#so many concepts... but hands didnt work. i love him lots :)

[kkoct-ik]

super! overdue drawing request for LL!scar

[dreamsy990]

so 358/2 days, amiright? heres my thoughts

this game is just. god its an emotional rollarcoaster

i guess ill start with the things i dont like!! which is mostly the gameplay. i dont really mind the mission structure shockingly (i like being able to roam around but having a clear goal makes things easier for my adhd ass, and i think the miniature storylines are very good for the most part) but i simply could Not get into the combat. especially coming off of kh2 it feels so stiff and unfun to play the only part of the game where i enjoyed the combat was fighting riku at the very end. i think the panel system is okay but i dont like that levels take up space. why did they do that.

story-wise, i dont like the retcons!! a lot of the ones i take issue with are very minor but things like roxas only fighting riku once instead of the implied multiple times (even the dialogue doesnt make sense when you change that, why does roxas say 'how many times do i have to beat you' when theyve only fought once?) are the kinds of inconsistencies that just annoy me.

im also a little bit annoyed at the very concept of this game at all. i think roxas worked just fine as a character without this game. it feels sort of unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. also, xion. i love xion, dont get me wrong, but i dont think she adds anything to the series over all. thats not to say she doesnt add anything to this game because shes a great character and i love her, but shes just. kind of like this game in that if you got rid of her i dont think it would really change the narrative so much.

BUT DESPITE THAT ALL!!!!!!!! i fucking ADORE this game. it is genuinely so full of charm and soul that i just cant bring myself to dislike it. i think this is one of the best written games in terms of dialogue. every scene (at least for me) hit exactly as emotionally hard as i think it was meant to. i was laughing at demyx's antics and crying at xions death and yelling at saix and i think thats exactly how the game is meant to be seen.

days at its heart is a slice of life. its working a 9 to 5 its going through a depressive episode its losing friends its grieving its making fun of your coworkers its living. its a game about life and i love that.

this game really did make me forget that axel roxas and xion dont get a happy ending. i spent so much time looking forward to them making up that i forgot that roxas ran away. hell i almost forgot that xion died.

days is emotional and its story and its characters are just so fucking good. the conflicts all felt very real and you can tell exactly where everyones coming from. the way axel roxas and xion fall apart hits so fucking close to home. but god damnit if axel had any good communication skills like half of this could be avoided

its also one hell of a love letter to axel's character. hes always been one of my favorites (he recently earned first place) and i think this game does him a lot of justice. hes trying to do good. he wants to keep everything together he wants to be there for his friends he wants to make things right but he just cant. its just AUGH its so fucking good

that thing about axel's characterization really also applies to roxas. i dont have much to say about him beyond the fact that i think it does his character very well. also tism. hes so autism.

i kind of like the very limited graphics too. sue me i enjoy low quality games. the hands are not animated and they all have two expressions (blinking and not blinking) and their weapons are flat and im living for it. the very few fully animated cutscenes are good too!!

the (real, i dont count riku) final boss is unfortunately very easy. you can just stand directly in front of her and mash a she wont hit you its too easy but vector to the heavens did mess me up a bit. also earlier scene but "ill always be there to bring you back" with the other promise playing over it? fucked me up man. yoko shimomura is once again killing it

i cant believe roxas didnt get to go to the beach.

i have to give this game a 9/10. its writing is incredible but the gameplay could use a lot of work. its just not fun to play. but again the characters, emotions, and music all make up for that tenfold.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

since it's julian's birthday today, how would the m6 react to the mc setting up a birthday party for them or vice versa? i love ur writing so much!!!! thank u for these i just binged everything n i feel v satisfied after having post-arcana brainrot huhu

The Arcana HCs: how the MC celebrates Julian's birthday

~ ok so this request came in just as i was going to bed and when i woke up all i saw i had written for this was "spidoop for birthday boi" and ... i have no idea what that was supposed to mean ... anyways happy birthday Julian, enjoy your headcannons anon! - brainrot ~

Julian

You already know he loves a wild party, and that's what you're going to give to him

He's the type of guy who finds family for himself wherever he goes, and you want to make sure as many of them are there as possible for his big day

So several months in advance, you get a rumor going on Mazelinka's ship that Dr Devorak will be celebrating his birthday on March 12, and they pass that message along to every acquaintance they bump into

Considering that he's the person you're tying your life to, it's safe to assume that you understand the concept of "go big or go home"

You plan ahead of time to have access to one of the big, empty lots by the South End docks for the Vesuvian equivalent of a block party

You're a little worried about keeping it a surprise, because you know he'd never let you do so much for him if he knew

So you hide it in plain sight by telling him you're planning a big event with Nadia (which is true, she is helping) and he doesn't question you any further

Also because, as much as the two of you are working on his self-esteem, it's still low enough that he's not going to think any of it could be about him

So imagine his shock when, on a day he was so sure you didn't know about, you take him on an evening stroll down to the beach and throw him the party of his life

There's several ships he recognizes docked in the harbor, there's a roaring bonfire on the sand, there's trestle tables in a massive circle piled with treats, and there's the entire South End turned out to celebrate their favorite fugitive

Nadia is there with Nazali to celebrate their favorite student, Portia's ready to cry with delight, and even Asra's offering to dance with him to scatter any lingering bad feelings and reaffirm their bond

But most of all, he's enraptured by you, flitting between all of the people that make up his heart like you belong there and pulling every good thing he has to the surface where he can't deny them

The amount of noise you all make will leave your head ringing for days

He's having his plate piled with all his favorite foods, receiving more hugs than he knows what to do with and laughing until he cries

After everyone's eaten and had a few drinks, someone hands him a vielle and the music starts

It's like the masquerade all over again, but this isn't a feverish distraction from a living nightmare, it's the uproar of a battle worn family giving thanks for the life he's living with them

The next several hours are spent whirling around the fire, kicking up the sand and linking arms with every lovable hooligan Julian's ever met

Nadia and Portia also helped provide enough bedding for most of the guests to sleep there when they get too tired

The sweetest moment of that night comes as Julian lies awake on the sand, for once grateful for his insomnia because it lets him listen to the hundreds of breaths the people around him are drawing

And it lets him savor the way your danced out limbs are sprawled around him

(I didnt forget the other five, I will post birthday headcanons for them on their birthdays so everyone gets the attention they deserve on their special day :) cheers! - brainrot)

[lion-buddy]

Thoughts on the Tanjiro and Nezuko role swap au?

Oh i love the swap au!! I think abt it alot in my own time. Ive always wanted to like, make my own content abt it but i tend to get pretty stuck on the mechanics of everything

Like, taking the world building of kny and applying it to a swap is super interesting to me, and i like trying to work it out. But there are a lot of specifics in kny that are harder to work around in a swap au. But thats not a bad thing! If anything it leads to more interesting story telling because it ensures that the swap isnt to 1 to 1. its just, a lot of work. and would take a lot of planning. If i were to like, write out a timeline of how i think the swap au would go, id have to figure out exactly how the mechanics and all the plot reasoning first. Cuz the way i see, it once you establish the world and lore rules, you can better mold the characters around that. 

To start, demon tanjiro is such an interesting concept on its own. I feel hes the easier of the two to establish a character for, because we have his canon series counterpart to go off of. We can pick and choose from the many traits we’re given in canon and apply them to demon tanjiro, and its really fun reinterpreting them.  Demon tanjiro basically takes the whole Im The Eldest Sibling trait to the extreme, and turning it into what giudes his reasoning now that he's stuck in a demon mindset (presumably similar to canon nezukos). Older Brother tanjiro is the best. :D  

I can still see him being that little ray of sunshine he always is and just, being stuck to nezukos side at all time, whether it be in protection, or just wanting to help her with daily tasks. Like a lost little puppy <:D. Hes just fueled by the desire to be productive and helpful because that's where he thrives, and hes just going to do what feels correct in his little demon mind. I can see him like, taking things out of nezukos hands wordlessly to carry for her because his reasoning is, “little sister shouldnt be the one carrying everything. Im the eldest sibling! I will do the heavy lifting for her!! >:[].” meanwhile nezuko just like, “brother can i pls have my bento box back pls i appreciate ur help but that's not what i need <:3!!” hes just trying to help in anyway he can, even if he doesn't fully understand why/what hes doing. 

I feel tanjiros presence would also be very important to nezuko. Shes young, and the only one there for her is her demon brother. While hes not able to speak, nezuko would still have one sided conversations with him. And in moments wheres shes unsure of what to do, she’d just think, “what would oniichan do?” because even if he can’t offer advice now, he’s still her older brother, and she looks up to him, demon or not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roleswap nezuko is interesting. We already have such a well established personality for tanjiro, but nezuko can be a little tricky since we dont have a lot to go off of in canon. Theres bits and pieces we can take and interpret to the best of our abilities, and it kinda makes it more fun (for me at least) cuz we get to see how people interpret her character in so many different ways. :]

i actually came up with a design for her! nezuko is canonically good a sewing, or at least knows how to. her haori is made of up her old kimono and obi. i feel the checker pattern is important to keep because its kinda what all the kamados wear. also shorts/hand cropped uniform pants. i wanted to do pants but they didnt mesh well with her black leg wraps </3 (also pluggin my old hair timeline post bc its relevant <3)

(i didnt design a swap tanjiro bc hed just look like ep 1 tanjiro but muzzled. but he might have an outfit change like nezuko did in ep one.)

My TLDR version of early story swap nezuko is basically: During the beginning of her journey as a official demon slayer, she is veryyyy determined to change tanjiro back to a human as fast as she can, and is essentially bee-lining it from mission to mission. People are fine, but she is not going to linger for too long if she doesnt have to. Shes got her brother! And thats all the company she needs :]. this of course changes as she meets, trains, and fights alongside other people. She learns to slow down and appreciate the people around her more and how they can help her cause too.

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When trying to write out how the events of a swap au would go, i try to take nezukos character into mind ensure her experiences are different from tanjiros. Because they're different characters, different people, even if they face off against the same demon/character, they're going approach it differently, and have different takeaways from the things they experience

Now as much as i would love to write out/draw detailed scenes, that's a lot of work and planning and time that i do not really have atm. And i'd need to figure out A Lot of in world mechanics in order to create something I would be proud of. But in the meantime, i can establish a scene with nezukos' emotional beats to get a feel for her :D!

In the giyu confrontation scene in ep 1, nezukos first “emotional” arc would have a very different setup, almost opposite to tanjiros. When giyu steals the now fully demon tanjiro from nezuko, she’d be really angry at him. Shes angry someone thinks they can just take her brother away from her, dare to hurt him even, just because they think theyre stronger, just because think they know whats right (giyu ofc is just doing his best but. she doesnt know that </3). At first she’d try to retaliate, fight back immediately, in any way she physically can to get tanjiro back, but of course it wouldnt work out very gracefully. Shes no where near skilled enough to face a hashira, but she doesnt care. Her actions are blinded by her grief and rage from any rational thought. All she sees is this man stabbing her brother, threatening to kill him, and shes the only one who can save him. she has too. hes all shes got left. and this man is in threatening that. She’d tire herself out pretty quickly and fall to the ground, to tired to make another move. When giyu sees this, she’d get talked at for being too brash, running into a situation without thinking, without a plan, with only a goal in mind and no way to execute it. In a battle, you need to remember the people that youre trying to protect, not just the target youre trying to destroy. You need to remember who youre fighting for, cuz you cant fight for them if youre dead. Anyway funny axe throw scene now [insert plot things that happen that i have yet yo work out yet because the involve swap tanjiro. hes gonna be intersting] and we’re done. Even if her efforts to save her brother didnt turn out, there is potential to hone that determination into something, and giyu recognizes this. He believes that its something nezuko can effectively use if trained properly, maybe even help her find answers for her brother. After waking up, giyu would send the kamados off to urokodakis to be trained.

TLDR nezuko has really bad tunnel vision <3

We’re told in canon that Nezuko was not afraid to stand up to an adult if they were being mean, even if she's the smaller one in the situation. This trait is exhibited through her actions in Nezuko vs Daki, and I thought it was good scene to reference for how this scene might play out. i find the situation to be similar here. While it may seem out of her gentle character archetype, weve seen time and time again how fiercely she protects the people she cares about. hell, we even see her do the same thing in this scene in ep 1 when tanjiro is passed out!! In this moment if swap, she’s in shock, having just lost her entire family. she has already broke, this is just pushing it!!

i reallly wanna write more for this post but it is already. long lol. i have a few blurbs of texts about certain topics, and hopefully i can share them someday because i!! really like thinking abt this stuff! i really want to solidify and share my interpretation of demon tanjiro and how he works. things like how nezuko approaches battle and her overall fighting style. how the kamados fight together and help each other protect those they care about. maybe one day!

[this-should-do]

i want to know more about your less developed janitor half life oc because i too have a half life janitor oc

janitor oc havers unite !!!! 🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝

they have no name as of yet (and im open to suggestions lol) but this is a quick doodle page i made for them just for this ask

character thoughts and musings below the cut

anyways, they are very bare bones of a concept, but im thinking this person in my brain is soooooo gossipy, cuz like whats the fun of working in a top secret facility if you dont get to be gossipy about it, like they are so invisible to most people who work there, but boy do they have a lot of friends out of the facility who they talk to and go visit often and i think they have absolutely broken their nda so many times but thats okay they deserve it for how little they get paid and how hard they work.

but tbh i think they dont mind the pay too bad (lying they actually want more pay so much lmao), they appreciate cleaning as it helps manage their compulsive cleaning inclinations,theyre un diagnosed ocd i think but they sure know they Need to clean and getting to indulge it day in a day out as a job is better than suffering constantly trying to do another job and being distressed by grime and germs but it also limits how much they can spend cleaning on one thing which helps them manage their compulsions at home as well thru repeated exposure, its not a cure all obvs but it helps and can be stressful in its own right on somedays. its a great people watching job too if ur happy only being able to listen more than half the time

they specifically got a job at black mesa tho becuz they love the concept of science but they never really got to learn any of it formally (not to say they didnt try but the combo of ocd affecting their mental health, in general struggling with math without an extra hand to grasp it initially, and lack of money money preventing them from attending college, really stopped them from being able to pursue the interest) they really like the all the thought that goes into experiments and analyzing the information, and the cool things that result from it, and more superficilaly they like the look of the machines and the big chunky buttons and the charts and hearing the lingo heavy chatter of people who know what all of it means, they probably have a few magazine subscriptions to science magazines, such as popular science, popular scientist (they think its cool he could feasibly see kleiner at thier work place after seeing him on teh cover of the magazine), and science news

[i-sveikata]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

You have no idea how immersed I was in this chapter. I'm still slightly shaking from all the emotions- just finished reading.

Even though I knew what should happen I still was so anxious about every next sentence!! I love you so much for keeping those scenes that most of us fell in love with in the series! Exact scenes and lines 🖤 The pool scene!!! (Although I'm so thankful that you left out "I'm hungry" 😂)

Really, reading Vegas's misery after only seeing adds up to a whole miserable image. Why can't these unhinged bastards have any peace for a moment!? I cried again reading how Pete had broken down so bad - I would too.

I did notice you left out the L-bomb Vegas said originally and I was secretly waiting for Pete to say that 👀 But ok, I can wait. They can do it in their own time not pressured by the necessity of events happening around them.

And the cliffhanger!! I knew there would be one but this kind? 🥲

I'm still thankful it's over now. The tension is not gone but bearable.

Chan ❤️ His death is what I couldn't forgive in the series so I'm glad he is ok.

And the ring!!! Omg! I really hope it stays on him or I will throw my hands on who may take it away!! It's almost like proposing 😅

I really loved how you managed to sneak so many fond and hot interactions between them while the world seemed to be on fire. But it works so well for them ❤️‍🔥

Anyway, I'm dead.

Thank you so much for this! Love you 🥺

omg i cant believe it made you feel that much thats insane and makes me so happy to hear! lol yeah i did keep a lot of the core from the show and some of the translated lines but yeah the hungry part did not fit for the vibe of this fic because i never went into the pet/master version of the story because that really didnt interest me tbh.

oh yeah that was also intentional!! i wanted it to be in a less high stakes moment especially because most of the time the both of them are arguing/trying to leverage the other person's feelings and attractions against the other during the fight. like throwing in a love bomb in there would have felt too disingenuous (and im so sure that pete wouldnt have fully trusted it if vegas had)

yeah im sorry about that one i couldnt resist!!! just felt so funny to me the idea that pete spends his whole time worried about vegas- so hyped up on adrenaline that he doesnt even realise he himself has been shot. but i promise he'll be okay!! he'll totally recover faster than vegas thats for sure.

omg hahahaha yeah i literally noped out of that plot point. dead chan? never heard of the concept.

yessssss the ring!!! so much of vegas staking his claim on pete in really obvious ways- he is not holding back at all now that he's noticed pete's actions changing towards him. and its going to be really interesting when the other realise that pete is wearing the ring.

hahahahahahaha LITERALLY but like was so fun and amusing at the same time somehow? like i guess murder and the world being on fire makes them horny gahefjagkhflgsghj

ahhh youre so welcome! love you right back :)

[navysealt4t]

HELLO BLUE!! ^_^ i am back in your inbox to peddle my wares (fic concepts that are plaguing me actively)

BASICALLY for further context: this fic is like. how i have it in my head is the first chapter is a wishful-thinking type of thing. where clown is intentionally out of character (and specifically more in-line with zam's perception of him, being strong willed and close with the thing plaguing him. accepting it and emerging unharmed from the process of becoming one with [in his case] the void.) and celebrated. it's a fantasy. which is part of why that's specifically referred to as abacināre; to be blinded (typically by a red-hot iron rod or basin). because it isn't the truth.

"wind up the music box, look at the book again. whose story is it really?" is a call to the correct story, the one that zam was hiding behind this dream of being someone else.

currently i haven't fully finished zam's part. but. i gave him moths as a manifestation of trauma & paranoia & fear ^_^ because i just. something in my brain makes that click. (i've used that in previous fics. i can't remember where it came from but i like it, i use it). zam's spend his life trying to kill his fear, or hide away from it, only for it to come fluttering in through the cracks. so harmless, yet absolutely soul-destroying for him. he's tearing himself apart by proxy, since he's killing a part of himself with those moths.

something something trauma acceptance... i dunno it's a flowery metaphor for admiring people who've learnt to cope with trauma (or at least, what you've perceived as such. this is untrue in the case of what zam's seeing. clown was never bothered or hurt by the void, it was just a part of life to him. making this goal completely unachievable and unreasonable on zam's part) and not knowing how to, since their example doesn't apply to what you experienced. so instead you try and follow the example and it just brings you back to square one time and time again.

also, hence, spērāre, which can mean any of the following: "to hope, expect", "to await, anticipate", "to fear, be apprehensive", "to assume, suppose".

ALSO LASTLY, the fic's title being Asomatous, meaning without a material body; incorporeal. is just the icing on the cake that is this horrible angst riddled fic. because like. zam's assumptions aren't based in anything real, they have no grounding to them. and honestly? in this... zam may as well be a ghost. and the moths as well. they aren't real, they're a manifestation ^_^ (i can't go ten minute without giving my blorbos issues. and i just like making them Like Me yk yk)

(if i give this fic a nice/happy ending then we'll get a little healing. otherwise uh. self destructive tendencies the curse yet also my beloved as a plot device.)

ogugffbhjnkfmk i have. so many thoughts...... this is supposed to just be a random fic concept that i write and never think about again. im thinking about this one a LOT. i hope you've enjoyed my nonsense ramblings because i didnt realize i could talk this much until i just. started. talking.

oh. also. song ^_^

ooiugh pitting all of this In my Mouth <3333 i LOVEEE this idea clown being intentionally out of character and idk why but i LOVEE ‘whose story is it really?’

AND MOTHS!!!! AS THE MANIFSTATION OF FEAR AND TRAUMA AIUHH <3333 i love bugs as like metaphors and in writing it’s sooo 💥💥

FUCKING . HOLD U IN MY HAND I LOVEEE HOW UR BRAIN WORKS <333333 oughh the title i love it i LOVE this 🫶🫶🫶🫶

i loveeee the nonsense rambling <3 just getting lil bits of ur brain i love words fuck yeah !!!!!

[torchiiko]

YOU THERE

GIVE ME KINGER HEADCANONS. FOR SCIENCE

UEWAGH IDK I DONT HAVE INTELLIGENT THOUGHTS ABT HIM ummmm

im inclined to agree that his body isnt very comfortable for hugs but id like to argue his hands would probably be warm since they arent Wood. softer too but probably has a fabric texture

gangle kinger friendship is so so real to me just based on how ready they were to play rock-paper-scissors for rescuing zooble. i think she shows him her art :)

speaking of its also rlly cute that he was excited to go save zooble & that he was so relieved they were ok,,, he definitely cares abt the others id like to see him interact with everyone more

i had a post drafted abt this but it didnt rlly go anywhere But he definitely knows more than he lets on. i cant quite decide if he might be playing up his mental issues To an extent to hide what he knows or if hes 100% just like that, but jaxs comment after kinger lore drops abt how digital food works makes me think kinger doesnt let that knowledge slip very often. being there the longest (of the main cast if not ever) means hes had plenty of time to pick up on how the digital world works

theres also the theory that kinger knew kaufmo had likely abstracted, which is why he declined to go check on him. kinger probably does recognize the warning signs & he drew a parallel with kaufmos obsession with exits to pomnis insistence that she saw one. a way of warning her maybe? dare i say... foreshadowing...?

i think hes unlikely to abstract any time soon. hes made it this long even with the potential loss of a lover & who knows how many friends, itd take a Lot to break him at this point. i think i mentioned this in a kingspring post somewhere but i also think that, despite these losses, kinger doesnt close himself off to forming new relationships & befriending ppl. there mightve even been a time where he Didnt try to befriend someone before they abstracted & he regretted it

theyre all pretty animated given the stylistic choices but i like to think kinger especially talks with his hands ,,, i also like to think he fidgets with his hands now & then, the way he drummed his fingers together in the gloink queen scene,,,,

i kind of agree with the idea kinger was moreso playing into his role as royalty to appease the gloink queen than him actually believing it himself, but i wouldnt be surprised if hes been there so long hes just like "ok yeah im a king." well have to see if he references it again in other contexts

i think hes more jumpy than downright a coward? he tends to flinch a lot & thats usually from being startled, but no one was Afraid of the gloink queen at all. he didnt panic until a real threat like abstracted kaufmo showed up, & he was the one to alert caine abt the situation. he might react differently in later episodes tho

lots of ppl theorize his mentions of an insect collection relate to him potentially working on the game theyre all stuck in & looking for bugs in the code & i think thats very cool but also i think he should be an entomologist :) you can always trust a man who likes bugs ok!!! i bet he was into bug taxidermy i forgot what its called. pinning? when you put them up in the display frames?? i think he probably did that too

half of me wants to say he & queenie werent even dating... ik its a very very popular fan interpretation tho so im hesitant to go against the idea. i do think it brings up an interesting concept tho,, do ppl who get sent to the circus at the same time share a theme, assuming they even joined at the same time? what determines a persons digital body? why were they so similar?

he is sooo in love with flicker <3 (/j.... unless?)

ok thats all i got 4 now u.u iirc someone else asked abt my hcs so i tried not 2 repeat myself too much xp

[electrificata]

Here is what i have been listening 2 lately yes im avoiding something no i dont listen to a lot of """new""" music

"This corrosion" the sisters of mercy - nothing revolutionary here, its a goth (sorry eldritch) classic with the big stupid jim steinman bombast that i love. If you want a good time search "andrew eldritch interview" on youtube, he's a huge bitch its so funny

"My lady of mercy" the last dinner party - a cute fizzy indie pop song that splits open into huge, triumphant stoner rock choruses. Its my understanding this band has weathered "industry plant" rumors despite being like, not. Anyway if industry plants made shit like this id be ok w the concept

"Kybalion" killah priest - my friend sold this wu tang associate to me by saying a) he's into the occult, b) not sure if he's actually any good, c) hes making animal noises on the new album. "Hermes trismegestis of lyrics that specialize in physics and pyramids" literally what else do i have to tell you

"Blood makes noise" suzanne vega - i love when a singer songwriter chick has one hard track on her album and this one sounds urgent and clanging and ominous im having a great time

"You aint no celebrity" jungle - everybodys losing their shit over "back on 74," and rightfully so, but this is the ass shaker on the album, its like an update on all those 2000s sean paul hits i liked before i heard at too many bar mitzvahs (it actually knicks the buzzing theremin from "get busy," which was always better than "temperature")

"Naked eye" luscious jackson - 90s crunchy touchy feely divine feminine radical vulnerability nonsense

"Come together" primal scream - these guys were kind of narrowly revolutionary in the 90s and i dont hear anybody under 40 talk abt them ever but i loooove the early 90s uk "what if classic rock was dance" shit that was happening with them and i guess kind of madchester?

"Obsession" animotion - this is the loud obnoxious goofy 80s pop hit all the other ones want to be. The boy-girl vocals are really fun BONUS the singers fell in love and are still married, go look up a recent performance of this song theyre so old and so horny for each other i love it

"The big sky" kate bush + "chains of love" erasure - two very different 80s pop classics, but i listen to them the same way, and frequently right after each other. I have a theory of art and fiction i call, for the moment, "mythological awareness." I use this to refer to work that knows what old folkloric/mythological/archetypal symbols and narratives and images it evokes. Work that knows that any love story is every love story, every mad scientist is a wizard and a shaman and a hacker as well. Kate is singing about the things we pay attention to as children and forget as adults, the sky is a marvel its easy to forget about because its there every day, but that doeant mean its any less a marvel. This might be the most straightforward u2-ish rock single bush ever put out, but it feels like shes marching at the head of an army of zeppelins and airplanes and rockets powered by the laughter of gods. Andy bell of erasure is singing about a fictionalized pre-aids era of gay utopia like its something that used to be real and can be real again if we all clap our hands. He details a world of "sisters and brothers" open to the pleasures of the world, fucking and loving and worrying about what theyll do for dinner rather than whether they can get into the hospital to watch their loved ones die. And over an unstoppable synthesizer bounce, falsetto floating over clouds of gospel-inflected backing vocals, you believe him. He could be talking about atlantis or hobbitton or erewhon or the greek age of heroes and he knows that, the halcyon past is a myth none of us can get away from, maybe we need to understand it and use it rather than disavow it. I was born years after both of these songs hit, and my parents didnt listen to either of these artists, so they come to me fresh and bright and veiled in the light obscuring mist of morning, for me and no one else (everyone else)

[aurora-313]

I got interested at Bleach again recently, and sadly, some of my favorite characters in Bleach is very minor characters, include Kaien and Masaki. I came across your fic just about a week ago, and thank you for the great works. I think I read each and every one of your fic at least four times last week. I never knew I needed some good Ichigo-Kaien cousins relationship, and your works scratched an itch I never knew I had.

So, how long do you planned to write your works? Most Bleach fic writers hate lost agent arc (I dont like it either, but the concept of fullbring is good. I just hate Ichigo's final fullbring design), and you jokingly said something about BB!Kaien flirting some of the female quincies on other asks. Nepenthe starts even before turn back the pendulum arc, so it may take a completly different course of actions from canon. The twin fic, you said it will go under a rewrite, didnt even started soul society arc. I am just curious how long I can enjoy your fic.

And I admit I am curious about how Kaien will play out in some of the anime only arcs. I am manga only reader, and I dont really watch anime in general, but I am seriously considering to watch the anime arc only episodes. Im pretty sure that you will skip those parts, but can you show us what do you think of them?

I'm glad you're enjoying what I've written so far.

Kaien is a criminally underused character and he was one of my favourites for a good long time. I genuinely believe he and Ichigo would've gotten on extremely well, and that Kaien would've been the big brother Ichigo never realised he needed.

For Black and Blue, obviously its going to be canon divergent by virtue of Kaien's living status and his speed-running Ichigo through 'How To Train Your Hollow'. Events will not marry up to the canon timeline. At least not completely, Aizen will face the music - that's a given.

Truth be told I actually dislike Thousand Year Blood War. And in my story, several character's fates set in stone. Many of which run heavily contradictory to the events of TYBW, so I'm electing to ignore that arc. If I touch the Quincy conflict... I'd probably rejig a lot of lore for my narrative.

Tangentially, regarding the flirting with a Quincy joke? BB!Kaien already has an endgame love interest. Hilarious as that would be, they are not a Quincy.

Lost Agent Arc is... one that I've grown to appreciate as I've gotten older, but back when I was reading Bleach week by week, I found it completely insufferable and I spent most of my time bemoaning 'Hurry up and give him his powers back, Kubo."

Though, frankly, I never bought why Ichigo had to lose his powers in the first place, especially when the Hyog had established weaknesses within it which would’ve allowed victory by attrition. And Duex Ex Final Getsuga hits a wrong note with me no matter how you slice it. You can’t describe it as anything other than an ass pull and hand of the author at play.

My conclusion as an adult looking back; Lost Agent, I sit comfortably on the fence. Its okay. Not offensive, not inoffensive, just average. That being said, I have touched on Ginjo Kugo's existence in BB, so that might be another thing I'll have to explore as part of the epilogue. Or in a side/sequel story.

However. My dislike for TYBW aside, I do intend to write independent What-If scenarios for certain events that take place; Kaien's reaction to Ukitake's sacrifice, what Sternritter I'd of had him fight. Things of that nature.

My intention for Black and Blue is to conclude the Winter War with Aizen's defeat and have the Zanpakutou Rebellion arc (anime only) function as a winddown with some rejigging to make it fit into BB's narrative. Then a 'Where are they now' epilogue some years or decades hence because after this hell, these guys have earned their happy endings.

Once More To See You Again I'm focusing on transforming it into a cohesive narrative with some liberties taken with worldbuilding. Rather than have Rukia be persecuted for creating a Shinigami Substitute when there's clearly provisions for one; she pleads guilty to interfering with the Cycle of Souls and reassociation with a reincarnated soul. In OMTSYA Rukia is trapped in a catch-22; Report the Shinigami substitute which reveals the reassociation and end in both their executions, or request a transfer, which leaves a substitute undocumented and unsupervised and end in both their executions. Dealing with that conundrum is going to be interesting. :)

(That, and I didn't like Kaien's aspects fighting each other during Ashewallen. Especially considering how Ichigo's aspects only ever desired to protect him.)

That will last until at LEAST the end of Soul Society. But I do have ideas for interactions with the Visoreds, other Arrancars and how Hueco Mundo would go down. Let's face it: Neo!Kaien vs Aaronerio!Kaien would be a delicious match-up and great character exploration.

Nepenthe was inspired by Cywscross' Swinging Pendulum (but really, what Bleach Time-travel story isn't these days?) - but I wanted to take all the usual time-travel clichés attached to Ichigo and play them completely straight. Rather than pretending, Ichigo does legitimately have amnesia. Rather than hiding his power, Ichigo was injured in such a way that he needs to regain his powers the old fashioned way. Effectively, I dumped him in the past with a clean slate and I look forward to seeing how he adapts to living with and as a Shiba.

But to answer your question: So, how long do you planned to write your works?

For as long as people keep reading and commenting on it, I suppose. :)

There's a criminal lack of Kaien content. I aim to rectify this.

[itsjustalark]

@seeingteacupsindragons

" I hope you don't mind me breaking that ask up into smaller chunks to respond to instead of actually answering the ask in my inbox. Sometimes people send me really long things, and then I know having it on my blog and then having to read my probably accordingly long answer is not going to happen, and I just. Feel bad about it."

Mind? Hell no. I'm honoured that you've decided to give me the time of the day at all. It is completely fine with me and thank you for letting me konw. Next time ill make sure to post on my blog and just tag you.

"Tiadane's not actually a boy; this is made clear relatively early on, and he's not picky about pronouns because his home doesn't have a good concept of things like "gender" and "lots of gendered pronouns." I tend to alternate what I use for him when not in the book, and even in the book he shrugs off a couple "she's." And there's actually not any romance in that one; Tiadane and my deuteragonist's relationship is platonically weird in that one. I don't always like writing romance, but I usually have a deuteragonist running around because I just like paired character dynamics a lot."

I'm really sorry for just asssuming Tiadane to be a guy. On the other hand I love when fantasy worlds explore cultures that dont have the same understanding of gender as us. I feel it isnt done enough and where it is atempted its never done with the enough care.

Also when I said 'relationships' I didn't mean them as explicit romantic ones. I'm a big fan of interesting dynamics and I dont believe they always have to be romantic to get me interested. There are so many ways humans interact with one another. That is whats most facinating to me.

"I'm actually not super great at worldbuilding, either. I tend to do it as little as possible and only when I need to; a lot of my current revisions are fleshing the worldbuilding out. And now that I'm focusing on, a lot of the results are good, but it's often just sort of not really the most fun focus for me. "

I'm also not an intricate world builder and cant even imagine going to the flora and fauna level of detail. My points of interest in world building is societities. How they function different from our and how they effect the people living in it accordingly. I build my worlds around my characters becaude i also feel that a fleshed out world only gives more depth to the characters.

Glad to know your world building is going well. I cant even imagine the revisions i have to make one i finish first draft as ive completely given up ingraining the magic system as part of the characters perspective and how it effects their thing cause it was gettjng to complicated. So i will now have to add all of that stuff later on.

"What I shared was actually the query; queries and synopses are different in the publishing word. Basically, my query is supposed to sell people on making it sound interesting, so I'm glad it's working for those functions for now. It still needs to be edited some more later. "

Oh I didnt know that. Still new to all the publishing jargon but always happy to learn more.

"Tiadane's book originally came from playing too much Smash Bros and staring at Pit for too many hours in a row. And then I just typed some random shit to get some words out when I was stuck revising something and not having fun, and started writing this introduction to his world."

I love how we writers get ideas from the most rediculous of senarios.

"I am a very character-focused writer and have had recurring problems with getting a plot to attach correctly over the years. I think Tiadane's book is the first time I didn't have (too) many issues with one by the time I sent to to a CP, and I'm still ripping a lot out to replace it with something better. "

I also write character focused works. Characters are why i read books. I dont reallyenjoy plot heavy books. Every aspect of plot, fleshing out the world or magic i enjoy because it makes tge characters feel more real and elps highlights the themes if the book.

"Each of my fantasy worlds (I also write sci-fi sometimes, and some stuff just...set in our world) has its own magic system. I don't know how writers just have The One for tons of stories. Large universes to play in can be fun, but so is making up new stuff every time."

Also, would you mind telling me about your magic systems? I love that stumm. It facinates me how maging systems ingrain themselves into a story. When i was first materializing my story it was set in a normal world but my mund was like: no no no this story need a magic system and an exploration of the chosen one narrative even though back then it didnt have anything to do with the main plot. But thats me cause i love over complicating thing for myself.

[enhaheeseung]

HI! i still need to read your most recent fic, ill do that after i send this and give my feedback through my reblog <3. but you asked why we like those works so much so.. (im not sure if you really wanted a response but im here to give you one anyway!!!)

for train ride home, the way it was literally so corrupt but also so gentle really like 🧍🏾‍♀️🧍🏾‍♀️ made me speechless tbh. just the way you wrote him as a character. ive never read anything with that particular theme but its honestly one of my favorite things and maybe a small fantasy of mine... so to see it written about someone i think about quite often was really great. it also made me feel a little less weird about enjoying something like that.

for best friends, i really enjoy just the over all theme. its very much something i would do. the whole making a "mistake" and then pulling back. i think it was really relatable but also just the way you captured the jealousy of heeseung. the way that he got mad when the reader tried to do the same things he does. i genuinely wanted to smack him when he got all pissy over her wanting to go talk to the dude, but im glad he didnt let her.

for darling, i think i said this in my reblog but the end made my oral fixation go crazy. i write a little bit but theres a few things that im a bit nervous to write about, that being one of them. im not sure why, but like the whole falling asleep with it in your mouth thing makes me weak in the knees lmao

but overall i just really enjoy your work. while we obviously dont know heeseung in that particular light, i think that you write him in way that makes me think "oh yeah this makes sense" or "i could see him doing something like that". this makes reading so much more enjoyable cuz i feel like some people write without really connecting the theme/content with the person theyre writing for.

Thank you for the response cause I was dead serious😳

So first off

Ngl with train ride home I literally thought about what other girls fantasize about if that makes sense I did absolutely no research btw lol it’s just kinda a pattern that I see from other stories and themes geared towards the female audience so I kinda went off of that bad guy good girl vibe like obviously I didn’t use that theme but I’m using that as an example so for instance it’s kinda like you want a bad but good boy, so like a perv and a gentleman if anyone even understands what I’m trying to say you’d think I’d be good with words but here we are 🤡

Moving on

Best friends was just something I made on the spot with a ton of editing in between when I wrote his character for that I wanted to capture that uncertainty that so many men have when it comes to relationships as well as the female character being so in love with him that she kinda just takes what she can get and ends up making mistakes and hurting herself even more than he has I’ve seen this happen so many times before just without the happy ending and I also made his character with traits like a lot of guys In friendships where he kinda got the best of both worlds having a female best friend and girls on the side but he never really felt complete without the female lead

And last but not least

Darling there’s not much to say not gonna lie to you I was just in a moody mood when I wrote that it’s pretty short but definitely gets the point across if you’re into that kind of thing I’m glad you feel less weird about liking those things cause to me it’s not weird at all and just so you know I know more people that are into that than I can count on fingers with both hands

love that you mentioned being nervous to post some things cause so am I like there are themes I made but they will never see the light of day just cause they are a bit out there and I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable plus y’all don’t need to know everything that goes on in this brain of mine

I do try to go outside the box with my writing I don’t read a lot of fanfics but I think a lot of my concepts and writing style has not been done before so I try to spice things up and keep it interesting I incorporate a lot of smut but I feel like In some of my stories I built a foundation that will make readers comeback or ask for a part 2 cause even though there’s smut in it I developed the characters well enough to where you want to see more little off topic but stories like “angel” or “train ride home” are themes I’ve never seen done before that and everyone seemed to really enjoy those so my mind runs miles trying to come up with new ideas

As for the way I write heeseung it’s just literally all the fantasies I have about him tbh I write him exactly how I think about him😌

Also this was really fun responding to actually like I wouldn’t mind going into more detail about my plots if anyone is interested kinda felt like a mini interview and I just love answering questions

Sorry this is so long without any punctuation forgive me😞

[oceanforblues]

How it started

my father died when i was around 6 years old. we all lived in the same bulding.. kind of like a joint family. after my father died, people started to abuse my mom. she was distraught but also she was a working woman. you know how it was for women back in the day... she would go out to work and come home late and people would spread rumours like she was slutting around and hanging out with other men. the family would abuse me too. my cousins would sneak into my room and turn my tv off when id be watching tv. they would steal my toys. its like they made me a part of their family but at the same time treated me in a condescneding way. my mum ofc knew that because she was a grown woman. i didnt because i was a stupid kid. so i would always get upset with her that why would she get angry at my counsins because they were my friends. 

they would make fun of my weight all the time. their nickname for me would be “bidet” because my name is bushra. i dont know why i used to find tha funny back in the day. they would call me fat, they would make fat jokes around me like oh dont sit on the bed because you will break it. they would call me moti which means fatty. my uncle, their dad, would sexually harrass me actually. actually its really weird how many times i used to get touched as a child. my uncle would take my shirt off and roll me like dough on the floor. his wife wouldnt say anything but she would always look weird when she saw it. i didnt think much of it. they had a maid who used to work for them. she was also the first person who raped me. i woudl come home for lunch aroun 11am and around that time no one else would be around. so she would take me up to her bedroom, undress me, and she would do things with me that i feel like i shouldnt put in writing. i was 8. it felt weird when i saw her a few years ago when i went back home. 

oh, all of this happened while my mum was working. i guess she threw herself into her job after my dad died. which made sense. but she would focus on my brother more than me. her reasoning was that he never got his fathers love when i did so she needed to make sure he was loved more. which didnt make sense to me because he doesnt even remember father. i remember him. i remember his scent, his face, his memories, i remember the way he would hug me and hold me and how he would dance with me at night and sing with me and how he would do fun activities with me. wouldnt it make sense for her to care for me because ive been mourning him the most? she worked a lot because she wanted my brother to go to a private english school and not a boarding school like me.  my grandfather wouldnt allow it so she worked to pay for his tuition. she also paid for this math class i took, which honestly came in handy even now. but yeah. 

the other times i got harassed was when i went to my grammas place back in the villages. this one i remember so distinctively. it was some dude that worked for a neighbor. i remember he called me, took me upstairs to some corner and started to ask me some random questions while he slipped his hand under my shirt and felt me up. felt me up everywhere. i dont know why i didnt do anything. i never got touched like that before so i didnt know what to do. i just let him do it. all while my mum and my family was there with me. other times i got assaulted i guess would be the times some grown ass men would stare at me as i was walking to school, call me names, sing for some reason etc etc. i was unfamiliar with the concept of misogyny and sexual assault back in the day so i truly thought that was normal. i feel guilty at myself for not doing aynhting. i dont know why im crying now because it doesnt even affect me now. am i feeling bad for my past self? or am i actually grieving? 

but yeah. after my dad died all that stuff happened. after my grandfather died it got worse. he died around 2015 i think. he was basically my father bc he took care of me after my father died, when he saw that my mum was too busy focusing on my brother. he wasnt the best either i mean he treated my gramma like absolute garbage but he was nice to me. 

[levmada]

First Times Anthology, ch5: closer, harder

work summary » Intimate, vulnerable, gentle. Concepts Levi is a stranger to, until you.

ch.summary: Things are different after Mayfest. Hearts mingle and undefined lines blur—ones so very thin. Lost in the aftermath of what Levi wants to believe is right, you show him it isn't, whether you know it or not.

content/warnings: so much yearning, masturbation (m!recieving), almost softcore porn tbh, mention of eating abnormalities, Petra: so soft..so kind, lots of tears, Levi falling apart, vague blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention of SA, heartbreak (for a while), explicit&severe panic attack, minor injury; slightly graphic injury recovery, Erwin (accidentally) plays matchmaker, Levi is humanity's strongest for a reason, hurt/comfort, very soft at the end, themes of self-hatred

wc: 17.2k(haha...)

a/n: alternative summary - levi is a hopeless simp who is horrified when he realizes he's in love.

as things heat up i think it's an appropriate time for their first crisis😀but also levi's first case of blue balls. i decided not to split this chappy bc i want softness and comfort out of this fic more than leaving it on a cliffhanger in chaos, but as a result it runs very, very, very long. im sorry! but it will be worth it. im done writing ch's the length of novelettes after this (hope).

i think someone who reads can tell where the end is going. these two are too deeply in love. lets just say there's a lot of smut in the next one. i didnt plan for this fic to run so long or live rent free in my heart😭💕 i thank u guys for all the support on it and i hope the length of this one doesnt drive too many ppl crazy.💖

for the song?? see also: just fine by spookyghostboy

previous part・work masterpost・next part

Listened to while writing:

taglist: @peace-for-levi | @sckerman | @jayteacups | @levi-my-beloved | (if you'd like to be added, lmk!)

“Hey, I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

Levi has always had hobbies a little softer than the way he portrays himself as. Mike or Hange would blanch if they knew he enjoys threading a needle and making scarves, for example. You know he sews, crochets, and surprisingly, dabbles in reading.

That’s a pastime he took to especially after you opened up him up to the world of books. There’s the typical slice-of-life affairs, and secretly (as in, tucked in the lowest of his dresser drawers, secret) contemporary romance.

After years of lending him your own tattered blouses to stitch up, then watching him work at it himself, a few months ago he started showing you the ropes. He’s just so good at it. Apparently, he learned when he was a kid, just out of necessity, but there’s something to his calm frown and steady hands that makes you think he’s just talented.

You, for one, have finally managed to stick a thread through a needle’s eye without pricking the sides. Mostly.

“Hm.”

He sounds just as disinterested as a man like Levi could ever sound. A little discouraged, you crane your neck over the back of his velvety armchair. In one hand you hold a small sock—in case you ‘wrecked’ it, in his words—and in the other, your triumph.

Your breath catches, and in case he can somehow tell, you hold it. Hastily he’s writing something, bent over the edge of his desk in dark, pleated trousers rather than his usual uniform. It’s not like you share his quarters, and the chaos that was Mayfest has again settled into calm waters of normalcy since that evening—so you’re allowed to ogle at his backside in a tight pair of pants, if quietly.

Sewing suddenly doesn’t interest you much anymore. His lips are still pressed together, focusing, so you decide to fool around a little.

The fabric may as well be firmly pasted to that round ass. You imagine it’s just as thick as his thighs: at special moments, you’ve sneaked in little pinches and strokes here and there. They weren’t too romantic since you figured out he’s ticklish in only very specific places—but still.

He looks good. He really does have a small waist, too. Your imagination runs away from you a little.

“Hey, Lev’.” You make your voice as placid as humanly possible. “I’ve thought about it and I think I really like the Military Police.”

Nothing—just a small sound to show he heard you. Your eyebrows shoot straight up to your forehead, laughter bubbling up in your throat which you manage to not let escape. An opportunity like this is simply too sweet to ignore.

Quietly, neatly, you shift your things off your lap and dawdle on your feet a moment before allowing yourself to drift over to him. It’s easy to feign interest somewhere else, and then once you’re close behind him, take a handful of the same round ass you were gawking at not a moment ago.

Levi reminds you a bit of a steel spinning top, how he immediately straightens up and bats your hand off his backside. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was steam pouring out his ears.

“W-What the hell are you doing?”

You mimic his aghast expression. “Oh, so you do know I’m here.”

“You’re…” He presses himself flush with the wooden desk, flustered to hell. His expression pinches (as always), like he’s tasted a fresh lemon. “You’re a pervert.”

You arch a single brow, gauging his reaction before moving in.

If he was much angrier, you’d have something to be worried about. It’s not the first time he’s called you a pervert before reeling you in for a kiss. You think of the last time he snapped your bra straps when you were in bed; all because you wouldn’t stop shifting around, trying to get comfortable.

These last few months have been fun.

He does nothing but stare you down when you cage him against the desk with both arms, leaning in close and pressing a fragile peck to his lips. “Oh? But I couldn’t help myself.”

Levi curls his hands into fists, but that doesn’t keep his whole body from shuddering. He’s normally so in-control, but when specifically you take that away—well, he’s hot under his collar.

He was signing off on documents a moment ago, and barely registered what you said. With a wrinkled brow and topsy-turvy feelings raging inside—notably, the heat in his lower half, which is winning the rest over—he knows why. It's the way you're looking at him. He’s one silky word out of your mouth away from kissing the hell out of you.

“Liar,” he breathes.

“Your ass just looks too good in those slacks.”

If he could somehow overdose on air, he would be dead. It isn’t fair. You’re close enough to feel him hardening in his trousers, but if he didn’t know you as well as he does, it’d be impossible to tell whether you’re simply getting another laugh out of flustering him.

“Daring today, aren’t we?” he mutters, regaining his literal and mental balance. His hand dives beneath the straps tethered around your torso, yanking you in so there’s no space left between you from the chest down. He’s feeling like quite the daredevil himself.

You meet him in a bruising kiss, only for your own to part when his palm slips into your back pocket, stretching down to take his own share. He grunts at the sound that escapes you, and molds his palm with the seat of your ass. It fuels a fire in his belly and the rush of blood in his ears. It’s still not as loud as the smacks from your kissing.

He wants to tell you that he wants your hand back again, that he wants you all over him, but all he can manage is a breathy “Fuck,” between breaks for breath. Your noses keep bumping together.

He burns. It’s with a fluttery twist of lust that a soft, sweet sigh leaves your lips, half-mounting him so your hips have perfect access to the spot between his legs. You grapple the desk as not to crash right into him, and shiver, shamelessly.

“Levi–”

You breathe each other into a wet, hasty kiss. Yes, he decides, he’s going to kiss the hell out of you.

He tastes sweet, in a subtle way, with the slightest hints of earthiness from his tea that’s coupled with something purely Levi that it makes your heart and every little eager nerve of yours sing.

You're out of practice and him, experience, but it no longer matters, not when you want each other this badly.

Somehow, based somewhere in instinct, your hands find each other on the desk on either side of his waist. His squeeze on the rear of your thigh disappears so he can lock them together, all-in.

The position has its drawbacks. Your straddle over him slacks a little, so—without thinking much beyond the throb of your heartbeat—you press right up against his solid body with a slippery whine. You’ve never felt him hard like this, not on purpose.

You see it when his lids flutter, and he pulls a lungful of air between his teeth. Your fingers grope together, uncoordinated. Briefly, you get the idea to reach around and take his ass in your hands again. That’s before his own slip around your wrists, trapping you against him.

Regardless of the fact that you should have him caged in, he’s the one in control; this is the way he wants you, and it makes your face heat. You hike your thigh up around his waist and roll your hips, bumping your knee against the wooden surface in your haste.

Licking pleasure causes a moan to roll through his throat, the first sound he’s made at all, and just like that the spell is broken. He smacks back against the desk, breathing hard. His fingers fumble away from you; all this without a clue why, but he’s horribly embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he croaks.

At first, you don’t think you heard him right. “What? No—are you okay?”

He stares at you, desire quickly bleeding away to shame. The fact that you make room and watch him, worried and earnest, darkens the feeling. He feels exposed, and meeting your eyes feels like confessing everything, so he can’t even look at you straight.

“Yeah. Sorry.” That’s the second apology that tumbles out of his mouth. “I didn’t think…”

He doesn’t know why he makes a fool of himself like this. It’s too much is a defense that comes to mind, which doesn’t make sense because he’s nothing if not glowing in your presence.

He chose this with you, whatever ‘this’ is, but the rest of the jagged lines that make Levi up won’t straighten out, so you can’t match up. They aren’t even defined, as you’ve never sat down and talked about it.

You’re still so patient with him, even now: “Hey, I don’t need that. You did nothing wrong.”

He knows. That’s the crux of the problem. If you were to ask him what exactly begged that Sorry, he wouldn't be able to say. He’s never been scared when hooking up with someone in the past. Then again, you’re so much more than that, to the point that it hurts.

The issue of stopping is redundant because sex has never been, isn’t, and never will be thing your relationship revolves around. He isn’t torn to bits because he pulled away, and you could care less about that when he’s backed into a metaphorical corner, white-knuckling his desk for dear life.

“It’s okay,” you say right beside him, frowning at the feeling of rigid steel that is his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain. But if something happened in the past–”

“It hasn’t.” He’s confident of that.

You nod. “But if I overstepped, I just need to know. So I don’t do it again, okay?”

With a shake of his head—being snuck up on by someone he knows as well as you hasn’t been the issue for quite some time—he takes a handful of your bandaged fingers (all that damn sewing), then squeezes. It helps him to calm down, and by the way you deflate, the feeling is mutual.

“No.” A peck to your temple. “It's good.”

Unlike before, when every damn thing you did was like an electric shock to a hundred nerve endings, at least then it was mutually exclusive. It was either something you both wanted, or it wasn’t, and you stopped: that was that.

These days, though, things are different. You pull him closer, and he’ll kiss you; take him to bed, and he’ll happily become your personal furnace for the evening. When you both want it, you make it clear in one way or another—emphasis on or another, in his case.

Too much is a new issue, gauging for how long and when to pull away. It’s like dancing in a field of bushfires blind, wondering when you’ll get burned.

He hates how insecure he’s made you feel. He can tell. No one can read you like him. Like an optical illusion resolving itself, he finds it written all over your face.

“Are you sure?”

With a small, deadpan look, he brushes your hair away. To his own fault, it’s a little messy. “Are you blind?” Another crumpling feeling of embarrassment. “–Or deaf?”

It’s like your voice is carried on a breeze. “Hm. Not the last time I checked.”

“Then that’s your answer,” he returns, glancing down and straightening your collar. His fault again: it’s rumpled.

“Just so you know, it’s good for me, too.”

Levi tuts to smother how that makes him feel. He made you feel good. You liked it. You liked his hands on you, and his tongue licking into your mouth.

He’s inclined to call you a pervert again, but only rolls his eyes and pats your head. Like a puppy starved for affection, you duck beneath his hand, not that he would dream of throwing away the chance to wrap his arm around your waist.

Even affections like this feel different from the era before the festival. She feels it too, right?

“Just let me know,” you mutter just below his ear. “And sorry, about your papers.”

Some of them fluttered to the floor; too bad he’s a little distracted. He’s also never told you about that spot below his ear, come to think of it.

“I do. I will,” he assures. He can’t even remember what shit he was signing off on before you jumped him. “Do the same.”

“Mm.”

Comfort puffs and swirls like a calm cloud in his chest. Maybe it’s in his head alone, this spiky, demonstrable change, or maybe that’s what he wants to tell himself. The one thing he’s sure he has pinned down is, somehow, he’s more terrified than ever; even more than before.

Of what? A million things. One of those just might be the fact that you've never rutted up against each other like bunny rabbits before. Levi is the same person who, when you ran your hands up and down his jaw and leaned in for the first time after the fact (the next afternoon, actually), he stalled when your lips met. It was like being cradled by a butterfly wing.

But it wasn’t that he didn’t want you and it wasn’t that he regretted it: it wasn’t the worst-case scenario that always comes to you first, usually knocking you sideways.

Somehow he simply didn’t expect it, you finding him just after the sun reached its peak and—wanting to kiss him. Of course he kissed back, he always would, but he still had to stop, pull away and ask, “Wait, are you sure you–” and you never let it go.

“I thought you were gonna show me your progress. Don’t tell me you’re dressing up like a mummy for fun.”

You gawk at him. “Mummified—fingers, maybe.”

You stretch your fingers in front of yourself and wiggle them, as if that’ll prove the point.

He bites his lip, pinching hard in efforts not to smile. The strain in his cheeks dissolves into mild stupefaction when you clarify that you need to change clothes—panties, specifically.

“Fine,” he coughs. “Go.”

You don’t share a living space. He still makes a small mental note to do your laundry again. His reason, and eventually yours became that he buys impeccable fabric softener. He can also scrub pretty much any stain out, even hot cocoa—he knows all the tricks.

He can imagine you now: “Sweetie, do you mind ironing my clothes? I can’t do it like you.”

Why does that make him feel so giddy, still? You make him want to iron your clothes for the rest of your life, as long as it pleases you.

And then, he gets thrown in the ditch of ‘rest of your life’, and the fear shoves him to his knees once again.

Why the hell do you always have this effect on him?

Today, at the end of a long stream of paperwork, your palm slinked around the nape of his neck, and you asked to take him for a picnic—which isn't unheard of at all. At least twice a month you end up dragging him somewhere (occasionally, it's the other way around, but Levi is more of a homebody).

It was by a lake like twilit glass, beneath one of those ancient, gnarled oaks that must stretch its roots just as far below ground as its branches pierce the sky. He took the liberty of making these sandwiches with light, fluffy bread; these didn’t stand up to your bright lipstick, smeared with even brighter, tangy strawberries.

You insisted on popping a few in his mouth, just to return the favor by brushing a few stray leaves out of your hair; tucking the prettiest flower he’s ever seen in his life behind your ear, too. You were the one who wouldn't quit babbling about it, calling it that, but that sentiment only became truth when he put it there.

He raised a brow. “Doesn’t seem very equal.”

And then, a strawberry between your fingers, you just kept on smiling at him.

He allowed his eyes to rake up and down your breezy summer dress and sighed evenly through his nose. “You smile at me too much.”

“Have to do it enough for the both of us.”

He snorted, then it was your palms swooping around the backs of his thighs, inviting him into your lap. This, with the promise of giving him a crash-course in making crowns out of (“Are you serious?”) daffodils and all manner of wildflowers.

Levi sits now, perched on the edge of his bed with his hands braced over his knees. You’ve just left—a few minutes ago, actually—but he can’t get his dick to calm down, not after your lips and hands were all over him, kissing just behind his ear and roaming up and down his chest. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and traces of your lipstick still persist.

You got to the flowers eventually, but before that his hands were on you. You’d teetered onto your back and brought him down with you. Turning it over in his mind, the word that rounds out the experience perfectly is honey-glazed.

Just your noses bumping together in a maze of smacking lips, the heat of your breath, and the salty-sweet taste of your skin beneath his tongue. He remembers now, fighting so hard to breathe over the sweltering haze of strawberry rolling over his tongue. It created a pulse in his head that pulsed on and on.

“Sweetness,” he muttered between wet kisses, royally whisked away out of his mind. The shakes in his hands gave him away; the nervous shine in yours. “Look at you.”

You grinned at that—some cheeky comment about needing a mirror. He kissed it off your face, knocking your teeth together.“Gonna report me to the brass, Captain?”

“Brat,” he huffed.

He touched you, too. He asked, and you slotted your thighs around his hips and spared him a look that set a fire in his belly before you took his palm, guiding it beneath your collar, where the strap had fallen away.

Swallowing heavily, Levi pops the collar of his shirt open. He just buttoned it, but it suddenly feels too warm to wear it at all, the front of his trousers too tight, too hot.

Your skin was warm like an oven, and the weight of your breasts so soft in his palms. He could hardly believe his ears when you sighed in his ear and asked if he wanted to see.

He unbuckles his belt with haste, an earnest shudder following when he palms the front of his pants. He hangs his head, though it isn’t the first time he’s had to touch himself when you leave your mark on him, like some kind of vixen. Really, all it takes is a look and suddenly he’s left in the dust, hot and bothered.

Recently, all semblance of control has begun to dissolve when he’s around you and he’s losing his mind.

He squeezes, then he thinks, to hell with it, and shoves his trousers down to bunch up at his ankles. He kicks them away, lets his shirt hang loose at the front and scooches back to lay down. His heart stomps against his ribcage.

Never has Levi wanted a woman so badly in his life. Without guidance on what to think or do, the memory of how you touched him and cooed in his ear rouses back to the surface the moment he wraps his fist around his dick.

With a few loose pumps, he’s just as hard as he was before that long stroll back. There was you, whetting a handkerchief and cleaning lipstick stains from his skin, evidence of where you explored him—but he almost wishes you didn’t. He strains before his eyes, squeezes his round cockhead, and spit-soaked lips part as he throbs.

A gravelly sigh. “Shit.”

For no reason, he’s searing hot with embarrassment. But desire this time has a louder voice, and wins out.

He nudges his briefs down, kicks them away, and spreads his legs. What he wants, what he imagines, is you crawling between them. Then again, if you were here his own mortification would kill him rather than just running his blood a little hot. He’s hopeless.

It’s good, though, even with just his own hand. His cock is thick beneath neatly trimmed, wiry hairs, pulsing when he traces the long vein on the underside. He never thought about it, whether it’d be good for you, whether he’d look good…

Would you do this to him, too? Cup his heavy, round balls and glide a tight fist—just the way it runs his blood the hottest—up and down? Would you praise him, Oh, that’s good, baby. Fuck my fist—there you go, or tease him? So fucking needy, Levi.

He sinks his teeth into his free hand and sighs, high in his throat. The scene is so vivid it begs his imagination; neither would be unlike you. In fact, he guarantees you would tell him to let you know what he likes, and if for some reason he needs to slow down or stop, you would still want him after. You’re so good to him. You’d drag his arm off his face and order him to be louder.

Let me hear you.

He’s wetter now—he hears the slick smacks of his fist, and he feels the hot coil in his belly growing even hotter. He dares to glide his free hand over all those tensing muscles, flicking his hard nipples on the way, and flops his head back on the pillows.

It’s really hard to be quiet, much more than he thought it’d be—or how it usually is. He doesn’t get off like this on a whim, not enough to commit the act to memory. He just knows you’d want to hear him moan, and that’s enough to inspire the sounds to rumble in his chest.

He dips a finger into his wet slit, and his hips give a small jerk. In small circles he teases all around it. What if it was her mouth?

“Gon’a–”

With trembling thighs, he sinks his free hand into the pressed sheets and feels his toes curl. Every muscle tenses, so hard it hurts as his cock begins to twitch. Pleasure pulses on, red-hot, sweet, warm. Throbbing waves wash over him.

His cock throbs, and spills thick cum all over his fist. Some of it even streaks his stomach in white, and when he thinks his climax is ready to recede, he groans low and pleased and throttles a little harder. He doesn’t get off nearly as much as he should.

It’s messy, horribly messy, and if he weren’t squirming all over the place surely his back would be making the tightest arch.

By himself, he’s never had such a mind-bending orgasm in his life—that’s what he realizes a few minutes later when the clarity slams into him and he realizes he cried out aloud to absolutely no one; except you, maybe, but only in his fleeting imagination.

Things are the same as they’ve always been. That’s what Levi wants to believe.

It takes outside intervention to shove the facts in both your faces—other than Hange shooting you both the look when Levi just so happens to pour two cups of tea and set one down front of you during a meeting; other than Mike, whose nose screws up when he sniffs the air and you both know he knows you’ve been wrapped up in bed together.

None of that ever mattered in the past. Remarks and jabs dissolve into awkward passes between moments—a look, a joke to be forgotten. It’s the same with everyone else among Levi Squad, until it isn’t.

Oluo gets a kick from poking at you, but it still isn’t as fun to him, apparently, as joshing around with Petra like an old married couple. He goes tight-lipped whenever Levi’s within earshot, and to Oluo’s credit it’s all in good fun.

With Eld and Gunther, things never stray beyond professionalism. They make good drinking buddies for you (and if you make your sad-dog eyes at Levi, him too), and they’re damn good fighters. All of them.

Levi has known each of them for years, just like you. It’s a web woven by mutual respect and trust, which is why what happened didn’t rattle the squad as much as it very well could have.

The six of you have just wrapped up a brief discussion in the echo chamber that is the dining hall. It’s late, and with so few bodies, shadows dance across cobbled walls.

You flash Levi the briefest of smiles. “I’ll have that report on your desk by tomorrow, Captain. G’night.”

You both know it’ll be sooner than that. He nods like a bird would, and watches the last of his murky tea swirl in its ornate cup as he swishes it around. Petra is usually the first to bed; she’s damn responsible, which makes it weird that she’s still here, nervously tapping the table. With it so quiet, she might as well be playing drums.

He asks the question cordially: “What’s wrong with you?”

“Could… Could I ask you a question, sir?” she stammers.

“Go on.”

The tapping grows a little more frantic. The question is whether or not they’re friends—a pretty stupid one. There’s life-or-death business, straight-laced and coarse, and then there’s camaraderie.

You or Gunther are the ones who do all the pep-talking when Petra needs something, though. Levi isn’t exactly someone people go to for comfort. Rather than a matter of her ODM belts fraying though, it seems a pep-talk is what she needs. She’s hardly ever this nervous around him.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she requests that they talk, as friends. It drops his stomach to unknown, wretched places, but he agrees anyway. People—a friend who ‘wants to talk’ never has good news.

They might as well get out of the dining hall, though. It’s a clear night out.

Beyond the front doors of HQ, the air is cool and breezy, which is surprising for the new summertime. Along the way an occasional firefly will glow to life, intent on getting to wherever they get to. Pondering the lives of the fucking fireflies distracts Levi from Petra’s obvious, unbearable anxiety. Unlike yours, it’s infectious.

He strolls alongside her, keeping in step as she goes on about her father. His letters—and by extension, hers—naturally pass by his desk occasionally. He knows the man is a tad overbearing, how he never wanted her in the Corps, but any set of parents with half a brain are wise to think that way.

“He wants me to get married,” she chitters, clearly troubled by the idea. “Can you believe that? I’m so young.”

Levi isn’t young anymore, and he doesn’t have a family, but he empathizes. “People are too young for plenty of the shit they go through with, whether they got a say or not. So if you have a choice, make up your own mind.” His advice is better than usual. “If you wanna get married, then go off and do it.”

“Oh, no! I don’t want to, that’s not…”

His stroll stutters. “Then, what did you want?” comes the blunt question, and he (to the best of his ability) rectifies it: “Just… get to the point. You have a concern, speak it. Or go to someone who gives better advice.”

Petra scrubs her arms as if it were cold, and stares at the ground like there’s something interesting there.

Confused and a little concerned, he stops too.

“It’s related to that,” she finally says, and looks up (it’s always strange that she’s shorter than him), but she can’t meet his stern gaze.

His brow wrinkles. “Yes?”

“Well… a lot of people admire you—and it’s more than warranted. I look up to you, i-in my case, literally.” She shakes her head, but his lips twitch, because it’s funny. “I try to find someone, but no one quite adds up to you.”

You’ve helped Petra with love troubles a million times—he knows that already, sort of. Without thinking, he shifts his footing.

“So…” she trails off.

He blinks. “I don’t know how to help with that. Find someone different to admire, I guess.”

Her head whips up to look at him again, startled. It’s combed over with a small laugh, and she smiles, ruefully. It’s with a sinking feeling he realizes he misunderstood.

“No,” she chuckles, entirely to spite the muck of awkwardness. “That’s not what I… do I really have to come out and say it?”

He would prefer that; if she stopped bumbling around the issue and disproved what he’s thinking this is. Assuming usually ends in Levi making an ass of himself, because in social situations it’s not uncommon for him to be wrong. The crux of what makes their squad work so well together is communication, anyway; during business hours or no.

Crossing his arms over himself, he tells her so: “Yeah, you do. So just be out with it, Petra,” and watches her pass by him and plant herself on a bench. It has no back, so she’s forced to hunch in on herself a little. Maybe she’d be doing that anyhow.

It’s quiet for a long moment, so long years could pass and he would still be frozen to the spot, maybe morphed into a statue. Then it’s confessed, anxious and unbearably quick, but nonetheless firmly, like Petra is ripping a bandaid off.

She has feelings for him.

“I know this is unprofessional of me.” Her eyes squeeze shut. “I’m sorry. But, if things stayed unspoken, I, I was afraid I’d regret it.” That stings, a little. “But no matter what the answer is, I’ll find a way not to now that you know.”

“…I see.” The words seem to drip off his lips. He idles stupidly, brows furrowed. Then he comes to terms with what she’s admitting and lets it sink in. “But you can’t get the-the wrong idea. Look…”

Their eyes meet somehow, and it feels like touching a hot stove. Levi could go on and on about ‘unprofessionalism’ himself, which is precisely why he doesn’t. There was never going to be another answer, but that’s only a nugget in the reasons why this feels shitty.

He’s not good at this. He’s given a million, deathly-worse pieces of bad news before, but unlike anything else, warring with feelings never gets easier. It isn’t like killing monsters, no matter how he wishes it was.

Will you and he stew in regret if things go unsaid, and why haven’t you both discussed it? Petra wouldn’t have been so inclined to say a thing if everyone knew, and he wouldn’t have to crush whatever fantasy she has of him in her head.

There’s never been a good, safe time—times are never safe. So, does there exist such a haven as the right time? How could there be?

Petra must be braver than Levi, because right now, in the simplest meaning of the phrase, seems to be it. But whether it’s safe, or good, he just can’t bring himself…

“Ah.” Her voice is lighter than air. Her head hangs again, ashamed. “I’m sorry, sir. If you’d prefer if I was booted from your squad, then I’d understand.”

Now that’s just ridiculous.

“You’re a member of an elite squad,” he tells her, “not my dog. Don’t talk like that. But I don’t…” He swallows, collects himself. “Do—you get what I’m saying, or what?”

“It’s fine,” she resolves, nodding. True to her word, her shoulders sink, like something heavy has tumbled off them. “I understand. I won’t mention this again.”

“Good.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Petra rises to her feet. Her face is splotched with red, especially her eyes, but she hastily wipes them with her sleeves and sniffs.

It’s easy to stay friendly with Petra because that’s the way he’s always viewed her. Things will work out this way, but he can’t say the same for the web of fluff entangling you and him. It’s a dull, anxious twist of realization.

As he passes her, he pats her shoulder in efforts to be reassuring. “Look. You’re a valued comrade, and we’re not at each other’s throats, are we? Don’t beat yourself up. That's foolish. Just go to bed.” A pause. “Sleep well.”

“Thank you…” She wipes her eyes, where tears are clinging. “...and the same for you, Levi. Goodnight.”

Right, of course.

He doesn’t remember the walk back; even the fireflies join the fog at the back of his mind. Once he’s trudged up the stairs, swiped out his keyring and retreated into the warm glow of his office (you must’ve lit a candle once you realized he'd be late), he starts to deflate. Knowing you’re here, especially at the end of the night, makes him feel better.

He has work to do, but getting this off his mind will be impossible if he doesn’t let you know. Keeping quiet about the confession—as inconsequential as it is—would feel hollow, like a betrayal to you. It wouldn’t be right.

The smell of roasted cedar immediately swells when he enters. You’re lounging cross-legged on his sofa, chowing down on a bowl of blueberries snug in your lap with one hand, propping up a thick novel with the other.

Flames lick in the fireplace, which casts the room in gold. It’s serene, almost domestic, and this huge wave of—relief crashes over him. It feels like coming home, and that hurts.

He leans back against the closed door, thinks in a string of curses, and closes his eyes. His face feels hot, and the room’s gone blurry.

You notice him, or did, a moment ago, and greet him once he plods over and plants himself in the armchair. He immediately shades his eyes with his hand, wrung-out, exhausted.

It’s better not to ask, even though it’s clear something happened. He’s still in uniform, pressed and perfect as always, but you know him well enough to tell. You ask whether he’s eaten dinner, whether he’d like some berries, and he gently turns down your offers—he ate earlier.

“You think of me too much.”

“Hm. Wrong.”

Your feet take you to his small kitchen. There’s a kettle on the stove from earlier, which you lift and pour steaming, earthy-smelling tea in a mug for him. It’s black, no good for relaxing, but knowing him it'll get the job done.

You take the saucer to Levi, who doesn’t appear to have so much as twitched since sitting down, and hold it out. Immediately he lights up, and sets the china aside so he can cradle the cup in both hands, savoring the heavy aroma, its warmth. It never tastes quite like the way he makes it himself, but close enough—it’s good.

By the way the sofa whines under your weight, it sounds like you’ve sat back down. He wouldn’t know; his eyes have drifted shut again.

Quietly, “Thanks, sweetness.”

“Anytime,” you quip, and curl up like a cat against an armrest. Back to reading.

By the time he’s drained the cup and his stomach is warm, he’s recuperated enough to collect his thoughts. He pulls himself into a proper sit, and informs you quite plainly what happened. You deserve to know, and it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t break the squad like snapping driftwood, and it shouldn’t break you two either; though it rattled him, sure.

“...Oh.” A little wide-eyed, you stare at him. Your reaction startles even yourself a little bit. You flounder, opening your mouth, then closing it. A wave of cold, cold feeling breaks over your chest.

He turned her down. That makes sense.

Unless he made that choice, not because he entirely feels nothing for Petra, but because he feels some obligation towards your own feelings. Levi makes time for everyone in your squad, but everyone is close to Petra—everyone who has a brain, anyway—because she’s open, and supportive, and one of a kind. Just like him.

You frown. It feels like you’re falling. You couldn’t bear it if Levi contradicted how he really feels for your sake. It wouldn’t be like him, but stick the words for your sake in the equation and he’s made plenty of sacrifices before—life-risking ones included. You can’t count the number of times he’s quite literally shielded you from attack, completely compromising new, raised scars and a dislocated shoulder, or (not so literally) a broken back. It’s never the case that you do too much for him—as he’s often insisted, over more meaningful things than fruit—but completely the opposite.

He frowns as you launch into small questions about his choice. You can’t help but sate the craving to ensure that what he said is what he really wants.

Since forever, it’s been a slinking thought creeping around the back of your mind: What are we doing, if not just spending quality time together the way lovers would? That title alone is blacklisted from your relationship—however you should define it as.

Am I holding him back? Not in the scope of his reputation, or the dream you both dedicate your hearts for, but in life. It’s never been clear, and that’s how it’s been between you two since (what feels like) forever. It’s as muddled as it is perfect; in many ways it’s perfect, but so fragile. What are you supposed to do while you’re drifting, stuck in the threshold of a grand promise like that?

How, concretely, does Levi even feel? What does he want? You realize that you don’t even know, not that the lives you two lead give you much opportunity for prancing in fields without a care in the world.

Now’s a good time to get the answer. With your book effectively forgotten, you’re sure to forget everything else until you know for certain.

You both idle now in the space between the golden sitting room and the dim kitchen. The more words that pass between you, the more he becomes (more and more) impatient.

In your defense, this isn’t an issue of flipping to the wrong page of a book—or however casual he thinks this whole conflict to be. You’re not overreacting. This is important.

“No,” you insist, “I’m not trying to judge your choice, I just don’t understand, because—she’s Petra!”

His befuddlement sinks into a glare. “And you’re you. What’s your point?”

“My point is…”

You’re not sure. The topic of a potential relationship with people outside your merged bubble isn’t something you two have ever talked about; not in such frank terms as someone outright confessing their love to one of you. That was especially true before you and he kissed for the first time.

Christoph was different because, to you, he was objectively unattractive, and he never outright spoke the words: I love you! Go out with me! Be with me! into existence. This is different, so much different. She confessed to him.

Anxiously, you pull at your sleeves and step away. You need to think.

“Are you…” He doesn’t understand. “…upset, because I turned her down? I didn’t do that because we’re—exclusive, or….”

He trails off, at a loss. Fact is, you’re not exclusive—that’s not a baseline you ever established.

While you stand there, very clearly upset, the possibility that you’re feeling insecure comes to mind, but that wouldn’t make any sense. You ought to be pleased with him if that were the case. He told Petra the truth: he doesn’t want that kind of relationship with her.

“I know,” you say, a little stupidly. You meet his troubled eyes head-on. “We’re not. That’s fine. I’m just—I am upset.”

His brow twinges with confusion.

You shake your head, resigned. “You deserve better than for me to be upset about it. I shouldn’t be, but Levi, if we’re not in a relationship, or dating, or exclusive…”

Each press of the words, for him, stings.

“…Why did you tell me all about it? That seems personal, since me and her are close.” You frown, deep in thought. “She probably would’ve told me, actually. I've known Petra a long time.”

Frozen on his feet, he stares at you like the front of a door. Not even a reason comes to mind, because he doesn’t know. It never crossed his mind not to tell you.

“I see,” he replies, lips twitching.

What does he say? You’re right. And now, he’s rendered you frowning miserably, anxious, likely tearing up your sleeves. He did wrong by you, too.

“What’s on your mind?” You free your sleeves, opening up a little, and wander closer, if just to show you’re not angry with him.

He isn’t looking at you. When there’s no reply, you tilt your head. “Of course you’re free to make your own choices.”

I just think Petra would be a better one.

You swallow again: it feels like there’s no saliva in your mouth. “I just think Petra is really great, but if that’s the way you feel, then I’m glad. I'm just—worried I’m holding you back.”

A little incredulous, he jerks his head to look at you. “What? How does being—content with our situation mean I’m limiting myself?” He doesn’t understand at all. “Why the hell should that even matter?”

“Because you have the opportunity to be even more content than you are now!” you insist, then tear apart inside. Really, what gives you the right to micromanage Levi’s happiness?

He keeps his voice carefully even. “I don’t care. There wasn’t ever gonna be another answer.” He’s actually angry, you belittling yourself like you’re nothing but a pastime for him. “Get that through your thick skull.”

“I’m sorry,” you mutter. Even as you speak, you sense a rift pulling you apart. “I’m just insecure.”

He huffs and retreats a little, leaning against the doorway. “Shit. Coulda fooled me.”

You’re reaching the end of his patience. Briefly, you close your eyes, seeking a breath. There’s insecurity, and the blunt-force claw of selfishness, too. It’s an ugly facet of yourself—and not the real issue.

“But there’s something else.” Again you swallow, but there’s a snag there this time. “I also got worried ‘cause I don’t want any of this to stop, I want nothing to change—because you’re the best person in my life, and, I don’t feel like I deserve it, so I’m so fucking terrified you’ll…”

“I’ll what?” Flush with the doorway, his voice is low, and thick like molasses. “Get bored of you? You’re smarter than that. But think about our fucking jobs—we’re always in danger. You’re the oldest veteran besides Eyebrows, and I know what I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“No–”

“You need to be prepared for the worst. Are you not?”

It’s this type of thinking, specifically, that’s been gnawing at his bones for months. Life could change, or end, at the flip of a coin; it always has. How you could possibly forget that, he doesn’t know, unless it’s his fault for lulling you into a false sense of security.

The best person in your life? That’s practically a screeching alarm, warning to something horrible about to happen, either to him or you. He hopes it’s him—in a sick, destructive way. Everyone who’s ever talked like that, or showed it in even a fraction of that way has left him behind; living or dead, but mostly dead. Nothing has ever stayed as long as you.

You don’t answer.

“If I got unlucky, you’d have to move on,” he insists, leaving no room for argument. “And if it were you, I’d do the same.”

“Levi–”

Your eyes look like glitter. He can tell you’re about to cry, but you can’t not be prepared for that. He can’t wreck you. He can’t do that to you.

“Listen,” he goes on, “f’you live with regrets, you might as well count yourself among the bodies… You’re right, I shouldn’t have told you. That was shitty to Petra.”

“I know.” You’re not entirely listening, too busy cracking wide open. This conversation left Petra a while ago. “I’ve had so many friends die. You were there for that! But we’ve made it this far–”

“And one day we won’t. I thought the same about–” he sneers, “–n’ look what happened to them. The world will chew you up and spit you out all it wants—it a-already has. You deserve better than me or this shitty world could ever give up–”

Hearing him talk like this is a punch in the gut. “No. That’s not true! I just want you!”

His eyes go wide. “It doesn’t matter what we want! Don’t you get it? This world is cruel. It’s not gonna listen to you or me and let us stay happy, no matter if we’re Titan-food or two fat, ugly nobles.”

“Wait, you’re happy?” you sniff, picking at the skin of your fingers. Hope hurts. “I make you happy?”

Realizing what he let slip, he seals his lips. It’s like his insides have dropped inside a chasm, that’s what it feels like, and no longer in a good way. His chest caves in.

He knows—what he feels for you is so rare, maybe he’s never felt it in his life: call it happiness, call it anything good. Never could he keep it. It’s been ripped away each and every time, so eventually he stopped reaching for it.

The first time he kissed you was the first time he reached out again, resolved to the fact that things would be different. Of course they are, and more than that, they’re new, and overwhelming. You want him, and maybe you can tell the feeling’s mutual; or not, by the way you belittle yourself so much.

Either way he’s sick to death. He refuses to wait around for you to be ripped away. Not you, not yet another person he failed to protect. Terror forces him to say nothing.

Yes, Levi’s happy, but his lack of reply tells you that he won’t allow himself to be. You’re not the same. Be it a bloody death, or how cruel the world is—you could never bring yourself to care. It’s hard to say whether he’s a coward, or you’re a fool.

“So… what?” You brace your head with your hands, sounding like a strangled bird. You feel like one, too. “We can never be happy?”

By his sides, his hands curl into fists. “…No. I guess not.”

But he foolishly believed you could be, once.

It’s always the hardest words to say, the lowest thing to do—but it’s true. He knows this. It’s cruel and it’s unfair, but you’d be fooling yourselves to believe otherwise. Isabel’s severed gaze, and Farlan, waving goodbye. People with faces and names and lives. This world is too bloodthirsty to let happiness stay.

You stand, arms crossed tightly, like you're hugging yourself. Then you snivel, a wet sound.

Automatically, he straightens up and looks down at the floor. Things have always easily reduced you to tears, so he’s heard you cry, but it never gets any easier to listen to. He feels ripped out of his own heart. Everything he feels goes against what he’s done here.

Without another word, you sniff, and begin to move. He’s never felt more disgusting, foolish and evil than that hope twinging. In the past, he couldn’t pry you off with a hammer when you were upset: you always completely latched yourself to him. Maybe that’s why you’re carrying yourself like that.

The soft, wet sound of your weeping retreats down the hallway. It’s hard to breathe. He did what he gave his word not to. Maybe you don’t even remember, it was years ago, but he’s pushed you away.

But it’s true, the same thought protests. Was there any other option where you could possibly maintain this dance of friendly romantics, and face the threat of it all being torn to shreds—every day for the rest of your lives?

If you shared each other completely…

A long breath. He doesn’t know. He’s never felt this for anyone. Imagining the opposite, losing you, it would be worse than loss. Worse than the biggest bone in your body shattering, worse than staring down at the blood pooling in your palms and getting the first inkling of what you’ve done. Loss hurts like hell, so he can’t even imagine.

But hurting you hurts like hell, too, so he must be damned either way.

The side-door to his quarters shutting is a gavel going down. Muffled, further away, your retreat from his office is a ghost letting go.

It feels like a vicious whip has cracked a jagged line through the center of everything you are. The result is manic, and it’s numb and raging—all at the same time.

Numbness easily pilots you back down to your hall, to your dark, oaken door. You stare for a while, hating that you left. There’s a thousand things you could’ve said, and a million more thoughts still crammed in your head. It’s Levi, so you simply can’t think of it any other way.

The crest of the door-knocker is a stormy gray, above which sits the coppery plate proudly displaying your rank as Lieutenant, followed by your last name.

The knob is cold when you grip it, and incidentally the chill reminds you of Levi. Here’s where the knot in your throat lurches, and the shapes in your vision stretch as it clouds with tears.

You step inside, and go to bed.

‘Crying all night’. In your life you’ve cried plenty, but a phrase like that only ever rang as true as ‘you’re perfect’, or ‘endlessly, forever’. A contrived game of hyperbole and extremes, usually to play up terribly average feelings. Say it enough, use it enough, and the meaning will drain from the words.

But your entire body lurches with the force of your sobbing, screwing your shoulders up as far as they’ll strain.

You can’t get over it. It’d be easier, somehow, if Levi didn’t want you. No, you make him happy, but he refuses the eventual heartbreak. In his case, he can’t afford to be distracted, not the most valuable soldier the Corps has. What only rubs salt in the wound is you understand why he said what he did.

When it grows late and your tears have dissolved to whimpers, the pool of anguish sits like a stone in the center of your chest. As heavy as your body grows, as soaked as your pillows, as heady as the blankets framed around your face—that dull urge to weep keeps grasping. It feels like you could cry yourself to sleep. As long as you remain in this dark, drowsy void, you could keep crying, on and on until you wake, weeping in shallow gasps.

This turns true, along with the fact that people are more than capable of crying all night long.

It’s early in the morning. You can tell by the gray that waits outside your drawn curtains. Somewhere, a mourning dove is crooning, outshined by a drill instructor shouting his commands. HQ is already awake.

A deep, shaking breath, and more grief worms its way up your parched throat. Your eyes feel somehow chapped when you open them, and sting when you shut them. That’s not exactly fair—but neither is anything.

Curled up, sleep is drifting back in, warm and inviting.

It’s easy to write off most of the jabs Levi throws as dry, poorly-timed jokes, or instances of him ‘just being an asshole’—his words, anytime you asked. But he always means the things he says, in lieu of chattering along without a care. He’s not good with words, but only because he fails to say what he means much of the time. That’s not his fault.

Last night, there was hardly any room for deciphering a different meaning between the lines, “You deserve better than me or this shitty world could ever give up,” and “If I got unlucky, you’d have to move on.”

He was worked up. Case in point, you never talk about either one of you dying: that’s like seriously discussing how likely it is that humanity will one day eradicate the Titans. He’s never yelled at you, either. Not like that, when he wasn’t Captain Levi of the Survey Corps, but just Levi.

You sniffle, cringing at your sloppy-feeling, clogged sinuses, and wish he’d never brought up Petra. Then again, the thought persists, a conversation like that had to happen eventually.

Your relationship, or a hypothetical one—you try to sort it out by yourself.

Friends—even friends with benefits—don’t hug and press little kisses all over the other’s face to wake them up after the nights they stay together have bled into the morning. The only benefits that you and Levi really shared in that sense, was each other. It was never going to work, lines jumbled and unclear like that, but.

With a small whimper, hot tears drip down your cheeks, which you smear in the pillows. Thinking about it isn’t helping.

You’re deeply inclined to sleep in, but chastise yourself for your laziness. There’s work to be done, if only that means interacting with Levi, or rather, Captain Levi: the most shallow, professional part of who you know him as, completely on face-value.

And it goes about as well as you expect.

Long since springtime came and went in its unfurled blossoms and light, smoky days, summer has come to take its place. It’s blisteringly hot outside, and while weighed down by fourteen kilos of straps, gas and wires, while also wrangling the new recruits—to mold them into certified Scouts (though, no one is really a Scout until they make it back that first time)—you’d rather be shoveling horse shit.

On the other hand, Levi has plenty of excuses to be stricter than usual. If a disagreement over gas tanks or something else just as asinine breaks out, he’s quick to break up the fight with just as much tenacity: a swift kick in the ass and a few biting curses at the ‘brats’. Hange, in honesty, just likes to make them squirm, while the stablehands (and Petra, you notice) aren't happy with any of it.

You’re perched in the hulking tree branches alongside Eld, guiding screeching, unsteady wires—and the new blood attached to those wires—when it happens.

Like a lonely marionette, you’ve been on auto-pilot since breakfast’s gruel. Maybe it’s hours of muscle memory finally derailing, or you haven’t kept as hydrated as you should for the sweltering sun. Either way, one moment you’re coasting through the air, and the next, your vision’s a green spinning top.

You hit the forest floor pretty hard, and for a while you can’t find the strength but to stare up at the blinding gaps between the leaves above, heaving and hot and fuzzy.

Eld leaves no room for argument when he clasps your hand, urging you to your aching feet: “Let’s let the Captain know, just in case. It’s the right thing to do.”

“No… I just took a fall. That’s all.”

His bright bangs flop in his face when he shakes his head. “It’s gonna be me, or me and you. No offense, Lieutenant, but you look like hell.”

You hate to see where this is going, but you smear the sweat off your face, and let it go. No doubt you feel like hell, that’s for sure.

The first, brief look of alarm on Levi’s face when he first catches sight of your skin and uniform scuffed, scraped, dirty vanishes in an instant. You have the guts, at least, to come out with what happened, but he still deals you quite the verbal whipping for it. His tone is just about as sharp as the kickdrum beating between your ears.

Levi dismisses Eld with a jerk of his head, and then his eyes are squarely on you. “You idiot. I didn’t see the sun for twenty years and even I know what fucking heatstroke looks like.”

“It was a mistake,” you insist, curling your toes in your boots to stay steady. Wavering now would just be embarrassing.

“Yeah,” he sneers. “Mistakes kill people.”

You grind your teeth like shaving wood, willing yourself not to speak. You’re getting chewed out by your Captain, not your friend (Whatever he is, you admonish yourself).

“I’m just tired, sir.” Emphasis on the last word. “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

Several beats of silence are clogged by the thick air. He won’t look at you, or maybe he can’t. Finally, he decides to let you off for the day.

“Get it together. You’re dismissed.”

Cheers to you for maintaining maturity. Still, you scuff up a little bit of dust than you meant on your way through the grassy courtyard. The hot shower you take burns like acid, fostering a new batch of bruises dotted up and down your limbs. You burn on the inside too, ashamed.

Will we ever talk about this? If your performance keeps slipping, yes. Will we ever talk the same? You don’t know.

You get to thinking.

It’s accepted that shouting matches are a normal part of relationships. Maybe it’s even expected, but still: The sooner an argument like that sweeps through a relationship, the worse-off two people are for each other—especially the more it goes on. If that’s the case, it makes you wonder if you and he are still persistently bared to each other on an artificial level.

You’ve never landed yourself in a shouting match with Levi before last night; not a real, world-ending argument over such vague, precious topics like commitment.

Did that make us wrong in some way? A better question: Why the hell should it?

It’s a depressing thought. If it’s inevitable that two souls are bound to grate and screech together when rubbed the wrong way—is anyone truly ‘made’ for each other? It’d be the case then that some things are made to be broken. They tumbled out into the world deficient and cracked.

Does everyone tolerate? Does love mean you still have to settle?

You make yourself sick thinking like this. Too nauseous to eat, but knowing full-well you should, you decide to wait until the dining hall clears out.

Hopefully, Levi is eating enough too. You can’t help worrying. He tends to forget.

You’re smoothing the headache out of your temples when there’s a light, almost shy knock on your door; too soft to be Levi. You’d recognize his even if you went deaf.

Petra practically oozes concern when you summon her in, all the way down to the tray she carries, crammed with leftovers. She didn’t spot you at breakfast, either, so she decided to come by.

You sniff, take the tray, and gently place it down on your desk. It’s also crammed, just with cluttered paperwork. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” she says kindly, and picks at her fingers. It seems she picked up that habit from you at some point. “If there’s anything I can do, well, you know.”

She, for one of the few of your closest friends, knows the sort of ‘crybaby-turtle’ you are—Oluo’s words. You’d be damned to ever let your nature bleed onto the battlefield, or onto your closest comrades, who you’ve bled for.

It feels good, not having to pretend in front of her, but not even Petra knows about you and Levi; not any of it, no one. You hate that she was the catalyst, but it’s not her fault.

You reassure that you’ll be alright with a small shake of your head. “What’s new with you?”

“Well… I embarrassed the hell out of myself in front of Captain Levi the other day,” she laughs. “I hope he hasn’t told you.”

“It’s nothing,” you remark, “I think gossiping went out of style for him forty years ago.”

She sniggers at that. No one (including him) knows his age for certain—Levi doesn’t even use a last name—but not even recruits will bet on forty. His looks speak for themselves.

“Well, he’s been in a mood.”

Your interest is snagged. “You think so?”

Petra gives you a look that says everyone thinks so, but she’s still a little ashamed about gossiping. “So, I’m sorry anyway. You two are just—connected in a way, you know?”

“Hm. Maybe.” Playfully, you knock your boot against hers. You needed that. “Really. It’s alright. Maybe Oluo will get down on one knee one of these days, hm?”

“Agh. As if.”

You can tell she’d rather you open up and let her know what’s wrong, especially after your fall this afternoon, but she’s just as quick to trust you and leave well-enough alone. Demons follow just about everyone in this regiment, and you’re a hard shell to crack anyway.

She bids you goodnight. It’s stomach-churning to finish your supper, but you manage to force it down before strolling to your bookshelf to pick out a book.

“Oh,” you mutter, and slide a paperback off the pine shelf. Levi will be missing this one right about now. You sigh, and hug the book to your chest. Shit.

Just as you suspect, he is.

Levi frowns into the drawer, the lowest one he always has to crouch to get to. His fingers play at the polished wood, glaring into the emptiness. He looks mildly resentful and a little hollow behind the eyes, but that’s just his thinking face, more or less. The one he can’t find, you were reading together; bought in the most pompous bookstore in all of Wall Sina—or it must’ve been.

His gut reaction is to let you keep it, finish it on your own time, and if he never gets it back, so be it. Your duties are slipping, along with your mood, and you, and it’s all his fault. Guilt like a millstone roils around in his chest.

It had to be said, he reassures himself. You’re both better off not getting involved, or you will be. You must be. Feeling piss-poor and empty isn’t the newest feeling, but he never planned to drag you down with him. He tells himself again that you’ll bounce back, but that reassurance feels emptier than the first.

The sounds of your weeping retreating down the hallway needs to be worth it.

He rubs the bridge of his nose. Still. No matter how this thing between you ends, he shouldn’t have left things like that.

She walked away first, one part of his mind meagerly protests.

Because you made her cry, berates the bigger, seething part. What kind of piece of shit gets ‘I want you’ screamed at him and does that? What’s wrong with you?

Plenty. He rolls it around in his mind as he makes the trek through cobbled hallways, speckled with shadows thanks to the wall-mounted torches. The way he was brought up wasn’t exactly pretty, but that’s not an excuse. You know so much of it now, anyway.

When he quit locking up like a rattlesnake whenever you so much as wrapped your arms around him, you asked much later if the man who raised Levi ever hugged him. The ridiculousness of the question took him by such surprise that he actually laughed.

He shared a cigar with me, once, he remembers telling you. Then he added, The expensive ones. From Mitras, as if that cushioned the blow.

You really teased him for it, but you had to. Otherwise, it’d just be depressing.

Either way, the crux of the issue, and the conclusion he’s forced to come to, is maybe he never learned to hold people no short of arm’s length, but it’s that no one ever taught him any other way.

It’s almost like when he was learning to write just a week into his promotion to Squad Leader, when reading and writing became a requirement rather than a privilege. Everyone around him could do it without a second thought—some with their eyes closed, even—while he could barely manage making out the letters of his own name. The words he was an expert at no longer meant shit, either: eloquent ones like ‘tavern’ and ‘KEEP OUT!’.

You’re not obligated to mend a bone that snapped before he was born; you deserve better than that. If he had any say, he’d want your relationship to be smooth sailing and sweet, as close to perfection as you can get.

Thing is, he isn’t convenient, or perfect—or any of those other things you deserve. In some places he’s odd and broken. In plenty.

Sometimes, often, he even gets a sneaking, oozing feeling that he’s deceived you in some way when you make it so clear how highly you think of him. He never got that part: Why you seem to bask in his shadow so much. He can’t help but feel he poisoned you, because those horrible words you attach to yourself, so utterly incorrectly, is him.

He feels even less than a human being at times. If there’s anything he was taught, it’s that his body is a weapon, and he’s to make it in this world. Not much else matters other than avoiding getting dulled down or broken in half.

So no, the serial killer who raised him never hugged him much.

With your door—your plaque spelling your name across its face—staring back at him, he once again scrounges together the nerve to knock. His knees have locked up, along with the rest of him, but if Petra can get the balls to confess to her superior officer what she did, he can at least do this. He needs to.

He needs to fix things, or patch them over. Something.

You made her cry.

Levi raises his hand, and knocks. When the door cracks open, then whines a little further, he instantly forgets everything he planned to say—about the book. Keep it, he wants to tell you, but what comes out is: “You look constipated.”

You idle behind the threshold a little, sort of like a little kid. “Uh-huh, I know. If I lose any more sleep, I’ll start looking like you.”

That casual remark makes panic shoot through his belly for some reason. He might as well just be out with it. “I wanted to talk.”

“Okay,” you venture. Rather than a little kid, you now come off as a wary, wide-eyed cat. “If it can’t wait… Is it important?”

Important? He sure would like to think so. “...I’m not here for paperwork.”

The air turns thick. Now, you aren’t even looking at him: you’re glaring at the floor, swallowing as if there’s something stuck in your throat. The next few moments, he doesn’t really hear before the door shuts. You tell him, “I’m sorry, but I can't. You make me too sad.”

An apology sticks to his tongue, but if he opens his mouth, it’ll just be told to the door. His lips twitch, not understanding.

Why did that hurt so much? You didn’t tell him you hated him, you didn’t even slam it in his face. Levi makes you sad, that’s all, but suddenly the sky is falling inside him. He can’t even feel the floor beneath his feet.

Okay, he reasons to nobody. If he makes you sad, removing himself ought to make you happy. Maybe it won’t for a while, but… If I give it time, it should. In retrospect he was conceited for expecting anything else.

In any case, he’ll try his best to do right by you.

As his steps finally start to recede, you’re left at the door, sniffling, idling. You cry too much—which isn’t his fault. It’s just the fact that you’ve never felt more disgusting, hopeless, and evil than that hope sticking to you like cobwebs. Some part of you is so angry with him, but you wanted him to stay, too. It’s not fair.

You can hear Levi’s sardonic quip now: “Fair. Is that a joke?”

This whole mess reminds you of the first real night you stayed together—a million years ago, it feels like. Maybe three or four. For once, he actually slept, but his hands visibly shook when you crawled into his arms that night.

It worried you, whether he was anxious beyond all measure, or you were overstepping bounds he wasn’t ready for, but he insisted he just wasn’t used to going to bed with someone. Now, you’re sure he was afraid—of waking you with a nightmare, or being close to someone, or every bad thing, all at once.

He was warm and solid, and he cradled you to his chest, your breaths falling in sync with the rise and fall of his own. It felt so safe. He must’ve felt that way too, for you woke even before him, and strapped on your uniform back in your own tiny quarters (fit for when you were still a Squad Leader).

But a few minutes later, there was a rapping on your door. It was Levi of course, strung-up and glaring, but his eyes gave him away. By then you had an idea of just how often they do.

“You could’ve told me you planned on leaving first-thing. I told you I’m not used to this.”

“Oh.” You were a little blindsided. “I just wanted to let you sleep in.”

His eyes grew sharper. “Well don’t, you shitting idiot.”

You were flabbergasted then, but now you look back and know he felt abandoned. Even though he was still the one to approach your door this time, now it’s your turn to feel that way. Maybe you both do.

You’re so tired of crying.

On the other hand, Levi has never been a crying person. He couldn’t do it even if his Commander ordered him to, not even if he wanted. After you told him to go, he let the front of his desk bear his weight for a while, jaw locked up and aching.

You’ve seen him at quite a few of his rock-bottoms, in a state of icy grief or blood-red rage, but he’s still never been so pathetic as to let you see him blubber and sob like a baby. If he can’t do it alone, how can he expect to let you witness that horror show?

Doesn’t matter. You don’t want to see him at all.

So, he gets started on paperwork: he scratches dry parchment with the end of his quill so long that the inkwell runs out. Without pausing to mind his aching neck, he replaces it and gets back to it.

He writes some notes, too—ones the recipient will never see, so there they sit. He works some more. He throws the notes away. Sunset drowns in the dark gray of evening.

Levi is, self-admittedly, so good at math that he can tell distance with a single, squinted look. He’s always been that way. The logic is a comfort to him somehow, so that night he ends up calculating the Corps’ budget as far as two months from now. Sooner or later, he finally feels the hunger pains sinking its jagged teeth into his stomach.

Eating isn’t a new chore to forget, no matter how important it is. He lived with hunger for so long, it became just like dealing with sore feet, or aching fingers after quite a bit of writing; it’s just another task to get done a few times a day. Once he let you in enough for you to notice his weird patterns, you really jumped on his ass about it.

It used to piss him off, because it was his business and he didn't get why you cared so much. Now, as he manages to scarf down some leftovers that taste a little better than cardboard, he just feels shitty the ritual of you reminding him has been broken.

Falling asleep would be a pointless fight, he decides.

Unsurprisingly, Commander Erwin is awake this late—or this early, rather. The lantern on his desk is burning its weight in oil when he drops an even stack of papers down.

Lately, Levi has driven himself so hard into the ground that the stream of bureaucracy has whittled down to just a few drops, but, “if you’re looking for something to do, allocate some funds to buy a suit. A few select officers of each regiment have been invited to Mitras.”

Levi’s nose screws up. “You mean it’s time to kiss more pig-ass. Play politics, right?”

The shadows dancing across the walls make Erwin’s chuckle seem a bit more foreboding, but, as usual, Levi’s right: he has a knack for shaving the fluff off Erwin's words.

Rather than play politics though, it’s almost entirely Levi’s job to stand around, keep his mouth shut, and look like Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. Erwin, Hange and Mike always do him the favor of ass-kissing, but if possible, “bring your Lieutenant. She’s just as impressive, but unlike you she has a clean mouth.”

“Tch. You’d be surprised how many idiots around here don’t brush their teeth,” he grumbles. Then, he steps away from Erwin’s long desk, and connects the dots. “Wait. You said I have to play dress-up for this. You wanna make her my date?”

Levi knows he’s being bitchier than usual, but Erwin’s cool gaze gives nothing away. He simply locks his hands under his chin, and explains: “Officially, yes. Nanaba is joining Mike in the same way. Unofficially, it isn’t my business. I’m not interested in disciplining you or her for fraternizing, of all things.”

If Levi and you are in bed together, Erwin doesn’t need to know—how relieving. Fair, though. Recruits crawl in bed with each other all the time. Still, this little revelation boils his blood to no end.

Fucking shit, Levi thinks with disdain. What great timing.

If just the sight of him at your door is enough to make you sad, a hokey date-night in Mitras will send you spiraling—better he not tell you and spare you the anguish. The news will find your desk on its own, and sooner or later you’ll learn to coexist, just like that.

But...

It’s when he’s sat hunched over in the reclusive safety of his quarters, shining a blade, that a selfish sense of possession swoops over him like an evil shadow.

Levi pauses with the cotton-white handkerchief clutched in his palm, thinking hard. He needs to think. You've always pointed out that he spends too much time in his head.

No matter what, he’ll always try to attract your gaze; let the room be crowded, dark, or empty. In some ways he feels he’ll die without it, hence how he needs you just to function. The crux of the issue is that if you did die, he really might just follow you. It’s pathetic.

He imagines cradling you as the life in your eyes is fogged by muddy, gray film.

Worse. What if he isn't there when you land in trouble? What if he could do something, but fails? What if your blood splatters his cape, proof of his helplessness and your painful end?

There’s a title he carries—Humanity’s Strongest—but still, somehow, he always manages to fail in protecting the ones he cares for the most. For you, if there was something he could’ve done, or done better…

His expression screws up, because that’s wrong: No matter what it’d be his fault. Whether it's logical or not, it’s how it is. If he’s strong and that’s his right to life, then he’s the one responsible for flubbing that one and only talent, and by extension his duty, over and over again.

He’s never told you this, he realizes with a hollow feeling, but he still finds himself anguished that he did nothing for his mother in those last days she spent bedridden. He knows he was just a kid, but he can’t convince himself that means anything, even now.

His old friends, faces with names and lives—those deaths ended up leaving him stronger. He was able to channel the grief, and mold it into power. But when he inevitably comes up with the image of your body amongst the dead, his hands pick up a tremble.

A carefully even breath. The knife he cradles in his palm is old, rusted a coppery brown and whittled down at the edges from years of wear and (literal) tear. It’s the one that clashed with Mike’s and Erwin’s blades; it’s the one that carried him through a good portion of his years running with gangs; it’s the one he brought up from the gutter.

It’s no longer good for practical use, but he never lets go of things, even when he knows he should. Even if he can't hold them or even see them, they stick in his mind. If he doesn’t get it together–

“Shit,” comes the curse, then a small string of others, one after another. A clean, brittle snap of the blade. Where now two pieces lay in his palm, the metal around the break is especially weathered, like terminally-sick silver.

Levi knows his way around a knife, so he knows the art of fixing them up. There’s not a damn thing he can do for this one.

He can’t idle on the equally-anguished snap somewhere deep in his chest. What does he do with it? It's useless now. His last tie to his home is dead and gone.

Home, he thinks with sorry spite. That’s a funny word for it.

Without thinking, he tears his cravat from around his neck, craving air, and stands. His step stutters, but he can’t help it. He needs to pace.

Levi doesn’t have a home, or a family. His meaning is the cause, with the Corps, and maybe he found a family once, but they were wiped out.

The knife means nothing, the Underground wasn’t home—it was a dead-end gutter where dogs are born, lay, and die. Maybe home was his mother, but she laid and she died, and he was so young when it happened. He doesn’t even know what home means.

The broken knife suffocates in his tightly-knuckled fist. It’s too dull to pay any mind to. Crushing it is better than feeling sorry about it.

He senses a pattern. That’s his way with all precious things. Whatever soft, golden thing sprouted between you two, he crushed it before the grief could ever snag a chance to crush him. He’s a killer, in the most elementary sense of the word.

Dull, burning hatred. He hates what he’s done here, and he hates himself for his actions.

At a loss, he crosses the threshold between his personal quarters and his office, swipes his keyring out, and jams it in the small lock of a desk drawer; the one closest to the floor.

There’s a ponytail holder of Isabel’s he only noticed he still had tethered around his wrist after the fact, a pair of ancient dice, and a dozen other odd things within a sea of strung-out patches displaying the Wings of Freedom. Most are bloodied, aged stiff and brown. He has nowhere else to put it.

He sniffs. The heaviness sinks somewhere way down in his chest, as heavy things do, and slinks away; dull, but unbothered. He’s not equipped to do anything else with those feelings, much less unload all of this bullshit on you. Even on good days it was hard.

He shoves it down deep instead, buried like a chest crammed with rotten, cheap treasures. It’ll find its way to the surface in another way—a pattern he believes because you explained it to him. He’ll just have to wait and see what it’ll be.

Two days later, Levi breaks his finger.

He’s running himself ragged with all manner of exercise he can manage by himself in Trost HQ’s claustrophobic gym: maintaining a plank until sweat from his brow drips to the mat below and his core is on fire; pushups until even he loses count; donning a pair of gloves and bruising the hell out of the leathery punching bag until Mike, who’s bracing it, gets knocked on his ass—or just about.

Mike’s the one who grins in approval, a smirk curling despite his bare, heaving chest. Much like a dog, he sweats buckets, so much so his skin looks more like tinfoil. He asks how much Levi has managed to lift lately, and sensing a challenge, told him honestly: “Two-hundred.”

“Shit, man…” Mike gawks at him in disbelief. “What’re you made of?”

It’s well-known that Levi’s abilities stretch far-beyond the best in the Scouts, or the military as a whole. You were always of the opinion that he’s the strongest man alive.

The times when you and he trained together, one-on-one (something that didn’t happen as often as it should, come to think of it), you worked off each other constantly, building strength, endurance. You never managed to knock him down, though, other than that one time years ago; you caught him off guard by demanding to know why he hated you. That was because he pushed you away.

He abandons that train of thought. Few people can take him in a fight, at any rate.

He believes the closest you ever got (fairly) was when he requested mid-plank for you to add more weight onto his back. He’d been able to maintain the same position for several minutes, and all he had to show for it was a bead of sweat broken over his forehead.

You indulged him gladly. Only, you were kneeling beside him, pressing both hands to the sharp planes of his shoulders. You were helping out gravity more than giving him a challenge.

“S’not working,” he huffed, and shrugged your hands off, adjusting his tight brace above the floor. “Sit on me.”

You were incredulous with him. “What, like a pony?”

“Ugh.” He rolled his eyes, flicking his sodden bangs away from his eyes. “Sure.”

“Only if you neigh.” You said this like it was the chief requirement.

“...Fucking neigh. Hurry up already.”

You chided him for acting bossy, but you quickly lurched into action. Your chief complaint was the sticky sweat pasted to his bare back. Still, he could feel you staring, gliding over the places where his muscles were pulled taut and flexing beneath his skin.

Levi, at the time, felt prickled that you might have been scrutinizing some particularly ugly scars with your eyes; those still stubbornly raised, the color of severely diluted blood. You weren’t.

He grunted and strained under your weight. With a whole human body managing a recline long-ways as if he were a hammock, who wouldn’t?

He dropped—according to Hange’s stopwatch—after another hour and twenty-two minutes. As a result you were severely bored, and babied the hell out of him for the next few days until he could at least stretch his arms above his head without every one of his muscles locking up in that crumpled way he only gets after a good workout. He thanked you, told you he owed you, even, but you never asked for anything back—not even for him to give you a proper neigh.

He hates you for that, he swears he does. You went out of your way by the hour to make his days a little easier, and demanded nothing in return. That only happens in storybooks, or so he thought. Either way, he didn’t deserve you.

No, he corrects himself, not just ‘a little easier’. You managed to make him look forward to eating, as if it were a candlelit date instead of a task to get done, you made swirling, happy feelings break over his chest by doing so little as yawning too widely, and at the end of so many days, he learned to hate sleeping a little less. He was less defensive, and smiled more—yours was just that infectious. But when your heart broke, he wanted to protect you, too. He could’ve handled feeling as broken as you, at least for a while, so you wouldn’t have to brave it alone.

And he still wants it. You make him so happy it hurts—that’s why he can’t stand it.

It was just an accident: Mike saw an opportunity, bet he could take him down in under five minutes in the ring, and Levi rose to the occasion.

That gigantic hound of a man was the strongest in the Scouts before five years ago, so they duke it out anytime Levi actually agrees to it. Most times not, especially if Hange bets on money, chores, or gods forbid gets Erwin wrapped up in the gambling.

This afternoon they weren’t present, but even if they were, he wouldn't have cared. The blood in his veins was boiling to fight, which is unlike him. Back before he met you, it would've been: he had a much shorter, nastier temper before the sun ever shone on him, but fighting has always come as natural to him as flipping a page. Everything else seldom does.

It must’ve been right before he kicked Mike square in the chest, putting him down for the count. They were rolling around quite a bit before then, so maybe Levi’s hand got pinned at some point. Doesn’t matter—it’s no one’s fault.

Mike even grasped Levi’s hand and shook it at the end, but he didn’t get the lurking sense of his ramrod-stiff finger until he stepped in the shower right after. It’s his left index finger, and it's puffy and swollen. In sharp contrast to the others, it’s taken on a morbid, maroon color.

He was weary when he first set his eyes on it, and he’s weary now as he kneels before his gaping bathroom drawers. This exhaustion somehow supersedes all his physical wear and tear.

He grinds his teeth to keep from wincing—despite the fact that he sits alone—as he roots through his drawers. It was only when he saw the ugly thing that the length of his finger started throbbing. That didn't go away, and now it’s tender and flaming simply on sight.

The first-aid kit—where is it? He doesn’t misplace things: organized would be his middle name, and he considers it his last as long as he doesn’t know it. The only reason he even keeps such a thing is to avoid siphoning resources from the medbay in cases of minor grazes like this.

He shuts his eyes as he smooths his sopping bangs completely off his forehead. The least he did was pull on a pair of briefs, but he couldn’t dry off before attending to this. Scavenging for a memory when he can hear his heartbeat in his mangled finger is a bitch.

The cabinet is deliciously cool when he leans his forehead against it. And then, it comes to him as all terrible revelations do, sinister in its clarity, abrupt and sinking: His first-aid kit is in your quarters.

You got sick of him tending to his injuries by himself—hiding them, you insisted—and all but pilfered it from him. He teased you about it and pretended to throw a fit, but he didn’t even think of it, not until now. He didn’t care, because if you had it stashed away he could do the same. It felt good to take care of you, even though he couldn’t stop the injury from happening.

He squeezes his eyes shut, wobbling around a dozen heavy, clunky feelings. It was more than just patching you up, too. You, taking care of him like that, he liked it—or the idea of it. It was nice, you keeping it for him. Reserving his well-being for the front of your mind, no matter how slight the hurt. No one ever did that for him before. He used to be so alone.

The acid-cork in his throat breaks like popping a tap. Hot tears spring to his eyes, and a croaked sound escapes before he can stop either of them.

With another wave of weariness, he comes to the realization that he’s so sick of hiding away, covering up, locking down and burying the key. It’s like the hint of something split him the moment you met, and it never stopped since. Only, he didn’t realize it until the something started to take shape.

It's like you cracked him, and like a dam he’s broken open, impossible to stop. He’s crying, and it feels like he can’t ever stop. It’s as if he’s been flung from his own reins, throwing him out of control. It was his choice that let him ruin things all by himself, but he’ll die before he brings this to you; he normally would, after he got a hold of himself, but he makes you upset just to lay eyes on.

He’s out of control. This realization tosses him into an electric panic: The pangs of his heart reaches his ears, he begins to shiver, and his hands morph into prickly icepicks. He hasn’t gotten one this bad since Kenny left him.

Then, something else. That sense of danger that’s resided in him since he was young prickles, sending the shaking and anxiety and impending doom-feeling into overdrive.

Only on instinct does his body kick into action, but completely deprived of thought, all he can do is slam a cabinet shut, cringe at the reverberation, and pin himself against it, gasping noisily. The danger isn’t real—he’s in his bathroom at HQ—but the sense is never wrong, either. His eyes dart around for a weapon, but when he doesn’t see one his hands reflexively curl into fists. Big fucking mistake.

The wince, this time, is audible—it shows all over his face. Pain rattles him from the static in his head to the curl of his toes. He hears it through the cotton stuffed in his ears, but he can’t be bothered to muffle it anymore, if he’s even capable of that much thinking right now. He cradles his scathing finger, pinned between his folded legs and his chest, and feels himself from the perspective of a broken spinning top.

He’ll swear to the end that he never heard you knock on his door, nor unlock the door and go on searching for him until you heard the slam coming from the depths of his bathroom. You rapped on the oak in an endless mantra of Levi’s name until his head jerked up, finally hearing you.

You knew better, so much better than to barge in on him in the middle of a panic attack. With his clamoring gasps for air stretching through the door, barging in on him would’ve done nothing but plummet him into worse places. He’s broken parts in that way: When he’s in dire need of comfort, that's the last thing he’ll reach out and grab for. It weighs too much.

He hears your voice through the wood, and sighs high in his throat at the sound of it, relieved and a little helpless. You haven’t spoken this tenderly to him in so many days, so hearing it now is like falling back into a bed he’s slept in since birth.

For a while, you simply go back and forth; mainly you, guiding him through it. You tether him back down to earth, as dizzyingly rough a return it is. Sooner or later, much later, you gently ask if it’d be alright for you to come in, but he’s not ready for that just yet.

The first-aid kit—Levi’s first-aid kit—dangles at your side when you do come in, after he has more clothes on his back and he’s wrangled the air back into his lungs. In… and out.

The first order of business in his mind is how you knew, and if you were somehow forced to come, to leave. In yours, it’s his stiff, swollen finger, which has reached the color of rotten gala apples.

You came because Mike mentioned it, you claim. You’re here for Levi, though, and that’s enough of a reason.

Gently, you knock the door closed with your booted foot. “So? Sit down and let me do this for you.”

Objections, immediately. He tries to sound firm despite the croak still thick in his voice. “You don’t have to. Leave it here and I’ll handle it on my own.”

You shoot him a look—displeased, but patient.

“I’m fine,” he insists, but is sure to add, “I’m fine now.”

“Levi–” you plant the kit down on the counter, “–there are a million things I could’ve done instead of this. All he said was you were pushing yourself much harder than usual. I still came straight here, didn’t I? I got worried.”

“Because–’cause you have the med kit,” he stammers, and screws his nose up in shame with himself. “I can splint my own fucking finger. Leave. Get out.”

Your face goes hard. “You want that?”

“That’s what you said you wanted,” he points out, not resentfully, but plainly; like it’s an argument on behalf of a ghost.

The tension hangs in the air. You’re still hurt, and you’re angry about what happened. You can’t pretend you’re not, not anymore, and not when he's standing right in front you. All this time, you didn’t dodge all his bullets, just denied that they hit you.

The next words leave you in a long breath: “Levi, what’re we doing?”

His lips twitch. Sensing the path this conversation is going down, he crowds up against the counter without thinking. “...Don’t know.”

You want to ask what distressed him enough to make him panic, partly because of how rare it is, but you know you won’t get a straight answer.

Telling him it would make you feel a lot better if he sat down gets him to at least give you a chance, however reluctantly. He perches himself on the edge of the tub.

You plant yourself next to him and pop open the cotton-white kit. This part comes so easily you can talk while your hands work: “I really wanted you to stay the night you showed up, but I was upset, too… But I think that’s understandable. Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Obediently, he spreads his hand over your knee when you tap his wrist. You elevate it a little.

“Can you feel this?” You take your pointer finger and carefully trail it down from his third knuckle.

The way he cringes tells you he can. While beaming red and stiff like a tree branch, it isn’t bad, all things considered. Splinting it would still be safer though, no matter how quickly he heals.

“I take it you won’t go to the infirmary for this?”

He makes a low, unhappy sound. “Not if I don’t have to.”

“…And if I ask that you do?”

“Same thing.”

Taken aback, you pause with the two pieces of metal bracing his finger. You didn’t expect him to say that after making it clear that it didn’t matter what either of you wanted, but he made it just as obvious that he wouldn’t dream of leaving you.

You decide not to comment: it’s high-time you stopped belittling yourself so much. Look what happened last time.

“Hey…” he mumbles, swallowing around the acid-shot of pain as you delicately splint the injury. Busy measuring his words, the silence drags on.

“Hey,” you say.

“...I meant what I said. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the same as you.” He remembers what just transpired, and tenses involuntarily. “I realized that. Then… I. I thought there was danger where there wasn’t. It was just you.”

“Oh, honey…” You sigh, quietly lending your ear as he wanders through an explanation. All the while, your hands go on working, taping the splints. Levi can be chatty when he wants to be, but he takes time with his words anyway.

It doesn’t surprise you much that that discovery would make him panic. You get the feeling that he’s afraid most times. Maybe the root of it isn’t that physical anymore, but the fear is still there, nestled just beneath the surface.

All you’re afraid of is him disappearing on you for good while it can still be prevented.

“I don’t know what–” he swallows. “We can’t. I can’t go through something like that all over again.”

He could go on about how you deserve someone decent enough to follow through when they’re told that you want them, that he’s mangled and jagged in places, that he’s not good—but he doesn’t try. He knows you don’t see him that way, not one bit.

The splint is finished. You wrap up with a tired shake of your head and stand, striding out of the bathroom without saying anything. You leave the first-aid kit behind, too.

That troubles him enough to rise to his feet. He follows you out into the sitting room, where so many dear memories lie. It feels like defacing sacred ground, inhabiting it like this.

You’re sitting at the table next to the window, clearly swathed in some anguished thoughts. He has no idea what to say to make it better—honesty and comfort go together like oil and water.

“Look,” he begins, eyes darting aimlessly from your face to the floor. “We can’t ever be normal. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“Friends?” The idea scrambles your brain. You look up at him, brows knit. “Maybe it’s easy for you to cram all your emotions into a tiny box in a dead-end ditch where they’ll never be found, but–” you shake your head, “–we can’t be friends, anymore or otherwise. I’ll always see you as something else.”

To him, you’re implying you want nothing to do with him. Not an option, he decides immediately, because that’d be even worse than if you died. You’d still be putting too much syrup on your pancakes and fighting with more tenacity than anyone in his squad and scrunching up your nose in your sleep—but you’d be strangers then.

Your jaw drops, hurt. “You think, after all I’ve cried over you, I’d be okay with not having anything to do with you?”

As you speak, you quickly rise to your feet and plant your hands on his shoulders, giving them an even shake; as if to wake him up.

“All? You’ve–” He’s busy being jittered by the first hit of your pearly perfume, along with any bit of your touch in days to think straight. He feels stuck, like roots. “Don’t cry over me.”

“Then don’t make me cry,” you shoot right back, stepping away and planting your hands on your hips. You’re determined to stand up for yourself this time.

“I…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. Either way, you could, you will. There’s always a chance. The difference is there’d be nothing he could do then, and no way he could make it better, not any longer.

“Stop that,” you sigh, like you’ve heard the argument—the root of his doubt—a million times. “We can’t think in ifs. If everyone spent all their energy worrying about dying, there’d be no point in doing anything. Is five years still not long enough to prove to you that I’m capable?”

He grinds his teeth. “You’re more than capable. I'm just... I’m just an idiot.”

You fall back in the smooth, ornate chair and sniff. It’s asking too much for Levi to ever finish that sentence and admit he’s scared. Love hard, lose it, and you force yourself to stop loving; he’s lost so much, so he’s entitled to that fear, but you’re so sick of being scared. “Is that any way to live?”

It isn’t. He knows that it isn’t. Freeze up at the wrong moment, and it’s all over. That’s how most recruits go out, or the ones foolish enough to join the Scouts, anyway. Not death by Titan, but fear.

Losing another person precious to him, not by death, but by his own fault isn’t something he could tolerate. You’ve had some close scrapes of course, and you'll have more, but while you're both here you have a choice.

But...

One day it's almost guaranteed you won’t, and if he lost you for good, it wouldn’t leave him that much stronger for it; it wouldn't be like Isabel and Farlan. Your end would sap the life right out of him.

Stop that, your words remind him. How can I even bitch about that when she’s sitting right in front of me? What good does it do?

None. Seeking a little support from the table, he’s silent for a long moment, letting the words stir, thinking deeply.

It would be like taking his heart and leaving it completely in your hands. Whether it gets shredded would be no fault of your own, because he trusts you. It's the odds. Just as well, yours would be in his hands too, and he hasn’t taken care of it lately like he should. Yet you bare your heart, and persist.

“I need… to think,” he decides, and eyes you above your hand, which you prop up your chin with. “Maybe that’s asking too much, after wasting so much damn time, which—was shitty of me. Sorry.” He hangs his head a little, avoiding your eyes.

You deflate, relieved. He’s not the only one who’s wasted time.

If he needs a while to choose what’s best for him, or to come to terms with things, you don’t hesitate to grant him that. All you ask is that he makes the choice. This rift torn between you has felt like tenderizing a nerve, every damn day since that night. You never want to feel like that again, not when it’s perfectly possible for things to be okay. “–is that okay?”

He nods, circling around the table. Once he’s right in front of you he crouches down and rests a reassuring hand on your knee—his good one. He needs you to know that he means this.

It takes him a moment to find the right words, but it takes you the same amount of time to lean forward, smoothing the ramrod-stiffness of his shoulder. His mind goes blank. He missed you like hell.

“I swear to you.” He finds your other hand, takes it delicately between his injury, and kisses it. You’re too precious to throw away—he will never, could never. He hears your breath shudder. “Understand? I’m serious, so don’t worry about those things that scare you.”

He also wants to warn you not to get a single scratch before he can settle on this, and that if he lands in favor of putting his heart in your hands, he wants to make it perfectly special the way someone like you deserves. You’re one of a kind. A moment like that—just like the night of Mayfest—leaves no room for any sort of heartache trailing behind. That sort of mushy fluff he can communicate by squeezing your hand, and the small look he quickly shoots you.

Your eyes gleam like he’s just as precious, which stings in the best of ways.

“Understood.” You squeeze back. Your other hand rises to the top of his head, petting.

A long breath he had no way of knowing he was holding leaves through his nose, and the tension, it feels like, eases away like runoff from a river.

The utter relief on his face must amuse you. “Cute. Relax a little.”

With a small grunt, his chin lands on your knee. Your fingers buried in his hair feels too damn good—always too good. That’s familiar, at least, but after it's all said and done—whatever that may mean—it won’t matter if it feels normal or not. It’ll be good, because you’re good in any sector of his life.

“Stop, ‘m not a damn cat. You’re using that against me.”

You tut a little, and then your bound hands break away. His eyes shoot to your face, confused and a little torn, only to watch you press your fingers to your lips. At once you place them on his pout, and by the look on your face, you did it on purpose.

He smacks a small kiss to those fingers, leans up and catches your soft cheek, and takes his time leaving one on your forehead, then the side of your mouth. When it comes to the quirk of your pink lips, he stalls a little. He can’t decide if it’s appropriate or not to leave you hanging. He eyes you, wanting.

You tilt your head, lashes fluttering a little. You resist the way the pull between both of you yanks. “Take your time, ‘Vi.”

That’s a funny thing to say when he’s half-straddling your leg, not to mention his hand straying over your jaw. You have the collar of his shirt wound up like a knot, wanting just as much. He just needs time.

“Don’t worry,” he tells you again.

| levi masterlist | main masterlist |

[oakleaf--bearer]

@jonmartinweek day two - injury!

also on ao3

When dealing with matters of the heart, Jon was about the furthest from a natural that there could be. 

He was... rusty to say the least. Awkward was a generous way to put it. Completely and utterly useless was far more accurate. 

So when Georgie had laughed and asked when he and Martin had started dating, he had been understandably taken aback and politely asked her what she meant by that. ("Georgie, what the fuck?" had been his exact wording). She'd shrugged and patted his knee, telling him that he should probably talk to Martin as soon as he got back to the Institute. 

He stared down at the ring sat on the table, a frown creasing his forehead. It had been something of a whim purchase. He had bought it several years ago after reading about the concept online, and he'd just....not taken it off. Every time it left his hand, he'd itched to put it back on as soon as possible. 

And now, a blistering burn mark on his hand was stopping him from putting it back on. A small, mostly insignificant piece of his identity stripped back and taken away from him. 

A gentle knock at the door startled him out of his quiet contemplation. 

"Hello." Martin poked his head around the door. "Tea?"

"Thank you, Martin."

Martin smiled, and Jon remembered Georgie's assumption. Would he? It wasn't the most unimaginable thing in the world. Martin was friendly. Charming, comfortable, welcoming. But dating? Maybe... But Jon had done dating before. He'd explained what the ring in the table meant to enough people that he was tired. Tired of the assumptions, the questions, the idea that there was one person out there who would change his mind, all he needed was a good- 

Martin wasn't that person. When Jon ran through the mental 'relationship checklist', he could imagine so many different aspects with Martin. Holding hands, going on dates, even waking up next to each other, but that particular facet of a relationship was completely unimaginable. It wasn't that Martin was unattractive, simply that Jon just didn't see the attractiveness like that. 

"What's that?" Martin gestured to the ring. 

"Oh, uh, nothing." Jon covered it with his good hand. "Just a- nothing."

"Riiight." Martin placed the tea on his desk, in easy reach. "Keep your secrets then."

"Hmm." Jon hummed, still examining Martin's face. 

"Jon? You alright?" 

"Oh!" Jon realised he was staring and quickly looked away. "Sorry." 

"It's okay." Martin said with an audible smile that made Jon's heart do something ridiculous. 

"Martin..." Jon didn't really know what he was going to say. "Are you- I- Hmm." 

"Take your time."

"Have lunch with me. That is, if you want to, please don't feel like I'm pressuring you, you can say no if you-"

"Jon." Martin put a hand on his desk, gentle, a calming reminder of a calming man. "I'd love to." 

Jon stared at the hand. It was larger than his own. When he'd arrived back in the archives, trailing blood and exhaustion behind him, Martin had sat and re-wrapped the clumsy bandages he had put on it, patiently telling him off for not going to a doctor and getting it checked. Jon hadn't been able to look away from his hands then either, just gazing at them with sleepy eyes, his mind fixed on the image of Martin taking care of him. Carefully picking up the pieces he had left flung about the place and putting them back together, gently slotting them back into place.

Martin took him to a sandwich place around the corner from the institute. Jon stared at the menu, trying to decipher the swirling font. The letters swam slightly as he read them, the words jumbling together. 

“Jon?” Martin bumped their shoulders together lightly, bending down to Jon's height to compensate for the difference. “What are you going to order?”

 “I-  What do you recommend?” 

Martin smiled. “Hmm. How about the tuna and sweetcorn? It’s a classic, you know?”

“Sure.” 

Martin ordered for them and nudged Jon towards a table in the corner. Jon went willingly, content to listen to Martin chatter away about the wait times and the various bouts of  people-watching he had gotten up to in this cafe. Despite Jon’s lack of contributions, Martin seemed to be fine carrying the conversation on his own. A couple of people gave them odd glances, no doubt wondering what Martin, kind, gentle-looking Martin, was doing with a grumpy sack of exhaustion. Externally, they didn't match. They were diametrically opposed, two entities that shouldn't exist in the same space without causing some kind of epoch changing event. 

But the more Jon pondered it, the more he realised that he wanted to be here, sat opposite Martin, listening to him talk, letting him order his sandwiches and hold his hand-

Jon’s brain skipped a beat. 

Martin had placed his hand over Jon’s where it rested on the table and was staring at him, concern across his face. “Jon? You okay?”

‘I care about him’, Jon realised with a start. ‘This is my friend.’

Martin nudged his hand around so that he could properly take it in his own. The motion dislodged the ring that Jon still held clutched in his bandaged fingers. It clattered out, its black outline stark against the faded beige of the tabletop. 

“Oh, sorry.” Martin picked it up to hand it back to Jon. “You might want to be a bit more careful. You don't want to lose this.”

“What?” Jon stared down at Martin’s hand. It felt ridiculous to see Martin holding out his ring and for Jon to feel this weightless. The gentle curl of Martin’s fingers around the band set Jon’s mind whirling down avenues lined with graffiti reading ‘Just tell him’ and ‘Maybe it will go well’. 

Jon took a deep breath and took the plunge. 

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

Martin blinked. “R-right? What for?”

“All of it.” Jon reached out and covered Martin’s, still holding Jon’s ace ring up in front of them. “You were always- I’m glad you're here. With me.” He carefully took the ring and let go of Martin’s hand. It looked shockingly sad sitting in the palm of Jon’s bandaged hand. Another piece of who he was now associated with pain. An uncomfortably familiar reality that Jon was steadily becoming used to. 

Martin reached across the table and gave Jon’s hand a quick squeeze. Jon hissed at the jolt of pain lacing up his arm. 

“Oh god, Jon, I’m so sorry, I didnt- I didnt think, that was stupid of me-” Martin’s hands fluttered in the air around Jon’s. “God, that was awful of me, I’m really sorry-”

“It’s okay,” Jon said, grabbing at Martin with his uninjured hand. “It’s fine, it's already passed.” 

Martin gave him an apologetic smile, but didn’t argue. “That’s important to you, huh?”

“Hmm?”

“The ring. I’ve seen you wear it a lot. Does it mean something?”

“Oh.” Jon hadn't considered the possibility that Martin might be aware of the ring's existence. In his head, it existed in a bubble, separate from work and his colleagues. It made sense, he supposed, that Martin was able to see into that bubble, since its edges had been bumping against Jon’s perception of Martin for a little while now. “It, ah, its a- Its a sexuality thing.”

To Martin’s credit, he didn’t even blink at the idea that Jon might not be straight, just nodded and smiled encouragingly. “I thought so. Asexuality, right?” 

“Wha- Yes.” Jon had been gearing up to explain the intricacies of asexuality, not for Martin to already have that knowledge. 

“It came up when I was doing research trying to figure out my own sexuality.”

That caught Jon off guard. For some reason, throughout all of his deliberations trying to figure out where on Jon’s internal spectrum Martin sat, he had failed to consider the actual real life possibility of Martin’s queerness. “You’re-”

“Oh, I’m not ace.” Martin shook his head. “At least, I don't think so. Labels,” he chuckled. “Confusing stuff. I usually just go with gay and trans to sum me up.” 

A small, overlooked lightbulb in the back of Jon’s mind flickered to life as a couple of pieces of information fell into place with a quiet ‘oh!’

“I saw the ring but I didn't want to ask in case it was just a style thing. A lot of people don't know about this stuff and it's sometimes hard to tell, you know?”

“Right.”

“I guess the bandages stop you wearing it, right?” It was a non-sentence, a piece of idle observation that Martin was making. But it still stung. 

“It feels somewhat ridiculous to say but- I think I’m going to miss it. It’s just a ring, it's not my entire sexuality, I’ll still be ace without wearing it, but I’m still- It feels like I’m missing a piece of something that I was trying to hold onto, you know?”

Martin nodded. “I understand. Here-” he reached up and unclasped a thin chain that had been hanging around his neck. “You can borrow this. I’ll take these off for now.” He slipped off a couple of charms that had been hanging on it. Smiling, he held out the chain.

“You- You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” Martin wiggled the chain in the air between them slightly. “You can give it back when your hand is better.”

Wordlessly, Jon took the chain and looped the ring onto it. He lifted to try and fix the clasp around his neck, but he couldn't get the clasp open. Martin pushed his chair back, coming to stand behind Jon, taking the chain out of his hands and closing the clasp for Jon. 

“There.” Martin smoothed Jon’s collar down. “That looks nice!”

“Thank you.” Jon whispered, then louder, “Thank you, Martin. This- This means a lot.” 

Martin shrugged a little awkwardly, cheeks turning red. “No trouble. It means a lot to you, so, you know, you should be able to carry it with you.”

He smiled down at Jon, and once again Jon felt the small jolt of recognition, of comfort. The bubble in his mind fully merged with Martin, creating something new that, at least for a few more long, exhausting months, Jon didn't know to call love.

[otome-on-the-side]

Feel free to ignore this but I feel like the prompt "I won't kiss you until you ask/want me to" would go oh so perfectly with Asmo

I got the prompt from another otome game where the character who said this was immediately interested in the mc and make them go on dates with him through means of blackmail (though he only wanted to experience normal dates because he was a celebrity and only knew the flashy life) as they didnt seem interested in him and that's a new concept for him and he says it multiple times and eventually the mc dies have to option to say yes

Idk I feel like the whole scenario fits with asmo and his charm or lack thereof towards mc and their relationship development

Pairing: Asmodeus/GN!reader 

Tropes & TWs: Asserting boundaries, Pining (requited) 

"Oh relax, pet," The demon cooed, his arm wrapped around your waist, body pressed close, too close, hip to hip. "I won't kiss you until you want me to." Asmodeus tilted his head, his perfume cloyingly sweet. "And we both know you'll be begging for it."

As mockery dripped from his voice, coy and arrogant, the flustered spell Asmodeus had woven over you was broken.

It was satisfying to place your hand over his chest and shove, forcing the demon back. "You can relax a little, then. That won't be happening anytime soon. We're here to watch the show." you gesture vaguely to the runway, and the seats along either side of the stage. "So, let's watch, shall we?"

Asmo stood back for a moment, blinking. This wasn’t how this sort of thing normally went.

There had been such a lovely warmth coming from your cheeks as he had pressed close- and now it was gone. The moment had passed, and he’d failed to expand it.

Shame.

He settled down in the folding chair next to you, arm wrapping around your chair back, fingers carefully minded so they wouldn’t be touching you. Teasing aside, a boundary had clearly been set.

You could still feel the heat of his arm through the thin chair back, but you appreciated the lack of verbal brouhaha involved in getting him to back off a little.

“So," he began, inclining his head towards you in a conversational invitation. "I know you're very excited for me, because you came to this premier. Have you ever been to a fashion show before?"

You nod along as he speaks, passively noticing that other demons have begun filling in. Fashion journalists, Majolish bigwigs, and fans of Asmodeus are who you expect to be here, and you're not surprised to see well dressed demons with varying degrees of interest- some, sorry, many have cameras, some professional, but mostly just D.D.D.s in assorted kitschy cases. A few have notepads, and even fewer still radiate power. Your gaze slides back to Asmodeus, his face pleasant, and his expression interested.

"No, not in person." You answer honestly. "I've seen the occasional clip online from when something really eye catching happens- like a change mid-catwalk- or photosets floating around tumblr."

Your 'date' gives a thoughtful hum, considering. Trying to think of a way to describe what to expect; this isn't the human realm, but-

"I'm excited to actually see one in person, though." You tell him. "You've put a lot into this, too, so I’m excited to see it."

At this, his train of thought is derailed, and all he can do is blink at you, stunned.

"I mean. Not much gets you to give up your precious beauty routine...." You pause, self conscious with his silence. "My sleep routine is pretty, ah. Nonexistent, but, I've noticed your light on when I passed by- and you've been hunched over a your drafting pad for weeks now."

"You noticed?" Asmodeus hadn't meant to say his thought aloud- he didn't care for how vulnerable his voice sounded either. "But it's a bit mean to call it 'hunching', isn't it? I curve into a comfortable sitting position for work, that's all. Cute of you to look for me, though; I guess you can't help but be obsessed with me." He finished with an over the top sigh, as if he was pining. Much better.  

You laughed at that, the both of you tucking any unspoken vulnerability under familiar banter; Exaggerating your perception of one another and their action, ignoring the good natured insults you laid at the others feet. Talking about nothing until, suddenly, Asmodeus would find himself speaking honestly, taking note and care of your reactions and opinions. He hardly noticed as the rest of the seats filled.  

This wasn't normally how it went, and that frightened him.

He was usually so sure of himself- so sure of his company's adoration, he might as well have been speaking alone. He knew his adoring fans latched onto his every word, every breath, yet.

And yet he felt so heard, so seen, when he spoke with you. It was addicting when you gave him attention, and it was the end of the world when you weren't.

You'd given him so much, more than the two of you would be able to begin to comprehend in your moral lifespan.

And yet, as the lights dimmed, he found himself wanting more, still. Wishing that you would lean closer, close enough that he could feel your breath on his lips as you asked, 'Kiss me?'