#spent several hours of pondering after writing this

[quillusquillus]

Remember when videos used to have the actual gentle ambient sound of the moment they recorded and not some random high volume music that doesn't even match the video and makes you immediately turn the sound off again

[kingofbodyrolls]

Stuck in a Snowstorm (m) | pjm

You don’t know how you ended up here. Stuck with your mortal enemy, Park Jimin, in you car – in a fucking snowstorm.

→ Pairing: Jimin x female reader → AU + genres: enemies to lovers, pwp (very little plot – let me be honest, it’s just pure smut). Humor/crack, smut. → Rating: Mature/explicit/R18 - this is mature/explicit content, so minors, please do not interact. → Word count: 6,1k → Warnings (general) + triggers: Jimin is just a mean jerk and reader is a brat 😂 Lots of banter, crack and anger towards each other. → Warnings (explicit): unprotected sex, dirty talk, orgasm denial/delay, hair pulling, oral (female and male receiving), breasts and nipple play. Also, use of a tie 👀 → Author’s note: This is actually a story that I planned to write all the way back in 2017 – better late than never, right? 😂 I had only made the plot with some outline, so I basically started from scrap. But it had been stuck in my mind since FOREVER and now I just miss Jimin a shit ton, so I made this. I hope you enjoy it! Also, it shouldn’t be taken too seriously, it’s just smut with minimal plot and don’t question the characters bad actions or some minor plot holes 😂 (Also, I did not proofread this, just because). Also, merry Christmas / happy holidays – this is my gift to you wonderful people out there 💜AND are you guys looking forward to Jimin’s ‘Closer than This’ tomorrow???? 💜

If you prefer to read on AO3 you can read it here 😀

[s.masterlist] → this is part of a mini series ‘The Winter Collection’, but it can be read as a stand alone (as can all the installments in the series).

“I can’t believe this…” in disbelief, you mutter, your voice tinged with uncertainty, while you desperately activate the windshield wiper, yearning for even a fleeting glimpse through the thick curtain of falling snow.

“I can,” Jimin declares from his spot beside you in the passenger seat. His playful critique follows swiftly, delivered with a pout and a firm voice, as he shakes his head in mock disbelief, “You're a terrible driver.”

“Am not!” you retort defiantly, your voice cutting through the air, even as your unwavering gaze remains fixed on the snowy expanse ahead.

A curtain of thick snow descends, veiling everything in an opaque white shroud. The road ahead is swallowed by the relentless onslaught, turning visibility into an elusive challenge.

Your hands clench the wheel with a vice-like grip, the strain evident as your knuckles whiten under the pressure. The tension in your entire body is so palpable that it hurts to fucking drive.

Exhaustion weighs on you heavily, a relentless burden, yet the realization hits that you're only halfway to your friends' Christmas party. Two more hours loom ahead, a daunting stretch of time spent in the company of Park Jimin, your sworn enemy.

The decision to share a car ride is a mystery even to yourself; perhaps it was a fleeting concern for the planet, a noble intention to save fuel by consolidating into one vehicle. Yet, as the journey unfolds, the real reasons behind your choice become an enigma.

Regret courses through you like a bitter undercurrent as you ponder the altruistic intentions behind considering the planet and the environment. The thought of advising Jimin to take his own car nags at you, a missed opportunity for a peaceful solo drive. In a self-cursing moment, you rue your own kindness.

“Let me drive; I’m a better driver than you anyway.” Jimin declares with casual confidence, his tone carrying an air of nonchalance.

“Fuck off, Jimin!” you hiss, frustration dripping from your words like venom.

You squint against the relentless assault of heavy snow, the world outside morphing into an indistinct blur as visibility dwindles.

Your pace is deliberate, a cautious dance with the road, but after several minutes, you relent, succumbing to the inevitable by slowing down even further.

“Fine!” you declare, seizing the steering wheel in a determined clench, bringing the car to an abrupt halt.

You pivot your gaze towards Jimin, the words cutting through the tension, “You fucking drive then.”

Shifting the car into park, you unclip your seatbelt with a determined click, swing the door open, and brave the biting embrace of the freezing snowstorm outside.

In synchronized movements, Jimin mirrors your actions, and together, you step out into the frigid air. The two of you converge outside, a silent agreement palpable in the crunch of snow beneath your feet, as you navigate around the car, preparing to swap seats.

“If you crash my car, I’ll kill you.” you menace, venom seeping through your words as you stride past him, positioning yourself in front of the vehicle.

He nonchalantly shrugs his shoulders, a smug satisfaction evident in his demeanor, relishing the fact that you've conceded to let him take the wheel.

Jimin confidently eases his plump figure into the driver's seat, and you avert your gaze (definitely not looking!). With a self-assured demeanor, he expertly adjusts the seat to accommodate his frame.

You attempt to thaw your chilled hands under the blast of hot air from the air conditioner, the sour mood hanging heavy around you as you settle into the passenger seat, donning a visible pout.

“Relax, I’m not gonna crash your precious car,” he teases, the playfulness evident in his voice, just before smoothly shifting the car into gear and forging ahead.

In response, a huff escapes your lips, arms instinctively crossing in a silent declaration of your lingering displeasure.

You surrender to a sense of ease as Jimin takes the wheel, his deliberate pace aligning with caution. It's a mutual understanding — in this snow-laden terrain, slow and steady becomes a shared creed for safety.

The once teasing atmosphere now gives way to palpable tension, the air thick with the weight of swirling snow that has intensified. Jimin, too, struggles visibly against the heavier onslaught, the challenge of navigating through the snow turning the car into a place of shared unease.

Your gaze fixates on Jimin, observing as his fingers clench the steering wheel with a tension mirroring your own, and his shoulders stiffen in sync. A chuckle escapes you, unexpectedly audible, as you notice the ironic similarity between his reaction and your earlier demeanor.

“What’s so funny?” Jimin spits, the tension reverberating unmistakably in his voice, each word a note in the symphony of strained emotions.

“Your driving,” you start to chuckle, the amusement laced with a hint of mischief.

“You're not exactly outclassing my skills,” you declare, sinking into the seat with a self-assured smirk, relishing the satisfaction of your own driving prowess.

“You’re a fucking brat, you know that?” he seethes, the words charged with anger, his gaze sharply turning towards you, locking onto your eyes.

Despite Jimin's cautious speed, the car subtly veers, casting doubt on whether you're still on the road or lost in the oblivion of the thick snow. The blinding white landscape offers no clarity, leaving you uncertain and immersed in a disorienting wintry haze.

“I can’t see fucking shit!” he exclaims, abruptly bringing the car to a halt and cutting the engine in an instant, plunging you both into an eerie silence amid the obscured surroundings.

Your gaze locks onto him, urgency etched across your face. “What are you doing? We've got Seokjin's Christmas party in less than an hour!” The frustration in your voice reverberates, a ticking clock amplifying the stakes of the impending deadline.

“It’s not safe to drive in this freaking snowstorm!” he bellows in response, frustration escalating in his voice, punctuated by the sharp flick of the hazard warning lights, signaling the urgency and danger of the situation.

“I just want to get there already. I'd rather not be stuck with you,” you seethe, teeth gritted, a visible huff escaping in a cloud of anger. The tension hangs heavy, fueled by the biting words that linger in the now frosty air.

“Like I'd willingly be stuck with your sour attitude,” he retorts, his gaze sweeping you from head to toe for some inscrutable reason. “I don't even like you,” he declares, the words loaded with an unspoken tension that hangs in the frosty air between you two.

You gape at him, the bitter truth resonating in the air—an unspoken agreement that neither of you harbors any liking for the other. The animosity between you has solidified into a hostile dynamic, despite the shared circle of friends that consistently throws you together, much to your enduring displeasure.

Jimin exudes an infuriating level of cockiness, ceaselessly pushing your buttons and expertly tapping into the art of annoyance until it feels like your nerves are unraveling at his mere presence.

You'd willingly brave the biting cold rather than endure the prospect of an unpredictable future confined with him inside the car. Fate seems to revel in mocking you, as the car rapidly succumbs to the encroaching chill, each passing minute intensifying the unwelcome cold that now permeates the confined space.

You clutch your arms tightly around your body, desperately running your hands up and down in a futile attempt to gather some warmth. A curse slips from your lips as you question your own sanity—why in the world did you take off your jacket for the drive? Now it's trapped in the damn trunk, and the thought of braving the freezing cold to retrieve it is utterly unappealing.

“Cold?” he chuckles, the sound carrying an edge of amusement that only amplifies the chill sinking into your bones.

You nod your head.

“Well, I’m not giving you my jacket,” he states matter-of-factly, cocooning himself in the evident warmth of his puffer jacket. Damn Park Jimin and his infuriating nonchalance, he's truly a master of being a jerk!

“Can't even manage a simple act of kindness,” you mutter with disdain, the words escaping in a sharp hiss, a low and almost grumbling tone, accompanied by a dismissive eye roll.

“What's that?” he asks, a smirk playing on his lips, relishing the snug warmth of his jacket while you shiver in the cold. 

“Fuck you, Park!” you shout directly in his face, your words laced with frustration. Instead of a retort, he just chuckles, the sound taking on a manic edge that lingers in the frosty air, leaving an unsettling resonance to your heated exchange.

An indeterminate amount of time slips away, lost in the relentless snowfall that shows no sign of relenting. Frustration building, you reach for your phone and decide to text Seokjin, realizing that this damn snow isn't planning on letting up anytime soon.

You [15.42]: Stuck in a snowstorm with fucking Park Jimin. I don’t know when we’ll arrive 🙄

Jin [15.48]: Just stay safe 😂

Fuck Seokjin! You’re convinced that he’s somewhere enjoying a good laugh at your misfortune.

A surge of realization hits you like a bolt of inspiration—there's a blanket tucked away in the backseat. Swiftly moving up, you make your way to the center console.

“What’re you doing?” Jimin questions, his curiosity evident in the quirk of his eyebrow as you navigate over the center console, leaving him bewildered by your sudden, mysterious movements.

“There's a blanket back here,” you announce triumphantly, finally laying hands on the sought-after comfort. With a satisfying plop into the seat, you tug the blanket snugly over your cold body, a gesture that transforms the atmosphere within the car from chilly discomfort to a brief oasis of warmth.

After a few contemplative minutes, Jimin breaks the silence with a question that hangs in the air, “Mind if I join you?”

Your mouth falls agape, and your eyes widen in astonishment at his unexpected question. Collecting yourself, you respond with a hint of sarcasm, “You weren't keen on sharing your jacket with me. What makes you think I'd be willing to share my blanket with you?” The tension between you and Jimin escalates with each word, hanging palpably in the cold air.

Without a pause for your response, he defies the silence, navigating over the center console with the same determined crawl you had exhibited moments before. The unspoken tension between you both amplifies, turning the confined space into an arena of silent rivalry.

Seated beside you, he makes a grab for the blanket cocooning your shivering form. Resolute, you refuse to surrender it, your hands engaging in a tug of war with him.

“Share, you brat,” he hisses with a mix of irritation and amusement, his determination evident in the forceful tug at the blanket. 

“No!” you hiss back defiantly, the word laced with a stubborn refusal as you hold your ground.

With a forceful yank, he wrenches the blanket from your grasp, and in the struggle, he ends up with it draped across his lap. The victorious outcome of the skirmish leaves a charged atmosphere between you and Jimin, the warmth of the blanket now a coveted prize in his possession.

A triumphant smirk plays on his lips as he envelops himself in the captured blanket. His eyes lock onto your moping expression before descending further, a mischievous gleam indicating that his victory goes beyond the simple conquest of the blanket. 

“I can totally see your nipples,” he chuckles. 

You glance down, and sure enough, your nipples stand out against the satin material of your dress. Swiftly, you react, pressing your hands over your breasts in a sudden move to conceal their visibility. 

“Why the fuck are you look at my tits?” you yell at him, your frustration audible, but he merely chuckles in response. 

“You must really be freezing, huh?” he observes, and you simply nod in agreement, a silent acknowledgment of the biting cold that permeates the confined space. 

“I can warm you up,” he suggests with a playful wink, both eyes and eyebrows conspiring in unison. The underlying implication of his words hangs in the air, and you instantly grasp the nature of his playful proposition.

“I'm not that desperate, Park,” you scoff with a hint of disgust, the rejection laced with a prideful undertone. In response, he simply chuckles, finding amusement in your candid dismissal.

Following his suggestive remark, an electric charge seems to surge through the atmosphere in the car. Your mind involuntarily races, envisioning the prospect of warming up next to him, his hands tracing every contour of your body,  his di—

Stop. You admonish yourself sternly, a mental command to cease the vivid thoughts involving him. He's your enemy, you remind yourself, emphasizing the intense dislike you harbor for Park Jimin. The internal conflict heightens, the struggle between attraction and animosity weaving a complex web within your mind.

His chuckle resonates beside you, a sound that grates on your nerves. Irritation mounts, and you sharply turn your head towards him, your annoyance evident in the flicker of your gaze. 

“Need help?” he inquires, his gaze suddenly deepening, the darkness in his eyes unveiling a subtle intensity that lingers in the air. 

“With what?” you spit back at him, the confusion evident in your tone. 

“You're grinding against the seat,” he bluntly points out, his gaze fixed on your crotch. You glance down, discovering your unconscious movement against the fabric of the seat. A sudden realization dawns, and an expletive slips from your lips. 

A wave of discomfort washes over you, an intense desire to squirm and disappear into the ground, engulfed by the embarrassment that now saturates the air. The profound sense of shame hangs heavy, making the moment so excruciatingly humiliating.

You inhale sharply, drawing in a breath that seems to shudder through you, and with a deliberate move, you roll your hips once more.

“No…” you murmur, the word escaping with a shaky uncertainty that even your own ears can detect. 

Jimin scoots closer to you, the warmth radiating from his body sending sparks that seem to dance through yours. 

He leans into you, his mouth dangerously close to your ear, and in a breathy whisper, he offers, “I can help you with that.”

His words alone send a jolt through your body, a sudden tightening that ignites a fiery sensation. Damn it. The internal conflict and desire entwine, creating a tumultuous storm within you in the presence of him. It's undeniable—your entire being yearns for the touch you never thought you'd crave. 

His warm hand finds its way to your thigh, and a low moan escapes your lips at the contact. Fuck. 

His hand ventures down to the hem of your dress, grabbing and pulling it back to expose more of your thighs. A shiver runs down your spine as the cold air embraces your newly exposed skin, and a hiss escapes your lips. However, the sensation is quickly replaced by a different kind of warmth as his hand cups your clothed core. A breathless expletive escapes your lips, leaving your mind in a blissful blank state.

Instantly, you feel the warmth of his hand intimately against you, and your head falls back against the seat involuntarily. A soft gasp escapes your lips as you respond to the touch, unable to resist rolling your hips into the sensation.

“You’re needy,” he breathes against your ear, the words carrying a provocative weight that reverberates through you. 

His warm breath sends a cascade of shivers down your spine, clouding your thoughts in a haze of desire. The desire for release intensifies, eclipsing any reservations you may have about seeking it from your mortal enemy. 

“Shut up and just touch me,” you utter in frustration, the words punctuated by the deliberate grind of your hips into his hand, a desperate quest for any kind of friction. You're acutely aware of the desperation seeping through your actions, but at this moment, you don’t give a fuck.

And touch you he does. His fingers begin to rub your clit over the fabric of your panties, and you don't hold back your moans.

Your hips gyrate, a rhythmic dance in pursuit of your impending orgasm. The sensation builds rapidly, a cascade of pleasure on the brink. The question lingers in your mind—why does your body respond so eagerly to his touch?

He tugs your panties to the side, his touch on your clit eliciting a gasp of pleasure from your lips. The warmth of his fingers against your skin amplifies the sensation, and you're already soaked.

“You're so wet already,” he chuckles against your ear, his lips teasingly grazing your skin. The desire to retaliate surges within you, but then, with a sudden and deliberate movement, one of his fingers enters your pussy, stealing your breath away.

He skillfully fingers you with one finger, the motion of his wrist simultaneously stroking against your clit, creating a sensation that's nothing short of delicious. The desire for more intensifies, an insatiable craving building within you.

“More,” you breathe, your voice escaping chapped and laden with a raw, lustful edge. 

Jimin adds one more digit, and you relish in the precision with which he finds your soft spot, hitting it perfectly.

“Are you gonna come on my fingers?” he whispers in your ear, the suggestive question sending an instant jolt through your body, a yearning for more. 

A throaty moan escapes your lips as you willingly spread your legs wider, granting him more space.

He deftly introduces a third finger into you, and you feel yourself losing control, swept away by the overwhelming pleasure. It's already so good—how is he so skilled with his fingers?

The way he skillfully uses his fingers inside you while simultaneously rubbing your clit with his wrist propels you relentlessly toward the precipice of climax. The knot in your stomach tightens, and you're on the verge of that intoxicating release.

“Jimin, fuck. I'm gonna come soon,” you pant, the urgency in your voice underscored by the rhythmic grind of your pussy against his hand. 

He accelerates the pace of his fingers inside you, bringing you to the brink, but just as your body teeters on the edge of release, he abruptly withdraws his fingers and hand altogether.

His fingers and hand vanish, leaving you hanging on the precipice of your orgasm. The abrupt absence intensifies the frustration and desire you feel surge through your body. Fuck!

Your legs tremble beneath you, and a frustrated hiss escapes your lips as you pant for breath.

“You didn't want to share the blanket,” he spews, a self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips as he revels in your evident frustration.

You're on the verge of tears, overwhelmed with anger. The desperate desire for release compounds the emotional turmoil within you. The audacity of him! The frustration boils over, cementing Jimin as nothing short of a fucking jerk in your mind.

“I'm not letting you come unless you beg for it,” he adds in a smug voice, a smirk playing on his lips as he purposefully puts some distance between you. 

You can't believe him. The brink of pleasure was within reach—just a few more rubs and you would have unraveled on his fingers. The yearning is palpable, a frustrating ache that intensifies with each passing moment. 

You growl at him, caught in a heated internal debate about whether to plead with him or not. 

Your pussy clenches around emptiness, a visceral reminder of your desperation.

“Please, Jimin. Please let me come,” you implore, locking eyes with him and turning your body toward him. The desperation in your gaze is palpable. Almost inadvertently, you press your chest closer, your stiff nipples drawing his gaze downward.

He licks his lips teasingly, a wicked glint in his eyes, before seizing your hips and drawing you irresistibly toward him. With a swift yet controlled motion, he manipulates your body, guiding you to lie on the seat. As you settle into the unexpected position, he chuckles at the genuine confusion etched across your face.

“Because you asked so nicely,” he murmurs, his voice dripping with sarcasm, and in a bold move, he shoves your dress up to your stomach. With swift precision, he snatches your panties, sliding them down your legs. “I'll give you what you want.”

He discards your panties with a deliberate flick, his focus unwavering as he plunges down to your throbbing pussy. There's no hesitation; he immediately delves into licking at your folds and clit with a hunger that matches your own. 

Your body instinctively arches off the length of the seat, a wave of pleasure coursing through you. It feels unbelievably good. In the heat of the moment, your hands find his hair, fingers gripping and pulling at the strands, eliciting a guttural groan from him. 

Your muscles tighten, and the echoes of the previous orgasm, forcefully ripped from you, return with an intensity that feels tenfold. Each breath is a furious pant as he continues to lap at your folds, the relentless pleasure building and intertwining with your gasps. 

Then, with a skillful touch, he adds a finger to your clit, rubbing it in tantalizing circles. Your senses heighten, and just as you succumb to the pleasure, he skillfully continues to ravish your entrance with his tongue. 

“Jimin!” you scream his name, a raw and unrestrained cry escaping your lips as you reach the peak of ecstasy on his tongue. Your body tightens, toes curling, and you involuntarily hitch your heels against his legs. In the throes of pleasure, your vision blurs, and you fight for air.

He chuckles, a throaty sound that reverberates in the aftermath of your high. Not giving you a moment to fully come down, he skillfully inserts two of his fingers inside you, drawing a hiss from your lips at the touch—your body rendered oversensitive.

He extends his fingers, proudly displaying them, glistening with your intimate juices. A wicked glint in his eyes, he issues a command, “Clean them.” 

You meet his gaze defiantly, a spark of challenge in your eyes, before obediently rising to carry out his command. Taking hold of his hand, you sensually draw his slick digits into your mouth, swirling your tongue around them like a provocative dance. Your eyes lock onto his, witnessing the raw desire in his gaze as you release his fingers with an audible ‘pop’.

“I hate you,” you declare, breathless, the words carrying a mixture of frustration and desire. His response is a low chuckle, his perceptive gaze catching the teasing glint in your eyes.

He leans back, a provocative smirk playing on his lips, and starts palming himself through his dress pants. Your eyes involuntarily follow the movement of his hands, and a jolt of desire courses through you as you realize he's already rock hard. The unmistakable bulge strains against his pants, a visual testament to the arousal simmering between you two. 

“I can help you with that,” you purr, a sultry promise lingering in your eyes, eager to reciprocate the pleasure.

He chuckles, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and smoothly turns his body to fully face you. With a teasing smirk, he unzips his pants, skillfully pulling down both his trousers and underwear enough to liberate his hardened dick.

His cock springs free, defiantly brushing against the bottom of his loosened tie, a sight that's undeniably tantalizing. Perfectly sculpted, it's veiny and slightly flushed at the tip, mirroring the allure of every inch of him. A surge of conflicting emotions overwhelms you – the hate, the desire, the acknowledgment of his undeniable appeal. You despise how effortlessly good-looking he is, from the tousled blonde locks to those lips you now crave to taste. 

However, your gaze returns to his dick, noting its average size but with a satisfying girth that catches your attention. A subtle hint of anticipation flickers in your eyes, and your tongue instinctively darts out to moisten your lips. 

“Then get to work,” he pants, a breathy command, as he sensually spreads his legs, creating an inviting space for you. 

You descend eagerly, ensuring your mouth is generously coated with saliva before you engulf him, starting with just the tip. 

He hisses the moment your lips meet his dick, his head instinctively colliding with the window behind him, an involuntary exclamation escaping, “Ah, fuck.”

You engulf more of him, your mouth descending entirely, and the sound of his primal moan reverberates in response. You add a sultry hum, a note of satisfaction coursing through you.

You initiate a slow, deliberate pace, skillfully sucking him off, and anything beyond your mouth's capacity, you sensually stroke with your hand. 

His hands seek out your hair, effortlessly capturing the neatly arranged high ponytail that he grasps with a possessive confidence. 

You revel in the subtle tension, accelerating your descent on him with a newfound urgency. Your tongue skillfully traces intricate patterns, dancing across his tip and the sensitive folds of his frenulum.

He moans in ecstasy as you withdraw with a satisfying ‘pop,’ only to treat the head of his throbbing dick like a tempting lollipop, your tongue swirling around it with deliberate sensuality.

As you glance up at him, he appears utterly lost in the moment. His eyes, once vibrant, are now dilated orbs of desire, his parted lips releasing audible breaths. The state of bliss enveloping him transforms his features into a breathtaking display of vulnerability and beauty.

You envelop him once more, relishing the subtle tremor that courses through him, a tangible response to the sensations you're skillfully orchestrating with your lips and tongue.

He yanks you away from him, his voice a raw whisper laden with desire, “I want to fuck you.”

You prop yourself up, captivated by the transformation before you. The usual arrogant Park Jimin is replaced by this vulnerable, needy version, and against your better judgment, a desperate craving for him builds inside you. You ache for him to consume you entirely.

A mischievous smirk plays on your lips as you echo his earlier taunts, “Beg for it,” you challenge, aware of the palpable tension between you, a shared desire pulsating in the charged air.

A low, throaty chuckle escapes him as his fingers glide through the tousled strands of his blonde hair, a mixture of frustration and amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’re really a fucking brat,” he hisses, a smirk playing on his lips.

He sits up, a subtle smirk playing on his lips as he sheds his open jacket, the confined warmth of the car now turning uncomfortably sweltering. You can't help but acknowledge the irony; at least you're not freezing anymore, which, after all, was the primary objective of this unexpected detour, wasn't it?

“Please let me fuck you,” his plea hangs in the air, a desperate echo of your own request, and you can't help but chuckle, slowly crawling closer to him.

“Turn around, let me straddle you. Leaning against the headrest will give us more space,” you suggest, and he shifts in an instant, his arousal evident in the casual sway of his dick with each movement.

Then you confidently straddle him, your hand instinctively reaching for his dick, guiding him to align perfectly with your eager entrance.

Before you lower yourself onto him, you sensually trail his dick through your wetness, relishing in the intimate friction. A moan escapes your lips as you then descend onto his lap in one smooth, sultry motion.

The exquisite stretch sends a shiver down your spine, and he effortlessly glides in, eliciting a breathless ‘Fuck!’ from your lips.

As your hands find their place on his shoulders for support, his eyes, now hooded, follow your every movement as you begin to ride him with a rhythm that echoes the passion pulsing between you.

You pant furiously, your breath hot against his face. The sensation of him inside you is nothing short of heavenly, an electrifying connection that feels as if every contour of him aligns perfectly with every curve of your pussy.

“Ah,” ecstasy courses through you with each fervent bounce on his throbbing length, a harmonious rhythm of pleasure escaping your lips in breathless gasps.

“You’re so tight,” his ragged breaths synchronize with the rhythmic clench of your walls, his hands anchoring to your hips, adding an electrifying intensity to each blissful plunge into your velvet warmth.

Between gasps, you manage to growl, “Fuck. I hate you,” only to be met with his deep, throaty chuckle as he continues the relentless rhythm of his thrusts, each one a tumultuous clash of conflicting desires.

Amidst heavy breaths, he accuses, “I know you're lying,” his words punctuated by the rhythmic tempo of his panting. Undeterred, he leans in for a searing kiss, his lips caressing yours with a softness akin to pillows. Your defenses crumble as you melt into his touch, tongues colliding in a fervent dance that defies the lingering tension.

“Why is it that you feel so damn good?” you gasp, interrupting the kiss only to plunge back into its intoxicating depths. Each moment spent in his embrace feels like a surrender to a passionate whirlwind. His every thrust reverberates through you, sending electrifying shivers down your spine, an exquisite dance of pleasure and desire that you find impossible to resist.

“Perhaps I should prolong your climax, just as you did to me?” you purr with a mischievous smirk playing on your lips, resurrecting the playful brat within you.

He chuckles, his hands leaving the curve of your hips to gracefully undo his tie at his neck. Your gaze fixates on him, observing each deliberate move as he frees himself from the constriction of the tie, all while you continue to ride him with an unabashed hunger.

“You really are a fucking brat,” he mutters, the corners of his lips quirking into a sly smile as he pulls off his tie. “Now, shut up,” he commands, silencing any potential retorts by expertly stuffing the tie into your open, protesting mouth.

You yield to the makeshift gag, sinking your teeth into the fabric, muffling the symphony of your own desperate moans.

A smirk plays on his lips as his hands reclaim your hips, commanding, “Now take it like the fucking brat that you are.”

His movements become a relentless rhythm, thrusting deep inside you. All you can do is cling to his shoulders, swept away by the force of his desire.

Ecstasy courses through you, and you can't help but moan into the fabric of his tie. It feels too damn good to contain.

His voice drips with satisfaction as he senses your walls tightening around him, and a smug grin plays on his lips. “You like that, huh?”

A guttural moan escapes your lips in response, the crescendo of pleasure building, and you sense the impending climax drawing near.

“Fuck yourself on my dick,” his command hangs in the air, thick with desire, as his hands abandon your hips, embarking on a journey down your back. With a swift motion, he unzips your dress, letting it cascade down your shoulders.

Your naked breasts dances to the rhythm of his powerful thrusts, an erotic ballet of passion and desire.

“Fuck. You’re not wearing a bra, just like I thought,” his eyes widen in delighted surprise, a devilish grin playing on his lips. His hands eagerly exploring the contours of your exposed tits.

His words hang in the air, sending a shiver down your spine. “Your tits are beautiful,” he murmurs, his fingers tracing delicate patterns around your stiffened nipples. Your body reacts instinctively, a primal moan escaping through the tie as desire courses through you.

Every grind and movement becomes a challenge as he expertly tweaks and pulls at your nipples, sending waves of pleasure and distraction through your body. You fight to maintain a rhythm, desperately trying to pleasure yourself on his dick amidst the electrifying sensations dancing across your chest.

As your walls clench around him, a whirlwind of sensations floods your body, signaling that the peak of pleasure is just a breath away. Every nerve is on edge, and the anticipation of an imminent climax tingles through you, a storm about to erupt.

As he skillfully massages your tits, he breathlessly teases, “You’re gonna come, aren’t you?” his words send shivers down your spine, intensifying the pleasure that's building within you.

With a fervent nod, you surrender to the sensations, your muffled moans echoing through the tie as pleasure courses through every inch of your being.

As he plunges into you, he urges you with a guttural command, “Cream my cock, brat.” The raw desire in his voice fuels the intensity of your connection, igniting a blaze of passion.

Overwhelmed by desire, his dick finding every exquisite spot within you, you unleash a guttural moan, your pleasure echoing into the fabric of the tie as you climax on his pulsating cock.

Jimin's fingers twist around your hardened nipples, sending electric shocks of ecstasy through your body. A guttural exclamation escapes your lips, muffled by the tie, as pleasure courses through every fiber of your being.

He pounds into you relentlessly, the rhythm building towards an intense climax. His hands firmly grip your hips, fingers digging into your flesh as he desperately seeks his own release.

He reaches the peak of ecstasy, his body shuddering with the force of his release as he spills into the warmth of your pussy.

Heaving for breath, the silence between you two speaks volumes, a shared understanding lingering in the air as you descend from the euphoric heights of your climaxes.

Collapsing onto his chest, you revel in the soothing aftermath, liberated from the restraint of his tie. As his body relaxes within you, the intimacy lingers, a tangible connection forged in the heat of passion.

His lips graze your neck with a gentle touch, igniting a cascade of thoughts about the significance behind this tender gesture.

As laughter fills the air, shattering the lingering tension, your attention shifts to the foggy windows and the oppressive heaviness in the car, making each breath a deliberate act.

As you hastily redress, Jimin slips into his jacket and steps out of the car, retrieving your coat from the trunk. With a gentle handoff, he passes it to you, and you quickly slip into its comforting warmth.

“Thank you,” your gratitude escapes in a hushed whisper, laden with a touch of bewilderment. The encounter, while undeniably electrifying, leaves you grappling with conflicting emotions. It's Park Jimin, your sworn adversary, and the intensity of the shared moment hangs between you, a paradox of pleasure and rivalry.

“You’re welcome,” his response carries a self-assured smirk, echoing the lingering traces of the shared intimacy. As he confidently returns to the driver's seat, you mirror his actions, settling into the passenger's seat, both enveloped in a charged silence that speaks volumes.

The snowfall has eased, no longer as relentless as before. A subtle nostalgia creeps in as you reflect on his desire to keep you warm. The gentle flakes now fall, leaving you yearning for the lingering warmth of his touch.

As he revs the engine to life, a gust of chilly air sweeps through the car, causing you to emit an involuntary grunt. His chuckle fills the cabin, accompanied by a smirk and a teasing wink. “I can warm you up anytime,”

You shoot him a moping gaze, wondering if he has a knack for deciphering your thoughts. Can he sense the magnetic pull, the unspoken attraction that mirrors your own inner turmoil?

You return his smile, a silent agreement resonating between you as he steers the car forward, setting the wheels and unspoken possibilities in motion.

Three hours fashionably late, you finally arrive at Seokjin's Christmas party. The distant hum of music greets you as you step out of the car, signaling that the celebration is already in full swing.

As you rap your knuckles against the door, you steal a glance at Jimin who's busy adjusting his attire. His fingers deftly tighten the knot of his tie, and his pants get a quick, inconspicuous tug into place.

As Seokjin swings the door open, a tantalizing waft of mouthwatering aromas envelops your senses, instantly sparking a smile on your face.

Seokjin's laughter echoes as he playfully accuses, “You fucked Jimin!” and your jaw drops in disbelief to the floor.

[azulaoi]

Sakuverse what ifs pt 1: Dontis edition

What IF Dontis makes it out alive in the end and hunter comes visit him? And if Hunter hadn't need to intervene in the war.

(For us Dontis simpies on copium 🥹)

Imagine this:

Hunter comes rushing to Dontis' place after hearing from their hunter comrades that war is over. Hunter eagerly waits for Dontis outside his door, praying in high hopes he would answer. After a few moments or so, somebody eventually opens the door; revealing a tall well dressed man with beautifully long dark brown hair and two long horns.

He then proceeds to greet you with a smile curved on his face, "ah, look what we have here. The hunter of the hour! Didn't expect you to come this early". You couldn't believe your eyes! He's alive! Your eyes began to grow teary at the sight of his existence. You dearly missed him. So much that you could just break down and sob right now. Parting your lips, you asked worriedly, "you're alive?! Are you okay? Were you severely injured?? Did they hurt you??". Dontis laughs at your response, " haha, I'm fine! Just a few scratches here and there, nothing too special.". You sigh in relief, "that's good... Could've sworn to their lives if they hurt you in any way, I would have gone to seek them.". He looks at you in shock but laughs once more, "you missed me that much, didn't you?". You sighed, nodding your head in agreement. Followed by a soft chuckle, he gestures you inside his penthouse; closing the door behind you.

You both walked and sat in the living room as Dontis discussed what happened in the war. You were just happy and in relief that Dontis is still alive and well. He asks you, "But you don't need to worry about all of that. Let's talk about you. What have you been doing when I was away?". You looked down and pondered for a moment. Other than doing you daily duties, you spent most of the times longing and missing Dontis. Laying in such a solace bed, yet the thought of his whereabouts kept you up at night. You were stressed the hell out about him. "Well, not much? Also nothing special?". He responds back, "didn't think of me?". You look at him with weary eyes, wanting him to get the message that you did indeed miss him. " haha! I'm teasing! I'm sure you had other important duties to attend to".

You really didn't have anything to do, except worry about the fact that Dontis was in a life or death situation. Hiding your sadness, you smiled and joked "I'll be honest, I did miss you. A lot, in that matter. I couldn't even sleep.". Dontis' eyes fill with worry as he moves close to you, "couldn't... Sleep?". He puts his arm around your shoulder as you sigh in response, "safe to say, yeah. I kept glancing at my phone every minute to see if you sent a message or just any form of contact from you. I kept thinking about the worst what ifs and how horribly the outcome would be. I...", you stopped yourself and held your words back. You didn't want to over dump your worries on Dontis, especially after a dangerous situation between his kind and the Trimidian

Dontis tilts his head, gazing at you with concern, "lend me your worries, dear. You don't need to hide your scars from me anymore.". That was it. Just by his comforting words, was the cherry on top to your dessert of sorrows. As he caresses your cheek, you let a few tears roll down from your tired eyes. "That's right, just let it all go.", he says in a gentle tone. You couldn't help but bury your face into his chest, letting your sadness consume your being. He then brings you close against him, embracing you into his strong arms as he runs his fingers through your hair.

Knowing that those nights of endless worries, and the longing of being in one's arms are over... You felt at peace once more.

---------------------------------------

I hope you guys enjoy this small piece. Writings like this, will be raw with no grammar checks lol. Mainly a thought writing. I was lowkey thinking of writing this piece into a whole 'Dontis comforts you to sleep' fic, but I wanna know what y'all think? 🤔

- love y'all Crumpets

Azulaoi 💙

[sobeautifullyobsessed]

Stephen Strange x Female Reader, #26 please, for the writing prompt 🤗

Stephen Strange x Female Reader

soft Stephen in love; wee bit of angst to begin with, love & fluff after, 850 words

#26 – “I was supposed to take a shower, alone, but go ahead jump right in.”

Stephen bit his tongue against a defensive retort at your icy, irritated tone. He knew it couldn’t be helped; it didn’t take his MD or PhD to understand that your short-temperedness was not only to be expected but was--in a very significant way--his fault. He leaned against the sink, running the ties of his short robe through tentative fingers, pondering the words that might assuage you best. “I could scrub your back, honey. You know you always say I’ve got the magic fingers you adore…”

You snorted from behind the shower curtain. “Yeah, you do. Magic fingers. Magic hands. And they’re a big part of the reason I’m the size of one of the dancing hippos from Fantasia right now!”

He remained silent a moment, watching your now cumbersome shape against the fabric as you bent forward enough to turn on the water. “Mmmm…well that’s nice,” you sighed as the water hit your skin. Beneath your exasperation, you sounded so weary that he ached to just hold you in his arms and infuse some of his own vigorous lifeforce into your veins.

Stephen knew you hadn’t been sleeping well for at least a week, as each night you struggled to find a comfortable position in which to rest for more than twenty minutes at a time. He knew too well there were times you left his side to pace the floor a while, before turning on the television in the living room portion of his quarters, hoping to distract yourself enough from your discomfort to eventually fall asleep on the sofa. He’d found you several mornings that way, wishing there was some magic that would allow him to give you the relief for a time, of bearing your burden upon himself for at least a day or two. He’d said as much to Wong, who told him the thought was noble but entirely impractical, and that such magic was more hazardous than helpful for all parties involved.

You sighed again, and Stephen sighed with you. Days like today, he felt so useless; he could travel to different dimensions and wage mystical battle against the darkest foes of humanity, but in the face of what you needed most, he was a mere man, as powerless as any man on Earth to give his woman what she needed most.

But your sigh drew him nearer. He couldn’t help it. Most of his life had been spent on the outside looking in, unable to make the crucial choice to trust in another soul and the love that had taken root between them. To accept that he didn’t have to lead a solitary existence; that he was worthy of the love offered him, and that he need not face the future alone. You had worked that miracle, subtly to begin with, patient in the face of his skittishness, showing him in myriad ways the truth of your gentle heart—until one day he’d had to blurt out his own declaration of love as you’d browsed the flower stalls of a Sunday Farmer’s Market, your arms laden with the blooms you planned to use to brighten the rooms of the Sanctum Masters‘s suite. You hadn’t been surprised at all, having learned him well enough that you’d expected those three little words to inevitably burst out. Once you’d paid the vendor for your purchase, Stephen had pulled you along to a less public location and portaled the two of you right to his bedroom, eager to show you the depth of his feelings. He smiled now, remembering the shower of flower petals he’d conjured to fall upon the mattress, and the hours of lovemaking that had followed. Since that day, he had made it his practice to tell you he loved you at least once a day. And now all that he wanted in the whole world was to show you the same by taking care of you in the most natural, elemental of ways.

Stephen brushed his fingertips along the edge of the shower curtain, resigned to depart if that was your true will. “I’ll grab a shower later, if you really want me to, sweetheart. But, um…is there anything you need before I go?”

You gave a third sigh, this one deep and drawn out. “I guess…” you started, and the softness of your voice alone told him that you’d had a change of heart, “…I guess there’s still enough room for the both of us in here. And I wouldn’t mind it so much if you maybe…you know…helped me wash my hair.”

“And scrub your back,” he reiterated with a sly little grin.

“Well, yeah,” you laughed, “It is one of the reasons I’ve stuck around here as long as I have.”

“Of course, of course,” he chuckled, letting his robe drop to the floor before pulling back the curtain only enough to step into the tub. You didn’t turn to face him as he came up behind you and slid his arms around your waist to rest his hands upon your swollen belly. You leaned your head back against his shoulder, humming contentedly as you relaxed against him. Stephen kissed your temple, letting his lips linger there. “And I’m counting two more excellent reasons for sticking around for some time to come.” As if recognizing their father’s voice, one of the twins elbowed—or was it kicked?—against Stephen’s hand.

“Oooooo,” you giggled despite the sharpness of baby’s jab, “Just two of countless others, my darling. I promise that you’re stuck with me--and them--for all your years to come.”

Stephen nuzzled his way down your wet skin, landing tender, loving kisses onto the crook or your neck and shoulder, while the two of you swayed gently under the water’s fall. By the time he’d reached for the shampoo, both babies had settled back to sleep in the nurturing cocoon of their mother’s body and the sustaining shelter of his loving embrace.

If you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging, or reblogging with a comment. The only way an author's work can be seen by a wider audience depends on YOU. 💗

buy me a coffee?☕

[punks-never-die205]

Unseen

afab!reader x Killer

CW: canon-typical violence, smooches, sexy times, second go at life try again style story, 18+ only

Summary: A Killer x Reader fan fic set in the One Piece universe, may still diverge from canon events. Starts prior to the time skip.

I don't have much to say, I wanted to write a story where the reader smooches Killer, so I did. It kind of ran away from me after that but I'm having fun with it =D

Available on Ao3 and Wattpad

Chapter 0: Life's a Beach

You tried to muffle the sound of your own breathing. The slim turn of moon in the sky was the only real light, since you'd left town some hours ago. You had been trying to shake Jabra, a terribly persistent member of CP9, with limited results. He wasn't as bad as Lucci, but that terror had been on a long-term undercover mission as far as you were aware. You hadn't seen him or Kaku for a few years now.

Being an orphan with a knack for fighting, you had spent some years being trained and raised by the World Government to eventually become a part of CP9. While most everyone else had leaned into it, there was something about the whole thing that never sat well with you. You gave the bloody nightmare the slip when you were 16, and you'd survived well enough in the years since. You had honestly lasted on your own for seven years longer than you had expected.

You couldn't hear anything around you aside from the sounds of nature, and crept along slowly in the dark of the night. You were picking your way through the underbrush for an hour before you heard the ocean. You let out a small sigh of relief; Jabra were a devil fruit user, and you could lose him completely in the water.

What you saw when you got to the shoreline wasn't empty ocean, but a big mean looking ship that had been anchored into the cove. You didn't need to see much to know it was a pirate ship. There wasn't any other reason to dock at the cove when the island's busiest pier was just a little ways further by boat.

Given that the front sail had a massive flaming skull on it, you figured the pirates associated with the ship were of some renown. You don't go showing off your jolly roger like that without having the balls to back it up.

You pondered your options quickly; you could stow aboard a pirate ship you knew nothing about, steal a rowboat from the same pirate ship, swim around it, or move on to a safer stretch of beach and risk being caught by Jabra.

There was a noise in the woods behind you, and you caught the not-as-distant-as-you-wanted voice of Jabra swearing. Your options were limited, and if you hit the water now, Jabra was going to hear you. Fortunately, you were good enough at geppo to get from the shore to the ship. You couldn't sustain it over long distances, but you just needed to clear a few dozen yards and that was easy enough.

You landed on the deck of the ship and peeked back toward the shore from behind the cover of the solid railing that bordered most of the deck. You focused everything you had into watching the beach, but even after several long minutes had come and gone, you hadn't heard or seen anything further from Jabra.

You put your back to the railing and looked around the ship. It was quiet, a few crew members seemed to be sleeping further away from you, and if anyone had noticed you there hadn't yet been a commotion. You tucked your long hair into the cap you were wearing and spent a moment to make sure you weren't going to bump into any surprises.

You could go high to the crow's nest, but that seemed like a great spot to run into someone. There were several levels up from the deck, and if you could slip to the side of the ship that was the not-shore-side, then you could geppo your way up to the top of those cabin levels and hopefully stay out of the way. You considered going below deck, but if you were seen you wanted to be able to beat a hasty retreat.

Pirates were preferred over CP9 agents, but you weren't so naïve as to think pirates were all reasonable people either. You crept low, continuing to use the railing as cover, and made your way to the stern of the ship, and shifted your way to the ocean-side things. With a full ship between you and the shore you felt a lot safer. If you were seen you could just throw yourself into the ocean, and the pirates would create all the noisy cover you'd need to give Jabra the slip.

Kicking off the air again you geppo'd your way up to the "roof" of this part of the ship and knelt low. Your senses were on high alert, half expecting the lookout from the crow's nest to have noticed you by now. If he missed you slipping onto the deck though, you might be home free. If you don't see anyone get on your ship, you're not going to pay attention to movement on your ship. It was a logical, but in this case, foolish way of thinking.

There wasn't a lot of moonlight either. Visibility for the best of people was limited in these conditions. After you had gotten comfortable in your new spot, you saw light spill onto the deck as someone with a lantern started walking around. Whether he was doing a security check or a bed check wasn't your concern. You kept the light in your peripherals and looked back to the shoreline.

You nearly hissed at the silhouette of Jabra darting around the tree line. He'd almost be mistaken for a wolf, if you didn't know that such beasts didn't exist on this island. You flattened yourself in your spot and resigned yourself to stowing away aboard a pirate ship. If you could stay out of sight for the voyage to a new island, then that would be best.

And if you got caught – well, you'd have to worry about that problem later.

You'd been dodging Jabra for four days. You'd barely had enough to eat and drink and your sleep was lacking. You tried to keep your eyes open, but sleep overtook you as you realized you weren't going to be arrested by CP9 tonight. The relief settled too deeply into your bones, and you should've known better.

[shredlad]

How I imagine the next sequels of Avatar.

Chapter 1

~ Hello, after watching the second sequel of Avatar I got lot's of new theories on how the story might continue so I decided to write it down.

This is just the first intro part of my fanfic, there will be more soon. ~

"Spider... come with me..." Quaritch whined in pain while also gasping for precious air. He offered Spider his hand as his ever loyal ikran was there to support the weight off of the spikey rocks that were stabing into his wounded legs. It was curiously looking around with head movements similar to those of a raptor. The air was filled with smoke, again after over a decade. Some don't learn from mistakes it seems.

Just as Spider pulled his father out of the water, he backed away making a distance from him and turning around to look at him for the last time. Eagerly he hissed at Quaritch like an animal and without giving him another chance to speak, threw himself into the water to find his blue family.

"Spider..." Quaritch let out a painful weep, seeing his son leaving him, unsure if there'll ever be a chance to meet him again. Knowing his willfulness, he would do anything to see him again. Spider is, it seems, the only thing left worth fighting for. Ever since Paz's tragic death, there has been a void surrounding his heart. He moved on, but, now there's Spider, and he's alive. A glimpse of hope showed before him.

Wiping off the blood that has been dripping down his forehead, he grabbed his ikran by the kuru and climbed up, still wobbly and tired. He went on, scouting for any recoms possibly alive. There is no giving up. Jake Sully is still out there, and now, he's got Spider.

Meanwhile, Spider went on searching for the Sully's. Luckily, he found them on the nearby rock, all of them gathered up on one place. At first nobody noticed him, everyone was so occupied and hurt by Neteyam's death, completely dissociated. Spider sat for a bit after climbing up on a rock to catch his breath.

A thought ran through his head. "I saved him... why did I save him?" He shook his head and turned around to greet Kiri that noticed him first. "Monkey boy" Kiri gasped, feeling a bit more at ease now that she knows at least Spider is alive. She'd be broken for years if they were to lose Spider too. Jake grabbed the boy gently by his head and pushed him close to him, giving him a comforting hug.

After Neteyam's funeral, life was dul. The Metkayina now consider them as their own and they are welcome to return whenever they want.

As the family was returning safely home flying on ikrans, Spider felt conflict within himself. "Quaritch is my father, but he's evil. But he's my father after all. But... No. I should've let him drown. It would be all over forever. I'm so selfish."

He pressed himself closer to Kiri that was controlling the ikran. She felt him squeeze, feeling the pain he was going through. "It'll be alright monkey boy... we're finally going home."

Neytiri, flying just a bit ahead of them, twitched her ear in their direction, hearing Kiri talking something. She glanced at her, with deep pain in her expression only a mother could feel. Then she moved her gaze to Spider, seeing him hiding his head against the back of Kiri and pondering. Her gaze was on him for a little longer, then she returned to look up front, kissing Tuk on her head, as if to remind herself that she's alive and needed to be protected at all costs.

The house of Sully was quiet for several days. The kids even lost an appetite from all the stress and sadness. Not to mention Lo'ak, blaming all on himself. He was the most distant of all. Jake tried to approach him multiple times, but Lo'ak demanded some time alone. Neytiri had to force him to eat, even just a fruit.

He would go walk around the forest for hours, visiting places where he spent time with Neteyam. He cried a lot while listening to the Tree of Souls. In his mind, Neteyam would appear standing behind him, always watching his back.

"You're so stubborn, little brother." Neteyam echoed in a cheerful voice, as if making fun of Lo'ak, as usual. "Listen to your father you silly." Lo'ak turned around to hug his big brother, wishing to never let go of him, wishing for him to come back to life again.

"I will, I WILL! JUST COME BACK! Neteyam! It's all my fault Neteyam! Please, come back..." Lo'ak wept and wept, until he finally snapped out of it and caught himself hugging and pulling onto the seeds of the tree.

Jake knew where to find Lo'ak. He quietly approached the kid and sat next to him making sure not to scare him. "Lo'ak" he called him gently. Kid glanced at him with red tired eyes and ears backwards.

"Lo'ak... I understand this is tough for you, it is tough for all of us, but, you must understand something." He paused before continuing. "It's not your fault. You did best you could at that given time, you couldn't just predict the future, could you?" Jake did his best not to make things worse then they already are.

"But, I could've-" Lo'ak started but Jake interrupted him because he knew what he was going to say, blame it all on himself again.

"No buts Lo'ak. It's in the past. Thinking of what and when you could've done won't help you recover from this any better. Now listen to me." He came closer to his son, placing the palm of his hand on Lo'ak's forehead and pushing him gently into his chest.

"Neteyam is with us. He is all around us. You may not see him, but hes right there, watching all over us never wishing to see his brother in this state. Neteyam looks up to you, he will always be proud of you because he is your kin."

Lo'ak looked up at his father and nodded as the last tear slid down his cheek. "Don't let Neteyam see you like this." Jake smiled, wiped it down with his hand and encouraged Lo'ak to get up. "Let's go home, you must be starving."

[mistyheartrbs]

in a faberry post you said to ask about your quinn thoughts. so i’m asking. because as a character and an individual, quinn’s fucked and beyond interesting. so please; your favourite quinn thoughts. maybe something you’ve been pondering/holding onto that you’ve never had quite a good enough opportunity to talk about until now. something you’ve said 50 times over that you want to say again. rattle them all off in dot points. spend an hour writing a mini essay on two. what ever you like. what ever makes things easiest/most entertaining for you

YES...YES.........thank you dearly for this anon

so the thing about quinn is like. she is deeply deeply sad. and she is so gay. and she and rachel are both deeply unpleasant people, neither of whom would really be considered "good" by real-life standards and sometimes they even push it by glee standards (though people are a lot harder on rachel but that's a different essay) and quinn has the extra difficulty of essentially being glee's narrative punching bag. she gets pregnant she gets kicked out of her house her boyfriend pretty openly cheats on her she keeps getting dumped she tries to form a relationship with the baby she gave up only for the adoptive mother to outright refuse this and so she tries to steal the baby but this fails too her best friend who she is in love with almost gets married to her ex she's paralyzed for several months. the culmination of her arc isn't her getting what she wants, it's her giving up prom queen to rachel. and through it all we're told over and over again that she's selfish, she's horrible, she's the queen bee evil bitch even when what we're seeing onscreen is the polar opposite.

and i think one of the things that's interesting about her is how performative everything about her is, which lends itself to this sense that we're never even seeing the whole picture. we get these cracks in the glass - her confession that she's afraid of the future to rachel in 2x20, "i just want somebody to love me" in 2x22 - but by and large she has this veneer up. this manufactured self. we find out in s2 that she literally created a new identity for herself after she left middle school. lots of weird gender stuff going on there.

but despite all this she's still The Queen Bee Bitch. and however much glee deviates from/plays on high school tropes in other ways, she's still locked into the narrative culmination that that demands, which is to say, success for the protagonist at the expense of her own happiness. prom queen is a hollow title and she grows to learn that, but it's one she spent a lifetime working towards. and she gives it to rachel, because she loves her, and we never really see her get a fully realized happy ending beyond that (i kind of wish they'd just written her off completely so i could imagine she was being her best gay self at yale, or at least written her off after the quinntana sex episode) - she can't get the girl. that's not how this story goes. she's doomed by the narrative to never shine as bright as rachel. she was doomed the second she appeared onscreen in the pilot - hailed by rachel, no less - but god, she still loves so, so hard.

bringing faberry back into the conversation, she and rachel understand each other on this bone-deep level that nobody else in the show really manages. and it's remarkable. and it's so so compelling to watch, and a big part of why the latter seasons fail so badly is that we lose that complex relationship when we lose quinn - though, then, it makes sense that we would, since the watered-down version of rachel we see in latter glee would never have the same relationship the one we loved in the first half of the show does with quinn.

i have more quinn thoughts (i will always have quinn thoughts) but these are the main ones. girls when they're doomed by the narrative. girls when queerbaiting reveals a previously unforeseen depth to a relationship that would not be present were they straightforwardly canon. girls when dianna agron puts everything into playing a character who, on paper, could have just been a cautionary tale/one-note villain. and those girls? quinn fabray.

[mariacallous]

Hari Kunzru wasn’t looking for a fight. On August 7, the Brooklyn-based writer sat on the subway, scrolling through social media. He noticed several authors grumbling about a linguistic analysis site called Prosecraft. It provided breakdowns of writing and narrative styles for more than 25,000 titles, offering linguistic statistics like adverb count and ranking word choices according to how “vivid” or “passive” they appeared. Kunzru pulled up the Prosecraft website and checked to see whether any of his work appeared. Yep. There it was. White Tears, 2017. According to Prosecraft, in the 61st percentile for “vividness.”

Kunzru was irked enough to add his own voice to the rising Prosecraft protest. He wasn’t mad about the analysis itself. But he strongly suspected that the founder, Benji Smith, had obtained his catalog without paying for it. “It seemed very clear to me that he couldn’t have assembled this database in any legal way,” he says. (And Kunzru is no stranger to thinking about these issues; in addition to his successful career as a novelist, he has a past life as a WIRED writer.)

“This company Prosecraft appears to have stolen a lot of books, trained an AI, and are now offering a service based on that data,” Kunzru tweeted. “I did not consent to this use of my work.”

His message went viral. So did a plea from horror writer Zachary Rosenberg, who addressed Benji Smith directly, demanding that his work be removed from the site. Like Kunzru, he’d heard about Prosecraft and found himself upset when he discovered his work analyzed on it. “It felt rather violating,” Rosenberg says.

Hundreds of other authors chimed in. Some had harsh words for Smith: “Entitled techbro.” “Soulless troll.” “Scavenger.” “Shitstain.” “Bloody hemorrhoid.”

Others pondered legal action. The Author’s Guild was inundated with requests for assistance. “The emails just kept coming in,” says Mary Rasenberger, its CEO. “People reacted really strongly.” Prosecraft received hundreds of cease-and-desist letters within 24 hours.

By the end of the day, Prosecraft was kaput. (Smith deleted everything and apologized.) But the intense reaction it provoked is telling: The great AI backlash is in full swing.

Prosecraft’s founder didn’t see the controversy coming.

On Monday, Benji Smith had recently returned to his home in a small town just outside of Portland, Oregon.

He’d spent the weekend at a gratitude meditation conference, and he was excited to return to work. Until this past May, Smith had held a full-time job as a software engineer, but he’d quit to focus on his startup, a desktop word processor aimed at literary types, called Shaxpir. (Yes, pronounced “Shakespeare.”) Shaxpir doesn’t make much money—not enough to cover its cloud expenses yet, Smith says, less than $10,000 annually—but he’d been feeling optimistic about it.

Prosecraft, which Smith launched in 2017, was a side hustle within a side hustle. As a stand-alone website it offered linguistic analysis on novels for free. Smith also used the Prosecraft database for tools within the paid version of Shaxpir, so it did have a commercial purpose.

Although he was anointed the ur-tech bro of the week, Smith doesn’t have much VC slickness. He’s a walking Portlandia stereotype, with piercings and bird tattoos and stubble; he talks effusively about the art of storytelling, like he’s auditioning for the role of a superfan of The Moth. A self-described theater kid, Smith dabbled in playwriting before getting his first tech gig at a computational linguistics company.

The idea for Prosecraft, he says, came from his habit of counting the words in books he admired while he was working on a memoir about surviving the 2012 Costa Concordia shipwreck. (“Eat Pray Love is 110,000 words,” he says.) He thought other authors might find this type of analysis helpful, and he developed some algorithms using his computational linguistics training. He created a submissions process so writers could add their own work to his database; he hoped it would someday make up the bulk of his library. (All in all, around a hundred authors submitted to Prosecraft over the years.) It did not occur to Smith that Prosecraft would end up enraging many of the very people he wanted to impress.

Prosecraft did not train off any large language models. It was not a generative AI product at all, but something much simpler. More than anything else, it resembled the kind of tool an especially devoted and slightly corny computational linguistics graduate student might whip up as an A+ final project. But it appears to share something crucial with most of the AI projects making headlines these days: It trained on a massive set of data scraped from the internet without regard to possible copyright infringement issues.

Smith saw this as a grimy means to a justifiable end. He doesn’t defend his behavior now—“I understand why everyone is upset”—but wants to explain how he defended it to himself at the time. “What I believed would happen in the long run is that, if I could show people this thing, that people would say, ‘Wow, that's so cool and it's never been done before. And it's so fun and useful and interesting.’ And then people would submit their manuscripts willfully and generously, and publishers would want to have their books on Prosecraft,” he says. “But there was no way to convey what this thing could be without building it first. So I went about getting the data the only way that I knew how—which was, it's all there on the internet.”

Smith didn’t buy the books he analyzed. He got most of them from book-pirating websites. It’s something he alluded to in the apology note he posted when he took Prosecraft down, and it’s something he’ll admit if you ask, although he seems bewildered about how mad people are about it. (“Would people be less angry with me if I bought a copy of each of these books?” Smith wonders out loud as we talk over Zoom. “Yes,” I say.) The practice of using shadow libraries to conduct scholarly work has been debated for years, with projects like Sci-Hub and Libgen disseminating academic papers and books to the applause of many researchers who believe, as the old adage goes, that information wants to be free.

Many of the authors who chastised Smith, like Kunzru, disapprove primarily of this pirated database. Or, more specifically, they hate the idea of trying to make money off work derived from a pirated library as opposed to simply conducting research. “I’m not against all data scraping,” Devin Madson says. “I know a lot of academics in digital humanities, and they do scrape a lot of data.” Madson was one of the first people to contact Smith to complain about Prosecraft last week. What rubbed her the wrong way was the attempt to profit from the analytical tools developed with scraped data. (Madson also more broadly disapproves of AI writing tools, including Grammarly, for, as she sees it, encouraging the homogenization of literary style.)

Not every author opposed Prosecraft, despite how it appeared on social media. MJ Javani was delighted when he saw that Prosecraft had a page about his first novel. “As a matter of fact, I dare say, I may have paid for this analysis if it had not been provided for free by Prosecraft,” he says. He does not agree with the decision to take the site down. “I think it was a great idea,” Daniela Zamudio, a writer who submitted her work, says.

Even supporters have caveats about that pirated library, though. Zamudio, for instance, understands why people are upset about the piracy but hopes the site will come back using a submissions-based database.

The moral case against Prosecraft is clear-cut: The books were pirated. Authors who oppose book pirating have a straightforward argument against Smith’s project.

But did Smith deserve all that blowback? “I think he needed to be called out,” Kunzru says. “He maybe didn't fully understand the sensitivity right now, you know, in the context of the WGA strike and the focus on large language models and various other forms of machine learning.”

Others aren’t so sure. Publishing industry analyst Thad McIlroy doesn’t approve of data scraping, either. “Pirate libraries are not a good thing,” he says. But he sees the backlash against Prosecraft as majorly misguided. His term? “Shrieking hysteria.”

And some copyright experts have watched the furor with their jaws near the ground. While the argument against piracy is simple to follow, they are skeptical that Prosecraft could’ve been taken to court successfully.

Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University, thinks Smith could’ve mounted a successful defense of his project by invoking fair use, a doctrine allowing use of copyrighted materials without permission under certain circumstances, like parody or writing a book review. Fair use is a common defense against claims of copyright infringement within the US, and it’s been embraced by tech companies. It’s a “murky and ill-defined” area of the law, says intellectual property lawyer Bhamati Viswanathan, who wrote a book on copyright and creative arts. Which makes questions of what does or does not constitute fair use equally murky and ill-defined, even if it’s derived from pirated sources.

Sag, along with several other experts I spoke with, pointed to the Google Books and HathiTrust cases as precedent—two examples of the courts ruling in favor of projects that uploaded snippets of books online without obtaining the copyright holders’ permission, determining that they constituted fair use. “I think that the reasons that people are upset really don't have anything to do with this poor guy,” says Sag. “I think it has to do with everything else that’s going on.”

Earlier this summer, a number of celebrities joined a high-profile class action against OpenAI, a suit that alleges that the generative AI company trained its large language model on shadow libraries. Sarah Silverman, one of the plaintiffs, alleges OpenAI scraped her memoir Bedwetter in this way. While the emotional appeal behind the lawsuit is considerable, its legal merits are a matter of debate within the copyright community. It’s not widely viewed as a slam dunk by any means. It’s not even clear a court will find that the source of the books is relevant to the fair-use question, in the same way that you couldn’t sue a writer for copying your plot on the grounds that they shoplifted a copy of your book.

Rasenberger strongly supports enforcing copyright protections for authors. “If we don't start putting guardrails up, then we will diminish the entire publishing ecosystem,” she says. Rasenberger cites the recent US Supreme Court decision on whether some of Andy Warhol’s artwork infringed on copyright as evidence that the legal system may be reining in its interpretation of fair use. Still, she sees the legal question as unsettled. “What feels fair to an author isn't always going to align with the current fair-use law,” Rasenberger says.

“Prosecraft is a little guy who got swept up in a much bigger thing—he’s collateral damage,” says Bill Rosenblatt, a technologist who studies copyright.

Rosenblatt is fascinated by how far public opinion on copyright and data has shifted since the days of Napster. “Twenty years ago, Big Tech positioned this as ‘it's us against the big evil book publishers, movie studios, record labels,’” Rosenblatt says. Now the dynamic is strikingly different—the tech companies are the Goliaths of business, with artists, musicians, and writers attempting to rein them in. While Prosecraft might’ve been viewed more sympathetically in an earlier era, today it is seen as ideologically aligned with Big Tech, no matter how small it actually is.

Smith offered the same service for five years without issue—but at a moment when writers and artists are deeply wary of artificial intelligence, Prosecraft suddenly looked suspicious in this new context. An AI company only in the loosest sense of the term, Prosecraft wasn’t so much low-hanging fruit as it was a random cucumber on the ground near the fruit tree. Was there something rotten about it? Yes, sure. But describing it as collateral damage isn’t inaccurate. The real targets of the AI backlash that swept Prosecraft away are the generative AI companies that are currently the toast of Silicon Valley, as well as the corporations planning to use those generative AI tools to replace human creative work.

A year from now, it’s unlikely people will remember this particular social-media-fueled controversy. Smith acquiesced to his critics quickly, and a little-used, small-potatoes analytics tool is now defunct. But this incident is illustrative of a larger cultural turn against the unauthorized use of creative work in training models. In this specific case, writers scored an easy victory against one dude in Oregon with a shaky grasp on the concept of passive voice.

I suspect the reason so many prominent voices celebrated so loudly is because the larger ongoing fights will be much longer, and much harder to win. The Hollywood writer’s strike, with the Writers Guild of America demanding that studios negotiate over the use of AI, is the longest strike of its kind since 1988. The OpenAI lawsuit is another attempt to wrest back control; as mentioned, it is likely to be a far harder fight to win considering fair-use precedence.

In the meantime, writers are also moving to create their own individual guardrails for how generative AI can use their work. Kunzru, for example, recently negotiated a publishing contract and asked to add a clause specifying that his work not be used to train large language models. His publisher cooperated.

Kunzru is far from the only author interested in gaining control over how LLMs train on his work. Many writers negotiating contracts are asking to include AI clauses. Some aren’t having the smoothest experiences. “There's been a huge amount of pushback against AI clauses in contracts,” Madson says.

Literary agent Anne Tibbets has seen a surge in interest from writers in recent months, with many clients in contract negotiations asking to include an AI clause. Some publishers tend to be slow to respond, debating the most appropriate language.

Others aren’t interested in any form of compromise for this potential new revenue stream: “There are some publishers who are flat-out refusing to include language at all,” Tibbets says. Meanwhile, agencies are already hiring consultants specifically to guide their AI policies—a sign that they are well-aware that this conflict isn���t going away.

[cherrynojutsu]

Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes author's notes

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Chapter 15/?: Isthmus

A few days of effortless routine pass, peaceful afternoons melting into evenings spent out of the heat wave in Sakura’s apartment. She fixes a flare-up in his stump one afternoon, green chakra soothing frayed nerve endings. The next, they prepare rei shabu together in her kitchen, enjoyable in its chill as they overlook the street below her window; it’s exceedingly empty due to the rise in temperature, save the occasional passerby or itinerant bird. They do see her neighbor arriving back home once as they eat, the courier at the other end of the second floor. She’s rather quick for a civilian, darting back out into the street and around the far corner after only a few minutes, an additional bag thrown over her shoulder. 

“Her boyfriend lives on the edge of the village,” Sakura comments, hand propping up her chin on the table. “A fisherman; he’s out at the lake or the river nearly every day. Ino knows him.”

Sasuke simply nods. Sakura’s apartment building is nice and in a relatively quiet portion of town. While it‘s in a convenient location in terms of access to everything, he can see the appeal of the edge of the village; it’s more naturalistic. It brings to mind recollections of backyards and clan grounds annexed at another edge of Konoha, wilderness teeming at the fringe and a handful of treasured walks with Itachi, dodging thistles and poison oak. 

With the expansion of the village proceeding at what he’s gathered in his short time back is a rather breakneck pace - there’s still construction going on in several areas from what he’s seen - he ponders once again how long the edge of the village will stay the edge of the village. Though he’s been watering the lily buds diligently, he still hasn’t gone beyond the memorial stone, into what used to be the Uchiha District. It’s a task for another month, he thinks. Maybe when the autumn equinox arrives; it’s been ages since he was in Konoha for that tradition.

His usual shared dinner with Sakura drifts earlier and earlier, thus offering such glimpses at the lives of the people who pass by day to day during the waning afternoon time slot. There’s an exordium as of late, to stay longer into the night than he has in the past, midnight and beyond. Usually it’s accompanied by some sort of snack Sakura presents in the later hours of their eves spent together, walnuts or bagged seaweed tempura or his small stash of snacks in her drawer. He surmises it may be partly an effort on her part to get him to eat more, which he doesn’t mind, as he particularly enjoys the indulgences that come before said snacking. 

“We could watch another movie,” Sakura says near every night like clockwork, cheeks red and eyes sweeping away from him shyly, as if they’ve made any effort at all to watch the one that’s just finished, credits rolling.

He hypothesizes that she could just be better at multitasking than him, able to ascertain at least some of the plot and dialogue despite her lips melding to his for the better portion of each film’s sprawl. In credence of his theory is the fact that her pile of papers has made three further appearances during the earlier evenings, though she always slides them aside to their designated spot on her bookshelf prior to seven. 

Sasuke, however, is convinced he is quite incapable of focusing on anything else when her fingers are sliding through his hair and her tongue is drifting along his, sweltry hot. The scent of raspberries is disarming and overwhelming when he’s this close to her, all audio irrelevant background noise in comparison to the hum of each breath Sakura takes. Sometimes, right when they change angles and in advance of their lips colliding anew, he can catch the hint of a sweet sound she makes low in her throat; he thinks it may be the cusp of something akin to a whimper. 

It hasn’t helped his secluded profligacies within the privacy of his own bedroom in the slightest, as he yearns to hear just what sort of other enticing noises Sakura elicits during certain… activities. His subconscious persistently fills in the gaps, should he have such a dream; he wakes on several occasions, flushed from visuals that involve peeling thin crimson fabric and midnight netting away from her freckled skin, clearing the way so that he may caress each and every square inch of her.

He knows he’s not ready for that by a long shot just yet. He’s not even ready to trail his fingers anywhere other than across her cheek or atop her shoulder or through her pale hair, silk in his palm. It will take time.

Still. It’s altogether impossible for him to catch even a hint of what’s playing out on the screen when they’re kissing like that. It’s possible that the masculine system is simply wired differently, utterly subservient to such distractions. The aftertaste of whatever tea she’s been drinking lingers in his mouth whenever they finally part, a sensation he’s quickly become addicted to: peach, white coconut creme, caramelized pear, none too sweet. 

It’s still very new, but Sasuke is rather enjoying figuring it out. He concludes Sakura must be, too, as she initiates just as often as he does, which has eliminated most of his qualms; he’d been apprehensive initially that perhaps he’d be bad at this sort of thing, with as many times as he’d ruminated without acting on the desire, but he must not be terrible if she returns every kiss with equal fervor. She seems rather good at it, herself. It makes him wonder if she’s ever kissed anyone else. Realistically he presumes that she must have; Sakura was always a pretty girl, even when they were children. The beautiful and capable woman she has grown into has likely attracted a fair amount of attention. 

He would never ask, of course. It is categorically none of his business, given the heartbreak he forced upon her for years and the subsequent wait for him to be ready for any kind of closer relationship. He starkly ignores the part of him that aches with a great deal of jealousy at the mere thought of Sakura kissing anyone else, locking it away behind old doors that usher other parlous and nugatory feelings of his away for containment.

It doesn’t matter now. He sort of wishes he could just lose the key to that sort of cerebration already. Other troubling tendencies linger behind that aged wood and its rusted hinges, insecurities and his penchant for self-punishment and his propensity to overanalyze every situation, sometimes to the extent of onerous and unjustified panic.

Someday he’ll get to them, clear away the sediment; spring cleaning, perhaps. For now, he’s content in relishing this new stage fully. He feels… closer to Sakura than before. He knew that would happen, but there’s a familiar ease, a sedate domesticity, that he experiences within the walls of her home that he hasn’t really had occasion to feel anywhere else, or at least, hasn’t had occasion to feel since he was very young. He loves spending all of his time with her, whether it’s cooking or kissing or sneaking an occasional glimpse of her as she scrawls things into her notes, fine pink brows furrowed and jade eyes scanning the paper analytically. Since he’s begun to sit closer to her on the couch, he’s noticed that they appear to be corrections of some sort, her handwriting with its swooping As flooding the margins with torrents of precisely inscribed notes. He doesn’t pry about what she’s working on; it may be confidential, and thus there’s a sort of implied trust in him there, too, of which he doesn’t wish to contravene.

He used to ache for this feeling, pine for it desperately, the indulgence and eudemonia of hours of quietly shared company and more open affections. As a child, he used to train to the point of exhaustion, pushing his body to the limits in the hopes that he could rip the desire for it out of himself. So now, contrarily and to make up for lost time, he allows himself to revel in it. It’s a nice change of pace from licking his aged wounds to the point of septicity.

Following another heated session of kissing that was abruptly interrupted by rolling credits, Sakura mentions something about making iced tea at home soon, or maybe lemonade, as she rifles through her drawer of snacks. A questioning glance is thrown his way as she pulls out his popcorn.

He nods absentmindedly, barely hearing in his distraction, incalescence still cooling behind his ribs, but understanding at least the visual portion of the offer. 

“Is there any kind of iced tea you like?” She’s still a little flushed as she turns to face him. “Other than sencha, I mean.”

His brain has barely caught up to his body standing in the dark of her kitchen, outwardly still feeling each of her fingertips at his scalp and inwardly feeling like his stomach is recovering from its compendiary transformance into molten ardor.

“...What?” That which is feverish floods his neck and licks at his ears. He’s so stupidly fixated on that freckle on her cheek, as well as the way her lips look after they’ve been kissing: slightly plump, parted invitingly. That’s done nothing for his aggrandized and enticing dreams, either, frissons of temptation that enwrap him as they slide down his spine.

“Iced tea; do you just like sencha?” She asks softly as she hands him the bag. “Or are there others you like? Or… I can make unsweetened lemonade, too.”

He latches on to the end part of the sentence the quickest, as it’s the only part that computes initially as he drops his gaze to the bag he’s now clutching. 

“Lemonade,” he murmurs, trying to force the color from his face and exceptionally thankful that Sakura is a lamp aficionado. There’s limited light to discern said coloring here, unless one has the Sharingan.

“Okay,” she says, smiling brightly. “The next time I’m at the market, I’ll get some extra lemons to make some.”

The next evening, another movie serving as background noise finished, they venture to the kitchen again in search of an eleven o’clock snack. Sasuke opts for the almonds this go-around - he may need to pick up a second bag for whenever the next team movie is - but Sakura trails to her refrigerator, pulling out a small container of anko dumplings.

Sasuke eyes them curiously in the scant seconds that pass prior to returning to the living room.  Their dinner was simple today, and Sakura herself grabbed what they needed for the meal from the fridge, so he hadn’t seen that container before now. They appear well-made, visually appealing enough that he expects she must have picked them up from somewhere; perhaps it was the bakery nearest her apartment, the one that he suspects sells confections.

As she sets up the next movie, Sasuke finds himself recalling one occasion when they were Genin, on their lone mission to the Land of Waves, in which she’d scarfed down anko dumplings with considerable delight at dinner. He’d been preoccupied with a rather juvenile eating contest with their third teammate, but he’d still noticed; if there’s one defining characteristic that he has, it’s his ability to be methodically observant, often to the point of his detriment. Racking his brain, he thinks he can also recall at least one other occasion in which she’d ordered them at a restaurant that Kakashi had taken them all to at the tail end of another Genin mission closer to home. 

Though he himself doesn’t like dango anymore - she kindly questions him if he’d like any as she takes her seat scant inches away from him, even though she knows he doesn’t like sweet things, to which he politely declines - he still mentally files this information away for future reference as he eats a few heaping handfuls of almonds. He hasn’t stepped foot inside a bakery since he was seven, but he does have access to his own kitchen now.

In this small collection of days that bring May to a close, Sasuke doesn’t receive any mission assignments. He assumes their old sensei and his returned assistant Shizune must be gearing up for the upcoming Chunin Exams, and thus he is probably loath to send many Konoha ninja out in the next few weeks; there is always the possibility of getting held up somewhere for longer than expected. It’s likely that they’re taking an ample chunk of Konoha’s upper ranks to assist in Sunagakure, too, which means there needs to be an even rounding of capable ninja left here to maintain the village’s security. If Naruto’s going with Kakashi, Sasuke expects he himself will be home for a good while, as will Sakura; most of June they’ll be here, possibly even into July, save any sort of emergency. He supposes it’s probable that he will be assigned guard duties with some degree of regularity in the next month. 

Going so long without a mission assignment used to bother him, eager as he was when he was younger to attain breaks from the village, but now he can’t find it in himself to care one bit. Summer heat has hit Konoha with the same reprisal it always has, sweltering temperatures coating everything hot and humid. He much prefers simplistic evenings at Sakura’s apartment, watching movies and snacking and kissing her until time blurs to the waning width of a crescent moon. 

Amidst all of this, he somehow manages to acquire a summer sickness.

It begins as a tickle in the back of his mouth, possibly near his tonsils. He notices it as he gently sifts his remaining water over greening lily buds well past midnight, just there behind his tongue, and chalks it up to the fact that he was reading the names, the pain in the back of his throat cresting as it always does here. 

Once he arrives back at his apartment, he discerns that his mouth is sort of dry, but he assumes it’s due to the fact that it's brutally humid. Even now, sweat is trailing down his neck in the calefaction. He downs an entire bottle of water in one go to counteract it.

He doesn't sleep particularly well, but it's not one of his worst nightmares - he doesn’t throw up this go-around - so he's grateful. However, upon waking, the twitching feeling at the back of his throat has intensified to an ache. 

Frowning once his heart rate has decelerated and he's stared out his window for a bit, he procures a cough drop and relocates the lamp to the living room end table so he can read on the couch, sprawled out lazily in pursuit of distraction. The hours evanesce away, and one lozenge becomes five. 

An occasional cough quakes his chest, though he thinks it’s from his mouth being persistently dry rather than from anything severely infectious plaguing his lungs. It's… unpleasant. Torrid and irritating, affliction lurking at the back of his throat each time he attempts to clear it. Muscle memory demands he raise what used to be his dominant arm to cough into his bicep sleeve, but it's empty, so that doesn't work so well. What’s left of his left arm only partially covers his mouth. 

He's rarely been ill over the past few years, and only once did he ever have any sort of cough accompanying it. He spent very limited hours physically around other people, he supposes, choosing to say little and retire early on the rare occasion that he was under someone else’s roof rather than sprawled beneath the stars alone. Perhaps he caught something from someone he crossed paths with at the market.

His mouth sinks downward once the fit passes, brows furrowing ahead of another cough rising to take its place. He raises his right arm this time, coughing into the interior portion of his elbow, then rises to procure a drink.

It’s wholly disorienting; the world rotates and knocks something aching in his skull. When his fingers skim his forehead, he deduces that it’s warm as the ground relevels itself. The beginning of a migraine, he concludes, as well as a fever.

Reaching for one of the jars on his tea shelf, Sasuke sets a cup of caffeinated sencha to brew, swallows two pain relief pills from the medicine cabinet, and chases the medicine with a cough drop prior to dragging his spare comforter rather unceremoniously to his couch for further comfort. 

The tea soothes his throat incrementally, and his headache eases slightly; whether it was the caffeine or the medication that did the trick, he couldn’t say. It's not until he rises to fix breakfast, most of his book on the history of the Land of Tea finished, that he realizes he has some sort of a genuine chill, too. Sasuke scans the thermostat for confirmation as a shiver ripples through him; the temperature reads the same as it always does. 

There’s a frown permanently affixed to his face now. He shrugs out of his usual long-sleeved shirt, deducing that a heavier fabric he usually reserves for cooler seasons and climates would better suit the situation he’s found himself in. It helps a little, but he still encases himself back in the comforter, an occasionally coughing cocoon of a human, brows furrowed as he flips through the art book again in want of something to do to distract him from this infirmity.

The sun has climbed higher in the east, just barely clearing the horizon. He’s trying to decide if he should make the jaunt to Sakura’s to cancel their plans for this afternoon, lest he infect her with whatever he’s caught, when the telltale banging of Naruto's fist resounds against his door.

"Teme!" He calls between heavy knocks that are sure to wake his neighbor if she’s home; they’re boisterous enough that they hurt his head with each sharp pound. "Kakashi-sensei is working with Shizune this morning. Let's spar!!"

Sasuke sighs, lone hand rising to his head in pain at the sudden volume as he rises slightly unsteadily, not at all befitting that of a ninja.

"Hey, teme, are you home?!" Additional banging accompanied by a slight twang of an object resonates atop the vertical stretch of wood. “C’mon, hurry up! It’ll be hot as fuck if we don’t go soon! I already promised Hinata-chan that I’d drink this whole thing of water, and-”

"Stop. I'm coming," Sasuke calls, followed by a swallow that requires some effort. His throat hurts more now, he realizes as he nears the door that’s still being hammered on relentlessly by two fists; the dobe must not have heard him. 

There has to be a better system for spars than this, he judges, brows furrowing in disquietude. Some sort of designated day and time. He simultaneously contemplates how often the idiot’s volume has bothered his neighbor or woken her child.

His fingers find the knob and he opens the door, only slightly as he doesn’t want to permit Naruto any kind of opening to barge his way in. He is unsurprised to see his best friend appearing as if he’s just rolled out of bed, blond hair skewed sideways and both fists frozen in midair. One is wrapped around a huge thermos that must have been contributing to the audial uproar.

"Oh, good, I thought maybe you slept at Sakura-chan's or something-" 

Sasuke’s neck warms as he pins him with an unimpressed look.

"Oh." Intense blue assesses him as he lowers his curled fists from the air finally. "Uh."

Sasuke narrows his eyes when his best friend’s expression morphs into one of amusement.

"You… kinda look like shit," the idiot chuckles. 

Observation of the century, he thinks and nearly says, but it’s about two too many words; he doesn’t wish for his throat to ache further than it already does.

"I'm sick," Sasuke deadpans instead, glaring kunai at his teammate with a pounding head. The warm light cast from the rising sun isn't doing wonders for his headache situation; it’s throbbing worse now than before with the continued exposure.

For some reason that results in the dobe’s laugh intensifying. It starts as a snort but quickly escalates into a snicker, then a cackle. If his neighbor wasn’t already awake, she’s sure to be now. 

"What's the matter, teme?" He lilts in a teasing voice that causes Sasuke's patience to run thin and his frown run thinner still, incensed. There's a smug grin on the dobe’s face, the kind that appears when Naruto is about to say something catastrophically fucking imbecilic. 

“Swap too much spit with Sakura-chan?”

Sasuke’s brow twitches.

“You know, you should go to the hospital-”

Immediately sensing where this line of reasoning is going, Sasuke promptly shuts the door - not a slam, but not muted, either, and no, he is definitely not red in the face, it’s just the fever.

He blocks out most of whatever the idiot ends up saying - some thinly veiled and highly implicative innuendo about making an appointment - through sheer willpower and a lengthy, irritated exhale. By the time he’s switched to inhaling, a new round of laughter is apparent from the other side of the wood.

Sasuke relocks the door in the most methodical, purposeful, and audible manner possible, scowling darkly.

"Don't worry!" The dobe calls from the other side of the door, laughing. "I'm sure Sakura-chan would love to make a house call, just for you! And anyways, she-"

Sasuke stalks to his bedroom and yanks the comforter over his head, drowning out whatever the idiot’s going on about with another forced exhale and determined to go back to sleep for an hour, at least until nine. He’ll figure out what to do regarding their afternoon plans later, he thinks through an additional round of clearing his parched throat, triggered by the sudden change to a horizontal position.

He's tired enough that it actually works. His last thought afore sleep claiming him is that he really is genuinely sick for the first occasion in a while, and is definitely running a fever. 

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He's not sure how long he sleeps for - it feels like twenty minutes or so, strange pieces of a hazy and familiar gray dream just beginning to color his subconscious - but a few sharp, precise raps on the door have him rising haphazardly from slumber, ready to lay into Naruto despite how dry and sore his throat is. There’s sleep clouding the corners of his recognition and the edges of his eyes are watering, irritated, as his hand unlocks the door as if detached from his body just yet. The sleepy retort is already on his tongue when-

He blinks in bewilderment, both at the overwhelming amount of bright light and the colors that are still solidifying before him, below his direct line of sight. Definitively, it is not a blur of orange and yellow that comes into focus.

It's pink and green instead; Sakura is blinking up at him owlishly. It’s nearly midday, judging by the sun well above them both. He's slept for the better portion of three hours rather than the one he intended.

"Hey," she greets softly. "Naruto stopped by and said you might be sick." Pale green is both assessing and caring as she gazes up at him. "I assumed we’d cancel our afternoon plans so you can rest, but I wanted to… to check on you.” She motions towards the bag curved around her shoulder.

He blinks as his pupils adjust to the harsh gleam, trying to process through the splitting migraine that’s now surging with a vengeance. He’s still stuck on how he’s somehow slept for three hours, and how his eyes are, for some reason, itching now. 

Must be the light. He blinks a few more times for good measure, slowly.

"If… if that's okay," she says, an uncertain expression overtaking her features as he continues to stare at her, brows furrowing finally as his brain catches up with what she's said. “Or… If you’d rather I didn’t, I… I can…”

"Okay." His voice comes out a shred rougher than it usually does, but he manages, pulling the door open wider to let her through; it feels as though his throat has been coated with sandpaper on both sides and it’s grinding against the remaining contents of his pharynx. “Sorry. I slept longer than I thought.”

Sakura’s face brightens, shifting to something like recognition - he’s succeeded in communicating that his delay in speech wasn’t because her presence was unwanted - and her lips quirk upwards.

“Oh,” she murmurs airily, beaming as she moves to step inside, fingers grasping at the strap of her bag. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“...It’s fine,” he mumbles, still disoriented as he closes the door behind them. He examines the lock for a protracted moment, considering, because the idea of the dobe barging in on an examination is not the most appealing mental picture, but he ultimately decides against it. Sakura likely won’t be here for very long, and he doesn’t want to get her ill, either. 

Though now that he’s thinking about it, they did sort of… spend a rather significant amount of time kissing on her couch again, the night previous. 

And the night before that.

…And the night before that.

He mentally reviews old lessons on contagions from the Academy ages ago, tiredly trying to discern if he has already given it to her. She would be showing symptoms already if he had, he reasons; she would only be a day behind him at best in exposure. His brain feels muddy, like it’s lagging exorbitantly behind everything occurring in the present, just on the edge of slumber.

When he turns to her, rubbing at his eyes a little as they’re still sort of irritated, she’s already slipped her shoes off and is looking around somewhat uncertainly. 

His focus meets hers in silent question.

“Um.” Sakura blinks. “Where should I…?” 

Ah. This is only her second time here. The couch is probably more comfortable, but it’s also probably covered in more of his germs. 

“...Here’s fine,” he elucidates, motioning to the table prior to absentmindedly flipping the kitchen light on. He squints at the offending brightness once he does, head pounding and blinking as it occurs to him that he might appear a bit… unkempt as of yet. He frowns, briefly recalling that his hair tends to skew away from whichever side of his head he slept on.

If she notices, Sakura pays no mind to it. She simply nods once and then turns to take a seat, beginning to pull a kit of some kind out of her bag. He takes the opportunity to pour himself a glass of water, as he realizes he’s presumably going to have to talk in regards to symptoms and he would rather avoid having to cough in her immediate vicinity. 

A stretched sip is taken, hydration temporarily soothing his pharynx, before he swivels back towards the dining table. Within the kit, he can see, was a stethoscope, an ear instrument, a cuff to measure blood pressure, what he assumes is a penlight, and a sealed clear bag that contains several things: a tissue, swabs, small tubes, and one of the wooden sticks typically used to hold the tongue down when examining the throat. 

There is also a new package of the menthol-lyptus cough drops among the instruments, shiny azure blue like the others. He notices it last, tired brain processing through each item at a delayed pace.

His haggard gaze flits to her with immense appreciation as he sinks into the remaining seat on her side of the table. He’s only gone through about one and a half of the initial three bags she gave him, but he’ll probably use a lofty number of them up during this bout of illness. It was kind of her.

It seems she reads the gratitude in his expression, smiling under his continued appraisal. Her cheeks flush slightly as she rips open the package and offers him one. 

“So,” Sakura says softly as he carefully unwraps it. “What are your symptoms?” Her eyes are kind as they temporarily flick to the glass of water in advance of coming back to rest on him. “I’m assuming a sore throat?”

Sasuke nods, bringing the cough drop up to slip beyond his lips. 

“...Headache.” He pauses, situating the cough drop into the hollow of his cheek and thinking. “Chills.”

She surveys him for a long moment as if working through her next words or perhaps considering something of note.

“Runny nose or congestion at all?” She questions finally as she picks up the blood pressure cuff. He places the wrapper on the dining table before offering his lone arm out to her. 

“No.” 

She situates it easily, securing the apparatus around his bicep in advance of upping the pressure. He focuses on the feeling of the cough drop numbing his throat, dissolving into an essence of relief. Pressure amps and declines around the squeezed muscle of his arm.

“Just a little higher than usual,” she remarks eventually. The pressure releases as she peels it away. 

“Pulse next, please.” 

There’s a delay as he processes the instruction, blinking prior to holding out his arm again; he allows his elbow to rest on the surface of the table between them. Both of her hands ascend to grip his wrist, plying for his radial artery. 

Even with as tired as he is, he can’t ignore the latent tangibility of her fingertips feel against his skin there. He barely breathes for a moment, closing his eyes and overly aware of the ambrosia of raspberry for about the three-hundredth time since he’s returned.

“Hmm,” Sakura appraises thoughtfully when her fingers finally fall away and he exhales, thinking this shouldn’t affect him so, especially not now, given their more recent activities. “Your heart rate isn’t really much higher than normal, but that doesn’t mean you’re not sick.”

Sasuke supposes his heart rate when ill certainly would present synonymous to his heart rate when in the immediate close proximity of his girlfriend, her touch at his bare skin for an extended period of time. He briefly toys with the idea of trying to mentally count the measures of his own pulse when they are next occupied with kissing, but that notion quickly devolves into a frown, because it will probably be a while now before he kisses Sakura again. 

“You’re more tired than usual?”

Pulled from the doldrums, he nods stiffly as she reaches for the ear instrument, neck warming.

“Do you think you have a fever?” She questions as she puts some sort of cap atop the instrument for what he assumes are sanitary reasons. “Your wrist felt kind of warm.”

Sasuke dips his chin again in confirmation, rotating his head slightly so she can take his temperature via his ear. It takes only a minute. 

“One hundred and two,” she informs him softly, taking the instrument from his ear and removing the miniature cap from it to be set atop the tissue, the pile of things to dispose of later. “So a small one.” She sets the instrument aside, turning back to him. “Any cough?”

“Not really,” he answers. “Sore. Dry.” He pauses, then adds, “I cough if I don’t have water.”

Analytical eyes peer up at him before she procures the wooden stick with one hand and the penlight with the other. “Do your lymph nodes hurt at all?”

His brows knit together. 

“...I’m not sure.” They don’t feel swollen, really, but his need for sleep has been attracting all of his focus since the sun rose, to the extent that he hasn’t really glimpsed himself in the mirror at all. He also hasn’t brushed his teeth yet today, he realizes with some regret. 

Sakura nods as if this makes sense. “I’d like to look at your throat, if that’s okay.”

Sasuke swallows again as she grabs the wooden stick and penlight. He then opens his mouth; the cough drop is a meager remnant stored in the hollow of his cheek.

Sakura frowns once she’s got the light aimed for analysis.

“Say ah, please?”

He complies, feeling inelegant in all respects. 

She pulls the stick away after a short few seconds of study, though for some reason she keeps the penlight on. He closes his mouth and situates the cough drop back onto the main spread of his tongue, blinking slowly as the menthol eases the dryness that came with the open air exposure. His eyes feel like they’re about to droop shut any minute.

"Could I look at your eyes quick?"

His brows furrow as he processes the question, flummoxed - I haven’t used them is on the tip of his tongue, in reference to his doujutsu - to which Sakura smiles patiently.

“I think you probably have a bacterial infection. Your tonsils are swollen.” She motions to the penlight still in her palm. "I'd guess group A strep throat, but you don't have any white spots yet. Sometimes the bacteria manifests in the eyes, too. Conjunctivitis."

He blinks once more, regard flickering tiredly but purposefully to the penlight to grant her permission, as if to say go ahead whilst sparing his pharynx the further motion of words.

Sakura’s gaze softens prior to discarding the stick, placed atop the tissue so the part that was in his mouth doesn’t touch the table. 

She then switches the penlight to her left hand and reaches toward him with her right.

His brows knit closer together in sluggish puzzlement before she's sifting his hair away from his left eye carefully, touch gentle and expression soft.

Heat licks at his ears. Ah. 

He’s an idiot. Of course his hair was in her way. Perhaps he's more out of it than he thought.

Her fingertips graze his cheekbone and part of his temple slightly as she raises the penlight. She shines it into his left first, then lets her digits fall away from his cheek as she shifts the light over his other eye. He hopes they're not infected, or, if they are, that they don't appear too… gross. He vaguely remembers just two other occasions in which he acquired conjunctivitis; neither of them left his eyes particularly presentable, visually speaking. 

“They look a little irritated,” she observes matter-of-factly, clicking the light off prior to setting it aside. She then reaches for one of the swabs. “Could I swab your throat for a test? If it is strep, I’ll prescribe an antibiotic.”

Sasuke nods yet again, to which Sakura smiles in response. 

“Alright. Tilt your head back, please.”

He stares at the ceiling above him, moving the last remnant of the cough drop to his cheek again before he opens his mouth.

“Say ah,” Sakura instructs. “This will probably tickle a little.”

He does, and she quickly slides the swab over what he assumes are his tonsils, one swipe on each side. Once it’s out, he clears his throat to satisfy the small itch as she situates the swab neatly into one of the test tubes. He follows it up with a sip of his water.

“I’ll stop by the hospital to run this, and then I’ll be back later if it’s positive,” she says smoothly as she wraps the tube again; he expects it’s to offer it some cushion in the kit. “I’ll bring eye ointment, too, just in case.”

Sasuke nods once more, taking another measured sip. She begins placing the other items back into her kit, though she leaves the stethoscope out. 

“I’d like to listen to your heart before I go,” she comments. “Sometimes group A can spread to the heart and damage the valves; scarlet or rheumatic fever. It’s probably too early for that if you just started having major symptoms this morning, but it’s standard practice to check anyway.” 

“...Okay.” It’s also standard Shinobi protocol to take every precaution available when it comes to the possibility of impaired health, especially involving a vital organ. He’s not particularly a fan of being poked and prodded given his history, but if it’s Sakura, he doesn’t mind. He has come to know that she excels in every aspect of her profession, and bedside manner is no exception. 

At that thought, he forcefully shoves the idiot’s teasing from earlier to the back of his mind as Sakura situates the stethoscope in her ears, lifting the chest piece and pressing it to his sternum. He breathes slowly, in and out as his eyes droop somewhat; it somehow makes him sleepier, inanition ready to overtake him.

“Your heart sounds good,” Sakura comments as she removes the chest piece. “No concern there.” She then plucks the other side of the stethoscope from her ears, moving to return that to the kit, too; he assumes that means she doesn’t need to check his lungs this time. The bag of cough drops stays on the table as she swivels her upper body to grab her tote bag from where she’s left it. 

“Do you need anything?” She queries as she turns back towards him, and he gets the distinct impression that Sakura the clinician has vacated the premises entirely. “I could make some soup if you want. Chicken noodle, maybe? If you’re on an antibiotic, you’ll want to avoid anything acidic or with dairy.”

Sasuke’s brow furrows. He doesn’t want to get her sick with extended time spent here, but he would be deluding himself if he didn’t admit that such a dish sounds like heaven right about now with the way his throat aches. He may be able to make something similar on his own in terms of having the ingredients on hand, but his will to produce such a dish is another matter entirely. He’s too tired to consider making anything that’s not ochazuke today, and he also knows he likes Sakura’s cooking; he doesn’t doubt that he would like this rendition of soup, given she seems to utilize her slow cooker fairly frequently.

He supposes it is her day off, and they were supposed to hang out later anyways, so it’s not like she’d be neglecting other plans on his behalf. It’s very kind of her to offer. 

You shouldn’t just… suffer in silence, if something hurts.

“...Soup would be good,” he admits quietly after some internal review, realizing she’s waiting for a response and he’s taking too long. He pointedly slides his focus to the cough drops atop the wood grain of the table before refocusing on her tiredly. “Thank you.”

A pleased smile blooms on her lips. 

“You’re very welcome,” she says. “I’ll try to get Naruto to leave you alone for a bit, too. I’m guessing he nearly busts your door down each time like he does mine? Between the door and the window, I’m surprised my office is still intact at this point.” 

Sasuke snorts, and her grin widens in amusement. 

“...That’s the reason my door is usually locked,” he admits, something occurring to him as he speaks the words. The knocking earlier, sharp and precise, was not how Sakura normally knocks on a door. Not that he’s heard her knock often as of late, now that he’s thinking about it, but when they were younger, servicing clients in and outside of the village on missions, it was usually a few gentle raps, more of a grazing of her knuckles against the egress. It was a sharp contrast to Naruto’s discordant and careless whacks even back then.

Which means that she likely knocked lightly at first today but he slept right through it.

Suppose it wouldn’t hurt. It’s overnight, always, when his issues with sleep disturbances emerge, surpassing further than a few hours of slumber as a nap does. It should be fine to provide her a way in for later today in case he’s asleep.

Sakura rises with a musical laugh, shifting her tote bag back in place on her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.” Shining soft green levels him, beautiful and rich with mirth as she turns towards the door. 

“...Sakura,” he says as he also rises abruptly, inwardly wincing at what it does to his head. She pauses halfway to the door, angling herself back towards him with a curious expression. 

Crossing the small kitchen to the drawer on the far left, Sasuke pulls it open quietly. He doesn’t own enough kitchen supplies to fill all of the compartments in the space, so this one has remained mostly empty, save for the spare nickel-brass key that came with the place. He’s never had a use for it, so he just left it in the same location the previous tenant had: at the back of an unused drawer.

He turns to Sakura with the cool metal in hand, sluggishly so he doesn’t get disoriented again by sudden movement. In one gradual but sure motion he’s extending it out to her.

She blinks twice, staring at it with widened eyes and a nonplussed countenance that makes his throat tighten uneasily. 

It is in this moment that his pulse pounds in his ears to the point of careening as he second guesses himself entirely.

He didn’t really think it over much before retrieving it; he just didn’t want her to be stuck waiting outside his door if he’s out by the time she comes back with soup or medicine. He dimly soaks in that this is possibly a bigger deal than his somnolent mind is capable of fully processing just now. 

“...If I’m asleep,” he expounds expeditiously, voice marginally hesitant now as he begins to overthink, a sliver of rationality cutting through the haze of fatigue and settling in the form of presage just behind his ribs. Suddenly it feels like there’s something poring through the soil there, disturbing vines and dirt and roots, scrutinizing them afore flinging them away carelessly with the aid of a rusted spade. 

They’ve barely been together for two months. Perhaps he has vastly overstepped, made her uncomfortable-

“Okay,” she says as her expression morphs into a shy smile, palm brushing his to take the key.

Once his pulse finds its place again, no longer rushing and echoing in his ears like a torrent of an alarm, he slowly lets go of the sleek metal. Sakura’s eyes are filled with something that looks an awful lot like awe, fractals of seafoam atop a shifting reflected fluorescent light. 

Her soft fingers are, as ever, incredibly distracting as they slide away, nimble and graceful. She’s out the door in a few seconds, a sweet-natured glance cast back in his direction before she turns. The door creaks open and closed, and the latch clicks softly behind her. 

She locks it for him, eternally polite.

He blinks once, staring at the wood grain for a lingering moment in advance of rotating to land his study on the bag of cough drops. 

A feeling is settling somewhat behind his ribs that is rather nice, twisting vines and disturbed roots and other things he’s entombed pushed neatly back into place, utterly at odds with his physical afflictions.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Several hours pass, more half-formed thoughts a rippling gradient in his subconscious that are not given quite enough time to begin to stew, along with strange scraping noises that filter in and out of his skull. 

He eventually blinks groggily to the aroma of chicken soup invading his olfactory senses. It effectively fades the blur of cinereal to simple off white plaster, and he rolls out of bed rather unceremoniously. His headache is at least a little better, he finds, though the dryness in his mouth is not. He gulps down some of the stagnant water in the glass astride his bedside from earlier. He then proceeds to his doorway with it in hand, pushing the door open. 

Sakura is stirring soup in what appears to be the slow cooker from her kitchen he was recalling a short time ago, brought here. Savory roasted shiitake mushrooms and sliced green cabbage intermix with the scent now that he’s closer, and she turns to the soft click of the door opening and closing.

“Sasuke-kun,” she greets in a hushed tone with kind eyes, smiling. “You’re awake.”

“...Sakura,” he says in response, somewhat disoriented. 

“Your strep test was positive,” she murmurs, turning back to the pot to tap the remaining moisture off the ladle before setting the lid back atop the soup. “I brought you an antibiotic; it’s on the table. Eye ointment, too.” 

His focus sinks to the table, and sure enough there are two medications: a tube of ointment that’s labeled Bacitracin Ophthalmic Ointment and a small bottle of pills that reads No. 860015-5578, Uchiha, Sasuke, Penicillin 500mg, Take twice daily. Quantity: 20 tablets. Dr. Haruno, Sakura - No refills.

There is a lengthy moment in which he stares at the clear orange container. His vision adjusts lethargically, lingering on the material transparency, the way it colors the stark white pills contained within it. There is a scattering of seconds where the air momentarily feels crisper in his lungs, harder to respire.

“Thank you,” he finally responds, cutting through the haze of his own thoughts as cleanly as a swipe of his chokuto can cleave through paper. He exchanges his glass of water for the garishly bright container, using his teeth to rotate the lid off. 

“You’re welcome,” Sakura acknowledges to his left, reaching for cutlery and beginning to fill the sink, apparently to soak the dishes. Now that he's fully awake, he sees that the cutting board is among them. She must have added a few things to the mix just after arriving here for the final additions to the soup. 

“Just make sure to finish the whole thing, even when you start feeling better.” She smiles at him. “In twenty-four hours, you won’t be contagious anymore, either, so you can return to normal life if you’re feeling up to it.”

Lone pill popped into his mouth, he reaches for what’s left of his water. It drags along his throat, scraping irritated tissue; it takes a few more gulps of water to force it all the way down, effectively draining his glass. He shoves away his disdain for the feeling.

“...You don’t need to wash those,” Sasuke says quietly, frowning as he rounds the table, intent on obtaining a new glass of water. “I’ll do it later.”

Fine pink brows arch, then furrow furrow as he places it on the counter nearest the fridge. She’s peering at him as if he’s grown another head.

“Of course I will,” Sakura insists, expression confused. “You're sick, and I dirtied them. After dinner, though.”

His frown sinks deeper, pursuance of the water pitcher in the fridge momentarily forgotten. 

“...You’ll get sick.”

There is an enduring pause where she appraises him carefully, as if he’s said something completely nonsensical.

"I… don’t think you need to worry about that,” she finally replies, cheeks flushing a little as she swipes her hand across her skirt once to dry it. They fidget there, bunching in the violet fabric. “You probably got it from me.”

His brows furrow as his fingers rest atop the fridge handle. Briefly she meets his eyes, and her cheeks darken further. 

Ah.  

He angles his vision momentarily in the direction of the counter, studying the pattern in an attempt at distraction from the acute sensation of flame licking up his neck.

"...Wouldn't you be sick, too?" 

Sakura shakes her head in his peripheral vision. 

“Well-” She begins, then stops. “Well… I mean technically, I have it, but… I’m mostly asymptomatic. I had a small fever when I checked, running your test, so I did one of my own and it was positive; I’m taking an antibiotic, too . Group A strep has never really given me symptoms other than that, though. And…” She pauses long enough to pique his curiosity, so he meets her stare.

Her cheeks are incarnadine, but her countenance is more akin to apologetic than embarrassment. Her fingers are still restless at her sides.

“I had a patient with strep come in on Tuesday. Group A has a two to five day incubation period,  so… Relatively sure that you caught it from me."

Slowly Sasuke nods, and she smiles, but then she turns in a way he can only describe as meek, back to the dishes as if searching for something new to keep her hands occupied.

“So… take this as my apology for getting you sick,” she quips, speaking in a rather regretful tone, one that quickens with every word she speaks, aflush with offers that he immediately clocks as being laden with some sort of misplaced guilt. He’s struck by the tired, absurd notion to laugh, because Sakura is the last person who should ever be apologizing to him. 

“Is there anything I can take care of for you? I could bring some new books, if you’d like. If you’ve finished your other ones, I mean. Or… I don’t have to eat here, if you’re too tired. I can come get the slow cooker later if it’s easier for you to heat it up that way. Maybe when you’re feeling better? And-”

“Sakura,” he murmurs, carefully placing his lone hand on her bicep, and she quiets instantaneously, pupils honed in on his.

“...I don’t mind being sick.” The words are out of his mouth before he can overthink them, but they’re true and enunciated as clearly as he is capable; he doesn’t mind at all. He would take being ill again a hundred times over if it means he gets to spend the amount of hours with her he’s been able to recently, and furthermore, to kiss her, like that. There’s a comfort in it, similar to the comfort of seeing her in his apartment for a third occasion or the amenity that comes with someone you love offering to eat soup with you when you’re ill, despite the weather outside being blazing. 

It’s arduous for him to voice such things, but he hopes she can understand through his expression alone, as she often can.

I want you here.

Her pupils have widened to the size of saucers, a thin slice of jade green circling their edges just so.

“Oh,” she intones faintly. She peers down to where his hand is still resting, curved gently around her arm, and her face flushes darker somehow. The corner of his mouth twitches; she really is utterly oblivious to what her touch does to him and his pulse, yet is endearingly affected by his touch on her in any way, shape, or form, innocent as it may be.

“...Good.” She says it with what sounds a little like relief, and the spell is broken; he lets his fingers fall away as she reaches to turn off the faucet, sink now brimming with suds and hot water. “We should probably eat, then.”

Sasuke dips his chin once in agreement, reaching to obtain the bowls from a nearby cabinet. He ladles out large servings for both Sakura and himself, more content now that he knows she’s not getting exposed to illness unnecessarily on his behalf. Similarly to the last occasion she made soup, the pot is full to brimming; there will be plenty of leftovers for tomorrow, or tonight, should he wake again or have trouble sleeping in the first place. He’s hungry, he realizes; he didn’t eat lunch. In fact, he has to side-eye the clock to see what the time actually is just now: a few minutes prior to five, the continuance of their newly adjusted meal schedule. 

Sakura reaches into the silverware drawer while he oscillates in the small space. Her bowl in hand, he crosses the kitchen to deliver it to the table, placing it in the same spot she sat the previous time she was here for dinner. He embarks on a second trip back for his own, during which Sakura deposits their silverware in their respective spots. 

She’s heading back to the kitchen for some reason as he sets his bowl down, the sound of the fridge opening at his back. When he glances her way in question, his gaze softens, because he realizes she’s taking the water pitcher out to fill his glass, forgotten on the counter. 

“Would you like some tea?” Sakura questions as she pours, vision colliding with his briefly. “I know you don’t like sweet things, but I brought some honey in my bag; a little might help your throat until the antibiotics kick in. If I brew the sencha strong enough and just use a bit, you probably won’t taste it.”

He shoots her a look that he hopes communicates his appreciation, nodding, before he turns to the table, transiently trying to place what’s missing. His point of study flickers to the eye ointment, then to her bag. 

“There’s some in the cupboard,” he mentions absentmindedly, slightly hoarse, wondering if he should apply the ointment now or if it would make him look stupid for dinner. He doesn’t really want irritated eyes - they’re itching a bit, again - but he also doesn’t want them caked with gunk while Sakura’s still here.

“Tea?” She questions with a curious tone. He hears running water from the faucet begin anew, plunking levelly into the saucepan.

“Honey,” he clarifies, distrait before he finally pieces together that the lamp is still in the living room from earlier. He crosses the breadth of the apartment to collect the light source, unplugging it from the outlet nearest the end table. 

It’s not until he’s back at the edge of the kitchen, hooking the lamp’s cord into the outlet and flooding the space with softer light, that he realizes silence is still reigning and Sakura hasn't moved an inch.

Sasuke shoots her an inquisitive look, raising an eyebrow as he slides the light flush with the wall atop the table, next to his stack of library books.

“Honey?” Sakura echoes finally, and his unthinking admission catches him.

Calidity blooms on his neck, blistering all the way up to his ears and rushing through the twisted pathways of his veins.

“...Yes,” he mumbles after extensive pause, implication clear and body resolutely still until Sakura turns toward the cupboard with a perplexed expression. It reminds him of the look on her face when he proceeds with a move she clearly didn’t expect him to whilst hours into a match of chess or go: a black piece waltzing willingly into her reach only to parry away in the next turn, if she doesn’t seize it in favor of the continuance of her own strategic maneuvering.

He supposes this is no exception. Sasuke seizes the opportunity to grab the ointment and noiselessly escapes to his bathroom to apply it. The only sound is the open and shut of his bedroom door behind him, a duet of soft clicks. 

He takes his time, washing his hand thoroughly and tilting his head back to apply the cool ointment into the small pocket behind the lower lash line of each eye. It’s a bit of a challenge to accomplish the task one-handed without touching the tip of the applicator directly to his corneas - it’s not something he’s done since gaining his handicap, really - but he manages by pulling the skin out with two fingers and holding the tube with the other three. Closing his eyes is a welcome distraction, rolling them in their sockets to distribute the ointment throughout, as it says on the back of the tube not to rub at them with one’s fingers.

After washing his hand a second time, he examines himself for a long moment in the mirror. They don’t look too bad, though the typical white sclera is pretty pink, more clearly afflicted after a few hours of sleep in which the bacteria could apparently fester untreated.

His skin tone has mostly returned to normal, save his neck; he dislikes the slight tinge of a flush that’s hovering stubbornly at his cervical spine, refusing to concede to his will.

Following a deep breath and another minute’s passing, Sasuke crosses the divide of his bedroom and returns to the dining table to the tone of two more mild and muted clicks, gaze shifting to Sakura as soon as he’s carefully drawn the door closed. She’s shut the kitchen light off, it appears; her back is to him, white circle emblazoned brightly across the space between her shoulder blades, but the water is steaming in the saucepan atop the stove, and she’s fastidiously scooping out a vestigial amount of what appears to be the lavender Earl Gray mixture into his lone tea infuser. 

There’s a small part of him that’s relieved. It had seemed like something she would like, though he’d picked up a jar each of the loose leaf decaffeinated matcha and the caffeinated peach, too, as well as a modest container of the shop’s honey. He wanted enough variety that she could have tea here no matter what time of the day it is. Sakura’s apartment is vastly superior to his own in terms of variety of things to do, and he hadn’t been sure if she would want to come by again, but it’s good to be prepared, and he’d reasoned that if she didn’t, he could simply deposit the jars and honey discreetly into her contraband drawer sometime.

The scent of sencha overwhelms his nostrils as he sits, intermixing with the aroma of the soup. A mug filled with it is placed next to his bowl; she brewed his first, it seems. He takes to the distraction of food and drink rapidly, bringing a spoonful of the soup to his mouth.

It’s just as excellent as the last time. He savors the way it soothes his throat even as his neck continues in its rogue goal of staying stubbornly blazing. Hearty chunks of chicken, noodles, and a minuscule mushroom slide down his esophagus, drenching everything in a different heat, one that’s relieving. He takes a sip from the mug, after, and it’s definitely stronger than he usually prepares it, but he can't taste the honey much, as she said.

He's alarmed when a muffled sniffle intermixes with the sound of jars being picked up and pushed back into the cupboard. Sasuke watches Sakura uncertainly out of the corner of his vision as she closes the front of the cabinet, and sure enough, she brings one of her hands to her face as if to wipe tears from her eyes.

Now it’s guilt that runs aflame down his spine like a fuse, though this time it burrows sharp into his gut. It wasn’t at all his intention to make her cry. 

He experiences a grand moment of internal conflict as he returns his gaze to the table, torn between rising to his feet to do something akin to wiping her tears away clumsily - her name is on the tip of his tongue - and staying put to cede her privacy, as it’s possible she didn’t want him to see that she was crying; she turned the kitchen light off herself, after all. He also doesn’t know if she’s taking anything for conjunctivitis; he washed his hand well, but he doesn’t want to chance giving it to her if she doesn’t have it already.

The remaining water in the saucepan creates a small echo as it’s poured into a cup, shortly followed by a spoon chiming against ceramic as it stirs the contents; then, there are soft footsteps.

“Sakura-”

He is saved from the decision in short order. At his left, she shifts his hair away from his eye and cheekbone with solicitous gentleness prior to pressing her lips there. They linger longer than they have in the past, achingly tender.

“That was sweet of you,” she breathes as her lips depart his skin, voice a little shaky. Even through his fever, the warmth sears him, drizzling down his lungs on the inhale and into his heart. “Thank you.”

When she takes her seat across from him, he sees that her eyes are glassy, reflectant in the lamplight and tempered with such love that it makes him ache. 

The dinner is drawn out, yet comfortably quiet in the way that many of their shared meals tend to be. Spoons clink against ceramic bowls and the inside of Sakura’s cup as she stirs her brewing tea. Mugs are raised and lowered, occupying paltry and ever-shifting circumferences. Sasuke puts away two helpings to the tune of it, the soft rhythms of shared life. His throat feels a bit less like sandpaper by the conclusion of it.  

“I’d like to check on you tomorrow, too,” Sakura says once they’ve done the dishes and stowed the leftover soup in his refrigerator, carrying over the routine they’ve fallen into at her place just as easily here. She’s standing near his doorway with her bag shrugged over her shoulder, sandals pulled on and twisting the spare key nervously in her fingers at her side.

“Okay,” he murmurs, glimpsing pointedly in the direction of her hand, then back to her to show he understands what she’s asking him. She can keep it as far as he’s concerned - it’s not like he has any use for it, anyway, and he knows Sakura is nothing if not cognizant and respectful of his boundaries, possibly overly so - but perhaps that’s a conversation for tomorrow.

“Okay,” she agrees, flashing him a dazzling smile. Her digits close around the key more surely, fidgeting coming to a standstill as her dimple sinks into existence. 

There is an expectant pause where there is usually some sort of kissing, but even if they’re both on the antibiotic, his mouth still tinges with a little dryness now that he’s not consuming some sort of hot liquid. Coughing all over her is the last thing he wants to do.

Sakura exhales slowly. “Well… I’ll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun. Good night.”

“...Good night.”

Sasuke stays rooted by the door once she’s gone, lock long since clicked into place for him a second time and her visage burned into his retinas. Torpidly, carefully, he presses his forehead to the cool wood of the threshold. 

How is it possible for someone’s mere presence to transform a space in such a way? 

He would have been terribly bored - irritated, even - in his apartment alone this evening, and he knows as sure as the sky is blue that any soup he crafted alone wouldn’t have tasted half as good as what Sakura prepared for him. 

Reasonably, Sasuke is aware that such things are possible, though he learned that lesson the first time in reverse. He recalls it vividly as he traipses to the memorial stone to water what he’s planted, the way in which someone’s absence robs a house, a backyard, an entire district of all joy.

He shrugs off his shirt once he’s sojourned back home in favor of doubling up on his comforters; the top was coated in sweat from the humid walk. Both blankets are clean currently, he reasons, and if he has them, he might as well use them. 

The sheets are cool to his skin initially, a nice feeling against his still fevered skin as he suspected they might be. The blankets enwrap him comfortably, endlessly warm.

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Sometimes Sasuke contemplates what happens after people die. He’s dreamed about it often, ensnared in nightmares of eighty-six bodies or otherwise: if it hurts or if it’s peaceful, like sinking into sleep, and if there is something after all of this. He perceives that there is some truth to reincarnation from their encounter with the Sage of the Six Paths, and that has set him slightly to ease, in the sense that in some liminal way his clan lives on: his brother, his mother and his father, his aunt and uncle, and the rest. 

It has also given him additional questions, though. Does part of their soul stay adrift endlessly, clutching their memories like a keepsake to their chest, a threaded nexus tied to their previous life? Or does the spirit depart completely into their next existence, flitting to the most fitting and available vessel to embark on a new annal? The thought of his mother not remembering him or the lilies in their backyard makes his chest ache terribly, brittle and easily broken, and Itachi forgetting him is another agony entirely. 

He also wonders if part of their memories could be geographical, tethered haphazardly in pieces to places they loved in life. He knows his Aunt Uruchi loved the bakery with its smell of toasting senbei and pastries. He suspects Itachi enjoyed the bakery, too, with his affinity for dango and other sweet things. He vaguely recalls a festival when they were very young in which they polished off twenty multicolored sticks together and ended up with bellyaches. They’d used the wooden remains to construct a form reminiscent of a simplistic house, lantern glow illuminating the scant lines in the dark, ephemeral and easily ended when it came time to collect them and embark on the journey home.

Sasuke likes to think Itachi also enjoyed the pond he took him to occasionally, the wildflowers they picked to take home for their mother, and the resultant scent of budding blooms that lilted through hallways with dark floors on those handfuls of occasions, intermingling with the scent of their salt-grilled catch come dinner. He knows his mother loved their yard, and their kitchen, too, lilting with freshly brewed jasmine tea in the morning or the quiet din of family once everyone sat down for a formal meal. His mother plucked a bone from his mouth once, a small one he’d nearly swallowed. He remembers her softspoken instructions to be more careful, voice comforting as she reached to the back of his throat methodically with tweezers in the soft light of early evening.

But he is not sure of the sorts of places his father liked, or if there even were any, and that compels worse hurt. Thinking of his father is bruising and convoluted in general, as there is much Sasuke would like to know of him, and further he would like to say to him - most of it, should it ever bubble out of his lungs to be lost in the interminable abyss, is anger -  but he was so closed off in life that Sasuke can only wonder aimlessly in his death. His mother was the only person who truly knew his father at his core, he thinks, silent as he was and unyielding in his convictions. He mulls on whether their marriage was truly happy or if that was colored darker by the planned coup, too. He cognizes that his mother likely spent her final days sick with worry about that; Uchiha Mikoto was a caring woman, everything he could have asked for in a mother.

It makes Sasuke doubly furious with him. Didn't he know the risks, what it would mean for the children of their clan if they failed? It is no easy thing, to stumble over the bodies of their ilk again and again and again, the Uchiha children, adolescents and toddlers and one newborn, desperately clutched by a cowering mother in an alley, drained white and nauseatingly pallid, and he still can’t get their faces out of his mind, the way their noses were identical when viewed from the side as he lurched over them in his cowering, tripped-

Stop.

It also makes him furious with Konoha, the most bellicostic he’s been in a long while since the Land of Iron a year ago when he last dreamed this dream, passing through and revisiting his greatest failures, Danzou and the fucking council that forced this further cataclysm of an already cursed lineage on him. Didn't they know annexing an entire clan and letting wounds fester would lead to spilled blood eventually? What the fuck is the point of a village, of shared civilization, if its malfeasant corruption gorges itself on the innocent over and over and over? There is only so much one can take of their life boiling away in their veins with untempered rage until they snap -

Not their blood , a grotesque susurrus inside him whispers, one that envisions the aspostates that signed his clan’s death warrant and one he has desperately tried to drought out of existence to be replaced with better things over the past couple of years: Kakashi’s particular brand of cutting and commiserate wisdom that lingers years after he’s spoken it, Naruto’s relentless optimism and the sense of vying brotherhood that reminds him of Itachi ad finitum - You’re trying to be alone again and I can’t let that happen! - Sakura’s unwavering kindness and altruistic affection - What if I said… I’d go with you? - the feel of her seal against the tips of his outstretched fingers, her soft lips against his as she threads her fingers through his hair, the way the jasmine plant dangling above her window warps a perfect chiaroscuro to frame the freckle on her cheek once the sun has sunk below the horizon just so - 

Not their blood, so why would they care?

Take notice of what light does, to everyth-

Corrosion-

For now, for now, for now-

Yes, Sasuke likes to think his years away changed him in at least some marginally minute way. Yet his subconscious returns him to this place cyclically to reread moribund chapters, the single lone instance in which he thought maybe, just maybe, his father was proud of him. He’s still searching for answers that will never come, from a man he has come to realize he holds a monumental amount of resentment towards.

He almost doesn’t wish to contemplate this, as he recognizes it is ages away and much can happen between now and then - and also he is utterly undeserving and woefully ill-suited to care for a child, both physically and otherwise - but if he is ever blessed enough to someday be granted one, he does not want to be like his father. He doesn’t want to perpetuate this sort of aimlessness, the weight of expectation and a mentality of being a slave to blood. This gloom and despondency and misplaced pride will be his end as it was Fugaku's, he knows, if he doesn't rinse the wound out on occasion, acutely feel its sting, its agony.

In this anamnesis, he is barefoot on a dock as he always is, tiny feet placed firmly atop a thin dusting of snow. Orange flames spout from his mouth, chapping his lips, crowning gold and climbing higher and higher into the brumous sky as his throat dries with the heat and amelioration, a thin veiling of illusory safety that was everything to him when he was small and alone and desperate for some sense of control, grasping at straws.

When he turns, coughing from the smoke and faintest remnant of crushed pills pelted into his eyes by bitter winds, he half expects even now to hear the lone set of words from his father that he has tried to replay in his head thousands of times. 

As expected of my son. The only way the words live on is via an echo of Sasuke’s own voice speaking them into existence again. He can remember the visuals perfectly with near photographic recall, the day that his father told him that: the ripe fever of life and late summer, the rippling of the leaves a stark contrast to the chill that haunts him in this overplayed dream where he clutches an emptied and mangled marigold prescription bottle. He watches now with his brother’s eyes as he throws it skyward and torches his own name out of existence with the last of his chakra, all of seven years old.

He can perfectly recall his mother's lilting halcyon inflection - When we're alone, all he talks about is you - and he can remember both of his brother's last words to him - I'm sorry, Sasuke. This is the last time , and No matter what happens from now on, I will love you forever -

But he cannot for the life of him remember what his father’s voice sounded like; not the inflection, nor the tone or tenor. It was the only time it ever felt like he held an ounce of affection for him, fleeting and gone the next hour. He only remembers the way their family crest looked as he said it, presented to him boldly as his father turned away from him.

And isn’t that just the richest metaphor? He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

He doesn't know what it says about him, but he assumes it's nothing good. The phrase inferiority complex has crossed his mind on many such occasions. As he has aged, he's reviewed it with fresh eyes, and wondered if it was all an act, some passing dalliance to satisfy his mother. Shinobi are capable liars, and he knows his father was one of the best. It would be easy for him to feign the mirage of happiness about saying such things.

What would his father’s face have betrayed? Would there have been any certitude had he caught up with him on the walk home instead of trailing a few steps behind in his shadow? Uchiha Fugaku was not a man who smiled often. Conversely, his mouth was wrinkled from being set in a frown so regularly that there was a permanent line just below his lip. Sasuke deems he himself will expediently encounter an identical issue as he ages, though primarily he also believes both he and Itachi took more after their mother, physically. He sees her nose each time he views himself tiredly in the mirror. Her eye shape, too, and the inky black hair, a shade darker than their father’s.

It will be fitting, he thinks, he knows, to watch his mother’s agreeable features bleed out of him and reveal what he’s always been. 

It would hurt her deeply, if she heard that thought. 

He loathes that about himself. 

He loathes a lot of things about himself.

There is no one behind him to offer platitudes or words of encouragement in this particular brand of dream; there never is. The dock of the pond within the Uchiha District and the shore surrounding it, just around the corner of another dead relative’s house, is empty, packed with a fresh dusting of snow and charred blue particles. The wind is blowing, though, almighty chilling and true, making branches ripple in the zephyr as it carries away the gray and the meager amount of heat he's created with it. He outgrew his coat that first winter, and his shoes, too.

“Where did you go?” He is compelled to ask, intonation a scant whisper against slate air rippling as if this whole thing is an illusion - Am I caught in Tsukuyomi again? - but there is no answer. That used to terrify him when he was much younger; he had been afraid his father was trapped in the childlike depiction of hell he’d conjured up in his brain, and that that was why he couldn’t really recollect the way he spoke, the gruffness or whether his voice was tenor or bass.

He returns to land, taking extra care of his steps, and wonders, if nothing else, if the earth will remember his bare feet, a sign that he’s still here, sinking through the snow and other remnants that divide them.

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He awakens to the smell of tea and rice and something else. It’s disorienting, tumultuary, the feel of a warm blanket at his toes and soft noises clinking from the kitchen when just prior there had been cold snow and acutely lonely roads. It distracts him a bit from the morose stinging in his eyes, enough that he can rapidly blink it away, forcibly shrugging off the melancholy as if it was nothing more than a weighty winter cloak, ushered over his shoulders like the layer of his second comforter and pushed back down deep.

“...Sakura?” He calls once he’s been awake for a minute, speech cracking a little at the last syllable, still groggy as he sits up in bed and promptly regrets that decision; the change in position triggers a fresh pounding in his head, aching thumping at his temple as his blood rushes. He reaches for the water at his bedside table with first his left arm, a phantom sensation echoing in empty space before he remembers to use his right.

There is the sound of soft footsteps as he gulps down tepid liquidity, and then a tentative knock at his bedroom door. 

“Sasuke-kun?” Her voice resounds faintly from the other side of the wood, as if she’s unsure if she actually heard him call her name.

He blinks, unsure what the hold-up is, then realizes through the fever and rapidly materializing headache that she’s being polite.

“...You can come in.” 

The knob turns, and in she comes, very much awake and wearing what he now recognizes as her summer training gear, the cropped top and short skirt framed by dark transparent mesh. He pointedly takes notice of the clock, then, for multiple reasons that are all overshadowed by the fact that his internal monologue has undertaken a fatuously lascivious turn, greedily seeking distraction and here in his bedroom, no less. He then puts together that it’s still somewhat early, only six thirty; she's dropped by to prepare breakfast before her spar with Ino.

For him.

He tries to get a grip on the warmth that’s nudging at his heart, insistent in its beckoning. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s made him food, but he knows she’s occupied on Mondays till after lunch. She’s gone out of her way to do such a kindness for him, added additional things to her schedule.

“Hey-” she says softly as he turns back to her; she’s taking a step toward him with a mug of what appears to be steaming water and the pill bottle he left on the table. He stares at the marigold plastic, slightly desaturated and less contrasting here in the darkness of his room. “Er. I mean… Good morning. I was up early, and I… I thought I’d make you breakfast.” 

He nods slowly as his eyes prick at her sweetness. Now that the door’s sitting open, he would recognize the aroma of ochazuke anywhere. He’s never directly voiced to anyone that it’s one of his favorite breakfasts, though he supposes it’s rather easy to piece together that he would like it given his other food preferences. He made it several times when they were away on missions as Genin, too. 

Still. In addition to all of the other qualities that encompass who she is, Sakura is as observant as she is kind.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, heart swelling with the relief of being cared for, simple and true, even as his throat aches and his head pounds.

Her lips tilt upwards into a smile, and it is then that he notices, pulled back to normalcy and something providential that’s swelling in his chest, finally tearing his vision away from the pill bottle, that her cheeks are bright red for some reason; the light from the cracked door has her illuminated.

“Of course.” Her focus falls to the glass of stale water he’s put back on his bedside table, then the mug in her hands. “Want me to..?” 

Sasuke nods prior to repeating himself. “Thank you.” His words come out raspy and raw.

She pays it no mind, still smiling with scarlet cheeks as she places both the mug and the pill bottle on the surface, taking the glass in exchange. “Of course,” she murmurs, meeting his gaze briefly prior to his reaching for the pill bottle. 

“I’ll… um. I’ll go… watch the rice,” she stammers as he sets to opening the lid with his teeth. She turns to go, then pauses, casting her focus back at him, though the trajectory of her eyesight seems directed mainly at the area above his head. “Do you still like ochazuke? I thought, maybe…” She trails off and purses her mouth as he finally pries off the lid, setting it aside.

“I do,” Sasuke discloses immediately, pausing in his ministration of procuring a pill from the bottle, as he recognizes the tone of her voice and the expression she’s wearing as being betwixt and between, unsure of her assumptions or his availability for breakfast together when ill, or, perhaps, uncertain if she’s welcome in his room. “I have it often. Thank you.”

Her posture relaxes completely and any uncertainty dissolves.

“Oh,” she breathes, lips curving upwards. “Good.” She lingers a second longer, jade eyes soft on his directly before she turns and trails out of his bedroom, closing the door behind her.

He stares at the threshold for a lengthy spread of seconds, thinking. He then turns slightly to try to ascertain what she was looking at above and behind him - perhaps some sort of spider managed to entrench the corner with a few spools of web in the night - but there’s nothing he can discern aside from the small amount of texture coating the walls. 

Perplexed, he reaches for the mug, pill bottle placed atop the blanket in his lap. A measured sip floods the pill down first, drenching his insides in blessed heat and ease. It feels so incredibly good on his throat that he quickly drains the cup. It does nothing for his head, he realizes once he shifts slightly, extending his arm to place the mug, then the pill bottle, back at his bedside. 

A pause to alleviate the pounding has him locking his gaze onto the inscription on the bottle’s label. 

Uchiha, Sasuke. 

Haruno, Sakura.

He muses less than fleetingly on empty space, the ever-changing weight of melancholia, and the way the earth feels beneath one’s feet.

Turns out that rising doesn’t do much for his head, either, but he does it anyway, padding first to the closet for a change of clothes.

It is then that he promptly recalls that he did not wear a shirt to bed. His face warms at the quandary, realizing he directly invited his girlfriend into his bedroom while half-dressed.

In addition to a little self-consciousness, satisfaction begins to unfold in his belly, because he gathers, unraveling and rewinding the interaction for closer examination, that Sakura was definitely not unaffected.

He journeys to the bathroom to apply the eye ointment and brush his teeth thoroughly before joining Sakura for breakfast, shaking off this new development that he’s sure will beset his dreams the next time he’s asleep and his endocrine system decides to torture him.

Sakura, still red-cheeked, makes ochazuke with nori instead of sesame seeds, he learns.

He finds he likes it better.

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He drifts back to sleep with a full stomach, slipping away into genuine rest in the hopes of cowing his fever, and with it, his headache, into submission until the early afternoon.

This sleep is dreamless, deep and paradisiacally empty aside from a strange clunking noise or two, no room for ruminating on the nature of omneity and complexes.

It’s a sign that the antibiotic is working that he awakens as he hears the key twist in the door. He’s tired, but not as much as earlier this morning or yesterday. His throat is less dry, too, he realizes.

He then sits up in bed and promptly discovers that he still has a headache.

“Sakura,” he calls lowly, just loud enough to be heard through the door as he blinks, vision adjusting to the light now that he’s pushed aside the blankets that were previously encasing his head in darkness.

“Sasuke-kun,” she answers. There’s the sound of an object being placed on the table before she raps on his bedroom door twice.

You don’t need to knock, he would say if the events of earlier this morning had not come rushing back to him.

“Come in,” he says instead. He has a shirt on this time, at least.

The door pushes open. 

“Hi,” Sakura greets, regard settling on him fully after only a second of delay at the empty space above his head. Her hair is damp and she’s switched into a different set of clothing. There’s an expression on her face that’s hard to describe as anything but dotingly affectionate. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

He shakes his head, eyes finally adjusting to the light. “...I should get up.”

She grins for some reason. “You should,” she agrees, her countenance filled with levity.

He arches a lone brow in question, at which she chuckles, soft.

“Naruto gave me lunch to deliver to you,” she informs him, looking utterly amused. “And you’ll never guess from where.” 

Sasuke exhales heavily, rolling his eyes prior to shifting to rise and promptly pausing at what it does to his head. He apparently doesn’t succeed in minimizing his wincing; before he can continue with the motion, he sees her smile morph unmistakably into concern.

“...Do you have a headache?” She questions softly after a lengthy quiet, stepping away from the door frame and closer to his bed. “I can fix it,” she adds, just prior to halting a foot away. 

He blinks up at her, immediately reaching the conclusion that he’s been incredibly stupid. Of course she can fix headaches. It just… didn’t occur to him to remember that, or to ask. Conceivably it could be the fever, clouding his judgment.

“Just… if you want,” she tacks on hastily, fingers twitching at her sides. He realizes she’s holding herself back from reaching for him without his express consent. 

Sasuke nods, then, just once, but very sure.

“...Please,” he whispers, shifting more so that he’s closer to the edge of the bed. Her fingers stop their anxious repetitions as his feet finally shift to the floor, upper body now easy for her to reach.

He contemplates if this oblivion of chartreuse and charcoal will ever cease in making his affection for her feel like it’s overflowing from a teacup filled to the brim. Sakura’s expression is unendingly soft and a bantam smile plays at her lips as she closes the rest of the distance between them, fingers coming to rest expertly at his temples. Ten points of contact coalesce as she threads her chakra into his being, alleviating the pressure from whatever sort of swelling causes such headaches slowly but surely.

He maintains eye contact with her this time - she’s so short that he’s nearly eye-level with her while sitting - studying the small nacreous circle of jade and tilleul at the outer edges of her iris; the black of her pupils have expanded to fit nearly the entire contents of the space, but there are still microscopic flecks of gold here and there that catch the light. It’s challenging to pull himself back from activating his Sharingan to capture the way she’s looking at him just now. The convolution of tomoe could etch it into his memories perfectly, he knows.

He concludes that she’s studying his eyes, too, or rather, his brother’s. He wonders silently if they appear terribly different from his own eyes, close up. Sakura’s observant; she might be able to discern if there is any noticeable variance from when they were younger, enough to demarcate between the old ones and the new.

Eventually her chakra tapers and her fingers trail away.

“Better?” She questions.

It feels as if his heart is in his throat when he answers.

“Better.” He holds her gaze for a moment longer, exhaling contentedly and struck stupid with the urge to pull her closer to him so he can breathe in more of her scent. “Thank you.”

Her lips curve upwards, and he wants to kiss her badly. 

“You’re welcome,” she says, grinning and biting her lip once.

She then surprises him by leaning in, apparently overcome by the same inclination as him. It’s a chaste kiss, achingly slow and gentle, unmarred from the pressure that’s been plaguing his head. Her lashes slide against the highest point of his cheekbones.

Her cheeks are ablaze when she finally pulls back, darker in color than her hair. 

“You… should probably eat it while it’s still warm,” she reasons quietly, smile guilty.

“...Probably,” he agrees, taking in the green of her irises one more time before tearing his ocularity away. 

He rises to trail after her to the dining table, where he finds a to-go container of ramen. The clear lid of the styrofoam container has been haphazardly carved into sloppy handwriting, he assumes by way of the tip of a kunai.

Sorry. Get better soon, asshole.

-Naruto!

The tail end lettering of the word asshole drifts down the side of the container onto the styrofoam, as the moron clearly ran out of room to finish off his sloppy scrawl. Sasuke resists the urge to shake his head, settling for rolling his eyes instead.

It's a nice gesture, he supposes as examines the soup through the transparent lid: there’s broth swimming with noodles, seared chicken, and chunks of spring onions and mushrooms. His brow furrows and he looks up, then, to Sakura.

"...You already ate?" He questions. Her slow cooker is still on his counter, the pot laden with soup from yesterday in his fridge.

"With Ino," Sakura confirms. "Naruto caught me walking to the library and ran to go get it." 

He blinks, curious that she’s visited the library. He doesn’t suppose she’s been there much on her own since he returned; they usually go together. He’ll need to return his own books in the next week or two, come to think of it, since he’s finished the one on the Land of Tea now. It’s sitting next to the lamp on the kitchen table, stacked on top of Art From Around the World . Sakura’s tote bag is lying there, too.

“I think I convinced him to push our movie night to next week,” Sakura offers; apparently his face belied his curiosity. “Ino said Sai was wondering if you’d finished the art book; he finished the one you recommended.”

Sasuke nods. “...I did.” He decides to keep his books until next week, then, if Sakura’s already exchanged hers. He can reread one of them to keep busy, since he feels more awake today. He’d rather go with Sakura than alone anyways, and then he can take it to Sakura’s for the movie. He’s mildly curious what sort of strange comment Sai will have on the book about kenjutsu.

It would probably be fine to voice that, he decides. “...I’ll bring it to the movie.”

Sakura grins at him in response, before her body language morphs into that which belies bashfulness. 

“So… Do you feel any better today?” She questions quietly, seemingly searching his expression for something. “Or do you need more sleep, do you think?”

He blinks, searching her own in return.

“I’m awake,” he finally answers honestly, chest warming at the tone in which she asked the question. He recognizes the way she speaks, timid and almost unsure, as the way she acts when she’s about to suggest they do something together, though she shouldn’t be. There are few things that he wouldn’t agree to if they involve her.

“...Better now with no headache,” he adds gratefully after a moment in which she appears to wait patiently for an answer to the other part of his question; it’s hard for him to focus on words when it feels as though his chest is unfurling behind his ribs, flooded with warmth and metaphorical sunshine. It’s the truth, besides; the only thing plaguing him at the moment is the minor hint of a dry throat, which will ease after he eats the ramen from the dobe.

“...I’m glad,” Sakura murmurs after a sustained pause in which he gathers that she’s contemplative. Her gaze flicks to her tote bag on the table for some reason, and then she’s reaching into her pocket, and out comes the key. 

“I’ll give this back to you, then,” she says softly, smiling as she presents the flash of nickel-brass to him with an open palm, its polished sheen bathed in light drifting from the living room window. Her focus shifts to her tote bag again briefly. “And I was thinking…”

He reaches out silently, vastly enjoying the way her eyes widen as he presses her fingers back around the key with his own. He holds them like that for a second to emphasize his unmitigated insistence, enjoying the warmth of a hand dwarfed by his own. He momentarily wishes for his other arm, so he could use it to press her fingers in place, too.

“Keep it,” Sasuke counters in a husky voice, amused at the way her mouth has parted in surprise and simultaneously looking forward to a few days from now, when he can get back to pressing his lips to hers on her couch, until they’re plump with evidence of their kissing.

“Um.” She beholds him with an endearingly dazed look etched into her features. Dark pupils examine his hand clasped around hers and then ascend upwards again. Her face flushes with color the longer he looks.

“...Keep it?” She finally whispers, tone questioning as if she’s unsure she’s heard him correctly. Her fine pink brows have risen as high as her facial muscles seem to allow in surprise.

“Keep it,” he affirms, squeezing her fingers around the cool metal once more ahead of allowing his lone hand to fall away. 

Her pupils fall to her palm again, slender fingers wrapped around the key, before traveling back up to hold his smitten stare. 

Her face is as red as an heirloom tomato. He thinks she’s gorgeous like this. 

“...Okay,” she finally mumbles, apparently completely flustered. “I…”

Sasuke gives her a look that he hopes conveys both his seriousness on the matter and his amusement simultaneously. 

Her mouth closes once, then opens, then closes again. Her lips are gorgeous, too, endlessly distracting.

“You’re sure?” She questions softly, finally.

He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement, because there have been few things in his life that he’s been more certain of than this. 

“I’m sure.”

Long lashes skim her own cheekbones as she blinks before acceptance washes over her. A wide smile adorns her features as she returns the key to its place in her pocket. 

Her own mouth twitches ahead of directing her focus to her tote bag again.

“Um. So…” Jade eyes flicker to him again hesitantly, blushing in a manner he finds charming. “So I was thinking. Just… if you’re feeling better. Since we’re both contagious until later today, I mean. I… Well, I talked with Ichika through the window and she set the books outside for me. So…”

She pauses, inspecting his countenance hesitantly prior to smiling again and reaching for her bag. 

“If, maybe you wanted some company… If you don’t need to sleep more…” 

She pulls out Hazel Wood and Isthmus, the book about the fisherman Ichika recommended to him. The spines catch the light from the window, too.

“...Book club?” She finishes in a questioning voice that’s euphonious to his ears, a suggestion of shared affinity and her smile turning sheepish.

His eyes soften. 

“Yes,” he murmurs soft and sure, initiating oblivion by holding her gaze. “...Book club.”

Sakura beams, and he wonders for the upteenth occasion if she knows she’s the brightest, most felicific thing in his life, the breath in his lungs, intenerating and lambent sunlight on seafoam and all the rest.

He eats his meal while she chatters, asking questions at appropriate intervals when his mouth isn’t full. He’ll begrudgingly admit that it’s good while ill; he supposes he accepts Naruto’s apology, though he recognizes that it certainly won’t be the last time he’s teased by the idiot. He silently wonders if Sakura endures the same annoyances from their third teammate when he’s not present, the thinly-veiled raillery and endless stupidity.

That thought is somehow both comforting and amusing. He ponders it a moment further while depositing the last chunk of mushroom into his mouth, chewing methodically.

The pleasant thrumming in his chest momentarily hushes in quiescence when Sakura mentions, “I think you might have a new neighbor soon.”

Sasuke blinks, pausing his sipping of the last bit of broth. The sudden stillness reminds him of the Land of Beasts, the way the lush grasslands stop swaying just before an ugly storm rolls in.

“...What?”

Sakura tips her head to the side, the direction of the wall he shares with the woman and her child next door. 

“Your neighbor. I saw her taking boxes downstairs.”

Ah.

The mysterious scrapings and clunkings suddenly achieve perfect retrospective clarity. She in all probability planned this, he realizes glumly; listening carefully to steps and visitors and doorways, searching for the opportunity to make her escape, surreptitiously moving things out and elsewhere to get away from him.

He ruminates briefly if her lease ended this month or if she broke it early, if she paid a penalty in her desperation to get her and her child as far away from him as possible.

There’s a moment in which he becomes keenly aware that he has the volition: 

Let this knowledge consume him, allow the inner voice of the parts of himself he loathes to speak.

Or, to focus on the good things that are right in front of him, split evenly and clearly to his cognition as a prism divides light into its according colors, easily recognized as the rose color of Sakura’s hair, the rich berry of her scent, the pale peach of her complexion, the gold and seafoam green of her eyes, the calm azure of her gentle touch and the lilting, mesmeric lilac and honey complementaries of her voice, soft and rich with candor and compassion.

Sakura shifts slightly, surveying him with a curious expression as if she doesn’t understand his sudden disquiet - she probably doesn’t - and a sunbeam settles on the right half of her face and its corresponding shoulder. Two more freckles have inked into existence on the expanse between her trapezius and her neck, a testament to her morning spent outdoors training with Ino. 

In an instant, he knows his choice.

“Hm,” he says noncommittally, rising to discard the container and place his chopsticks in the sink. “Guess so.” He takes in the newest flecks dotting her skin again as he passes behind her, allowing his gaze to linger, though he is excruciatingly aware that it will later drive him mad, this overwhelming urge to drag his lips across her skin there, up the column of her neck in a trifold of reverence and adoration and utmost, aching apology.

He’ll contact his landlord, he decides, and pay the penalty for her if there was one. He hopes that, wherever the woman and her child end up, it will bring her comfort and a sense of safety. He knows what it’s like to go without. 

He also knows what it’s like to find such senses again, and maybe this is the point: to exist in the blink of an eye in divine space, to be cared for in the iterum, in the coruscating flash that they inhabit the earth. There’s augury to be found in place, surely, the compelling fibers of memory interlocking at the corners of one’s consciousness and a corollary post factum, but it principally tethers back to the person that made the event memorable in the first place, whether it’s a fisherman returning to dry land following a long journey or a girl and her mother inheriting an estate rife with mystifying writings or Sakura taking her side of his couch, closer to him than the last time; the redolence of tart berry overwhelms him, fresh and new.

He admires the way the highest points of her face look when bathed in sunshine, smooth lineaments arching and adorned aurelian, before he realizes for the thousandth time that he’s staring and settles into the mystery book instead. 

They read until evenfall, content for plenary horizons to slip into violescent gradients as they discuss the more remarkable points of both books by lamplight to the scent of soup and tea. Sakura tries the decaffeinated matcha, and he watches quietly as she ladles honey into her mug, shooting him a glance that can only be described as sweet and highly appreciative, cheeks glowing deep red.

They return to the couch after dinner, antibiotic anodynes swallowed and roughly halfway through their respective texts.

He thinks he dozes around eight or nine in the evening, book at his chest as he had thought he was just resting his eyes for a minute. Sasuke blinks groggily in the direction of Sakura’s side of the couch as he awakens from the nap; at seeing it empty, his attention flits accordingly to the clock.

Eleven thirty, he notes, shifting ahead of the realization that one of his comforters has been laid carefully over him. She must have switched off the lamp they were reading by, too. He blinks, staring at the cast of moonglow atop the fabric in the desaturated night as perspicuous warmth pours into his belly. Sasuke marvels at the feeling for longer than is stringently necessary, examining the way the blanket is tucked in slightly around his feet as his vision adjusts. It was probably a challenge to situate, especially without waking him; being tall comes with some disadvantages. 

Eventually he rises, turning the direction of the kitchen - it was hot today, too, he gathered, so the lily plants likely need another drink - and stops short, eyes zeroing in on that which is out of place.

There is a lone key laid purposefully on the corner of the dining table that is not his own, glinting gold in the scant sliver of moonlight cascading in from the living room window.

His chest ignites anew as it coalesces with his fingers. He turns it over in the soft glimmer of night, relishing the way it feels in his hand, every tactile cut of the metal and every small scratch from extended use. Judging by the amount of wear and the fact that she had it with her, he thinks it must be her original copy, the one she herself has carried around since first residing there instead of a spare.

It feels real in his palm, the physicality of it honey sweet and sinking into his very bone marrow.

For now, he thinks. It clinks into place purposefully next to his own on the key ring before he departs.

[miqomonkly]

So... this is probably only really an issue for me, but I wanted to at least get it out of my system and in some kind of written format.

So FFXVI came out, right? I hear it's great; looks great, plays great, story's great, XVI is just great.

So, a trend popped up some weeks ago in the XIV community; people began asking what eikon your WoL/OC would be the dominant of. Options ranged from dungeon bosses to trials to raid bosses; no real limit save your imagination.

Now, I pondered this for a while, seeing some folks make connections to things like Shiva, Alexander, Bahamut, etc., and they all have a reason that makes sense for the eikon to be connected to them. And it's cool to see what they come up with! Naturally, I wanted to find one for I'lyanna.

I spent hours looking through different bosses and primals, even trying to make some big creatures from the overworld fit. In the end, after looking over every match I felt could work...

I've got nothing. Not a single answer as to who I'lyanna would be a dominant for.

So why am I writing this post?

Simple: It bothers me WAY more than it should.

I'lyanna is still a major work in progress. I love her so much and want to make the most of her story... but there are days where I really feel I don't know what that story is. As the meme goes, I've got the most basic, generalized idea of a story in my head... but when I try to put it all together, it feels like I have several pieces of different puzzles that LOOK like they should fit, but naturally don't because they come from different places. Is that a bad thing? Not really; it just takes some refinement, some time and patience, and working out the finer details.

So why is something as insignificant as a concept from a different Final Fantasy so crucial to me?

...I guess it really isn't. It just irritates me that I can't find one. Like, on the level of "I want my baby to fit in and be loved, but I can't find out what makes her similar to the other kids."

In terms of character writing and story development, this is probably the least important thing to be spending my emotional energy on. I'lyanna is still a charming, if traumatized, young woman who has plenty of story still to be told. But as far as feeling like I understand her and who her character is...

I want to believe this silly trend could've helped.

Anyway, that's enough of my late night ranting. I'mma hit the hay now. Thanks for reading. Love you all ❤️

[rosenallies]

Bimbo Au something sweet and cozy ❤️

Ik it’s past the holidays but I didn’t get to write any soft holiday stuff this year so <3 I’ll get to the other few prompts that were send in soon, I just had to write a lil holiday fluff real quick <3

——

“Rosie! Rosie! Wake up, wake up!”

Rosé groaned, attempting to pull the duvet back over his head, only for it to be yanked off, exposing his bare legs to the chill of the bedroom. “Five more minutes.”

“Come on, it’s Christmas!”

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Rosé chuckled. “You’re like a big child.”

“I can’t help it, I love Christmas,” Denali said with a sweet pout, a look he knew Rosé couldn’t resist. As much as Rosé held control over Denali in the bedroom, in every other aspect of their life, Denali had Rosé wrapped around his little finger. He would give him the entire world if he asked.

Already dressed in their matching pjs, Denali yanked Rosé out of bed and down the stairs.

Though the house had been decorated all month, Denali dragging Rosé all around town the weekend after thanksgiving when he realized he didn’t have any Christmas decorations, the place looked even more beautiful that morning. Outside the window was blanketed in glittering white snow, and inside was warm and inviting surrounded by the twinkling lights Denali had strung up with care.

“Merry Christmas, Rosie,” Denali whispered, yanking Rosé back to kiss him underneath the mistletoe that he hung in the doorway.

“Merry Christmas, baby. Should we go open presents or do you want breakfast first?”

Denali pondered for a moment, presents or Rosé’s delicious cinnamon rolls? “Presents first, then breakfast?”

Rosé kissed the tip of his nose and flashed him a smile. “I knew that’s what you’d say, I’m not sure why I even asked.”

Making themselves comfortable on the floor in front of the tree, Denali sat in between Rosé’s legs and leaned against him.

They spent the better part of an hour opening gifts and kissing each other with gratitude, though most of the presents had Denali’s name on them. Rosé couldn’t help it, everywhere he went something reminded him of Denali.

“I have one more for you, hold on,” Rosé said suddenly, scooting Denali from his lap and crossing the room and retrieving something from the briefcase he carried to work. “I wanted to save this one for last.”

He handed Denali a small box wrapped in gold wrapping paper with a bow tied on top. “Go on, open it, baby.”

Denali smiled in spite of himself, edging his nail underneath the edge of the wrapping paper. Underneath the wrapping paper was a black velvet box, jewelry for sure.

Before even opening the box, Denali felt himself flush.

“Go on, sweetheart, don’t be shy now.”

Biting his lip, Denali opened the box, revealing a sparkling gold necklace, delicate chain and elegant ‘R’ charm sat in the middle.

“I know it’s dumb and cliché, definitely cliché but-“

“Stop, I love it. It’s like I have a little piece of you with me all the time. Can you put it on for me?”

Rosé clasped the necklace around Denali’s neck, smiling at the way the pendant sat on Denali’s chest when he turned around.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.”

“I got one too-“ he pulled down the collar of his top and revealed a thicker gold chain than Denali’s, a “D” pendant on his.

“I have a piece of you too.”

Sliding his arms around Rosé’s neck, Denali stood on his tip toes to kiss him softly until Rosé pressed into him harder, deepening their kiss.

Denali pulled away and giggled. “Slow down, you’ll get your last present later, daddy.”

Rosé raised an eyebrow. “Is that so, darling?”

“Mhmm,” Denali hummed, leaning up on his toes and pressing a kiss to Rosé’s cheek before skipping away toward the kitchen, “cinnamon rolls first!”

Standing back, Rosé smiled to himself in a delightful state of disbelief at how this was his life now. The last several Christmases he’d spent by himself working and while it was just the two of them, having someone to spend the day with was everything to him.

[mjgauthor]

How I Got a Book Deal

How I Got a Book Deal

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill.

Twenty years. That’s how long I’ve been writing. I started writing my first real book when I was in high school, and for nine years, I refused to give up on it. I spent hours devising the world, creating maps, and drawing characters. All good practice, but I didn’t spend nearly enough time writing it. And though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew something was wrong with my writing. Like, imagine recording yourself playing a musical instrument. Even if you’ve practiced for a few years, you’d know it didn’t compare to a professional. I remember being in awe of how easily Rowling, or Card, or Rothfuss navigated telling a compelling story while simultaneously building powerful characters and creating vivid descriptions. My writing was a stick-figure drawing compared to their Sistine Chapel.

Still, I’m a stubborn Gregson. We’re all stubborn. And I wanted a go at landing a literary agent. So, I agonizingly prepared querying materials for this book. But the week before I planned on sending it to anyone, I got a feeling after lots of pondering and prayer. And the feeling told me to let it go.

So, I did. 

The book went into the figurative drawer, and I doubt I’ll ever go back to it. Honestly, letting it go was the best thing to happen to my writing. That book was like taking care of someone very ill for so long that you forgot to care for yourself.

After I let it go, my writing skill exploded. I got quicker, too. I wrote multiple books over the next several years until finally, after my sixth book, I landed my agent, Heather Cashman. And that day, telling people that I was an agented author was my proudest writing accomplishment.

Until now.

My agent and I went through revisions. Our plan was to take the book from good to great and so she gave me detailed editorial notes. After a few months of digesting these, I realized the book required an even larger revision. So, I rewrote the first hundred pages, then the last hundred. And I heavily revised the middle. I shifted the tense. Adjusted character motivation. Killed an important character who survived the original version. The climax completely changed—the ending, too. In the next five months, the book that used to be DOWNFALL became SKY’S END.

Something about this book felt right. So, when I sent it to my agent, I felt confident. Well, a little nervous, too.

Not long after I sent it to her, Heather came to Salt Lake City for a wedding. We met over lunch to discuss my career while eating chicken souvlaki and pita bread at a local restaurant. And she was absolutely dripping with enthusiasm for SKY’S END. She loved all the changes. We just had a few more minor revisions to do, and then in August 2021, we went on submission to find a publisher.

My agent warned me that it would be difficult—but she would do all she could to sell it.

The first editor responses came back within days. One of them came from a great editor and it was filled with compliments, calling my writing “remarkably vivid” and that my world was “lush” and that I crafted “a wonderfully immersive narrative.” The editor passed, as it wasn’t a perfect fit for her list, but her enthusiasm got me excited enough to think maybe SKY’S END was the one. 

Then, I sat back, and waited, hoping we’d hear some great news in the coming months. Except, that’s not what happened. I heard nothing for the rest of 2021.

I pushed the book from my mind and occupied myself with other projects in the meantime, including completing my eighth book and revising my seventh. Then, on January 18th, Heather announced a book deal on Twitter for another client. I sent a congratulatory email to Heather, but I got an email back that made me sit down. It wasn’t just a thank you note. Heather also mentioned that an editor just reached back to her and asked if SKY’S END was still available.

This was, she noted, a very good sign, and that my book might make it to acquisitions at the publisher.

I remember staring at the email, perplexed. Like, I only expected her to respond with “Thanks!” Instead, I got the biggest news I’d had since my agent offered me. So, I went a little wild because this had been a dream of mine since I was sixteen. Even twenty years later, I still vividly remember working on my first book on the dining room table, labeling maps of fantasy lands and drawing illustrations of the characters I wanted to bring to life.

After this email, my wife and I speculated about all the possible scenarios with this publisher and editor.

What could happen? 

1. Editor fell out of love �� REJECTED.

2. Editor fell in love but couldn’t get editorial team to fall in love too – REJECTED

3. Editor and editorial team loved it, but publisher didn’t – REJECTED

My wife and I were careful when discussing the possibility that this could be anything other than a rejection. Either way, we hunkered down and expected it to be a long wait. A month or two, maybe. But that’s not what happened. Apparently, twenty years had been long enough. A week after my agent told me of the editor’s interest, I got another email from Heather on January 25th.

I was teaching my 7th period ELA class. One thing about me as a teacher is I’ve always been very transparent with my students about the number of rejections I’ve received during my journey. I don’t share rejection specifics with my students, but I do tell them about how hard I’ve worked and the value of perseverance. It’s a good lesson. My classes have chanted “I can do hard things!” Sometimes, I chant that louder than anyone in the room because I need to convince myself that I really can do hard things. When you’ve received hundreds of rejections while querying several books, some doubt creeps in.

Anyway, I got an email while I was in the middle of 7th period. I’m not in the habit of checking my phone while I’m teaching, but I couldn’t help myself because I was hoping to hear back from Heather. Sure enough, the email was from her.

Subject: The shortest wait you’ve ever seen…

Message: Hi Marc,

We’ve received an offer today for SKY’S END.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I stared at the message for a few seconds—almost like I couldn’t comprehend it. Was my agent writing in some ancient, dead language? Was it English? It didn’t make sense. Then, suddenly, I let out a little groan. One of my students glanced back at me and gave me a funny look.

And then I shouted, “OH MY GOSH!”

The whole class stopped working with their partners and stared at me. I was in a daze. Nothing felt real. Was my heart still beating? Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what happened next as this moment is a little hazy. I think I moved to the front of the classroom—panting, and my students were worrying that I was having a heart attack or something. I lowered into a chair, I think, and leaned on my knees. One of my students later told me my face had turned bright purple, and a vein was bulging on my forehead.  

They probably thought I was dying. Oh no, Mr. Gregson’s gonna fall over dead in front of his whole class. Who knows CPR? Get the admin in here! Does this mean we don’t have to do the book report?

Finally, I took a breath, and told my students.

And I remember this because the class erupted with cheers and claps. It was the great roar on the third floor. The loudest my room has ever been. My students were all so incredibly happy for me.

Suffice to say, we didn’t get much work done for the remainder of the class period.

This moment was, without a doubt, one of the best feelings of my life. And I’m so happy I got to share it with my students because they’ll never forget it. I know I won’t. Honestly, it felt like I just drained a three pointer to win the NBA championship.

Getting cheered for a book deal…man, kids are the absolute best.

I’m so thrilled to say I’ll be working with Jonah Heller at Peachtree Teen. He just gets my work and has a great vision for it in the marketplace. And I’m so grateful for my agent, Heather, who pushed me to make my book better and who found the absolute perfect landing place for SKY’S END. 

I can’t wait for you to read my book, and to meet Conrad. This book is the culmination of twenty years of frustration. It has energy, power, and lots and lots of adrenaline. I’m hoping you read it, and I hope you fall in love with it as much as I have. I just can’t wait to hear your reactions.

SKY’S END is but a piece of me. A piece that will be published, and no one can ever take that away.

Spring 2024 cannot come soon enough.

-Marc

[postedposting]

reluctantly tactical

psa: speak to your children about the dangers of exercise. one day you're innocently struggling to install a 60lb window unit AC and pondering how this could suck less. a year later you're up at 1am on a saturday reading Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete, rolling your eyes past the billionth reference to the tactical athlete in the hopes of gleaning some useful information about combining strength training and aerobic training effectively.

you may be wondering how i got here. here's the thing:

from my observations, the landscape of off the shelf strength programming is generally…je ne sais quoi…bad. strength programming providers have invented many different approaches to creating programming that is not good. in addition to your basic completely ineffective design in the programming itself, some common themes include:

absolute incoherence in writing

substituting:

complexity for utility

obscene volume for utility

random weird shit for utility

extreme explicit or implicit misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc

getting wildly out of their lane with poor advice around nutrition and similar

much of the programming that doesn't fall into these themes is pretty basic. most things work for people new to strength training, so if you can string some sentences together and avoid going off on any unhinged screeds, you can probably pull the bare bones of a linear progression program that avoids the potholes above.

in looking more recently for a program that would let me: a) maintain & build strength b) be in and out of the gym in <<an hour c) either leave room for or also incorporate building cardio/conditioning, i was repeatedly pointed to '''tactical barbell'''. i resisted, because, frankly it looks and sounds extremely fucking stupid and offputting, and i continued to make decent strength gains and bad cardio gains.

for the last month+, i've been out of the gym after some kind of respiratory illness*, and spent a good chunk of that time thinking about programming to try out when i got back, including, finally, taking a look at '''tactical barbell''', among others.

this brings us to present day, where i'm embarking with the '''operator''' (sigh) program, 3 days a week, paired with something c25k shaped and rock climbing a few times a week.

i'm using back squat, barbell bench, and lat pulldown as my 'cluster'. i'm a little iffy on LPD there - the equivalent in the book would be weighted pullups, of which i can do Zero…but it's six weeks, if i would've been better off with a pullup progression or deadlifts, well, live, learn, keep it moving.

i'll probably throw in 3x15 curls [for aesthetics] and lateral raises [for my paper mache-ass shoulders, which seem less prone to exploding in my sleep when i give them some attention] at the end if i have time, because what are you, my dad?

i picked some training maxes based on where I was at before I got sick, and the first session went Pretty OK. it took about 35 minutes total, things were mildly challenging, which tracked with my first day back, but generally fine. i climbed + jogged yesterday doing 2 minutes running / 2 minutes walking x 5, which was also fine.

i'll probably read the follow up conditioning book this week, and maybe tweak the cardio/conditioning part of this plan based on it.

*i was tested for several things, all of which came back negative. at this point it appears that best case it will remain a mystery forever

---

my overall goals for this cycle are:

Baseline: be at least as strong as when i got sick. Be able to jog for 15+ minutes straight. Lift and jog 3x/week, climb 1x/week.

Stretch: be meaningfully stronger than when I got sick on all three lifts in the cluster. Be able to jog for 30+ minutes straight. Lift and jog 3x/week, climb 2x/week.

---

notes/preliminary review of Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete (sigh):

the good:

generally coherently written [the bar is low]

not huge quantities of explicit racism/misogyny/homophobia/etc [the bar is so so so low]

it's brief. it took me ~2 hours to read, including taking notes & setting up a spreadsheet. from that, i think i have a good handle on the program i'm planning to use, and a decent overview of the other options

it is, in many ways, very funny to read a serious and detailed roleplay style description of how a cop might use google dot com in order to find a 1rm calculator

the bad:

this is a book aimed at, in many ways, making certain types of people - among them, cops, first responders, soldiers, combat sport enthusiasts - more effective, and implicitly in some cases, more effectively violent. the rest of this bullet point is left as an exercise for the reader.

some mid opinions about nutrition and supplements - mostly not egregious, but certainly extraneous. similarly, some flawed reasoning in the explanation of the approach to training.

how many low rez images of tactical athletes would you like to see? i hope it's a lot

the ?:

the programming looks…plausible? we'll see.

[agentgumsh0e]

Heyyooo, how do you do?

What about Cypher with an S/O that loses their memories after saving him on a mission gone south. His S/O only remembers their name and given his masked appearance, he ends up scaring them?

it could be like them falling in love again or,for extra spice, S/O actually ends up with someone else and Cypher lets them go?? Idk lol you decide.

Cheers, mate

strangers (cypher x reader)

word count: 1620+

warnings: mentions of severe head trauma, memory loss/amensia

notes: probably not accurate to amnesia symptoms besides memory loss, i took a while to write this one and i still am not that proud of it lol. might look a little rushed at the end

“(y/n)?” a soft, though unfamiliar, voice disturbed the uneasy quiet of your room in the medical ward.

you heard the door click open prior to the voice, but you kept staring at your hands as you fiddled with them. you were too tense to shut your eyes despite being told to rest.

it was only the voice that made you turn your attention towards your visitor. 

when you fully came to a few hours ago, a thousand questions had ran through your mind: 

where am i?

how did i get here?

a gentle woman named sage tended to you and answered all your questions.

“you're (y/n), you're a part of the valorant protocol, which protects this earth’s radianite. one of your missions went south, and you suffered severe head trauma and lost your memory as a result.”

but now, another blaring question arose:

who's the guy approaching you in a mask? 

sage had mentioned that you'd be getting a visitor soon…was this person him?

though he immediately wanted to rush to your side now that you were fully conscious, cypher didn’t want to accidentally scare you in your vulnerable state. he had to restrain himself for the time being.

“w-who are you?” your voice was full of confusion and slightly laced with fear.

ah, he thought to himself with a bitter smile beneath his mask, so sage was right.

cypher carefully drew up a chair at your bedside. “i don't mean to frighten you. i’m…”

cypher? he pondered, amir?

…would it matter if you didn't remember him?

“…amir el amari, but the others call me cypher. my identity used to be secret, but,” he shrugged, “things change. you can call me whichever.”

“okay…amir,” you said skeptically, feeling out his name as if it was foreign. his heart dipped a little at the observation. “so i guess you're here for a reason, right?”

cypher nodded and took a deep breath. “we met here, in the protocol, a bit more than a year ago. i think it's only right that you know your full past, and that—” 

he gulped, hesitating, “...that we were together.” 

your eyes slightly widened at the statement, and he was quick to say, “i'm not trying to force you to be with me, and you don't have to believe me either. you can make the choice on your own.”

you nodded slowly. “so…amir?”

his name came out like a question, so he nodded.

“how is this going to work?”

“well, i could jog your memory and we’ll see what happens, or we could be strangers, and that would be fine with me.”

you looked at him tentatively. you had a relationship with this mysterious masked man? you wanted the memories back regardless, but…he especially piqued your interest.

“the former.”

“okay. rose—”

you raised your eyebrow at him. he cleared his throat in response. 

“sorry, (y/n), tell me everything you remember about us, if you remember anything at all.”

you shrugged your shoulders helplessly. 

“it's—it’s all gone. i don't remember you at all.”

cypher’s heart sunk deeper in his chest. all that time spent lowering the boundaries around his heart, erased just like that. he was in love with a stranger, and you viewed him as one.

“that's fine. when sage releases you from the ward, we can start.”

he stood up from his seat, giving you one last solemn glance. 

“from the beginning.”

-

as soon as you were back on your feet, he took you all throughout headquarters. 

he first took you to his workshop, where you both confessed your feelings for each other and spent multiple dates together in…

“do you remember this place? i teased you a bit too much when you were helping me out, and you accidentally revealed that you liked me. i always liked to push your buttons.”

“well, what did you say to me?”

“you broke one of my gadgets, so i said that you could go on a date with me to make up for it. i thought i was annoying you and that you wouldn't accept, but then you said, ‘that doesn't seem so bad…’”

he guided you to where he played chess with you in front of the training room…

“this is where i challenged you to chess several times.”

“did i ever win?”

“no, but you always got upset when i kept winning, so i started to let you win instead.”

“i don't think i would've liked that either.”

“haha, at first, you didn’t. but you got better, and letting you win started to get difficult…”

he showed you the little trinkets and gadgets he would make for you…

“this one was a gun buddy i made out of scrap metal. it's a mini camera, because i'll always be watching you, even when we're apart.”

“isn't that a little creepy?”

*awkward silence*

(in a hushed voice) “you said it was endearing before, but i'll rephrase it to ‘i’ll always be looking out for you’ now.”

and he brought you to what used to be his and your favorite tea shop.

“sometimes during our break day, i would bring you here, and we would just sip tea, enjoy each other's company, and talk.”

“what did we talk about?”

“hmm, how the mint tea i make is better.”

with everywhere he led you and everything he showed you, you could feel yourself falling for him again. you felt that it wasn't solely due to the slow return of your memories, but because he seemed to really love you. 

his tenderness when he told you about your relationship, his regret and sadness whenever he brought up his own past or whenever he had accidentally hurt you before, his pain when he told you about the nights he would spend at your bedside during your coma, and his happiness whenever you would ask him a question or remember the tiniest detail about something…

after a couple of weeks had passed, he still had something new to tell you everyday. you always had another question, and he always wouldn't hesitate to answer. 

those weeks stretched into months. a few months later, you were lounging around in your room with him, your head in his lap as he petted it with his free hand while a book was in the other.

as you stared up at him, you remembered that, according to cypher, you apparently stared at him a lot back then. that fact certainly didn't change now, which was probably why he neglected to tease you about it. 

your brow furrowed as you analyzed the black material of his mask and what seemed like your last burning question bubbled up.

“have i ever seen you fully without your mask before?” 

you felt like you had, but you couldn't put together the pieces of the memory containing his face.

and it was the only memory left to recall.

his hand halted in the middle of flipping a page. 

“once.”

“once?” you sat up, curious.

his shoulders tensed slightly. “i showed you on the mission before you went into a coma.” 

you hummed in thought. both sage and cypher had reminded you of what happened during that mission. it seemed taboo to even bring it up, and yet another question sprung up at this.

“why at the very last minute? didn't you say we had been together for at least eight months?”

in the back of your mind, you thought you already knew the answer: showing his face was too risky.

“because you only need my lips to kiss me, now don't you, rosie?” he said, continuing to flip the page.

you would’ve tsked at him and left it at that, but beneath the smugness and humor in his voice, there was undertone of apprehension.

you narrowed your eyes at him. “amir, you're avoiding the question.”

he sighed deeply before setting the book down. he did say that it was only right for you to know your full past.

“i… didn't trust you. i didn't trust myself either. i didn't know when was the right time. if there would be the ‘right time’. then the mission happened.”

you gazed at him for a heartbeat, unsure of what to say. then your hands seemed to act on their own, reaching to take off his mask, uncertainly, slowly. his hands gently stopped yours in the air.

it was hard enough for him the first time. his doubts concerning his identity always lingered.

“please,” you whispered with imploring eyes. the same eyes he fell in love with. the same eyes he still loved.

the blue eyes of his mask seemed to soften, and he guided your hands to push the buttons so you could finally see his face.

when you did, tears of joy threatened to slip out.

“oh, amir,” you smiled. you stared into his eyes, feeling like your memories were clear at last. like he wasn't at all a stranger anymore. like you had fallen in love for a second time.

and you weren't the only one.

alternate ending

regardless of whether you chose to try to remember or to stay ignorant of your past with him, you became strangers. 

he wasn't expecting anything. he really wasn't. 

as he saw you stop asking questions, as he watched your waning interest in his efforts for you to recover your memories, as he noticed how you remembered your relationship but didn't necessarily want to, and as he witnessed you go by, hand in hand with the new love of your life…

he could only sigh and get lost in the past as he's done so many times before.

but as he said, it was fine by him. he just needed to forget. it couldn’t be that hard.

right?

[universalimagines]

Temporal Hijinks

So I started rewatching Stargate SG-1, specially the episode Window of Opportunity (again) and I got this amazing idea for a Spock x La’an story where the crew gets stuck in a time loop and of course, hijinks ensue. Hope you all like it!

If someone had told Spock he’d eventually get tired of scientific missions he’d have said they were being illogical but now he was certain they’d been right all along.

Some time ago, the Enterprise had picked up a chroniton surge from a planet near Deep Space K-7, subsequent investigation of the ruins on the planet hadn’t revealed much until Erica Ortegas accidently activated the altar at the center of the settlement. They’d failed to disable it and as a result, the two of them had been stuck in a time loop, one that recurred every 12 hours.

Each loop was always the same. They’d attempt to explain the situation to the crew, Doctor M’Benga would be called in to assess if they were both insane or not before Captain Pike eventually acquiesced and allowed them to try and undue the loop through translating the ruins. Unfortunately, the temple’s dialect was complex and even Uhura could only translate a small amount in each loop and most of their time was spent trying to recall what they’d learnt in the previous loops and writing it down.

The constant repetition had broken Erica several loops ago and Spock was close behind. They were now about 2/3rds of the way through what seemed like their thousandth loop. Spock finished adding the last data he recalled and passing off to Ortegas. He took a seat and let out a very audible sigh.

Una gave Spock a surprised look. She’d known Spock since he’d first come aboard the ship and this was the first time she’d seen him exhibit a very obvious display of exasperation. “How many loops have we been though?” She asked.

Spock sighed. “I stopped counting after about the eightieth loop.”

“I can’t imagine how bad that must be.” Una grimaced.

“It is indeed very frustrating.” Spock replied.

“But it might be an interesting opportunity.” Uhura added.

“Elaborate please.” Spock asked half-heartedly.

“Well if you know everything is going to reset every 12 hours, you could do anything for as long as you wanted and never have to be worried about the ramifications of your actions.” Uhura explained.

Suddenly an idea popped in Spock’s head. He turned to face Ortegas whom it seemed shared the same idea. They both quietly put down their PADDs and walked out of the room without a word to anyone as the two officers pondered what they should do first.

At first they’d separated to partake in their hijinks. Ortegas had taken a shuttle out on several loops to practice the Kolvoord Starburst maneuver, a dangerous flight maneuver she’d attempted while at Starfleet Academy. Whilst Spock had decided to use the time to catch up on reading the books on human sex that T’Pring had mentioned.

When the two decided to spend a few loops having fun together was when the real craziness happened. The pair had decided to prank every senior officer on the ship. Ortegas had to admit that she was surprised by how creative Spock’s pranks had actually been, his logical mind evidently just as skilled and finding ways to mess with people as it was with analyzing the mysteries of space.

 They’d stolen Dr M’Benga’s tribble and let it multiply to the point that the ship was overwhelmed trying to contain them. Another loop they’d called Red Alert during the night shift, enjoying the sight of the entire command crew fumbling onto the bridge half dressed or in pajamas. Her favorite had been shaving off Captain Pike’s hair in the middle of the night leaving him completely bald. She’d even convinced Spock to wear it as a wig on the bridge just as the loop was about to reset.

However even hijinks got boring and Ortegas was ready to get back to undoing the loop. “You want to loop again?” She asked incredulously.

“There is one final activity I wish to use the loop for.” Spock admitted. “Once it is complete I will return to assisting with the translation.”

Erica shrugged and let him go about his business. Spock turned and headed straight for the nearest turbolift. He was relieved she hadn’t tried to follow. For he was absolutely certain if she knew, she’d never let him live it down.

 “Computer time?” He asked.

“The time is currently 0827.” The computer replied.

“Three minutes left.” He whispered.

“Bridge.” He called and the turbolift began its movement upwards.

When it opened a few seconds later, he scanned the bridge for the person he was looking for and within a moment, he found her. La’an.

She was currently pacing around her console as one of the engineers was working on repairing it. Even now Spock couldn’t deny how beautiful she was. She radiated confidence and strength matched with incredible grace. Never since their mind meld following the Gorn attack, he’d been much more aware of how attractive she was and he imagined she wasn’t blind to notice the different way he looked at her.

He in turn had noticed that she too had noticed a change in her since the mind meld. Their relationship was always professional before the attack but now Spock had felt... something. But he couldn't put a finger on what it way. The interactions between them had become softer, with more emotion but neither of them had taken the next step.

He quickly realized his time was running out. Deciding it was now or never, he confidently walked over to La’an, his added presence getting hers, as well as the entire bridge’s attention. “La’an.” He spoke, getting her to turn around.

“Spock...” La’an began but she stopped when she felt his hand behind her head as he pulled her in her in for a kiss. It took her a second to realize that yes, Spock was indeed kissing her, in public and in front of the entire command crew. Her shock quickly gave way as she melted into his arms and decided to kiss him back. In that moment, she didn’t care that the entire command crew could see them. She was just happy the man she was falling for felt the same way about him. They continued to kiss for the few seconds remaining till the loop reset.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It took a few more loops but they eventually figured out how to shut down the machine. The answer had actually been remarkably simple and Spock was somewhat annoyed it took so long for them to figure it out.

He was currently sitting at the mess hall reviewing the notes they compiled on the site when he noticed Una, Erica and La’an walk up to his table and sit down.

“So Spock we need you to settle a question for us.” La’an asked.

He put down his PADD. “Go on.”

“How many loops do you think we were in?” Erica asked. “I’m guessing we did at least a few hundred but La’an thinks it couldn't possible have been that many.”

“I cannot say for certain.” Spock admitted. “I myself lost track by the eightieth loop. Though I doubt we were stuck for more than 150 loops.”

La’an smirked at Erica clearly pleased her assessment was the one Spock supported.

Una then chimed in. “150 loops. That’s incredible. In all that time, were either of you ever tempted to do something crazy?”

“Define crazy.” Spock asked hesitantly.

Una shrugged. “Hey no judgement. But you were stuck in a loop where everything reset every 12 hours. You could’ve done anything you wanted and never have had to face consequences.”

Spock took a sip of the water he had been nursing praying that Erica hadn’t said anything. “To use such time for hijinks instead of resolving the loop would’ve been illogical.” He answered, dodging the question.

Erica just smirked and stood up, walking behind Spock. “Yes and we all know Mr Spock is so logical. He would never take advantage of a situation like that. Like say by timing the end of one of the loops to plant a pretty passionate kiss on someone special.”

Spock nearly choked on the glass of water he’d been drinking at the moment. “She saw.” He though as Erica chuckled and walked away leaving Spock alone with two fellow officers staring at him incredulously. He knew that look on their faces. The two of them were not going to let him leave till he’d told them exactly what Erica was talking about.

And if history repeated itself, they’d find out.

[mymarifae]

UMMMM 16 with berdly for the writing prompt ask?? can throw a little berdkris in for fun and flavor if u choose (the whole "cyber world was a dream" thing might have berdly thinking abt why his gaming rival was so chivalrous...or why he pictured them in such a nice suit of armor...jus sayin. )

It was just a dream. That was the undeniable truth. It was, admittedly, remarkably vivid for a dream, and it followed an unusually coherent storyline, and while most of his dreams faded into vague impressions just hours after he woke, Berdly was able to recall this dream beat for perfect beat several days later. But it was just a dream.

So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it?

Most of Berdly’s weekend after the botched study session was spent pondering his strange dream. If he wasn’t thinking―and subsequently blowing off his homework, which was unusual for him―he was laying down (also unusual for him). At one point, his mother came into his room and sat on the edge of his bed, pressed a hand against his forehead, and awkwardly asked if he were “sick or something.”

He wasn’t sick. Just very, very tired. And his neck and back ached in a way that made sitting up for prolonged periods of time difficult. He told her he had just fallen asleep at the library and must have pulled a muscle, but he was fine. (She still brought him aspirin and water whenever she came home from work. It helped only marginally, but the thought was nice.) It was true, because it had to be. Because it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his dream―with the control plug that dragged his limp body across Queen’s rooftop.

It was harder to explain away the on-and-off migraines, the way his vision would suddenly go blurry even when he was wearing his glasses, and the various cuts and bruises he discovered later. It was especially hard to explain away the burn mark on the palm of his right hand. He almost didn’t notice it, but he was about halfway through his shift with Ms. Boom, feeling as though he might collapse and pass out at any given moment. Ms. Boom wanted him to carry something to her office, and he held out his hand to take it from her, only for her to suddenly pull back, sympathetically hissing through clenched teeth.

“Oh, dear, that looks like it hurts,” she said. It didn’t hurt―or, it hadn’t, until she pointed it out. “Do you need a bandage? How did you do that to yourself, anyhow?”

Berdly stared at the singed feathers. “I… have no idea,” he said faintly. Of course, that was the hand he had used when forcing off the control plug in his dream. The metal had been unbearably hot, and a sharp jolt of electricity had traveled up his right arm at the second of disconnection.

But that was a dream, and this was real life.

… He didn’t have an explanation. So he tried not to think about it. He focused his attention on the rather blatant moral lessons he had retained from the dream. That was the whole point of dreams, wasn’t it? They were an opportunity for the subconscious to communicate freely with the rest of the self, without all the noise of everyday life.

There were a few things he surmised, such as the real object of Noelle’s affections. It was from the moment they were alone on the rooftop, after she had come to her senses and stopped shaking him. She apologized profusely. “You just... said a lot of very... um, frankly, very ridiculous things, and I lost my temper,” she told him. And they had gone to the edge of the roof and sat down together, and she continued talking. She told him she never harbored any secret romantic feelings for him, because she was a lesbian. (Oops.) She told him that she had liked Susie the whole time. (Oooops.) “I wish you would stop assuming things for me like that. Like everybody else does. I wish you would listen to me. And, and quit making such an ass of yourself,” was the last thing she had said. She couldn’t quite look at him anymore.

Humbled, Berdly quietly offered her a better apology. He had come precariously close to messing things up on a permanent level, he realized. Noelle laughed, and she hugged him. It was a wonderfully cathartic moment―for a dream. Right up until the moment that Queen interrupted.

To test his hypothesis that the dream was his subconscious hitting him over the head with a multitude of lessons he needed to learn and learn fast, he called Noelle on Saturday evening, and he asked her upfront if she had a crush on Susie. There was a lot of frantic sputtering and stammering, followed by a long moment of silence. The receiver crackled as she drew in a deep breath. “How... how did you know?” she asked, voice shaky, as if she were afraid of his answer.

“Lucky guess,” he said, because ‘I had a dream that you told me that and after I woke up I realized that it might actually be true’ sounded insane. Then he chuckled. “No, it was just kind of obvious.” Because in hindsight, it really was obvious. “But I didn’t want to… assume.”

“… I appreciate that,” she said softly.

Berdly hesitated then. “And, um, more seriously,” he began, “I was really calling because I wanted to apologize.” And he did, trying not to draw too much on his dream self’s words, because that felt like cheating. Much like she had in the dream, Noelle laughed, and that feeling of catharsis settled between them again. And this time, there was no evil Queen to ruin the moment.

There were other things. Like the fact that he really did need to cut himself more slack with school, and the fact that he was prematurely judging not just Kris and Susie, but everyone around him. Dream-Noelle said he was always assuming things on her behalf, but she wasn’t the only one. And during their Saturday night phone call, Noelle had almost frantically asked him if he also had a crush on Susie, which took him by surprise. He had come to that conclusion in his dream, and he paused to consider the possibility for a moment before discarding it in disgust. “Absolutely NOT,” he had said. “Not my type.” Even if Susie’s real life counterpart was also a gruff, kindhearted gamer girl. But he understood what Noelle potentially saw in her now, and that was the lesson he was choosing to walk away with.

Kris, on the other hand―

No. He swerved away from that line of thought. It left him with a sickening, jittery feeling in his chest, and he didn’t need that. Not now, in the middle of class, when he was already having a hard time focusing on Ms. Alphys’s stuttering―when the real Kris was sitting right behind him. His traitorous mind wandered anyway, and lingered on memories of Kris adorned in that shining suit of armor. They commandeered the energy and attention of the entirety of Cyber World with a quiet, unwavering confidence.

There was one moment in particular he couldn’t quite justify to himself. Kris had knelt down beside him after the control plug fiasco, worry etched across their every visible feature. Berdly assured them he was fine, and ended his assertion with a playful wink and a half-delirious nickname: ‘fellow bluebird.’ Kris scoffed and stood up again, turning away―but not before he saw the blush dusted across their cheeks, and―

NO. Berdly pressed down on his pencil too hard, and the lead snapped in half. He muttered a soft curse. One desk over, Noelle shot him a questioning look. He waved her attention away, shifting in his chair and leaning over his woefully blank sheet of ‘notes.’

At least he could ask Noelle for hers later, he thought, glancing her way again. Orrrr not, because her paper looked just as blank as his, save for a few stray doodles he couldn’t quite make out. Whatever; he was supposed to be taking a laxer approach to school; he wouldn’t let himself stress over it.

Not that he was focused enough to work himself up into the throes of an anxiety attack, like he might have a few days ago. His mind was jumping back and forth between his dream, particularly the moment with Dream-Kris―why did he call them that??―and the abominable aching in his neck and back.

He watched Noelle draw a heart on her paper, and he realized that there was no better person to bounce his current dilemma off of.

“Noelle,” he whispered. She didn’t look up from her doodling. He rolled his eyes and leaned over, gently prodding her arm with the eraser end of his pencil. “Noelle,” he said, just a tiny bit louder.

She jumped and her head snapped towards him. “Wh―” She glanced briefly at Ms. Alphys, who was scribbling something on the chalkboard. “What?” she whispered back.

“I need to talk to you.”

Noelle frowned. “We’re in the middle of class…?”

“I know! I mean later. After class. So don’t, like, disappear.”

“Um, okay…” Noelle leaned a bit closer. “What’s this about?”

“Just. Just…” Kris was most likely asleep, but he couldn’t just say it while they were around so many people. “Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Noelle asked, stubbornly prodding further.

Berdly’s cheeks burned, and he could feel his stupid feathers beginning to puff out. “Um. Matters of… romance―”

Ms. Alphys’s voice cut him off. “N-Noelle? Berdly? Do-do you two think your c-conversation could wait until after class? P-Please?”

Noelle hurriedly sat back, her nose momentarily flickering with a faint glow. “Sorry, Ms. Alphys,” she mumbled.

Berdly ran a quick preening hand over the back of his head, smoothing down his feathers. “Sorry, Ms. Alphys,” he repeated.

“Th-That’s okay! Thank you. Now, um, as I was saying…” Berdly quickly lost interest in her words. He glanced at Noelle one more time, just briefly catching her eye. She smiled at him mischievously and waggled her eyebrows, slowly mouthing the words, “You have a crush?”

Berdly ducked his head, partially so she wouldn’t see the silly, embarrassed grin he couldn’t quite keep from forming. He heard her giggle, and Ms. Alphys looked over her shoulder, frowning sternly―or as stern as Ms. Alphys knew how to be. “Guys, please, okay?” she said. “I-I’ll, um, have to separate you two if you can’t s-settle down. A-And I don’t want to do that!” Berdly covered his mouth with one hand and nodded, trying not to laugh himself.

How long had it been since he and Noelle last got in trouble for disrupting class with chatter? Years? Their friendship had shifted into something almost like a business partnership. All homework and studying―stiff, cold, and distant. He shook his head at himself, the giddiness in his chest dying down momentarily as he reflected again on how stupid he had been. He had come so close to losing the sweetest person in the world as his best friend. But his detour into lamenting territory was cut short by a sharp prick in his upper arm.

Noelle had leaned over again to pluck out one of his feathers. When he turned to face her, she brandished it triumphantly. “Who is it, who is it??” she whispered excitedly.

“I’m not going to tell you now!” he hissed back. “Also, ow!? Give that back!” He tried to snatch the loose feather from Noelle’s hand, but she leaned out of reach, giggling again.

“It’s mine until you tell me!” she said.

Ms. Alphys had been in the middle of erasing something from the board, and she slammed the eraser down, sending up a small cloud of chalk dust. “A-Alright, th-that’s it!” She turned around, hands on her hips. “Um. Um… Catti! Switch seats with N-Noelle for the rest of the day.”

Catti glanced up from her phone for a second, almost incredulous, and then she shrugged and stood up. Noelle gathered her materials into her arms, still giggling, still holding Berdly’s feather in one hand. Before she stood up to move to Catti’s desk, she said, “I’m serious! Don’t even think about chickening out. I wanna know!” She smiled at him, warmer than any smile she had given him in a long time.

Berdly rolled his eyes. Of course he wasn’t going to chicken out. He rubbed his arm, a little miffed at losing a feather, but even that irritation faded faster than it might have in the past. The pain was gone already, anyway. Next to him, Catti sat down in Noelle’s chair, eyes trained on her phone, a clawed thumb lightly ‘tap-tap-tapping’ on the screen.

It was funny, really. Berdly had broken his streak of perfect classroom behavior, and his notes on today’s lesson were not only nonexistent―he wasn’t even sure what subject Ms. Alphys was teaching. Just two days ago, the very idea would have been utterly mortifying. But now, it just didn’t matter that much.

Because he had his best friend back.