

Tsubaki politely excuses herself for a moment, and Kid doesn’t have time to pull himself together before Tsubaki is hurrying out of the Infirmary and almost crashing into him.

She stops short, stumbling backwards.

Kid looks at her.

Tsubaki looks at him.

For a few moments, neither of them seem to be able to speak. Kid feels his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, struggling to put together words that he’s had two weeks to tell her and still hasn’t had the guts to. Tsubaki’s blank stare is carefully constructed, not a single bit of emotion finding its way through.

Tsubaki quietly passes him, leaving just as quickly as she came.

Shame burns through Kid. He continues walking.

He gets to the Death Room just as his father appears to be finishing up a briefing. Professor Stein and Miss Marie have returned from wherever the hell they’ve been, and in true Lord Death fashion, it seems like he’s forgiven their transgressions instantly.

Kid silently slinks into the room, taking his spot on the throne-like chair Lord Death had constructed for him for a birthday not long ago. Kid felt he needed something regal to suit his position as a shinigami. He cringes now as he sits down upon it.

They finish their briefing, believing that Justin Law is the culprit who killed Joe Butataki, a meister who had a unique Soul Perception ability that made him a human lie detector.

“We believe Justin killed BJ to prevent the DWMA from being able to interrogate captured enemies,” Stein says clinically as he lights up a cigarette. “We also believe that other meisters with similar Soul Perception abilities will become targets for Justin and the Clowns moving forward.”

“Like who?” Lord Death says, cocking his head to the side playfully.

“Me, probably,” Stein says, though he hardly looks concerned. “Maka Albarn.” Death Scythe leaps from his seat at that. “And Kid too, no doubt.”

The hollow eyes of Lord Death’s mask do not betray his emotions, if he feels anything at all.

“Well,” he says seriously, taking a breath. Kid thinks for a moment that he might actually be showing some sort of concern or serious decorum, but within an instant his voice has switched back to bright and zany. “I guess we’ll just have to be on high alert!”

Kid scoffs.

“Stein, you and Marie will remain on the case to continue looking for Justin and find out what he’s up to. Spirit, let me know if you find anymore information about Medusa’s research or the whereabouts of the Demon Sword. That will be all! Dismissed!”

They all nod and file out solemnly, leaving Kid alone with his father, who has pointedly ignored his flabbergasted expression.

“That’s it?” Kid asks, heated.

Lord Death turns to face him. “Kid! You’re so quiet I hardly noticed you come in! What is it?”

“What do you mean ‘what is it’? Are you not even looking for that mage?”

Lord Death nods solemnly like he understands where Kid is coming from. “I’m no less upset than you are about the man who hurt you, Kid, but there will be a time and a place for you take out your frustrations.”

“I don’t care about me!” Kid shouts. He waves his arms in the air to prove it. The reattachment of his arm was a success, and being a shinigami means that it was completely healed within a few days. “That man took Black Star with him! Are you even looking for him?”

Lord Death fixes him with that blank stare again. Kid expects another stupid mood shift, but for once his voice remains even.

“Like I said, Kid. There will be a time and place.”

-

Time and place, his ass.

It’s been a month and a half, and progress on Black Star’s case is as slow as it’s ever been.

Be reasonable, a part of Kid thinks. The DWMA has about fifty different cases open right now. The Kishin is out there somewhere, amplifying the madness of the world just with his presence alone. Medusa has escaped DWMA custody once more after taking over Arachne’s corpse. Crona is still missing. Justin Law is still at large after killing BJ. Black Star’s case is just one of many, and there’s only so many directions the academy can focus its attention without spreading its forces too thin.

But the larger part of Kid thinks FUCK reasonable.

He tears through the academy library like the perpetrator lies within the pages of the dusty books lining the shelves. Black Star’s condition is still unknown. He could be anywhere. They could be doing anything to him. That’s if he’s even alive. He rips more books from the shelves of the restricted sections and throws them on the oak desk he’s been occupying for the past several weeks.

He hates this. He could be out there searching for Black Star, doing something to help him since no one else seems to give a damn. But he doesn’t know where to look. The mage that captured him is unknown to the academy, so now here Kid is, another night at the library attacking precarious stacks of books before him like he has an agenda against them specifically.

If he could just find some iota of helpful information, he could jumpstart the investigation. But most of the witches within these texts are long dead, and any material on Medusa or Arachne is surely being safeguarded by Sid right now, as he spearheads every other mission possible besides the one to save his foster son. Kid clenches his fists, struggling against the urge to sweep all the books off the desk and scream.

He hisses through his teeth and lets his fingers creep in front of him until they collide with a disposable paper coffee cup. He takes a long drink of the tepid contents inside. It was an offering from Liz and Patti, who are allergic to quiet, stuffy libraries but wanted to show their support in his efforts. The seat across from him was occupied by Maka a few hours ago, but she had to leave to go train with Soul, probably practicing their new Death Scythe techniques.

If this was a normal day, it would be Black Star would be sitting across from him. He was always somehow finding Kid when he was in the middle of studying and doing everything humanly possible to get him to stop. He’d crunch loudly on a snack not suited for library consumption and swipe sips of Kid’s coffee when he thought he wasn’t looking. Pencil tapping, idle humming, leg jittering, he’d last maybe ten minutes before loudly complaining that whatever Kid was learning in his textbook Black Star could teach him with his fists twice as fast.

“Soul Theory: A Study of Resonance Through the Ages?” Kid asked, one of the last time Black Star found him at this very desk. “You can teach me that with fighting?”

“Pff, sure I can,” Black Star said dismissively. He’d probably never opened that textbook in his life. “All that soul theory is junk anyway. Resonance is all about trusting your partner. You don’t need to read a book to know that, right?”

And, somehow, that worked. Kid found himself being dragged from the library by the wrist, Black Star cackling like a maniac for winning the war on Kid’s studies yet again (he was currently undefeated). They ended up in the weight room wailing on one of the more heavy-duty punching bags, then switching to bare-handed combination work when Nygus yelled at them to stop damaging the equipment.

Kid threw a punch at Black Star, hard enough to slice the air. It probably would have killed a normal human, but Black Star braced himself and caught Kid’s fist, holding tightly and absorbing the impact.

“Jeez, Kid, I had no idea you were that strong!” Kilik called from the corner of the gym.

Kid ducked under one of Black Star’s swings and glanced in Kilik’s direction, where he was examining the bag that would have to be re-stuffed sometime later.

Black Star dropped his hands, turning an ugly face to Kilik. “Um, hello? Your god is right here. Where’s Black Star’s praise?”

Kilik waved him off dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, we know you’re strong. But I didn’t know Kid was so good at hand-to-hand! Why don’t you do more close combat fighting, Kid? I know the Thompsons are guns, but if you wanted, you could practice with Fire and Thunder for a bit, just to see how it feels.”

Kid didn’t know what to say. He’d never trade in his partners for someone else’s, but he appreciated Kilik’s compliment and his offer. He was about to tell him so when Black Star butted in.

“You wanna know why Kid doesn’t do close combat? I’ll show ya.”

In a blink he was at Kid’s side. Kid put up his fists to block, so focused on an oncoming attack he wasn’t mentally prepared for Black Star pinching the sleeve of his shirt at the elbow and neatly ripping it off in one swift motion.

Kid fell to the floor instantly, eyes full of tears.

Black Star cackled.

“See? When Kid gets in close with an enemy, he runs the risk of getting his symmetry all screwed up.”

“Ohhh, so that’s why he fights with Liz and Patti.”

“That’s why he has me,” Black Star said confidently. “I do all the dirty work so Kid can focus on the battle. It’s simple stuff, really.” Black Star rubbed his nose smugly.

Kilik nodded. “I guess when you put it like that, you guys make a pretty good Resonance Team.”

Black Star snorted. “’Course we do. Any team with me on it is the best, after all.” He turned to Kid, who hadn’t stopped weeping in the fetal position during the entire exchange. “You wanna go get lunch? I’m starved.”

Kid’s crying continued.

Black Star rolled his eyes. He bent down and grabbed the other sleeve, ripping it more carefully to ensure it matched the first.

Kid’s crying stopped.

“Lunch?” Black Star asked again, standing up to his full height and reaching a grabby hand towards Kid.

Kid can still remember the warmth of that hand, and the warmth of that statement.

It’s simple stuff, really.

But it wasn’t. Kid was the most powerful meister at the DWMA. He didn’t advertise that he had such a glaringly obvious weakness. In fact, he’d gone so far as to never articulate it, which made it all the more meaningful that Black Star had so easily clocked it and always covered Kid without a second thought. Even during their battle for Brew, when Mosquito came barreling towards Kid, Black Star was there in an instant, taking the brunt of the damage. He’d pushed himself to the limit with the Uncanny Sword, all to keep Mosquito’s eyes on him. When Kid launched that final attack, it felt like a victory for both of them, with Kid emerging unscathed while Black Star could hardly stand.

But in turn, that memory always bumped into an uglier one. Not a sleeve, but an arm ripped from its socket, laying limp on the cobbled castle floor before him. It must have hurt, but Kid couldn’t even recall the pain. It was the asymmetry. The imbalance had him spiraling. It wasn’t a sleeve that time. He couldn’t be re-balanced in that moment, and he was going to be killed. Kid had been so certain of it, lying there on the ground, watching that menacing hand reach for him.

See? When Kid gets in close with an enemy, he runs the risk of getting his symmetry all screwed up.

It was going to be the end of him, and that’s all there was to it. It’s simple stuff, really. The trait that made him Death the Kid going to be his downfall, and in a way that seemed fitting.

In his shock, he barely saw Black Star leap between him and the mage. Kid only saw Black Star’s battered silhouette for one heart-stopping moment before he was gone.

And now Kid sits here, in the quiet library, waiting for someone to disturb his peace like always. But Black Star isn’t here.

Kid hangs his head low, the text on the dusty book before him beginning to blur. He rubs his eyes and slams the book shut.

-

This one-man search is running Kid ragged. He’s been at it for days—weeks, even—and his search is yielding no results.

If Kid thought sleep would help, it doesn’t. Probably because sleep hardly comes. He lays in his bed at the Gallows Mansion and stares at the ceiling bitterly, waiting for rest to wash over him, but his eyes stay stubbornly open.

It’s not like it would do him much good anyway. His dreams are often occupied by Black Star. Finding him too late, dead. Finding him on time, but he’s angry at Kid. Seeing the curl of his lip as he looks at Kid, just like the last time he saw him, the last proper time, when Black Star had come up to him and picked a fight with him in the DWMA courtyard after defiling the academy’s symmetry once again. There was a darkness growing within Black Star that Kid had been pointedly ignoring for some time, and when it all came to a hilt Kid pounded him into the ground, which only seemed to make matters worse.

Kid dreams of that too.

It seems unfair that, as a shinigami, he isn’t able to use his godly powers to control the narrative of his dreams. What’s the point of having all this power if he can’t even will his unconscious mind to draw up Black Star’s smile?

He gives up. There’s no point in lying here if nothing is going to happen. He leaps off his bed, stalking to the corner of the room and flicking the light switch, letting the ornate chandelier in the center of the room illuminate the endless night. Liz and Patti are in their rooms down the hall, so he doesn’t bother waking them. Someone around here should get some rest, even if it can’t be him.

His father won’t be home, but he doesn’t expect him to be. It’s a rare occasion to see Lord Death hover down the halls of the Gallows Mansion, and frankly it’s kind of creepy when he does. Kid can’t remember the last time he’s seen his father sleep. Has he ever slept? Would Kid know if he had?

It doesn’t matter.

He goes to his backpack and pulls out one of the offending books from the library. He has a clearer head now, exhausted as he feels. He was just reading up on Eibon, the magic user Kid and his friends saw during the Battle for Brew. He’s one of the few recorded mages in history powerful enough capture an Ancient One, someone like Lord Death, and imprison them in a place where they would be undetected. Lord Death claims Eibon has been dead for hundreds of years, but maybe someone is using one of his techniques to remain hidden from the DWMA?

Kid rubs his eyes, and jots down frantic notes about Eibon to ask his father the next time he sees him. He looks at the clock. Three a.m. He wonders what horrible dream will await him when he finally falls asleep. A good memory, he pleads with his brain as he feels his eyelids begin to droop. He folds his arms on his desk for a moment and rests his head on them. He turns his face and looks at his bed, blinking slowly. He knows he should get up, walk the couple feet to his mattress and fall into the nothingness, but his eyes linger on the edge of his bedframe.

It was the last place he saw Black Star smile, before everything turned to shit…

-

“Me and Tsubaki were thinking about leaving for a bit,” Black Star said seriously. Kid stopped his meticulous work and snapped his head to attention. “Taking a trip to Japan, maybe.”

It was a typical night for the two of them. Tsubaki and the Thompsons were having a Girls Night back at Black Star’s apartment, leaving the boys to themselves at the Gallows Mansion. Boys Night was supposed to be serious. Kid and Black Star had an upcoming Meister Exam they should’ve been studying for, and Kid had gravely promised to tutor Black Star. They’d donned their pajamas, Black Star in a muscle tank and shorts, and Kid in a silk black matched button-down set, and cracked open their books for all of 15 seconds before Kid saw Black Star’s dog-eared and crumpled book and promptly had a meltdown about it.

So there they were, Black Star was doing 800 elevated one-armed push-ups, while Kid had pulled the binding from Black Star’s textbook and was now painstakingly ironing each of the pages with a steamer. He placed each leaf of paper under a towel on the ironing board before him and pressed the iron down on them, then delicately stacked them beside him.

Kid looked at Black Star, where he hadn’t stopped working out, lowering his body to the floor in even, measured reps.

“You’re leaving?” Kid asked, doing his best to sound curious instead of concerned. “What, like on a sabbatical?”

“What? No. Just like, a vacation. Kind of. So we can learn more about her weapon form.”

Kid rolled his eyes. “Black Star, you just described a sabbatical.”

“Whatever, man.”

Kid nodded. He felt a little better, knowing there was a reason behind Black Star’s sudden decision to leave. He’d felt…off lately. The past couple battles they’d been in had resulted in losses. Kid had read Black Star’s file before, he knew that he and Tsubaki only had a handful of souls to their names, but for some reason those recent losses seemed to have been weighing on Black Star more heavily than others.

Kid picked up another page of Black Star’s textbook and placed it under the towel. “Are you going to Japan to meet Tsubaki’s family?” He clicked the steam button several times.

Black Star slowed down his reps slightly. “Yeah. Figured they might be able to help. She says they’re good people. They might know something about the Uncanny Sword that we don’t. Maybe it’ll help me conquer it.”

“Seems like a good idea to me,” Kid said, lifting a corner of the towel to peek at the page. Still a tad wrinkled. He also took a peek at Black Star, whose expression was similarly crumpled. “So why do you seem nervous?”

“Who says I’m nervous?” Black Star snapped defensively, lip curled.

Kid’s eyebrows shot up.

When Black Star saw his expression, he looked apologetic. He pulled his feet from the edge of the mattress and sat on the floor against the bedframe. “Fine. Maybe I’m feeling off.” He scratched the back of his head and looked at the floor. “The last time Tsubaki and I went to Japan didn’t go well. The Star Clan wreaked a lot of havoc there. They’re not exactly my biggest fans.”

The fingers of his left hand crawled up his right arm, unconsciously covering his tattoo.

“It feels like everything I do is attached to him, somehow. Like even when I do good things, it doesn’t make up for what he did.”

Kid would never say it aloud, but he liked this side of Black Star. It didn’t come out often, and normally when it did, he was in a bad mood, but there was something intriguing about quiet, pensive Black Star. Kid had never needed to ask Black Star his feelings before. Any other day he’d already be scaling a building to shout them to the entire world. But the dip in his eyebrows were a foreign language that Kid longed to be fluent in. At that moment, he could only guess what thoughts were swirling through Black Star’s head.

“You want your good deeds to balance out his bad ones? That sounds—”

Black Star groaned.  “Don’t say ‘like symmetry—’”

Kid met his eyes. “I was going to say ‘unfair.’”

That stopped Black Star short.

Kid put down his iron and sat on the floor by Black Star. The pages could wait.

“You aren’t your father, Black Star. You shouldn’t compare yourself to him.”

Black Star scoffed. “Like you don’t?”

Kid opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. It doesn’t matter if your parents are gods or murderers. People look at you and can’t help but think of them. Of what you should be.”

Kid understood. He’d spent his whole life being “Lord Death’s son.” Human adults looked at him reverently, knowing the power he held despite his youthful appearance. The students at the DWMA looked at him with envy, seeing how accomplished he was as a meister while hardly trying. Even when Black Star first met him, his first thought was to attack him and test his strength.

“It’s different for me, though,” Kid said. “No one wants you to be like your father. For me, people don’t just want me to be like mine, it’s expected.” This wasn’t where he anticipated this conversation to go, but once it came out, he surprised himself with the emotion packed in the statement. “I will be Lord Death one day. And everyone assumes I’ll be just like him. But I’m not.”

He spun a skull shaped ring on his right index finger. Then the one on his left.

“No one understands my need for balance. They think I’ll grow out of it one day, and maybe I will. But I don’t want to. It feels like what I was made for, somehow.”

He clasped his hands together tightly.

“But no one understands it.”

“Well, can’t you just be a shinigami that focuses on balance? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Kid stopped the tremor that threatened to run through him at how much he wanted it. How much he craved to be allowed to act the way he desired without being shamed for it. It was a thought no one ever allowed him to entertain. It was always stop being so neurotic, Kid. Pull yourself together, Kid. You’ll never be anything if you keep acting this way, Kid. Black Star might have been one of the few people that didn’t talk to him that way, in fact.

But it didn’t change who he was.

Kid slumped heavily against the bedframe beside Black Star. “I can long for order all I want. But when it comes down to it, my name is Death too.”

Black Star matched his pose, staring forlornly at the ceiling. “Guess we’re both fucked, then.”

Kid closed his eyes and let a breath out of his nose, close to a laugh.

There was something comforting about Black Star relating to his shinigami problems. Or, perhaps more specifically, being related to at all. Kid thought he’d gotten so used to being separate from humanity. For the majority of his life, he’d been told that he wasn’t like the people he would be serving one day. Being able to relate to Black Star proved that Kid might not be as “other” as he had been led to believe.

Kid thought about how otherworldly Lord Death—his own father— felt, even to him, and cringed at the thought that this moment might one day feel like a distant memory. Being shoulder to shoulder with Black Star in their pajamas, commiserating about their parents like two teenage boys afraid of growing up. What would it feel like, when he’s Lord Death one day? Would Black Star feel further away? Would it feel like that moment minutes ago, when Black Star said he’d be leaving? His stomach swooped again at the thought of it.

He wanted to revel in it. This closeness. He leaned heavily to his left, knocking shoulders with Black Star. The warmth of his skin against Kid’s was comforting. The contact was familiar.

“I’m sure the others feel like that too. Maka feels pressure because of her parents, surely.”

Black Star bore the weight of Kid easily, not bothering to push him away.

“Yeah, but the difference is Maka loves her parents, despite how she acts.” Black Star said matter-of-factly. Kid felt inclined to agree.

How Black Star felt about his father went without saying. He turned a little to face Kid. “Do you love your old man?”

It stopped Kid short. Kid chewed on the question for a while. He wasn’t sure.

They weren’t particularly affectionate with one another. He’d hardly even felt the desire to spend time with his father as of late. Maybe it was just because he finally had other friends. He had Liz and Patti, partners who loved him and complemented him better than anyone else in the world. He had Soul and Maka, who always treated him so warmly, inviting him to their apartment for tea and gossip like any other student. He had Stein and Miss Marie and Sid, authority figures that treated him like a child instead of a prince. And he had…

He looked at Black Star quickly, then looked away.

“I don’t know,” he said, answering Black Star’s question. “Maybe shinigamis love differently than humans do. He always feels so far away. I can never guess what he’s feeling.”

“Well,” Black Star said softly, shifting a little. His fingers twitched, brushing against Kid’s. “That sounds pretty human to me.”

Maybe that’s what this feeling was. Humanity. Kid didn’t want to let go of it. The comfort of being surrounded by humans, of being treated as fallible. Of being protected. Of being loved. As a shinigami, he was taught not to expect any of these things, and Kid was afraid of going back to that kind of coldness.

His fingers gripped Black Star’s, a hand almost as familiar to Kid as his own partners’.

This is what I want to hold on to, he thought. This is the sort of feeling that doesn’t require balance.

When he turned and leaned in to Black Star, he expected to see surprise on his face, but it wasn’t there. The look in his eyes was inviting and calm, that quiet part of Black Star that so few got to see. His soul was spiking nervously, but Kid imagined that in this moment his probably looked the same. It didn’t stop him from leaning in. Kid tilted his face to the side, nose brushing up against Black Star’s, feeling his breath on his cheek and marveling at how good it felt. He didn’t want to rush it, but he couldn’t think of anything else he’d rather do. Their lips just barely grazed each other when—

Black Star jerked away like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him.

Kid leaned back, panting.

The moment felt peaceful just a second ago, but now Black Star was skittering away on the floor before leaping to his feet and pacing across the room.

“Is something wrong?” Kid asked, stupidly. Clearly something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.

“No,” Black Star said, clearly lying. “I mean. It’s just—I can’t—” He folded his arms behind his head and turned away. Kid couldn’t see his face, but at that moment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

Black Star took a shaky breath. “It’s just too much, you know?”

Rejection washed through Kid, cold and sharp. It was not usual for him to feel like he was too much. Plenty of people couldn’t handle Kid; they’d even told him to his face. He just never expected one of those people to be Black Star.

His fingers felt numb as he twisted the ring on his right index finger, then the one on the left.

“Right,” he agreed quietly. “As I said, my heart is different. Maybe shinigamis just feel differently than humans do.”

-

Kid wakes with a sudden start.

Of course, his mind would conjure up the worst sort of dream.  He hadn’t thought about that for months. It was too painful to think about the sweetness of that moment, the bright hopefulness Kid felt as he’d leaned in toward Black Star, right before he pulled away. Black Star had left not long after that, and something about Kid’s room has felt haunted with the memory ever since.

Kid gets up, dresses in his suit, and leaves the Gallows Mansion. He can’t stay here, not with that memory lingering in his mind, not with the hollow silence of the mansion pressing down on him. Death City is most alive at nighttime, so Kid walks toward the city, hoping the bustling sound of night life will help clear his head.

Clubs boom with bass-heavy music, and Kid side-steps around tipsy humans stumbling down the street. It’s the sort of fun he’s never been familiar with, but the people look happy all the same. Humans put their bodies through so much just for a few hours of forgetfulness, and in this moment, Kid can’t blame them.

Unconsciously, his body marches him right toward Death Weapon Meister Academy. Even when he’s trying to avoid harsh memories, he seems to lead himself right to them.

Kid sighs and begins to climb the staircase.

The academy has always been like a second home to him. Being Lord Death’s son means the DWMA was always his playground. He’s roamed this campus more than all the students and teachers combined. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when his father told him of his duty to one day take over as the world’s Lord Death, that Kid had stopped stalking the halls of the academy and confined himself to the Death Room with his father. He’d had that silly throne built, convinced that he needed a proper place to perch for when he eventually ruled over death. He’d sat and observed his father’s actions for years, until the day he’d watched an extra lesson with a group of students almost get them killed.

Kid shakes his head.

God, it was always Black Star. His mind couldn’t conjure up anything else lately. Even from the beginning, the idea to join the academy at all was because he’d seen Stein use his wavelength to electrocute Black Star. The cruelty of the supposed “lesson” had Kid leaping to his feet, ready to break through the mirror and help him. It had always been Black Star.

Even if he didn’t feel the same way.

Kid reaches the top of the colossal staircase. The last place he’d spoken to Black Star.

After Black Star left that night, Kid had no idea where he went. He thought of using his Soul Perception to look for him in the city, but had respected Black Star’s need for space. He let him leave the Gallows Mansion in a frustrated huff. As much as Kid wanted to try and smooth things over somehow, he wouldn’t have known what to say. That he was sorry? That he took it back?

If Kid had a choice, he probably would have spent the next week avoiding eye contact with Black Star after his failed attempt at connection. But Black Star never did what people wanted him to do.

He cornered Kid in one of the classrooms the following day, a mean glint in his eye that had left Kid reeling when he commanded Kid to come outside. Kid followed him soundlessly, expecting perhaps a second round of rejection, and instead witnessed Black Star lightly walk to the end of that right spike and slam his fist down. Kid watched the spike crash down into the courtyard below, not understanding what was going on until Black Star challenged him to a fight.

And maybe Kid had been too harsh. But the hurt that had built up inside him over the past day was making his fists itch, and if Black Star wanted a way to take out his problems, Kid wasn’t going to make it that easy for him. It’s not like Black Star cared if he hurt him, so why should Kid give a shit?

It was symmetry, obviously. For every painful pulse of Kid’s heart, he laid into Black Star, not caring about his turmoil. Even when the fight was decidedly over, Kid placed a foot on the back of his head and smashed him into the ground, a crater forming around them both from the impact.

Weak.

None of Kid’s blows would have had a lasting effect on Black Star. But that one word would.

It was petty, and maybe a little mean, but it worked. Kid had won the fight, and he felt no better than he did when the day had started.

And yet somehow, when all the chips were down, it was Black Star who saved him from that mage in Baba Yaga’s Castle. The unsteady beating of Kid’s heart quickens at the thought of it. His arm, lying in a pool of blood in front of him. His body, frozen in place from the imbalance. That hand, reaching for him, to capture him, to kill him, to prove Kid’s glaring weakness would always be his downfall.

And somehow, Black Star was there. Kid didn’t even know he’d returned from Japan, but suddenly he was in front of him, saving him when Kid had been nothing but cruel to him the last time they spoke.

It’s simple stuff, really. Black Star had once said.

That’s why he has me.

Kid’s vision blurs as he looks at that spike. From where he stands, no one would ever be able to tell that a ninja had destroyed it.

Weak.

The only weak person here is Kid.

-

Kid’s equilibrium has always been impeccable. That’s not the reason he’s swaying right now, as he takes slow and measured steps to the edge of the red spike. It’s not the height either, though the courtyard at the summit of the DWMA’s colossal staircase lies 50 feet below him. But he feels himself swaying all the same, the heavy mallet in his grip pulsing like its alive. It’s a dead thing, a normal inanimate tool, but the potential destruction lying within it is the same as any weapon student at this academy.

As the sun rises, Kid walks toward the tip of the decorative spike. Through his blurred vision he can just make out the heavy duty bolts he had hammered into it but a few months ago. The neat lines of melted solder is his handiwork as well, bringing out a soldering gun Kid purchased with his own funds to reattach the spike that Black Star had cruelly destroyed for a second time.

Maybe symmetry had always been Kid’s problem. If this was the one way he could prove to himself that he didn’t need it, maybe it would change something. Maybe Black Star’s investigation would finally become important, maybe Kid’s research would finally be fruitful, maybe the hollow feeling in his chest would finally stop gaping wider and wider, the guilt clawing at the edges of the cavity painfully.

Kid raises the mallet.

Symmetry doesn’t matter. Order isn’t important. Kid is a god, he will not be held down—held back­—by such insignificant notions anymore. He rears the mallet back, not acknowledging how his hands shake, how his eyes sting, because that doesn’t matter. He will destroy this stupid, decorative spike and prove once and for all that he isn’t a liability.

It’s simple stuff, really.

It’s not. He doesn’t need protection, he doesn’t to be saved. He’s Death the fucking Kid, he just needs to bring this stupid mallet down—

His breath hitches high, his shoulders going numb.

He just needs to bring this stupid mallet down—

He just needs to—

He just—

“Kid?”

Kid hauls in a gasp. The spike shakes, the even vibrations of footsteps quickly approaching. Someone is pulling the mallet gently from his grip, fingers closing around his shoulders and pulling him back toward solid ground. Kid can hardly see through his tears.

“Kid?” Tsubaki says again.

“I’m sorry,” he lets out, before falling to pieces.

-

He’s not sure how long he cries for. Tsubaki, in all her gentle patience, holds him through all of it, pressing his face into her shoulder, though she must loathe him. Kid sure does, so he can’t see why Tsubaki wouldn’t. It makes him cry harder, to think that in all of this he hasn’t thought of her feelings. He’s been so caught up in his own grief he’s barely had time to think about how hard these last few months has been on her, how the soul she was so intrinsically connected to is gone.

But she holds him tightly, her arms a warm and comforting embrace, her fingers gently combing through his hair as his sobs taper off into pathetic hiccups.

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, but it’s just as weak as before.

“What are you sorry for?” she asks earnestly. “And what were you even doing up there?”

Kid tries his best to explain. Between stuttering breaths and continuously swallowing down the lump in his throat, Kid tells her how this whole thing, this whole stupid mess is his fault. How he tried to fix it, tried to fix him, by intentionally destroying.

Tsubaki looks shocked at that. “You were destroying the symmetry of the academy? Why would you punish yourself like that?”

Kid has nothing to say to that. The answer is clear.

“Kid? Kid look at me.” With effort, Kid does. It’s the most eye contact he’s made with her in months. The cavern in his heart grows wider.

She lays a hand on his cheek. “This isn’t your fault.”

Kid jerks away bitterly. “Even you don’t believe that.”

It takes a moment before she responds again. Tsubaki takes a deep breath.

“You’re right.”

Kid’s eyes cut to hers.

Tsubaki’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You’re right. Part of me thinks it’s your fault. I haven’t been able to speak to you this whole time because I didn’t want to say it.”

Kid nods. It’s what he deserves to hear. He lets his heart crumble, the emptiness feeling all consuming—

But Tsubaki grips his hands in hers, hard.

“But Black Star doesn’t think that.”

Kid’s voice is small. “What?”

Tsubaki rubs her thumbs over Kid’s knuckles. “I know my partner better than anyone. Black Star would never for a second blame you for the predicament he’s in now. It was his choice to jump between you and that man. And he didn’t do it because you were too weak,” Tsubaki says with a sad smile. “He did it because he’s Black Star. He’d never willingly stand aside if you were going to be hurt. That’s just the kind of person he is.”

The pressure inside of Kid lightens, just a little bit.

“He’s an idiot,” Kid says, mirroring Tsubaki’s sad smile.

A little laugh escapes her. “I know that better than anyone, too.” She swings their hands between them gently. “So, if you can forgive my partner for being an idiot and getting himself into trouble, you can forgive yourself too, right? Neither of you can help who you are.”

The smile stays on Kid’s face until that last part. But what she said has helped him. He’s made his mind up.

“You’re right, Tsubaki,” he says, feeling more sure of himself than he has all day.

He can’t help who he is.

-

Kid marches into the Death Room, set on finally having an honest talk with his father. He’s waited long enough for the nebulous “time and place” to rescue Black Star. If Lord Death himself wasn’t going to spearhead the search, Kid would do it himself.

At least, that was the conversation he planned on having. But instead of finding his father sitting idly at his tea table, when Kid enters the Death Room, he sees, of all things, a party.

Raucous music thumps through the chamber. There are three scantily clad Chupa Cabra’s employees distributing booze to Spirit Albarn, Professor Stein, and Miss Marie. Even his father holds a cup, liquid sloshing over the side as he raises his arm with the others in a hearty cheer. For some reason, Maka and Soul are here too, standing a few paces back, looking just as baffled as Kid and Tsubaki.

Kid feels like he walked into another dimension.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Lord Death tips his head back to look around Spirit, whose tie is wound around his head like a headband.

“Kid! Perfect timing! Come join the party!”

The party.

The

party.

The low-hanging misty clouds in the Death Room start to darken.

“Kid?”

His father’s silly voice comes out confused. Like he couldn’t possibly gather why this joyous celebration of life might not be appropriate, given the situation. All of the situations.

“Is now really the time, Father?” Kid asks, voice low.

“Come, sit down, have some food! I was just going to tell—”

“No,” Kid says.

Thunder claps loudly. The whole room flinches. Kid doesn’t care.

“I’m going to tell you something. Your nonchalance for the past few months has been shameful. One of your students was kidnapped on one of your missions, and you’ve done nothing for him. And now you audaciously throw a party when the GOD OF MADNESS is bringing the world to ruin, something else that YOU CAUSED—”

The thunder bellows again, and when lightning flashes across the Death Room, all the inhabitants instinctively duck.

Lord Death stands up and hovers over Kid at his full height, the soulless eyes of his mask looking down at him intimidatingly.

“Kid, stop.”

And for once, he doesn’t use his silly voice.

Kid doesn’t back down, but he takes a deep, slow breath. The clouds in the Death Room dissipate, and the room slowly starts to brighten. Kid looks at his father.

Lord Death’s voice is calm. He reaches a large, gloved hand backwards. Maka steps forward gingerly and places a thick white book in his over-sized palm.

“We were celebrating because—” he holds the book out to Kid “—we found him.”

Kid gasps.

Like flicking on a light, the Chupa Cabra employee’s souls light up, powerful magic radiating from them. Kid blinks at the realization. They’ve released Soul Protect. They’re witches.

None of the other meisters in the room look surprised. Stein and Sid watch the women carefully, and Maka’s eyes are on the book in Lord Death’s hands, guilt clouding her expression.

Lord Death ignores everyone else’s reactions, eyes boring into Kid’s and Kid’s only.

“We found Black Star. Extraction begins tomorrow.”

-

-

-

-

3. black star

It takes Black Star longer than it probably should to realize what’s happened to him.

He remembers Baba Yaga’s Castle. He remembers Kid’s panic, his arm splattering to the floor, a few feet from the rest of him. He remembers a menacing hand, reaching for him once more, this time with the intent to do much worse than remove an arm. He remembers running. And then--?

He shakes his head a little, the movement causing a loud clanking sound above his head. The sound stirs his memory a bit more, and as his thoughts start to clear his senses return to him. There’s an awkward stretch to his arms, his shoulders rotated uncomfortably. His pulse pounds in his ears. And he feels heavy.

Finally, Black Star peels his eyes open.

This doesn’t look like Baba Yaga’s Castle.

It’s darker than he expected. He’s in a large room, or at least he assumes it’s a room. Beneath his feet is a dusty black and white tiled floor, and before him he sees an ornate table and a matching set of chairs. When he cranes his neck he can see a high vaulted ceiling above him, but even when he squints into the darkness beyond the table set, he can’t make out the opposing wall that must be there. The only light in the room comes from somewhere behind him. A stained-glass window shines a colored pattern on the tiled floor.

Black Star himself seems to be suspended in the middle of the room. The shackles that were slapped on his wrists moments ago (when was that? Minutes ago? Hours? How long was he out?) are still on him, now attached to a long chain hanging from the ceiling. Black Star’s arms have been yanked above his head, so here he hangs, his bare and bandaged feet just barely able to touch the floor. How the hell did he get here?

“Hello?” Black Star croaks into the empty air. He grimaces at the sound of his own voice, clears his throat and tries again. “HELLO?”

Nothing.

Where the hell is he? How long was he out?

“HELLOOOOO? ANYBODY HOME?” he shouts, his voice stretching and echoing in the dimly lit chamber.

A hard blow to his back, right between his shoulder blades, alerts Black Star that he is not alone in this room. The breath he just sucked in to prepare for another shout is abruptly punched out of him. Black Star flounders for a moment before pulling in a gasp.

“Silence, captive! You’re disturbing Noah-sama’s peace!” his assailant says, squeaky and irritated.

“Who the fuck are you?” Black Star growls.

A boy not much older than Black Star, with slicked back hair and an impressive frown comes into view.

“My name is no concern of yours, captive,” he says.

A much more intimidating voice speaks next. “So your name is of no concern, but you dare to speak mine?”

The boy shivers, his upper half snapping downward into a deep bow.

“I deeply apologize, Noah-sama!”

A dark hand reaches out and strikes the boy abruptly on the back of the head. His bow deepens. It’s that hand that has Black Star on alert. This is the man who hurt Kid with a single touch. He twists in his restraints, pulling his hands apart and testing the strength of the iron when—

“AUGHH!!!”

A shock like a bolt of lightning runs through Black Star.

He hangs limply for a moment, panting. The pain surprised him so much that he doesn’t have the energy to cower when Noah steps into his line of sight. Through the haze of pain Black Star eyes him, a tall, dark-skinned man in a military cap and black jacket. His clothing doesn’t hold Black Star’s attention though. All he can fixate on is the smug grin on his face.

“Do you like your restraints? I made them myself.”

Black Star grits his teeth.

“No? A shame. They’re a fine creation. A bona fide Magic Tool worthy of Eibon himself.” He paces around Black Star, just out of his line of vision. Try as he might to twist his neck to look over his shoulder, the angle of Black Star’s arms above his head limits his range of moment. Noah’s deep voice continues to speak somewhere behind him. “Unfortunately, those cuffs were not meant for you. You’re an unexpected complication to my plans.”

Black Star doesn’t like the sound of that. An “unexpected complication” sounds a lot like “collateral damage.” He can’t see the man’s hands. He has no way to block him if Noah touches him.

“You see,” he continues calmly. “There was a certain person I was expecting to add to my collection. A god, if you will.”

Kid.

Black Star twists again, trying to track Noah’s movements.

“And I was this close to having him in my grasp. That is until someone—”

Suddenly he’s in front of Black Star, fist rearing back. Black Star lifts his legs up, forcing himself to hang heavily from his restraints to protect himself, but Noah reacquaints Black Star with his superhuman speed, easily connecting his fist to Black Star’s stomach before his knees can guard his core. The blow is so much worse than his servant’s last hit. Black Star swings back on his restraints, almost perpendicular with the ground, before heavily flopping back down, his full weight snapping against the place where his wrists touch the cuffs.

“—decided to take his place. It was very rude of you to ruin my plans, boy.”

It takes a moment for Black Star to even remember how to cough, much less breathe. He rasps out a dry breath, surprising himself that he hasn’t thrown up. His restraints clank together loudly for several long moments, until Black Star finally stops swinging.

Noah looks down his nose at Black Star like he’s an insect needing to be squashed.

“Now I have to decide what to do with you.”

“Kill him, Noah-sama. We have no need for him,” the younger boy calls petulantly.

“Silence, Gopher,” Noah snaps, rearing back to look at the boy. Gopher cowers in fear yet again.

Noah turns his attention back to Black Star. “My insulant servant makes a point,” he says to Black Star, continuing his slow pacing once more. “I have no need for humans in my collection. I’m aiming my attention much higher.”

Black Star’s blood boils at the insinuation of his own weakness. Against his better judgement, he speaks up. “You think I’m not worth keeping around? I’m not just a human. I’m the man who will defeat GOD,” he says with his whole chest.

Noah’s eyebrows rise in surprise, hidden under the shadow of his cap. “Oh?”

He rears back his fist again. Black Star knew speaking out of turn would have consequences, but if this man was going to kill him anyway, the least Black Star could do was not be a fucking wimp about it. He braces himself for the blow—

But it never comes.

Noah’s fist stops centimeters from his face, the veins popping in his arms from restraint.

He lowers his arm slowly. “You think you will defeat God?”

Black Star spits at his feet, a small bit of blood mixed into his saliva. “I know I will.”

Noah appraises him. His silence is just as intimidating as his yelling. Black Star does his best not to wince or tense just feeling Noah’s gaze fall on him. Something in Noah’s expression changes, like the flip of a switch, from intensity to calm neutrality.

A small flame lights inside of Black Star. Maybe this man won’t kill him.

Suddenly, that all-encompassing electric current runs through his body again, a cobra strike of unadulterated pain.

Black Star screams. It only lasts a moment, but it’s just as powerful as the first time, and just as surprising. All of Black Star’s nerve endings feel fried.

Black Star cracks open an eyelid he barely remembers closing, and when his vision clears, he sees Noah’s face, directly in front of his.

“You think you will defeat God.” A smug grin splits his face in two as he watches Black Star tremble. Black Star can feel Noah’s breath on his face as whispers with a vindictive kind of glee. “You can’t even get yourself out of those cuffs.”

Black Star lunges at him, but is stopped short by his restraints.

When the shock rips through his body this time, he expects it.

-

Black Star is left alive, but only just.

He’s not sure where he is, but it doesn’t seem like the reality he’s used to. He hasn’t had a crumb of food or a drop to water in what feels like days, but somehow, he’s still kicking.

And kicking he is, aiming a wild shot at Gopher, the servant boy who seems to have been tasked with watching over him while Noah is away. Black Star isn’t close enough to make contact unless he swings back on his cuffs to give him more leverage. His wrists have been rubbed raw a long time ago, and it hurts like a motherfucker to do so, but Black Star opts to swing anyway.

He clips him with his foot, probably not hard enough to hurt, but he rocks back a little in surprise. It makes him mad, which is the real goal.

“Quit it!” he shouts, sounding like a child trying to appeal to an older sibling to stop bullying him. All of his tough-guy bravado seems to evaporate the second Noah leaves, which is interesting, since he’s a submissive little bitch the second Noah opens his mouth around him anyway.

“Make me,” Black Star says with a laugh. It’s easier to feel optimistic when the freak mage is away. Noah has opted not to kill Black Star—for now—saying that he’s using him as experimentation for the cuffs. All’s well for Black Star, who spends his time optimistically tormenting his guard. He doesn’t have to figure out the cuffs. That sounds like a Maka job, maybe a Stein one. His mind skirts off Kid’s name and swoops away from it, not wanting to think about Kid too hard. Last time Black Star saw him he was down one arm. Even if they did manage to patch Kid up to make him ready for a rescue mission, the last time they spoke to each other…

Whatever. Black Star elects not to think about it. He taunts Gopher in the meantime, knowing rescue will come soon.

A shock wave hits his body again, hard and fast. Black Star grits his teeth, shaking his arms in frustration. The chains above him clang together, taunting him.

“Ha!” Gopher mocks gleefully, now a safe distance away from Black Star. He sits on the table and stares at Black Star. “Not so cocky now, are you?”

The pain doesn’t go away once the cuffs stop shocking him. His whole body retains the sting. Every skin cell, every strand of hair, every muscle, every bone. It takes more effort than he’d like to admit to appear unaffected, but Black Star tries. He won’t let this coward see him down.

“Don’t have to be cocky to know I’m stronger than you,” Black Star says, his voice hoarse. His vocal chords get fried too, and god forbid these people give him water. “That’s not ego talking; it’s a fact.”

Black Star doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone frown so aggressively. Maybe Kid, when Soul sacrificed the Gallows Mansion décor as punishment during a game of pick-up basketball. When Soul said they’d move all the picture frames 2 centimeters if their team lost, Kid looked like he’d been shot. But even that hilarious expression has nothing on this guy.

Gopher stands up suddenly—on top of the table, of all places—and holds his arms out wide. Before Black Star can ask what the hell he’s doing, Gopher is jumping high, and inky black wings are shooting from his back and gliding him right towards Black Star. He gets a fist to his face for his smart mouth, and in one smooth motion Gopher has glided back to the table and landed lightly on his feet.

The whole thing lasted maybe 3 seconds.

His frown is replaced by a cocky grin, which looks wrong on his face, like his facial muscles aren’t used to turning his mouth upwards.

“Impressed now, captive?”

Finally, some entertainment.

Black Star spits out a bit of blood.

“Not even a little bit.”

-

It goes on like that for a while. Black Star taunting Gopher, Gopher taking out his inadequate fighting prowess on Black Star, rinse, repeat. Maybe Black Star shouldn’t be goading the enemy on, but he’s fought toddlers stronger than this guy, and it keeps things interesting. It’s better than hanging here, alone with his thoughts.

That’s a much more dangerous game. Because then his mind begins to wander.

How many days has it been?

How long until someone comes looking for him?

Is Tsubaki doing okay without him?

How is Kid’s arm? Is he recovering okay?

Has the search party already started?

Are they mad at him for getting caught?

Is anyone taking care of Angela?

Does Kid still hate him because of their last fight?

When will help come?

It’s exhausting. Black Star doesn’t like wallowing in his self-pity, but being stuck here has given him plenty of wallowing time. Just when he thought he was getting over that hump, passing through the storm that had been raging in his mind, he finds himself kidnapped and waiting for rescue. Another feather to add to the Black Star dunce cap.

It’s not that he hasn’t tried freeing himself. Gopher isn’t always around, and he hasn’t seen Noah since that first day. (How many days has it been?) When Black Star isn’t being watched by that brat he goes to work, using all the strength he can muster to twist his hands back and forth in their shackles, to push and pull and push and pull like he might be wriggle out or weaken his bonds somehow.

But whenever Black Star feels he’s making progress, his sweaty hand dipping a little lower in the cuff or the metal groaning a tiny bit under his force, a blast of electric energy ripples through his entire body, like it’s a lightning bolt designated to strike right when Black Star’s hope is at its peak.

The shock always takes him out, losing his concentration in escape and sometimes just making him lose consciousness altogether.

When he comes to, he’s back where he started, hanging limply in the dim light of the room, with dark thoughts rolling in.

-

It’s hard to know how long he’s been here. After this long, Black Star has at least been able to deduce that it’s not the same reality he’s used to. Enough time has passed for Black Star to either be dead from starvation or dehydration, and yet neither have done him in. He also notes that injuries don’t seem to heal wherever he is, or if they do, it’s much slower.

The bandages Nygus carefully wove around his head and feet fell away ages ago, and Black Star has watched the blood steadily pool beneath his feet for what feels like centuries. He watches the slow drips spatter into dark pools on the tile below him and invents meaning for the different shapes to pass the time.

A fist that looks oddly like Fire or Thunder.

A swoop that sort of resembles Soul’s scythe form.

A skull shape that looks the rings Kid wears on each index finger.

It’s not the most entertaining way to pass the time, but it’s a change in scenery. Sometime Black Star wakes up from another round of shocking and the blood is gone. It’s hard to tell if it’s the logic of this strange place that eliminates it or if Gopher has come and cleaned it up. Black Star hopes it’s the latter, if only for the hilarious image he has in his head of Gopher crawling beneath him with a cloth, mopping up his blood and cowering every time Black Star so much as twitches, fearing a kick to the head.

At this point he should have bled out, too. Probably.

But still he lives.

“Having fun in your imprisonment, little Star Clan boy?” Gopher says as he practically skips into view.

Black Star, tracing a pattern of blood on the floor resembling a cat, looks up suddenly at that.

“What did you just say?”

Gopher sneers. “I thought that might get a reaction. Noah-sama is very thorough in researching what’s being kept in his collection.” He sits down on the table and again and crosses his legs primly. He lifts up a clipboard he’s been carrying and reads robotically. “Black Star. Former Star Clan member. Collected by DWMA at age one and monitored regularly by head of the intelligence division. Weapons specialist. Assassin-in-training.”

Black Star rolls his eyes. Well, the one eye that isn’t swollen. “I’m not an ‘assassin-in-training.’ Just an assassin. Period. And what the hell do you mean, ‘monitored’?” Sid and Nygus were his foster parents, not some guard dogs.

Gopher flips through the pages idly. “You didn’t really think the DWMA would just let a Star Clan member run around off-leash, did you?”

“I’m not a Star Clan member. Those idiots were reaped when I was just a brat.”

“And you were the one that wasn’t reaped. Makes sense why they had to keep a close eye on you. Didn’t you just say you were an assassin?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Black Star growls. “I’m not like them.”

Gopher crosses his arms behind his back and smiles. “Sounds the same to me.”

Black Star wants nothing more than to wipe that stupid smirk off his face. He wants to kick him in the nuts and pound his stupid face until it’s black and blue. He wants rip his stupid oily hair out of his stupid oily head and hit him with his Soul Force—

A bolt of electricity rips through his body, shocking him from fingertips to feet.

“FUCK,” Black Star shouts. “God. Fuck.”

Gopher looks exceedingly pleased.

Black Star hangs heavily, ignoring Gopher and focusing on the pain, the way his whole body trembles from it.

This should be the easy part. The pain. Black Star has taken a lot of hits in his life, he thought he was accustomed to the feel of it. He was Star Clan after all. A double-edged sword destined to slice himself up at every opportunity. He had inherited the power and skill of his namesake, which made him dangerous, but not the morals, which made him an enigma. People didn’t know how to act around the boy who should have been reaped. He could tell since he was just a brat that every second of his life he would be forced to prove himself, and that motivated him when it would have made others crumble.

Black Star took it in stride. The scrutiny, the apprehension, the fear that he’d turn out like the demon that gave him life. He didn’t care why they were looking, all that was important was that all eyes were on him. Gathering adoring fans was that much easier when he already had an audience. He’d make sure that no one would be able to associate him with the Star Clan, because every time they heard the name Black Star it would be laced with greatness.

So he trained. He got stronger, faster, louder, bolder, and it really felt like it was working. He partnered with Tsubaki, the most versatile weapon in DWMA history, to further prove the point that he was the fucking best, and no one was able to dispute it. Except—

“Another mission and no souls?” Sid propped his head on his fist and looked at Black Star from across the table. “You botched it again, didn’t you?”

“Did I ask for the color commentary?” Black Star asked around a mouthful of dinner, glaring at Sid over his plate.

“No, but as a teacher I feel like I have the right to give it,” Sid said evenly.

“We’ll get one, just give it a rest already,” Black Star said, but he was deflecting, and they both knew it. He had the skill to collect souls. He had the drive, but—

He rolled his arm in its socket, his left hand gripping his right shoulder tightly.

Sid watched his motions carefully, eyes tracing Black Star’s tattoo. “If you’re still feeling self-conscious about it, the DWMA has name changing forms in the front office. No one would associate you with him anymore.”

But Black Star hated that idea. Changing his name was as good as giving up. He’d carry the weight of his father’s sins and rise above it, the way he always had—

Gopher’s bitchy little fingers snap sharply, the sound echoing in empty expanse of the dark room.

“Are you even listening to me?” Gopher barks, right up in Black Star’s face.

Black Star blinks.

No, he wasn’t. He doesn’t even remember zoning out, but somewhere along the way he got lost in a memory. The longer he stays here, the harder it is to focus on the here and now.

Gopher does his best to taunt him further, but Black Star’s mind is still back at that dinner table with Sid, wondering if collecting a soul would have made difference either way. Everyone already knew he was the strongest meister at the academy. He could have made Tsubaki a Death Scythe in no time at all if he really put his mind to it.

But there was just something about Black Star, son of White Star, collecting souls…

-

It was Death the Kid who brought things into focus for Black Star.

Sure, Black Star was strong, anyone with eyes could see that. But proving that he was the best was hard when people like Maka and Soul were so easily besting him in the soul-collecting department. And as much as Maka liked to trot around and act like she was better than everyone for being such a model student, Black Star could see through her shtick. He wasn’t aiming to be a teacher’s pet, he was aiming to be the biggest, strongest guy around. Killing small-fry kishin to rack up 99 souls might have been a quantifiable way to prove greatness, but where was the quality?

Enter: Death the Kid.

Black Star couldn’t have planned anything more perfect. A shinigami was coming to study at the academy. A living, breathing god.

Fuck soul-collecting. Black Star had a new goal. “The man who would defeat God” had a much nicer ring to it than “strongest kid in school,” after all.

Kid was everything he expected a shinigami to be. Powerful, capable, precise. A perfect match-up for someone like Black Star to test his skills on. Except—

Well, he also wasn’t anything like Black Star expected. Neurotic to the point of it being almost embarrassing, Kid dropped like a brick whenever his symmetry was disturbed. Black Star and Soul narrowly won their fight against him on his first day of school, a victory Black Star loved lording over him, but in the long-run it didn’t feel like it meant much. Black Star wanted a proper fight with Kid, and he wanted to win.

After that, Black Star measured himself against Kid at every available opportunity. In height, Kid was 2 centimeters taller than him. In meister skills, Kid had Soul Perception and an unwavering trust between him and his partners that made his power output explosive and deadly. In basketball, he had a killer jump shot.

“Are you just good at everything?” Black Star asked one day, smacking the ball out of his hands after the last play. Kid only smirked at him, which was all the more annoying.

But he was also such a weirdo. The first time they spent together by themselves was their mission to find Excalibur. Black Star couldn’t not go, after finding out his rival was searching to find the strongest weapon in the world, Black Star had to get to it first. To wield it himself or prevent Kid from getting to it, he wasn’t sure. What he didn’t anticipate was carrying Kid piggyback after he refused to walk through a few inches of water, worried about the hems of his suit pants getting damp. Black Star could hardly remember how negotiations went for that, just that suddenly his archrival was seated on his back, his legs looped tightly around Black Star’s waist like he was nervous he’d let him go. Black Star couldn’t make sense of it.

And maybe after that it was a little easier to tolerate him. He was fun to mess with, fucking around with things in the Gallows Mansion just to watch Kid blow a gasket trying to return everything to its proper place. He’d partner with Kid in the gym and show off his strength like it was nothing, only for Kid to make a comment about his superior pinky strength that would send Black Star into a tailspin. They made Patti measure their pinky widths with measuring tape (Kid’s was slightly bigger), and then they both spent the next hour trying to do pull-ups from their pinkies alone.

He was funny, with a wry sense of a humor hidden behind a prim and proper exterior. A sly comment coming from Kid always felt like a gift somehow, an exclusive moment the two of them shared.

And he was strong. Black Star, Maka, and their partners found themselves on Kid’s Resonance Team, and when their souls reached out for one another for the first time, Black Star’s connected with Kid’s with no complications: two Lego bricks clicking together like they were meant to be connected, while Black Star and Maka repelled each other like water and oil, despite being friends since they were little.

The idea of Kid being Black Star’s rival wasn’t at the forefront of his mind anymore, and he didn’t really care. They’d go into a battle together, and Black Star would jump into the fray with the reckless abandon of a man who knew his back was covered. Sometimes he came out a little more battered than necessary, but if it meant keeping his teammates out of harm’s way, Black Star didn’t mind much. Having all eyes on him was more his speed, and the glowing pair of gold ones that always seemed to be following him didn’t hurt, either.

But then things started to shift. Then Kishin was revived. The Uncanny Sword was getting harder to use. Then Black Star lost to Mifune. Then to Mosquito. Loss after loss after loss was piling up on Black Star’s heart, and the pressure was starting to hurt. Why could he not win anymore? He thought he was getting stronger, but all of a sudden every step he took had him backsliding further. Black Star could feel it affecting him, corroding his insides with every passing day. Something needed to change.

“We could go see my family?” Tsubaki said after finally cornering Black Star into confessing what was blackening his mood.

Black Star slammed his open palm into the swinging punching bag before him, not using Soul Force on it this time because Nygus kept harping on him and Kid for “damaging the equipment.”

“What does your family have to do with anything?” he asked crossly.

Tsubaki was more patient with him than he deserved. She always took his dark moods in stride. She smiled politely and caught the bag on an upswing, absorbing the momentum of it and lowering it to a still position carefully.

“They might be able to teach us more about the Uncanny Sword. Don’t you think the Nakatsukasa Clan would be the perfect people to ask?”

Black Star had always assumed every problem could be solved through force of will alone. But it was starting to become clearer that he needed help. He nodded, and Tsubaki let him know she would make the arrangements soon. It might not be enough to make a difference, but it was worth trying. Nothing at the DWMA seemed to be helping, anyway.

Going to Japan again was concerning, but Black Star would get through it the same way he always had. White Star’s mistakes were his to bear now. The hatred he received would fade when the people of Japan bore witness to Black Star’s greatness. Probably.

Kid saw through him easily when he told him about it. Black Star shouldn’t have been surprised. Kid had Soul Perception, so he probably just took a peek in Black Star’s chest and saw how erratic he was feeling. (Though Black Star knew deep down that wasn’t it. That Kid knew him. Better than most, in fact. Kid was always surprising him with how much he knew about Black Star, or how much he could tell just from his silence.) Black Star did what he always ended up doing around Kid: opening up. He wasn’t sure how an over-powered shinigami with a symmetry obsession had that kind of effect on him, but somewhere down the line Black Star had gotten closer to Kid than he ever thought possible.

But something about that closeness felt…wrong.

Getting close to Kid, in that moment, was too much of a mindfuck. Black Star could feel himself teetering on the edge of a dark precipice, and somehow Kid was beside him, talking about how similar they were. They both had issues comparing themselves to their fathers, they both held themselves to higher esteems than other people, and their perfectionism got the best of them. He framed it like it was a good thing, like they were equals, and it made Black Star want to scream.

Because they couldn’t be equals. Not then. Black Star was supposed to defeat God, and now here he was, leaving the academy with his tail between his legs to go find some outside source to help him regain his strength. Kid wasn’t allowed to be this low. He wasn’t supposed to be a fallible person with similar wants and fears. He was a god Black Star was supposed to fucking crush, so why did it feel like a black hole was swallowing him up instead? He wanted to hold Kid’s hand and tell him it would be alright. He wanted to feel the gentle press of Kid’s lips as his face lingered closer and closer, but nothing about Black Star felt gentle in that moment. He was on the verge of shaking apart. It was too fucking much.

He left the Gallows Mansion early that night, pacing the streets of Death City and trying to formulate a plan. The foundation of his soul felt shakier than ever, and he needed a way to stabilize his fragile wavelength. So, fuck it. He’d prove how much stronger he’d gotten. He’d prove it to himself, to Kid, to the whole fucking academy that he was indisputably the strongest. He’d leave the academy on a high, then go master the Uncanny Sword with Tsubaki.

The feeling of his head getting ground into the asphalt under Kid’s rubber sole was the final straw.

Weak.

Black Star was a man who contained multitudes, but he couldn’t take that final loss. He pulled himself from the crater in the DWMA’s courtyard and left without a word. He and Tsubaki were on a flight to Japan the very next day.

He hadn’t spoken to Kid since.

All that training, all that growing and healing he’d done in Japan, and Kid never got to see any of it. He’d meant to come back to the academy and surprise Kid with his newfound maturity and purpose. He’d apologize for the way he acted back then, and maybe, if Kid forgave him—

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Black Star hangs from the shackles in this mysterious, otherworldly realm, soundly defeated by one man and a pair of magic handcuffs.

Maybe he was weak.

-

“You are the great and powerful Black Star, and you will not give up.”

Black Star chants it like a mantra. Never when Gopher is around, God no, he’d never let him live it down. But when the shadows of the expansive room start creeping in, Black Star sometimes needs a reminder that he’s no quitter. That someone will come for him. He’ll get a small shock from the cuffs, who seemingly hate any time he tries to have a positive thought of any kind, but he keeps chanting it regardless.

Great and powerful. Don’t give up.

Gopher hasn’t been around much lately. Off doing minion things, or perched dutifully at Noah’s feet like the pathetic lapdog he is, maybe. It’s weird, though, not being guarded. Do they think Black Star doesn’t need a guard anymore? That he has no chance of escape?

It twists something in Black Star’s gut to think the enemy thinks he’s given up. That isn’t something he can accept. So during one of those long stretches of time that Gopher is gone, Black Star goes back to trying to free himself.

It’s slow work. He doesn’t have any tools, and the deep black shackles fit on his wrist almost to the skin. He’s tried slipping a hand out before, but the space is too narrow. Black Star focuses on the second means of escape: breaking the shackles.

He was the strongest student at the DWMA, it shouldn’t be hard. He can punch through walls and climb mountains without equipment, how difficult can it be to shatter some handcuffs?

He gathers all the mental strength he can muster, breathing in deeply, then starts pulling his wrists apart. Sweat and blood run down his face as the metal cuts into his skin. He just needs—to snap—the cuffs—apart—

Black Star cries out when electricity rips through his body.

God, every time. Every fucking time it feels like he’s making progress, the magic in the cuffs electrifies him like he’s metal rod in and open field. Black Star growls low in his throat, the frustration building like it always does. He can’t try again yet, forced to sit and stew while tremors wrack his frame.

“You are the great and powerful Black Star, and you will not give up,” his hoarse voice reminds him. It’s not as convincing as he wants it to be.

He waits for the shaking to subside, for the tingling in his spine to return to the same constant ache, then mentally readies himself for another attempt.

That’s what Black Star is doing when Justin Law suddenly appears before him

A piece of paper like a ripped-out page from a book, flicks into existence in front of Black Star, burning at the edges. Black Star stares at it curiously, watching the orange tinted border creep closer and closer to the center, then a bright flash of light like a portal opens up, and the youngest Death Scythe ever created was walking though.

Black Star can’t believe his eyes.

Finally. After who knows how long, help has arrived. Black Star will get to go home. He’s so struck he’s almost speechless from it.

That only lasts a minute before Black Star is screaming his head off.

“HEY! HEY! OVER HERE!” He wriggles his whole body, rattling his chains together as loudly as possible to get Justin’s attention.

He doesn’t care if Gopher or Noah shows up at this point. He just needs to get out.

It takes a while to get his attention. Black Star can’t fathom what he’d be looking at; the only things in this room are a table and Black Star. And the giant stained-glass window behind him. Justin’s eyes seem to scan right over Black Star, fixating on the large circular window for a long time. Black Star shakes even harder.

“JUSTIN FUCKING LAW. STOP LOOKING AT THE STUPID WINDOW AND HELP.”

Justin’s blue eyes finally flick to Black Star, his expression carefully neutral.

Black Star tries not to let his anger get the best of him. “Finally, jeez. I’m right here. You wanna get to work or what?” He shakes his arms again. “You’re a guillotine aren’t you? I’m sure you could make pretty quick work of these.”

But Justin is still looking at Black Star carefully, not saying anything.

“Helloooooo, Mr. Priest. Can you hear me? What kind of shitty rescuer are you?”

Justin smirks and taps a piece of plastic in his ears. His stupid headphones. He’s wearing them, even now.

“Don’t worry, I can read lips just fine,” he says evenly, though there’s the barest hint of amusement in his voice.

“Then GET TO WORK,” Black Star says, emotion rising within him. What the hell is this guy waiting on?

But Justin is looking behind him again, like Black Star suddenly isn’t the most important thing in this room. Then the hair on the back of his neck raises just a bit. He may be a captive, but he’s still a ninja. He senses that someone else is in the room. Multiple people, even.

He can’t imagine anyone else it could be, so he yells “Justin, RUN!” to an extremely unflappable Justin Law. He doesn’t run, but instead tracks the movement of their two extra guests as they step into view: Gopher, and worse, Noah.

“Good catch,” he says calmly, and it takes a second for Black Star to realize that Justin is talking to Noah, about him. “Taking away the Star Clan member weakens them considerably.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Noah says seriously, still looking at Black Star like he’s scum. Black Star is still blinking, looking at the man he knows is a DWMA staff member, talking to Noah like they’re best friends.

Another person walks into view, and Black Star really doesn’t know what’s going on. Giriko, one of Arachne’s lackeys, strolls in front of him and stalks toward the table, a beer bottle hanging loosely from his fingers. He sits at one of the chairs, legs spread wide. “I don’t see the point in keeping him alive for this long, Noah. You should have killed him ages ago.”

“Noah-sama,” Gopher squeaks from a corner.

They all ignore Gopher, like they should, and impossibly, Justin goes and takes a seat next to Giriko.

“Yo, what the fuck is going on?” Black hears someone voice his exact sentiment and realizes that the question is coming from himself. “Justin, what are you doing?”

All of the men look at Black Star with different degrees of incredulity, like they’re surprised he had the audacity to speak, given his position. Black Star himself is shocked too, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing.

“You’re from the DWMA, man. You work for Lord Death,” he says desperately. “You fought with us in the battle for Brew.” He nods his head towards Giriko, who hasn’t stopped scowling. “Against him.” He swallows down the burning in his throat. He can’t say the last part. I thought you were here to save me.

Justin is nonplussed as ever. “The only god I serve is Kishin-sama.”

Black Star’s stomach fills with concrete. A person from the DWMA has finally found him but isn’t here to rescue him. And now instead of inhabiting this prison cell with one minion, he’s surrounded by three killers.

“So what are you keeping the brat for?” Giriko asks, pointing his bottle to Black Star, who can do nothing. If they harm him, he can’t fight back. If they decide to kill him, that’ll be it.

Black Star flinches instinctively when Noah looks at him.

“He’d be good bait,” Justin says evenly. “The students and teachers care for him. Use him to draw them out.”

Giriko picks at his teeth. “As if. If he’s been here since the battle at the castle and they haven’t come looking for him yet, what’s the point?” He rolls his neck in slow loops, sighing at the popping sounds it makes. “They probably think he’s dead anyway.”

Black Star does his best not to react to that. As if it hasn’t been a constant thought in the back of his mind this whole fucking time.

But Giriko keeps talking, as if to spite him. He looks directly in his eyes and smiles. “After all, it’s been months.”

Months?

That can’t be right. There’s no way he could have been gone that long, without a whisper of chance at rescue.

But he eyes Justin, the first DWMA member he’s seen this whole time, a man who has no interest in freeing him.

…Months?

No, Black Star thinks. Kid wouldn’t give up on me. He’d know I haven’t given up yet.

Noah ignores Giriko, looking to Justin. “We don’t need bait to draw out the academy’s child soldiers. They prance about in public without any prompting at all.”

Gopher jumps in excitedly. “I found some just last week! Flying through the canyons. The Soul Perception girl and her scythe.” Black Star breathes a little heavier. She and Soul must have been out looking for him, right? Hope flutters like a small bird in his ribcage.

The cuffs zap it out of him, a quick and painful zip. Black Star grits his teeth.

Gopher keeps talking, unaware of Black Star’s pain, or perhaps just not interested in it. “They didn’t even notice my presence at first. Fools. I was able to stalk them as they goofed off for ages before they noticed. I’m sick of all of them. Flying around that canyon in their merriment. Like they’re untouchable.”

Wait, Gopher found them? Goofed off? Bitterness rolls over Black Star in waves. It’s nice to know they’re able to have such a fun time together. He’s been shackled here for months and they’re goofing off—

“Silence!”

Everyone in the room snaps to attention at Noah’s commanding voice.

“What I do with my collection is my business alone,” he says darkly. He stalks up to Black Star, who can’t help but shrink away. It’s no use, he has nowhere to hide, so when Noah stops in front of him, he’s just as vulnerable as ever. “If I want to leave him here to rot, that’s my decision.”

There’s something dead in his eyes, in the way he smiles. A haunting look passes over his face as he reaches above Black Star, grabbing the chain he’s hanging from to pull Black Star closer and swing him directly into Noah’s waiting fist.

“If I wish him harm, that’s my decision.”

Black Star gurgles out a cough at the hit. Noah is making a show of hurting him, just for the amusement of his guests, and Black Star starts to reach a boiling point. After all, he’s been here for months, and no one is coming for him. Now might be his last opportunity to bite back.

Using what little strength he has, he grabs for Noah’s hand, inches above his shackled ones, and releases his Soul Force, as powerful as he can make it. He’ll cook the fuck out of both of them if that’s what it takes. He’ll make Noah regret every taking him in the first place. He’ll—

A light shock leaves his hands, sparking into Noah’s. Barely hotter than bug zapper.

Black Star’s eyes widen in shock. That was barely anything. He can’t even muster up the strength use his own wavelength?

A shadow passes over Black Star. Noah’s stony face has transformed into one of wrath.

“You dare try to harm me?”

He grabs Black Star brutally by the hand, lifting him up until his feet aren’t even touching the ground. The sharp pain in his shoulders mixed with the rawness of his wrist being gripped has him screaming.

That haunting look has returned to his eye, and without warning he’s gripping Black Star’s hand and wrist in both hands and squeezing. Black Star thought he was in agony before, but the white-hot sensation of bones cracking has him choking for breath.

He barely holds onto consciousness when Noah drops him roughly back down, his shattered hand colliding with his shackles.

Black Star pants and shakes. His throat is raw from screaming, lungs paper dry. Tears stream down his face from just the slightest movement of his hand.

Noah looks satisfied.

He turns to the rest of his guests. Black Star’s eyes focus on the floor below them, not interested in their stupid meeting any longer.

Noah’s voice is smug.

“No one is coming for him. If I want to keep him here until he’s begging to be killed, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

-

They leave him alone, after that. A guard isn’t necessary, because Black Star isn’t trying to escape.

-

-

-

-

4. two souls connect

“One more chapter and we’ll finally have Black Star back!” Patti hollers encouragingly, wrapping an arm around Tsubaki, who offers up a tense smile.

Kid notes her expression. He feels the same. Traversing through the Book of Eibon hasn’t been at all like how he expected it. When the Chupa Cabra witches (with the help of a captive Eruka the frog) transported Spartoi into the Book, Kid expected to be greeted with another castle, like Baba Yaga’s. Or, at least, a prison. A fortress strong enough to keep Black Star contained, to have apparently kept an Ancient One contained at some point in time.

Instead, he was transformed into a female.

Everyone in their party seemed to have swapped physical sexes, bodies changing to forms opposite their own. It felt like a gag, as his friends guffawed at each other’s new body parts and outfits, almost immediately forgetting their main mission in favor of laughing at each other’s bewildered expressions.

The breasts that hung heavily from Kid’s chest only lasted a few brief minutes, a minor inconvenience that he paid no real mind to, seemingly the only one focused on the mission at hand. It took Kid a while to realize that each of the Chapters was centered around one of the Seven Deadly Sins, each of the new realms designed to ensnare any intruders in their own personal demons. It was an effective way to distract them from their main goal, each chapter they entered making it harder and harder to remember that their purpose was Black Star.  

It didn’t help ease Kid’s mind that he couldn’t feel Black Star’s wavelength. Even now, as the group had gotten separated, Maka and Soul getting swept away to the Envy Chapter without the rest of the group, he could still distantly feel their presence, their wavelengths glowing dimly in Kid’s mind like lanterns through a thick fog.

But he can’t feel Black Star’s wavelength at all.

Even now, with one Chapter supposedly to go, Black Star’s boisterous wavelength isn’t something Kid can feel with his Soul Perception, and it’s making him nervous.

They were so sure he was here. When Maka and Soul had fought the boy named Gopher in the canyons, she recognized the symbol on the piece of paper he had jumped into to disappear. It was the same symbol on the Book of Eibon manuscript she had stolen ages ago from the restricted section of the library. The memory boils Kid’s blood a little, to think he was so close to a solution, but the book in question was hiding in Soul and Maka’s apartment under their couch.

Through the witches’ magic, they were able to see the last people who had access to the real Book of Eibon, and both Kid and Tsubaki were able to positively identify that the mage who’d kidnapped Black Star was among them.

So, it stands to reason that Black Star must be in this Book as well, right?

So why couldn’t Kid feel him?

The worry claws at his insides as he follows behind his partners, falling into step with Tsubaki.

“Once we find him, we’ll contact Kim to retrieve us right away,” Kid says, voice low. He hoists his pack a little higher on his shoulders, filled to the brim with medical supplies. “Soul and Maka can handle themselves. They know our first priority is finding Black Star.”

It seems harsh even to his own ears. They lost Maka and Soul chapters ago and haven’t been able to contact them since. The last thing Spartoi needs is more members going missing. He should be stopping them, calling Index to make them go back. They should be doing this together.

But he thinks of Black Star’s bandages, trailing behind him like red ribbons. The desperate way he jumped between Kid and the mage’s outstretched hand, right before he disappeared.

Kid surges forward.

Black Star is his priority—their priority.

The bridge they walk on feels endless. It seems the nature of the book is that a setting will go on for as long as it requires to feel narratively appropriate, not for any logical reason. Perhaps they’ll be able to move on to the next Chapter when a decision is made?

“What do you think the book wants from us?” Tsubaki asks the group.

Kid nods approvingly, happy that she came to the same conclusion. She’s more clever than most give her credit for, given her quiet nature.

Liz arches a brow. “Doesn’t Index just show up when it wants to, to whisk us away?”

Kid itches at the thought of just waiting. Anything could be happening to Black Star at this very moment, and they were just going to stand around? What if he was hurt? What if something worse was happening to him? Did anyone else even care about Black Star? Or were they just ready to finally leave the book? The more he spirals the more he feels the distance between him and the others growing.

Kid almost doesn’t notice when the wooden plank in front of him disappears. He snaps back into focus, stumbling forward and catching himself on the other side of the gap.

“Hey! I think something is happening—”

The girls are gone.

Kid turns around. Surely he didn’t pass them just now? But they���re not there either.

In fact, when Kid turns around to face forward, the planks in the distance all begin to fall away. One by one, more and more, like dominos, dropping from their fastenings and getting closer and closer to Kid with every second.

“Liz? Patti? Tsubaki? What’s going on?” Kid cries, backing up as fast as he can. But the wooden planks are falling away faster than he can move, and without Beelzebub he has no way to fly. The final board beneath his feet falls away, and Kid feels a moment of weightlessness before plunging into the abyss below.

-

The falling only lasts a moment.

The same sensation from travelling to a new Chapter swallows Kid up. Like air being punched from lungs. Like paper grazing skin. And within seconds, Kid is standing in an entirely new Chapter of the Book of Eibon. He looks around curiously. They were on their way Greed, but Index wasn’t the one who guided him here. Could this be a different part of the book?

Kid looks above him, but the bridge is long gone, in favor of a vaulted ceiling, tall white columns, and an enormous circular stained-glass window that stops Kid short.

He’s never seen a window so marvelous before. The intricate design, the array of colors! The symmetry! It’s so breathtaking, Kid is completely captivated by it. He approaches it reverently, ready to bask in its symmetrical brilliance indefinitely, when a wounded moan from beneath it snaps him out of it.

There doesn’t appear to be any light here other than the rays streaming through the stained glass, meaning the figure hanging from chains before him is just a silhouette against the colorful light behind him.

But Kid would know that silhouette anywhere. It was the last thing Kid saw, in fact, before he disappeared all those months ago.

Black Star.

Kid’s heart skips a beat. The pain of not knowing Black Star’s condition for the past two months pales in comparison to seeing him now, because it’s so much worse than he imagined.

Hanging limply from a pair of heavy iron-clad shackles, Black Star looks like he’s barely clinging to life. Loose bandages swirl around his neck and legs, having fallen away ages ago, leaving his wounds exposed. His skin is adorned with cuts and bruises, one eye swollen almost completely shut. His right hand doesn’t look broken, it looks mangled, the fingers twisted at odd angles, knuckles swollen and dark.

It takes everything in him to not scream his name. Kid has no idea where Black Star’s captors may be, especially with the rules of this Book being so fickle. The last thing he wants to do is draw attention to himself.

But there doesn’t appear to be anyone else around. Black Star stands alone, bandaged feet just barely grazing the ground as he hangs there.

Kid can hardly bare it. Tossing aside caution, Kid sprints to Black Star.

“Black Star?”

He doesn’t stir. Hanging there limply in the multi-colored light, the shadows distorting his face, he looks like a corpse. A captive long-forgotten, left to rot in his confines.

It’s at that moment Kid finally notices what feels so wrong. Black Star’s soul. He still can’t feel it.

Panic ignites in Kid’s chest, heart beating in triple time. He can’t be, he can’t be—

No, Kid reminds himself as he skids to a halt at Black Star’s side. He heard a noise earlier. The only person in this room is Black Star.

That doesn’t stop Kid’s hand from trembling as he reaches towards him. He’s not even sure where he can touch him without hurting him more. Kid settles for gently tipping Black Star’s chin upwards, bringing his face into the light.

Kid’s eyes flutter close for a moment. His skin is still warm.

Gathering up his nerves, Kid cradles Black Star’s head gently.

“Black Star, can you hear me?”

It takes a while, far too long if Kid has anything to say about it, but Black Star cracks open his one good eye, blinking it a few times before his vision comes into focus.

“Kid?”

His heart pounds loudly in his chest in relief. “Yes,” he breathes, “Black Star, it’s me. We’re here to rescue you.”

-

“Here,” Kid says, digging through the pack all the Spartoi members were required to bring with them on the mission. It’s a survival pack, filled with a first aid kit, food, and other essentials that could keep them alive depending on how long they were going to be inside the Book. Kid has used none of his supplies, intent on saving it all for the person who really needed them.

Kid pulls out a roll of bandages and some pain medication. He knocks a couple pills into his palm. Then he looks to Black Star’s broken frame and tips out a few more.

“Don’t bother,” Black Star says. His voice is rough. Kid can’t tell if it’s from lack of use or from using it too much. He tries not think about it too hard. Black Star clears his throat. “Wounds don’t really heal here, so there’s no point.”

Maybe it’s the roughness of his voice, but something about the way he’s speaking sounds so foreign to Kid, it’s almost like he’s talking to another person altogether. He eyes Black Star’s injuries again. If what Black Star is saying is true, it means that the injuries currently dripping blood into a small pool beneath him might not even be current. Some of these could have been from his fight with Mifune.

It does something horrible to his heart, to think that Black Star has been in pain for that long. He looks at the supplies before him. The gauze and bandages won’t do much good right now, but he can still try to help the pain subside.

“I don’t care,” Kid says, swallowing the lump in his throat. He brings the palm of pills to Black Star’s mouth, cupping his hand right in front of him until Black Star relents. He accepts the pills and allows Kid to hold a water bottle to his lips to flush them down. Black Star drinks greedily. Kid can’t help but wonder about the last time Black Star had something to drink.

“Now,” Kid says, looking around the large, bare room. Or, at least, he assumes it’s large. The Book only shows you what you need to see, so the farther he looks in the distance, the more the ink fades to cross-hatching nothingness. “Where are the people that took you?”

“Dunno,” Black Star says, eyes on the floor. He’s barely looked at Kid the whole time he’s been here, now that Kid thinks about it. “They stopped coming.”

Maybe that’s a good thing. It means Kid might have more time to liberate Black Star from his shackles. Maybe he can get him out before his captors even know Kid was here.

But they way Black Star said it…

How long has he been alone?

Kid shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll be out of here quickly enough,” Kid says, though he’s not sure who he’s trying to convince: himself or Black Star.

But if Kid thought that the hard part was finding Black Star, he neglected to think about how difficult freeing him would be. Why didn’t it occur to him that the force that was keeping Black Star imprisoned would have to be stronger than Black Star himself?

He eyes the cuffs skeptically. There has to be something about them that’s keeping Black Star detained.

He reaches for one of the cuffs to get a better look. Black Star flinches violently. “Don’t—"

The second Kid’s fingers graze the iron shackles a shock runs through his whole body, frying all his nerves.

Kid cries out before he can stop himself, wrenching his hand away and panting.

“What the hell was that?” Kid asks.

Black Star is panting just as hard. Kid realizes through the haze of pain that he didn’t just shock himself.

“Yeah, those do that. Magic or s’mthin’, I dunno,” Black Star says around gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Kid says quickly, sick with the thought of putting Black Star through more pain. “I won’t do it again.”

His skin tingles from the pain, even after the shock itself has ended. There’s something almost familiar about it, somehow, but Kid can’t quite place it. He can’t focus too long on it, though. He has to find a different way to help Black Star without touching the cuffs.

He looks around the parts of the room he can see. “Is there a key, perhaps?”

“I’ve never seen one if there was,” Black Star says dejectedly, still looking down.

“Maybe if I just look around—”

“Kid,” Black Star says emphatically. It’s the most passion he’s put in his voice the whole time Kid’s been here.

Kid freezes. When Black Star’s face rises to look at his, Kid sees an unrecognizable expression on his face.

“There’s no fucking key, okay?” Black Star says. “There’s no key or magic password or hidden tool that will open these up. You can’t get them off. I’m stuck here.”

Kid blinks.

Black Star curls his lip at Kid’s bewildered expression. “You shouldn’t have come. If Noah finds you, he’ll kill you. Or worse, he’ll lock you up in one of these,” he wriggles a bit, so the shackles binding his wrists jangle together loudly. He shouldn’t have bothered with the demonstration; it just causes his face to twist up in pain. “And then you’ll be stuck here too. Just go.”

Something curdles in Kid’s gut. That’s what’s so unfamiliar here.

Black Star has given up.

“I’m not leaving you here, Black Star,” Kid says sternly, hoping to cover up any other unsavory emotions bubbling up. “I came here to retrieve you and that’s what I intend to do.” Retrieve. That makes it sound so clinical. Rescue. Repent? The semantics don’t matter.

“So you say,” Black Star mutters.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Black Star doesn’t respond. “Black Star?”

Black Star shifts a little, causing his mangled hand to twitch a tiny bit. His whole face crumbles in pain. Kid reaches out a hand—to do what, he’s not sure. To help, to soothe, to make things better.

But Black Star flinches. Kid’s hand stops.

He’s been doing his best to force his thoughts away from what Black Star’s been through while he’s been trapped here. To avoid thinking about the way those people hurt him. The physical injuries are plain to see, but it’s clear his wounds are deeper than that. Kid can’t stand it any longer.

“I’m sorry.”

Black Star opens his eyes. “What?”

He can’t hold it back anymore. The guilt that’s been clawing at his chest for the entire time Black Star has been gone is now threatening to swallow him whole. He looks at Black Star’s broken body miserably. Human bodies are so fragile.

“It should have been me.”

It’s the thing he’s been wanting to say this whole time. Tsubaki knew it. Kid knew it. Black Star surely knew it. Those cuffs were made for him. Black Star is feeling this hopeless because of him.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Black Star asks, all the bitterness gone from his voice, replaced by pure confusion.

“Don’t play dumb,” Kid says. Now he sounds like the bitter one. Except his voice is sounding thick, his throat tightening with emotion. “You’re not who they meant to capture.”

“So?”

“So, this is all my fault!”

“Wait, this?” Black Star looks down at himself, indirectly pointing out his injuries. “Or this?” He wriggles his shoulders, jangling the heavy chains attached to his cuffs.

Kid can hardly bear to look at it. “Either. Both. All of it.”

“You’re so stupid,” Black Star says. Somehow, it’s this statement that makes him sound the most like himself. Or, himself before.

But his eye. His hand. The cuts ribboning his arms and torso. He’s never looked more human to Kid. More fragile.

“You can’t beat yourself up about things you literally didn’t do to me, idiot.” Black Star says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “If you want to apologize for curb stomping me in the academy courtyard, I’ll accept that.”

That’s so unexpected, Kid finds himself actually snorting. He shouldn’t, he genuinely needs to apologize for that, but somehow he finds his lips curling up instead.

“There,” Black Star says. “Got you smiling. No one should be frowning when looking at the great Black Star.”

It does make Kid feel marginally better. Which is ultimately still frustrating, that the boy dangling in the center of the room in chains is the one doing the comforting. Some rescuer Kid is.

Because, despite everything, Kid still seeks Black Star for comfort. He wants to reach out to him, to feel his warmth and be reminded of those feelings, but refrains. He still remembers that flinch.

He sobers himself. “We’re wasting time. I need to get you out of here.”

It sobers Black Star too. Kid doesn’t even think he realizes it, but every mention of escape has him shrinking into himself.  

“Well, like I said. There’s no key,” Black Star says, trying to retain the same cadence to his voice as before, and failing.

Kid steps into Black Star’s space carefully. Black Star’s eyes meet his nervously. “I won’t touch them, I promise.”

He circles Black Star slowly, looking at the cuffs. There’s no keyhole. There doesn’t even appear to be a hinge or a seam. The cuffs circle Black Star’s brutal-looking wrists completely, one continuous iron circle. It must be the magic in them, like Black Star said. Kid could try to wrench them apart, but he doesn’t think he can do that without hurting Black Star, or without causing that horrible shocking. He twists the rings on his fingers idly as he wracks his brain for a solution, and jumps back suddenly when a visible bolt of electricity zips from the cuffs, shaking Black Star.

“Fuck,” Black Star cries out.

Kid panics. “I swear, I didn’t touch—”

“I know you didn’t,” Black Star rasps. He huffs out a few shallow breaths. “That’s not what causes it, usually.”

Kid pauses. “It isn’t?”

“I don’t know what causes the shocks. They just kind of happen at random.”

Kid turns this over in his head. That sort of magic doesn’t sound like Noah’s style. Based on how battered Black Star is, Kid assumed the man was seriously sadistic. Programming the shackles to zap at random doesn’t seem cruel enough. Not from a person who would who kept Black Star strung up here for months, purely to test them.

“Can you think of any of the times went off, specifically?”

Black Star looks like he wants to reply with something snarky, but he sees the expression on Kid’s face and stops himself. Kid might be on to something.

Black Star takes a moment to really think.

“When I was mad, mostly.” Black Star says, discovering a pattern. “When Gopher would say something to piss me off, I’d get zapped.”

“Maybe that means—”

“Well, no. That wasn’t the only time. Sometimes when I was by myself, I’d get shocked too. When I was—"Black Star stops short, like he doesn’t want to say it. There’s something about how he looks right now. A vulnerability that reminds Kid of just how young Black Star is. “When I’d be trying to escape. They’d shock me whenever things started looking up.”

Kid wishes he could feel Black Star’s wavelength right now. It would help him decipher what the pinched-up expression on Black Star’s face could mean. Shame, maybe? It’s been so long since he’s been able to decode Black Star. Has he forgotten how?

Wait, Kid thinks. He freezes so suddenly even Black Star flinches a bit from it.

“Black Star,” he says seriously. “What were you thinking just now, when the cuffs electrocuted you?”

Black Star’s eyebrows raise. Is he nervous? Kid realizes he can’t tell. Black Star is standing right in front of him, alive as can be, but he still can’t sense his wavelength.

“Nothing,” Black Star says, but it comes out so defensively, Kid is positive he’s lying.

Kid doesn’t care what the reasoning was, not really. He’s caught up in the thrill of almost having an answer. “Shift your wrists for me, please? I need to be able to see the inside of the shackles.”

Black Star grumbles something unintelligible. Kid only hears something that sounds like “no damn sense…” But he pulls his wrists apart as best has he can manage, so the insides of his wrists aren’t flush with the metal of the cuffs. Kid looks at them closely, watching little shimmers of colorful light bounce off the smooth inner edge.

“Black Star, it’s a mirror.”

“Huh?”

“The magic from the cuffs. It doesn’t send of off a signal to shock you at random intervals, it’s reflecting your wavelength.” Kid is so pleased with this discovery, he can hardly sit still. “That’s why I can’t feel you with my Soul Perception.”

Black Star looks completely lost.

“Look,” Kid says, trying to keep his voice even. “You know how when a witch uses Soul Protect, it prevents her from projecting her magical wavelength out past her body?” Black Star nods. Thank God some of their studying stuck. “The cuffs work the same way. Every time your soul wavelength spikes, the cuffs reflect it back at you in the form of electricity. It’s a mirror.”

Understanding begins to bloom on Black Star’s face. He looks up at the offending restraints, straining his neck backwards to stare at them.

“So you’re telling me, I’ve been holding myself captive this hold time? I’m hurting me?”

Kid nods emphatically, so pleased with himself for solving the mystery that he doesn’t immediately notice that Black Star isn’t sharing in his excitement.

Black Star lets out a single, hollow laugh.

Kid’s happiness simmers down. “Black Star?”

But Black Star just shakes himself a little. “No, that makes sense.” He clears his throat. “So how does that help me get out? I can’t exactly turn off my soul wavelength.”

Another idea pops into Kid’s mind. “We don’t have to turn it off, per se. We just have to neutralize it.” He steps closer to Black Star, craning his neck to look at the chains. “You know how Professor Stein would fight? How he’d appraise someone’s wavelength and adjust his so it was the opposite of his opponent’s?” He meets Black Star’s eyes. “If we use that method, we could cancel out your wavelength so it doesn’t hurt you. Then all we’d have to do is shatter the cuffs.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Black Star says, but something about his expression isn’t right. Just moments ago, Black Star told Kid the electricity would spike whenever he felt close to an escape, but right now Black Star’s wavelength doesn’t appear to be giving the cuffs any juice.

“What’s wrong?” Kid asks.

Black Star shakes his head sullenly and tries to perk up. “Not important. Let’s just spring me, okay? I’m sick of hanging here.”

Kid wants to press him, but Black Star is right. He shouldn’t force Black Star to hang here in pain longer than necessary. They’ll have time to talk after all this is over.

He takes another half-step towards Black Star, minimizing the space between them. Nervousness possesses him suddenly.

“This would be easier with our weapon partners here,” Kid says quietly. Weapons were conduits for meisters’ souls, after all. Resonating with Black Star without Tsubaki or the Thompsons here might be tricky. Doubt creeps in even more. What if he hurts Black Star? “I’ve never done this technique before. It might not be as easy as Stein makes it look—”

“Kid,” Black Star interrupts. He meets Kid’s eyes. “You’re good. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

Kid tries not to look taken aback but such Black Star’s insistent vote of confidence.

He clears his throat. “Okay. I’m going to need you to activate the cuffs. I need a bit your wavelength to resonate with.”

Black Star nods gravely.

Kid slips out of his jacket, then holds it in front of them and rips off one of the sleeves. He holds it in front of Black Star’s face. “Here, this might help.”

Black Star understands easily, opening his mouth and biting down on the sleeve.

Kid breathes out slowly. Black Star mirrors him, exhaling loudly through his nose.

Kid hovers close to Black Star once more. “Okay,” he says gently. “Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes Black Star a few more beats, closing his eyes. It takes incredibly courage, Kid thinks, to actively hurt yourself like this. He gives Black Star as long as he needs.

At last, Black Star opens his eyes, determination blazing behind them. Then, he activates his Soul Force.

The electricity ripples through him. Kid closes his eyes, blocking out Black Star’s pained sounds as he screams through gritted teeth, and zeroes in on his wavelength.

The symmetry of this project would have pleased him if this could have involved anything else but hurting Black Star intentionally. Changing his soul wavelength to reflect Black Star’s is the ultimate act of symmetry. He changes the shape of his soul like crafting a key to a lock. For every spike, Kid becomes a valley. For every over-powered attack in Black Star’s soul, Kid is a graceful block. For every ounce of boundless confidence, Kid projects subtle humility. For every loud, joyous laugh, Kid is restraint.

Kid opens his eyes and steps back.

Black Star stops shocking himself, spitting out the jacket sleeve and panting heavily.

“Did it—” his voice breaks. He swallows and starts over. “Did it work?”

It would have. Kid could tell. If he had continued picking apart Black Star’s soul and molding his own soul to be equal and opposite, he’d have neutralized Black Star’s wavelength.

But he can’t do it.

“No.”

Black Star’s expression is shattered. “No?”

Kid shakes his head. “I can’t do this.”

Black Star starts to tremble, hard. “What do you mean? I’m gonna be stuck here? I thought it was working!” His eyes blaze with panic. “You’re Death the Kid, you can do anything. You can’t tell me you can’t do it. I can’t—” His breath hitches high.

Kid’s heart is breaking. He reaches forward, damning the cuffs, damning Noah, damning Black Star himself for making Black Star feel this way. His hands cup Black Star’s face, before he can fall deeper into a spiral.

“Black Star, we will get you out of here,” he assures steadily. “But it won’t be me freeing you.”

Black Star falters. “You--?”

“You’re going to do it.”

Kid can’t free Black Star this way. Doing so would mean that the key to freeing Black Star from himself is to be everything he’s not. A wavelength that’s mild-mannered. Agreeable. Quiet. Small.

During his captivity, Black Star had been conditioned to believe that every trait that was fundamentally him would get him hurt. Kid can’t stand to think that that’s the key to his freedom as well.

“Kid, I can’t. I—I’m too—”

“Weak?”

Black Star’s mouth snaps shut. He doesn’t answer.

That’s what Kid was afraid of. Kid damns himself most of all.

“Black Star, you could not be further from weak.”

But he can tell that Black Star doesn’t believe him. After months of being alone, stewing on the most hurtful thing Kid has ever said to him, while unable to free himself from his captivity, it’s no wonder Black Star believes it wholeheartedly.

Kid can’t stand it.

“You wanna know the reason why you’re here right now?” Kid says, almost angrily.

Black Star looks taken aback by Kid’s sudden change in attitude.

“You’re here because you made the choice to jump between me and someone who could have killed me with one touch. With no idea what the outcome would be, you sacrificed yourself. There’s nothing weak about that.”

“You’re spinning it to be better than it was,” Black Star insists.

“No. I’m not,” Kid says. “Because that’s how you always are. Fighting for the sake of others. Protecting people.” He swallows. “Protecting me.”

“Kid—”

“You’ve been stuck here this long because your heart is too big, Black Star. Your soul is too powerful to be contained. They weren’t preying on your weakness when they put these shackles on you.” He squeezes Black Star’s face, putting everything he has into the next statement so Black Star will fucking understand. “They were using your strength against you.”

Black Star opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. The wounded expression he’s been wearing has transformed into bewilderment. Kid hopes that means he’s coming around.

“So, no,  I will not be neutralizing your wavelength. The great and powerful Black Star that I know would never let himself be dimmed like that,” he says with conviction.

Black Star finds his voice, quiet though it may be. “I am a big star, after all.”

Kid’s soul warms at the sound of it.

He beams back at Black Star.

“The biggest.”

-

It’s different this time. They both know it will hurt, but instead of fear, both Kid and Black Star are looking at each other with certainty.

Kid’s places a hand on Black Star’s chest, warm and solid, right over his heart.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Black Star assures once more, though Kid knows it’s only a formality. “You don’t have to feel it, too.”

Kid rolls his eyes. “Now who’s being stupid?”

The edges of Black Star’s mouth curl up, just a little.

Kid breathes in deeply, centering himself. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Black Star nods. It takes less time than before, for Black Star to rev up his soul wavelength. The electric current rushes through both of them now, and it hits Kid again just how awful these past few months must have been for Black Star. Electricity rips up and down Kid’s spine, but he grits his teeth and focuses on his job.

His soul grabs onto Black Star’s wavelength, same as before, but this time Kid doesn’t work on countering it, he focuses on supporting it.

His eyes are closed, but Kid can tell without looking how hard Black Star is concentrating, because he can feel it. Despite their lack of weapon partners, Kid and Black Star’s connection remains steady and strong. He can feel how hard Black Star is pushing his wavelength outwards, harder than he’s tried to the entire time he’s been trapped here.

Kid grits his teeth through the hot stabs of pain and simply believes. Believes in Black Star, who’s never given up on anything in his life. The Black Star who’s all obnoxious laughs and cocky grins. The Black Star who shouts to the whole world that he’s the best, and then strives every moment of every day to prove it.

Every time the electricity lets up, the pain starts to fade, Kid’s soul pushes up against Black Star’s insistently, urgently reminding him that giving up is not his nature, and he won’t let it start now.

“C’mon,” Kid says, through gritted teeth. He leans forward, knocking his forehead into Black Star’s. “You can do this. If anyone can, it’s you.”

The pain gets worse, fire blazing all of Kid’s cells. One of them is shaking, or maybe both of them are, and Black Star lets out a roar—

Come on, Black Star. Kid prays. He’s so close. Come on come on come on—

The shaking gets stronger, and Kid knows now that it’s not coming from him. He cracks open one eye, peering above them, where Black Star’s wrists are straining and straining—

Kid shoots all the encouragement he can through his wavelength, hoping it reaches him, hoping he knows—

“YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!”

Quick as a heart attack, the shackles snap, the heavy metal separating and crashing to the ground.

Black Star and Kid come crashing down too. Kid can hardly think through the pain, but instinctually his arms wrap around Black Star and twists, so Kid absorbs most of the impact as they land on the checkered tile in a heap.

Neither of them can speak right away. Black Star lays on Kid’s chest, breathing heavily. They’re both probably fried to hell, but Kid can’t even focus on that. His whole body feels lighter than air. He’s never been so happy to hear one of Black Star’s obnoxious “yahoo”s before.

He sits up after a while, knowing full well that Black Star is in no condition to be supporting himself right now. Thankfully, Kid is always here to help with that.

He props himself up on his elbows, looking down at the length of his body, where Black Star is still covering most of him. Through all the blood and bruises—and looking more than a little fried around the edges—Black Star is smiling brilliantly.

And his wavelength. Kid can finally sense it again. He didn’t know he could miss the feeling of someone’s soul as much as this. He never wants to part from it again.

When Black Star starts to laugh, Kid can’t help but laugh with him.

“We did it,” Black Star says giddily.

Kid shakes his head. “You did it. I knew you could.”

Black Star shuffles a bit, struggling to pull himself up into a sitting position. He tries to move his arms and just ends up wincing. Kid helps, sitting up the rest of the way and pulling Black Star up with him.

Black Star leans on Kid heavily. Kid bares the weight of him easily; he’ll never do anything to push him away again.

“Kid?” Black Star asks.

Kid turns to look at him. “Hm?”

And Black Star kisses him.

It’s short and sweet, over before Kid can even respond, but when Black Star pulls away, Kid’s mouth remembers the warmth of it.

“Thank you,” he says simply.

Kid blinks owlishly. He can feel it. He wants to revel in it, he really does, but he needs to know. “Was that—is that just a thank you kiss?” He feels stupid to even ask, but he can’t misinterpret this again. “Or was it…?”

It’s not encouraging that Black Star has to think about it for a moment.

“That can be a thank you kiss, sure,” Black Star says thoughtfully.

Kid tries not to deflate. He’s so busy schooling his expression he isn’t prepared for when Black Star ducks in and brushes his lips to Kid’s again. He leans back to look Kid in the eyes. “And that was an ‘I’m sorry’ kiss.”

When he leans in a third time, Kid is ready for it. He captures Black Star’s mouth with his, making sure he kisses back with equal fervor.

Black Star pulls back, looking dazed and happy.

“And that one is just because I wanted to,” Black Star says contently.

Kid’s heart is a bird, soaring through blue skies.

Part of him never wants to leave this moment. Sitting in this magic prison, his pantleg soaked through from the puddle of blood they’re sitting in, with Black Star warm in his arms, kissing him just because he wants to. They’ll leave soon, and find help, and finally get out of this stupid Book once and for all. But for a moment Kid wants just this.

He twists the ring on his right index finger, then the one on his left. Black Star watches the action, his soul overflowing with affection.

“What?” Kid asks.

“I love it, when you do that,” he says like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “You always make sure to twist both.”

It makes Kid flush, to think about someone would be paying attention to the little things he does like that. Though, he did just spend the last couple minutes beaming into Black Star’s soul all the little things he loves about him. Maybe love goes both ways like that.

Symmetrical, Kid thinks.

He doesn’t say it though. He doesn’t need to.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Yandere Mikey x F!Tanjiro Reader please if that’s okay? (Mikey reminds me of a cat, he’s so cute)

Reader and Nezuko were sent to the future and meet Takemichi 3 months before he comes back in time (Becoming his adoptive sisters) and she protects him and his friends when their in trouble

Nezuko mostly stays in her toddler form and sleeps in Reader’s bed, and when she’s in her regular form, no one recognizes her as Reader’s sister since she’s rarely seen until recently when she became immune to the Sun (Everyone calls her ‘cute/pretty’) and started to go to school with her sister and Takamichi

When Reader found out Takamichi and his friends were being beaten, before Mikey and Draken could do anything she runs in and punches Kiyomizu, sending him flying (Breaking a few of his ribs, which everyone heard, scaring the crap out of everyone, including Takamichi, since he’s never seen Reader so angry, impressing Draken and Mikey with her speed, strength and morality when she does her speech that Kiyomizu and everyone who laughed at Takemichi are ‘The Lowest Scum on Earth’)

When Mikey was getting close to Takamichi, Reader got in his way to protect him, with a determined and brave look burning in her eyes, he immediately told her, ‘From this day forward, your my Wifey~!’ (Those who heard this were shocked, with Reader giving him a blank but confused look, not able to process his words… until after she, Takamichi and his friends where heading home, then she becomes a flustered mess)

If you want you can genderbend Nezuko (Nezukobo?Nezukoru?) since it would be hilarious for a future request for everyone to mistake him as Reader’s ‘Boyfriend’ or rather Mikey’s ‘Rival’ (And it’s just very petty and disastrous results from Mikey trying to ‘One Up’ him, until he learns from Hina that he’s Reader’s Brother)

-It had been three months since this major change in yours and your little brother, Nezu’s, lives.

-Finding yourselves in modern day Japan was definitely a culture shock, despite still being in Japan, but luckily, you both had an ally, one who took you both in with no hesitation and adopted you both as his sisters, Hanagaki Takemichi.

-Had he not seen Nezu, who now spends most of her time in his toddler form, sleeping in your bed, changing from his toddler form to his standard and even his adult form, he wouldn’t have believed the tale you told him about demons and being sent to the future.

-He dealt with his own things, being able to go back and forth into time, trying to save everyone he could, but the strange thing now was that you and Nezu would travel with him, almost like the two of you were stuck with him now.

-Your biggest shock was that Nezu could go out in the sun and he was basically just like a normal human again, being able to talk now, and he could now hide his fangs and claws. It was almost like you had your brother completely back, which you were overjoyed with.

-It was a change for you, no longer having to fight, you were able to put up your sword and uniform, putting them in a display box so now you just wear your haori while out and about.

-Going to school, in your time, was usually only for the wealthy or those who lived in big cities, you knew how to read, write, and do basic math, but being able to attend school, it was so surreal!

-Nezu liked going to school as well, attending the same school with you and Takemichi, and you were able to arrange to be in the same class together.

-Nezu was admired for his good looks, many calling him handsome or hot, but he never seemed bothered with their compliments, choosing to stay by your or Takemichi’s side.

-You had your own admirers, as many thought you were a wonderful woman, you were hard-working, very athletic, and nice to everyone you met, as long as they were nice to you and your siblings.

-Takemichi did his best to keep both of you out of his other lifestyle, not wanting you to know that he was a brawler and was in a gang, he wanted to keep you both safe from this side of him.

-However, that is not what fate had in store for your family.

-You were walking with Nezu, holding onto his hand as he ate a cream puff, his cheeks lightly red in delight as you smiled, seeing him happy before you heard shouting.

-Your eyes went wide, seeing Takemichi and his friends being attacked and you instantly glared, giving Nezu your school bag before you ran, “Brother!”

-Attention went to you as you dashed over, moving incredibly fast, thanks to your past training and Kiyomizu turned, seeing you and thinking you were Takemichi’s girlfriend, sneered at your brother, “Your girlfriend’s coming to fight your battles? Pathetic!!” as he uttered that last word you nailed him hard, hitting him so hard across the face that his whole head turned, he felt ribs cracking as his torso and hips moved in opposite directions before going flying.

-Jaws dropped all over, eyes went wide, including Takemichi who had no idea you were that strong! Takemichi swallowed, scared, as he had never seen you so angry, it felt like flames were surrounding you.

-Your voice was low and icy, “Those who do nothing and laugh at the misfortune and pain of others are the lowest scum of earth.”

-Many voiced their complaints, calling you rude before you turned, eyes piercing into them as everyone felt chills run up their spines, “If you have complaints, come. We’ll see if you’re laughing afterwards.”

-Everyone was quick to shut up, looking terrified of you before clapping filled the air, you turned, seeing two boys, Mikey, and Draken, as everyone was calling them, bowing deeply, telling you these were the leaders of this massive group that attacked your brother.

-Takemichi knew him as well, calling the shorter boy Mikey, and you could sense the strength in him as he came to stop in front of you after you stepped in front of your brother, giving Mikey the silent warning not to touch him.

-Mikey wasn’t bothered, in fact he looked almost happy, “That was really impressive, you’re really strong!” you calmed a bit at his compliment, not feeling any malice from him.

-Your brother stood, putting a hand on your head, “I’m okay, Y/N, these will heal.” You turned, smiling softly, looking so soft and gentle now as you turned, hearing his voice and you smiled, “That’s good.”

-Mikey grinned before he spoke, “From this day forward, you’re my friend Mitchy! And you’ll be my wifey- Y/N!” Everyone but Draken and Mikey turned white in shock, more so at the proposal to you, that you were going to be his wife. Draken was never surprised with anything Mikey did anymore, as he always did what he wanted, and Mikey was grinning, his fists on his hips, looking proud of himself.

-However, you didn’t respond, going completely blank at his words, which everyone saw, Takemichi waving his hands in front of your eyes, shaking your shoulders.

-Mikey laughed, thinking the reaction was cute before he exchanged numbers with Takemichi and told everyone to head out, as there was going to be some discipline for those who attacked your brother and his friends, except for Kiyomizu, who was being taken to the hospital.

-Takemichi and Nezu held your hands on the way home, as you had yet to respond as your mind had gone completely blank, at least until you were almost home, then you turned bright red and you dropped to be squatting with your knees together, your hands over your face as you made a sound like a deflating balloon.

-You had never been in a relationship before, after everything with Nezu, then becoming a Demon Slayer and looking for a cure, romance was the last thing on your mind, and to have someone basically propose as soon as the two of you met, you didn’t know what to do.

-Several days passed and Mikey was very persistent, coming to pick you and Mikey up from school, waving his hand happily, “Y/N! I’m so happy to see you.” Despite your strength and confidence in battle, you were rather shy with him, which he thought was cute.

-However, when Nezu ran up from behind you, hugging you, Mikey instantly was glaring, thinking this boy was your boyfriend or an admirer.

-This led to Mikey constantly trying to one-up your brother, unknowingly, if you went out to lunch with Mikey, Draken, Takemichi and Nezu, if Mikey would try to feed you, you would get super shy, but if Nezu did, you would take it every time.

-Draken and Takemichi thought this was cute, seeing Mikey acting so jealous, all while you and Nezu were none the wiser of his anger.

-The truth came out after Mikey saw you holding Nezu’s hand before giving you a cream puff, and Mikey cracked his knuckles, “That’s it- Y/N is my woman!”

-Luckily, Takemichi was there to hold them back, “Why do you want to fight Nezu?” Mikey whined on how much attention you were giving the other boy and he wanted to prove to you that he would be a better boyfriend.

-Takemichi immediately started laughing, pulling back from his friend who turned with a pout on his face before Takemichi spoke, “I’m sorry-I’m sorry. It’s just funny that you’re jealous over Y/N’s little brother.”

-Mikey went silent, stunned learning this before he turned, face bright red, pouting, as both Draken and Takemichi started laughing, holding their guts as he didn’t realize this, as Draken did because he could see how similar you both were.

-You and Nezu came over, wondering why they were laughing before Mikey hugged you, “Y/N- they’re picking on me!!” you patted his head gently and Nezu did the same, mimicking you which Mikey did think was cute, as he could tell that there was something off about Nezu, so he didn’t mind.

-Mikey held your other hand, pulling you and your brother away from the still laughing blonds, and you asked him why they were laughing. You weren’t expecting him to be so shy, turning away from him.

-Mikey was happy you held his hand as he led the group to a bakery, getting you each a taiyaki, which you both thanked him for. Mikey held out his to you, wanting you to take a bite and he froze when you took a small bite, a blush on your cheeks and he beamed brightly, seeing the relationship progressing.

-Mikey froze when you held out yours to him, face bright red but meeting his eyes as he beamed, taking a bite, “So yummy!” Nezu then held out his to you and you smile, taking a small bite which made your brother grin which made Mikey grin, seeing how doting you were for your brother.

-You were truly the whole package, strong, smart, and sweet, he’s glad he proposed to you!