#thats another thing reasoning kind of like everything feels really far away physically so going anywhere is such a slog its like..

[moonsaver]

ok this is not really a request, but what would yan!dan heng be like? i barely see any yan!dan heng content and thats probably because I don't even know how he would behave. Would he silently obsess over you? Would he not let you leave the archives, taking his life when he was young as an example, giving you books as your only respite? Would the astral express crew be in on it?

I feel like yan!dan heng would be like a pathetic wet cat about it, acting unfeelingly but then begs and begs for your affection in private, guilt tripping you without noticing and then finally giving up and taking what he wants whether you like it or not.

Hello anon!

I understand your frustration, and tbh even i struggle a bit with characterizing yan!dan heng, so i havent been able to push out any of his content.

He's not an exact favorite either, so i wasnt at all bothered by the lack of content but i understand you (sunday enjoyer here).

Honestly, i think one of the major reasons its hard to character yan!dan heng is kind of because hes actually a bit of a mellow character who's pretty cozy. Im not thorough with his backstory but it seems like he's always trying to be on the down-low, and never do things that warrant attention. Yan!dan heng would, as a result, not be so different in my opinion. However, a few of his aspects do seem to be interesting as a result.

As far as i know of his character, yan!dan heng would probably be extremely secretive as a result,kind of the stalker-ish type, who gets insecure easily and has to constantly keep grounding himself about you. But whenever you're within the vicinity, his patience wears thin. It grows dreadful to handle over time.

If his obsession gets strong enough, he'll only frequent his darling more and more through mysterious means, the kind that makes his darling more paranoid and as a result, seek out refuge in him about their "stalker", not realizing who they're actually talking to. Yan!dan heng would probably gauge out how much info his darling has about their "stalker", and if it's too much, he adapts and finds more hidden and unnoticeable means. The only time i can see him officially tie down his darling is if they take the initiative to investigate what's been going on and find out his entire archives worth of information on darling, and dan heng being confronted by it. In a bit of a panic, he'd take countermeasure and his patience finally snaps.

Another flip side of him is what you mentioned. Depending on how far within yan!dan heng's grasp you're in, he would be very starved for any form of affection. He's been constantly leaving behind everything, running away from things, to the point he probably seldom feels like anything in his life is permanent. So when darling comes along, yan!dan heng is so so desperate, he won't show it at first because he'll try to resist and give darling space, but it just constantly snaps taut strings inside of him, and he can't help but cling onto you. You'll thrash and scream and yell at him but he's so eerily quiet, gripping you and crushing you against his chest. He feels so guilty about it, but he's just so lonely. He does guilt trip you sometimes, and gets you to quiet down, but who knows how often that'll last? He can't get himself to "punish" you often either, so he just gives you strict warnings and scoldings from time to time, but then his insecurities get the best of him, and he can't help but cling to you even in your sleep, afraid you'll slip away like everything. He has self-doubt very often, and his main way would be just to seek you out, and force himself onto you in any physical form of affection, even if you grumble and protest about it.

In any case, i feel yan!dan heng would be a luckily tolerable yandere.

[no-droids]

Kar’taylir

gif credit @sersi​

Part Thirteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 11.8K

Warnings: language, angst and fluff, descriptions of a dead body, no real smut in this one but there is some nudity and touching, uhhh i think thats it tbh

A/N: Omg hi hi hello this was written in a week and a half so please be gentle, also I’m back on my linguistics bullshit and I can absolutely guarantee a vast majority of it is inaccurate

***

Everybody is asleep and you’re just a complete mess.

Truly.  And it fucking sucks, because this should be enjoyable.  This is home.  You’re in hyperspace, the hull is pitch black, the baby is asleep, and Din’s breathing is slow and quiet through the darkness.  Your cheek presses to his chest as it rises and falls hypnotically, you’re comfortable and safe and this would normally be a dream.  But your eyes are wide open right now and you are just going through it.  Spiraling in the midst of the most stable surroundings you could possibly conceive.

You suppose that this is partially your fault.  You don’t know why literally any part of you expected Din would explain himself without prompting from you, but you still couldn’t work up nearly the nerve necessary to ask.  Every potential question you came up with contradicted your intent, every way you tried to mentally phrase it gave off the wrong impression.  How do you ask somebody if they were being serious about something without revealing anything about your own intentions?  You can’t—that’s a downside of staying silent.

Din hasn’t said a single word since he urged you to leave the shooting range earlier, and he didn’t really seem like the quiet didn’t suit him, if that makes sense.  Yours was awkward, it fit you wrong.  You struggled for words while he easily ignored their existence altogether, able to navigate the Crest into hyperspace and exist comfortably around you without ever addressing the giant bantha in the room.  Maybe that’s part of the reason you floundered so hard—he didn’t avoid you, he held the kid while you took a shower in the small fresher, and even though he was quieter around you than he’d been in awhile, he gave no indication that anything was wrong at all.

You spent that time getting clean but also formulating some sort of plan.  As you bathed in actual water for the first time in a week and scrubbed your body clean, you tried to figure out at least why you were having so much trouble coming up with something to say, but even then, words evaded you.  You spent the entire time staring blankly at the metal wall, at a complete fucking loss.

When you came out of the fresher with wet hair and comfortable clothing to sleep in, Din was armorless and resting in your makeshift bed on the floor, the baby tucked soundly in his crib next to him.  You turned off the lights and carefully found your way under the blankets next to him in the pitch blackness, feeling him lazily reach around you and pull you to rest against his chest.  His fingers gently drew circles along your arm for maybe the first few minutes while you worked up the nerve to speak.  You needed to say something, this was your chance—

But then his hand soon fell to rest in one place on your shoulder and he passed out.  Helmet on, not even a few minutes of your quiet breathing next to him.

So now, you’re here, just… a little ball of stress in the middle of paradise.  Hours have passed, you need sleep after such a physically exhausting week but it’s like you haven’t even processed the fucking proposition he presented to you yet.  You’re having trouble even thinking the words, that’s how much he’s got you fucked up.

He said… hit the target and I’ll ma…. hit the target and I’ll marrrrr…

Fuck.  You stay on that loop for ages until your eyes begin to grow heavy, until you just settle on thinking about it with them closed.  Slow breaths from Din under one ear, the silence of hyperspace all around you—how are you supposed to contemplate when his body is so warm?  No, you can ask tomorrow, you’ll ask him tomorrow.

Eventually, you’re able to drift off into a troubled slumber, dreaming of bells made of beskar that deafen anyone who rings them.

***

You wake up what feels like two minutes later.

It’s not, but you don’t know that.  You’re so warm and the second your eyes open, they start stinging and burning and tearing up like your body just wants to cry for even being awake right now.  You finally got to sleep—you moan pitifully and start to turn your head further into the warm blankets, but then a gloved hand smooths your hair back and a voice whispers quiet through the darkness.

“I have to go.”

And oh, his touch is just the gentlest thing, but what he says makes your already fragile mental state want to shatter.  The first words he gives you in hours and they’re the ones you loathe to hear the most.

“W-Wha?  No,” you whimper and automatically reach for him, your throat starting to close up.  Maker, you’re so tired, you’re so tired, you feel so fucking emotional and vulnerable right now and you’re not even awake enough to realize it.  “Why?”

Din just catches your hands and brings both of them together in front of him, slowly pressing your knuckles to the cold beskar on the face of his helmet.

“I meet with Karga in three days,” he murmurs back, voice pillow-soft and barely loud enough to come through the steel under your fingers.  It’s gentle and lulling and it makes you want to sleep again, but you can’t and you feel like you could burst into tears for that reason alone.  “He gave me four pucks, I need four bodies.”

You can’t argue with it, the logic is perfectly sound.  But you still want to, and everything inside you revolts at the thought of allowing him leave like this without fighting for more.  Which means you have absolutely nothing reasonable or compelling to say to appeal to him; all you’re left with the glaring truth.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you whisper, tightening your fingers.

And, perhaps if you were even half-conscious, you’d wince.  You’d cringe at the shake in your voice, you’d remind yourself that he has to make a living, he’s said it over and over again.  If you were completely awake, you’d scold yourself for being such a needy mess, but right now, all you can think about is how much you want him to stay, just this once.

After a moment, you feel the gloves carefully collect both of your hands into just one of his, and then he slowly reaches out with his free hand to cradle your jaw.

“I won’t be gone long,” Din murmurs.  “I can’t be.”

Your head turns slowly in his palm, and you’re just so, so sleepy.  Your voice is small and your words slur.  “Stay with me.”

Quiet, and though you can’t see him, the leather continues to press so warm to your cheek.  Your eyes slowly drift shut, needing him to stay exactly like this, stay right here just like this.  Karga can wait, the quarry can wait, the galaxy can wait—everything else can wait when things are like this, when he’s looking down at you breathing slow into his palm.

You’re almost asleep again when you hear him say something.

But… you have no idea what he says.  You hear it.  You hear his voice come through the pitch black, quiet enough to sit just on top of the silence and let the mysterious words simply become a part of it, but it’s strange.  Like his cadence lilts in a different way, the vowels are longer than what you’re used to, and your comprehension abruptly falters like it would if he was speaking another language altogether.

Maybe it’s just because it’s the first thing to pull you back from the edges of sleep, that has to be right.  It doesn’t sound like Basic because your mind is stupid and slow right now.  You need to ask him to repeat himself, but all that you can muster is the soft sound of confusion, not even able to open your eyes anymore.

His hands pull away from you and once again, you suddenly can’t decide between sleep and crying, quickly lifting and trying to reach out for him in the darkness.  You can’t feel anything, it’s like he’s completely disappeared from where you assumed he’d be, except then something tiny is placed into your hands instead and it makes an unhappy little sound at being disturbed.  You automatically hold the baby close to your chest and strong hands touch your shoulders, urging you to lay back down again.

“Leave the engine running, you’ll freeze if you don’t,” he mutters, quickly tucking the blankets up under your body while you close your eyes and feel the tears wet your lashes.  Fuck, you’re so exhausted, you just need to sleep.  “If I’m not back in sixteen hours, I’ll use my e-comm and you’ll have to fly out to me.”

He steps away from you, walks quickly and with purpose to the side of the hull, and a blast of frigid air fills the room before the door is slammed shut behind him.

***

Your head hurts.

Sparks and wires give your fingers mean, zapping reminders to pay attention every time your focus slips, but you still feel like you’re in a daze.

“Come on,” you drone, trying to use your voice to snap yourself back into the present, but the sound of it isn’t even interesting enough to pull you away.  “Come on.”

Maker, you’re going fucking crazy.  Is this just all an elaborate scheme to make you experience the same kind of insanity he told you he struggles with in your absence?  Because you don’t like this—you hate feeling like this, you can’t concentrate on anything and even if he hadn’t instructed you to do so, you’d likely still be counting the hours of his absence.

Fourteen have passed so far, not the sixteen you’re waiting for but getting close.  It’s one thing you’ve been able to accomplish.  Counting.  You can still count right now, so at least there’s that.

Oh, and another hoop you’ve jumped through.  Understanding words.  You can listen and repeat, even if you still can’t fully comprehend, but you’re getting there.

Din said… hit the target and I’ll marry you.

He said that.  Yep.  You’ve accepted it, you’ve accepted the words that were said.  Indeed.

Okay, but now… like…

What did he mean by that?  Why did he say that?

No matter how much you tell yourself he was just messing around—no matter how many times you offer up that perfectly logical answer to the burning question you’ve been sitting on, you still aren’t satisfied with it.  Something keeps tugging your mind back to it, a tether constantly pulling you away from the work that’s designed to be your distraction.

You frown down at the box of machinery.  Whelp, if he was serious, he’d probably immediately take the offer back after witnessing your behavior this morning.  You embarrassed yourself terribly, you acted like a clingy baby in the looming shadow of unconsciousness and what’s worse, you can’t even remember what he said after you begged him to stay.  It could’ve been a quiet, “Stars, pull yourself together,” for all you know.

And honestly, just… fuck these electronics.  You’re at the point where you’d probably cheer on whatever brutal impact damaged them so atrociously if you weren’t also well aware that this box was very likely attached to Din’s chest when it was crushed.  The magnetics are a complete mess, and you’re mostly just attempting to see how the individual components of each piece are supposed to communicate.  Turning the switch on doesn’t do much at all besides make the capacitors put out heat.  Not enough to shut it down or be a hazard to the housing when you close it, but enough to know that it’s going to present a problem for you at some point.

What’s more, you’re so lost in your own thoughts and busywork that you don’t see two green ears poking out over the top of the pile of armor on your temporary workstation (literally just the floor) until one of the thigh braces comes clattering down and the whole thing collapses with a ruckus.

You suddenly shove the metal box away from you in frustration and you reach for the little troublemaker with a sigh, scooping him up and getting to your feet.

“This isn’t going to work,” you grunt to him, hearing your words better for some reason when you direct them at the baby instead of talking to yourself, and his eh? allows the thoughts to come clearer and easier.  No, you can’t be distracted when your distraction is just another part of your status quo, you can’t use fixing mechanics to occupy yourself because it’s what you’ve done to occupy yourself your entire life, it’s worn off at this point.  You need something newer.  Something that takes your entire focus to do.

Eventually, your eyes drift over to the one metal panel on the wall that you’ve rarely ever opened.  One that takes up a comparatively enormous amount of space in the hull considering what you know it holds.  You eye the kid in your arm, who suddenly has sneaky painted all over his expression.  “You thinking what I’m thinking, demon?”

He squeaks his affirmative and you move over to the armory, pressing a few buttons before the doors slide open by themselves.  Because of course Mando invested in hydraulics for the gun closet but not for the hidden cot he used to sleep on, of course.

“Maker above,” you groan as the metal slides open, needing to lift your chin to eye the enormous collection.  How many fucking…?  All this for just one person?  What does that big one in the middle do that the others stacked strategically around it don’t?  They all kill whatever you point and shoot at, you’re assuming?  Are you missing something?

The baby makes a tiny sound of awe as you carefully look over your choices, not expecting nearly this many to be offered, before settling on one that looks the simplest.  A sleek silver one that’s still too big for your hand but smaller than anything else on the rack.

Grabby fingers reach out for the shiny metal as soon as you remove it from the shelf and you very purposefully set it down out of his pitiful wingspan.  “Nope.  Now come on, gotta bundle up.”

You make your way back over to the bed and pull one of the thickest blankets up, settling it over the open shield and then situating your partner in crime in his usual spot inside.  You strategically stuff and stack the fabric around him to make sure he’ll be warm enough in what you know has to be far below freezing temperatures, lifting it up over his ears and wrapping it around his neck in a loose hood.  He blinks up at you with gigantic eyes and an open mouth, clearly thrilled about your willingness to go on an adventure with him this time instead of being the tall nuisance that consistently holds him back from one, and you scoff down at him as you partially close the lid on his levitating nest of blankets for extra protection.  He should be warm enough, you’re not going to be outside long.

And then you pull out nearly half the amount of clothes you own and suit up in what feels like ten layers before grabbing the blaster.  The swirling wind nearly shoves the heavy hull door into you as soon as you open it and—Maker.

You look back at the kid behind you for a second, wondering if it’s too late to change your mind.  His expression narrows and he makes a triumphant ha! while pointing three fingers at the grey blizzard through the small open space in his crib.  Try as you might, you can’t ignore a call to arms when delivered with such ferocity.

Both of you step outside and take in the view after you wrestle with the door to haul it shut.  You don’t know the name of this planet but from what you can see, it’s one giant ice ball, mountainous and cold as fuck.  Though, to be honest, your only indication that it’s truly cold as fuck is the continuously accumulating snow blanketing the landscape and the flurries dancing in the whipping wind.  You’re too warm-blooded for climates like these—anything below room temperature and you’re freezing, you have absolutely no tolerance for cold whatsoever.

Keeping that in mind, you don’t travel far at all.  Just a few steps beyond the entrance to your shelter before eyeing what appears to be a large white boulder in the distance.  There’s a solid target, you figure—you’ll be able to see chunks splintering off when you hit it and the ice isn’t strong enough to bounce plasma back, you won’t have any ricochets.

Okay.  Okay—safety, where’s the safety on this one?  Ah, yes, okay—safety, off.  Stance, find your stance.  There it is.  Alright, now lift.  Lift, get that stupid frozen ball right in your sights, line it up.  Hold.  Hold.  Hold.

Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale—

Fire.

You watch with bated breath as the bright red bolt launches from the end of the barrel and travels across the distance before melting a hole in the snow just to the right of your target.

“Mother fucker!”  You yell into the frigid landscape without warning, suddenly infuriated.  What’s the point of even having a sight if every gun is just gonna say fuck you no matter what?  Could there be some sort of mathematical reason why you seem to be fucking atrocious at this, you wonder?  Are you fucking up the angle somehow while trying to read the scope?  Should you just ignore it and try to aim without thinking too hard?

Admittedly, you spend the next five minutes shooting at that stupid fucking thing, not making a single shot.  It’s not been long at all, but your entire body is already trembling uncontrollably and it is just too fucking cold out here.  Freezing your fucking ass off isn’t going to help your aim of course, but it’s almost just tragic at this point.  Either you’ve got to accept that you’re just absolutely hopeless at this, or you’ve got to… blame the little womprat behind you for messing up your shots, yeah.  It wouldn't surprise you.

As a last ditch effort, you consider trying something a bit ridiculous to see if he really is fucking with you.

“I’m firing one last shot,” you call out loudly over the sound of the bristling wind and flurries, making sure he can hear your narration from his little blanket cave behind you.  “If I hit the target… I will present our demon overlord with a chunk of raw meat later for dinner.”

You give the offer a moment to sink in before raising the blaster, and then you jerk it up at the very last second while pulling the trigger.  The arc of plasma quickly disappears into the gloomy skies over the top of the ice boulder, completely straight.

You switch the safety on and turn around to say something smart to him, but… well.  Uh.  That’s an empty crib.

Sudden panic rips through you at the sight of the wide open shield, the blanket left abandoned inside.  Your head whips around in horror, wondering where the fuck he could’ve gone—but then you’re able to spot tiny footprints in the snow.  Your eyes quickly follow them up and see the baby wading his way up a large hill, slow against the terrain and trying in vain to get to something at the very top.

You drop the blaster and bolt through the blizzard to get to him while calling out through the freezing air and wishing, not for the first time, that you had a name to roar and strike fear into his tiny little heart.  In this case, you prefer a middle name as well.

Finally reaching him and yanking him up from the snow, you tuck him under the warmest part of your arm and open your mouth to start venting the terror from your body, but he makes a distressed noise and starts climbing.  You fumble with him on your way back down, not expecting that response, but he’s so distraught and preoccupied that he’s unable to stay still, trying to find different ways of escaping your grasp and making more and more sounds to indicate something is wrong.

“What the fuck are you—” you stuff him into the shield and at least get the blankets wrapped around him before looking back and trying to spot whatever he’s still wiggling and attempting to get to.  Frustrated cries start filling the icy air and… okay.  “Okay,” you tell him, your breath puffing like smoke in front of you, “okay okay, we can go look, but you need to stay warm.”

You clutch the edge of his metal shield and urge it to follow you back up the snowy hill, feeling the crunch of your feet disappear further and further into it as you climb.  Your outer two layers are probably soaked by now—stars, it’s so fucking cold.  You know you’re not exactly the best judge, but you’ve been outside less than five minutes and you’re already worried about getting sick or frostbite, already jumpy and wanting to go back to the warmth of the hull.

But as you reach the top and look out in the distance, you can just barely make out a familiar metallic glint on the horizon.  

Your heart picks up, but the baby makes another distressed sound.  Not… happy, not thrilled that his dad is coming back.  Some strange sort of dread begins to fill you, carefully holding the kid in his shield with one hand and looking at the bright reflection of light a little ways away just to make sure it’s…

No, it’s not moving.  Not disappearing and reappearing, not catching the sunlight differently.  Completely stationary in this absolutely horrendous weather.

You immediately make your way in that direction, your body deciding to outright abandon its trembling in the wake of this newfound worry.  You’re suddenly sweating, way too warm.  That’s Din, you recognize the glint of his armor anywhere, but why isn’t he moving?

The closer you get, the faster you move and the more you’re able to see.  He’s laying facedown in the snow.  There’s quite a bit of it covering the back of his cape, maybe a few inches, and… there’s also someone laying equally as lifeless behind him.  Your heart is slamming now, you’re doing your best to run in the unforgiving terrain, and you finally see that it’s… a corpse, a frozen corpse is behind him with a rope tied around its ankles, clutched tight in Din’s unmoving fist as it lays against the pure white backdrop.

“Mando?”  You call out, dropping to your knees as soon as you reach him.  “Hey—hey, can you hear me?”

The beskar strapped to him is frozen over and feels colder than ice when you try to shake him.  He doesn’t respond.  He’s dead weight; you do your best to turn him over on his back, but you still get nothing from him.  You shove your trembling fingers up under the helmet, and the only reassurance you have that he’s even alive comes from the petrifyingly slow pulse beating underneath.  His skin is ice cold.

Shit, he’s still breathing but he’s hypothermic, you have to get him back to the Crest right fucking now.

You fumble to get in position above his head while hooking both your arms under his, before leaning everything you have into it—but fuck, he’s so heavy.  You can barely lift him even just a few inches off the ground—the snow is deep, his armor makes him weigh a ton and the fabric wrapped around him is sopping wet.  You try again, making a tight sound in your throat while you haul, but it’s no use.

“Fuck,” you curse, starting to panic even fucking harder.  You’re gasping and breathless and getting dizzy and scared, continuing to try and find different angles to heave—

—until suddenly the burden is lifted.

You nearly fall backwards on your ass at the abrupt removal of tension, playing tug-of-war with a team that decided to give up with no warning.  But it’s like it almost doesn’t even phase you; you don’t even look behind you to see the baby’s eyes closed tight in concentration, you just recover and pull with both arms, feeling Din’s body gliding easily along the snow now and leading him all the way back down the hill.

Once you get inside the Crest and shut the door to the raging blizzard behind the three of you, there’s an extended moment where you just… you don’t know what to do.  You know all about how to deal with heatstroke, but this is the opposite—he either spent too long in the cold, or he exhausted himself trying to get back too quickly and then spent too long in the cold.  He said he’d use his e-comm if he wasn’t back in sixteen hours—was that the cutoff?  The point where the temperature outside would shut his body down and he’d need you to come get him?

Regardless, you need to warm him up.  Yes, that’s your priority, and you figure the quickest and safest way to accomplish it has to be the shower in slow increments.  The kid helps you move Din into the tiny fresher in the hull and then you sit on the floor with him, holding his limp body to your chest while reaching up to turn the faucet on.

Cold water sprays down and then suddenly—oof, he’s heavier than fuck again.  Air leaves your lungs and your neck cranes back under the unexpected increase in pressure on top of you to see the kid climbing down from his shield, no longer focused on mentally bearing most of his father’s weight or directing his own hovering form of transportation along behind you.  The baby disappears out of sight and you huff, completely trapped under Din as freezing water rains down on you.

Fuck, it’s so cold.  It’s way too fucking cold for you, but your core body temperature is also mostly normal right now.  Din’s isn’t, you’ll probably shock his system if you try to warm him up too quickly.  So you reach up and twist the knob, keeping it at a temperature he’d probably find just the slightest bit warm while inspiring violent shudders from you.

“H-Hey, I’m gonna t-t-take this off, o-okay—” you stutter down at him, knowing damn well he isn’t conscious to hear you but giving him that reassurance on the small chance he is, and then reach with trembling fingers to work at his armor.  You worry that the beskar is keeping the cold trapped the same way his clothes are, like having solid pieces of ice strapped to his body and nothing to protect him besides a few layers of soaking wet fabric.

The chestpiece comes off and you throw it blindly over your shoulder into the hull with a clang—admittedly, without thinking about where the baby is at all anymore.  The pauldrons come off next, but not before you reach up and turn the heat up just the slightest bit.  Your jerky limbs just want to blast it and remove the rest of his clothes in steamy hot water, but you can’t.  Even though your mind is hurtling at a thousand lightyears an hour, whatever reason you have left reminds you that you have to be patient or risk losing him entirely.

Eventually you’re able to get all the armor off but you hate the way he’s breathing right now.  Slow and shallow, like he just doesn’t really need the air at all but his body is still fighting for it on instinct.  His chest barely moves with it even when it’s got nothing weighing it down.

“You’ll b-be okay,” you say aloud, talking to the both of you even though only one is capable of responding.  “Y-Y-You’ll be o-okay—”

You reach up to inch the temperature a little higher, shivering terribly now.  His body feels slightly warmer under the shower than it did with the beskar, but you know you need to keep going and take the fabric off now.  Maker, it’s nearly impossible—the black clothing clings to his skin and its such a small space to maneuver, but it gives your mind and hands a clear goal to focus on while the water incrementally heats up.

Strangely, your adrenaline has been rocketing for so long that you almost lose track of time.  You just keep deadly focused on your task of undressing him and slowly heating the shower, trying not to think, trying not to get in your head and bring about disaster in such a crucial set of moments.

At some point, the water is warm.  Comfortably warm, and Din’s body isn’t ice cold anymore.  It’s warm, too, laying back into your chest and naked besides the helmet, but he’s still not moving.  No response, no matter how much mindless drabble you supply, no matter how steamy and hot the shower has become, no matter how much your own body has heated up.  Your fingers have found their home under his jaw, pressed right to his pulse point and feeling it continue to beat slow and faint, but you’re starting to feel the terror set in.  Real terror, the kind that makes you stupid and emotional, the kind that turns you back into a child again.

“I don’t know if it’s working,” you suddenly choke out, close to tears.  He’s warm, what else can you do for him?  Why is he not waking up?  “I-I don’t know what to do, Din, I…”

No—no, you cannot lose your shit, not yet.  You will exhaust every fucking option before you let that fear set in.  He’s not waking up because he needs to recover, his body needs time to work things out in a warm, comfortable environment.  He’s breathing, his heart is beating, he’s warm, and he’s still with you, so… you need to still be with him.

You turn the water off and clumsily get up, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him back into the hull.  He’s still heavy but it’s so much easier than before to move him; there’s no armor weighing him down anymore besides the helmet, no cape or snow or friction to catch him, no cold to lock your muscles up.  It’s slow going but you’re finally able to settle him in the warmth of your shared bed and then cover his body in the collection of blankets you’ve amassed.  You stand up and peel off all your wet layers of clothing, letting them plop to the metal floor while glancing around for the kid—

—who is currently swinging from the ladder to the cockpit with one hand.

It startles you for just a moment, just long enough for you to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing up there, but then you figure that if he found some way to get up there then he can surely find his way back down again.

As you quickly drop to the bed and scoot up next to Din’s limp body under the blankets, the Crest’s engine suddenly gives a low rumble below the floor and heat starts blowing through the hull vents.  Again, you’re too preoccupied to even notice the gift much.  You’re tugging and tucking blankets around him and up under the metallic edge of his helmet when...

Maker, you need to take this off.  If the inside is wet, it’s probably keeping his head cold while the rest of him is warm from the shower.  You know it’s not a light thing—you know… you know at least a fraction of what this means.  You won’t look, you won’t look unless something absolutely drastic happens and it’s completely unavoidable, but you need to take his helmet off.

You catch the shoulder furthest from you and tug at his heavy body until he’s on his side, facing you on the bed.

“Din, I have to take your helmet off,” you warn him, saying it slowly and clearly.  Again, just in case.  “I’m not gonna look.  Nobody is gonna look—” your gaze flicks behind him to eye the baby, who is now somehow on the metal ground and waddling up to you both.  He blinks enormous black eyes at you, looking between you and his father huddled together under the blankets.

“Close your eyes,” you tell him very seriously, no room for negotiating.  “I know you understand me.”

It takes just a few seconds before he lifts his hands up and does exactly what you say, placing his fingers over his closed eyelids and then even so much as toddling around to face the wall.  You gasp in relief, clenching your eyes firmly shut and then pulling the helmet up, making sure you catch his head before it falls with one hand while tossing the beskar somewhere in the hull with the other.

Cold.  His hair is soaking wet and so cold, and his head rolls slightly as you guide it to rest in the warmest part of your neck.  Your hand stays attached to the back of it, wanting to transfer every single bit of warmth from your palm to him, and your eyes open to the kid’s back as your other arm wraps around Din’s bare spine.

And then all at once, you just feel… helpless.  He’s in your arms but Maker, you don’t know what else you can do.  The heat is blasting, you’re warm and pressed against him under multiple blankets, the engine is slowly heating the metal floor, but his breathing.  Slow.  Shallow.  Barely able to be felt against your neck.  He’s here but he’s not.  And you have no way of knowing if he’s getting closer or further away from you.

Tears start coming before you even realize.  But you have nothing to say.  After spending the entire time talking out loud, providing reassurances, narrating, distracting yourself—you don’t have anything anymore.  The silence twists you tighter, the nothing becomes inescapable, and the sudden sob that leaves you echoes hauntingly throughout the hull.  You pull his limp body as close to you as possible for comfort.  Wake up.  Wake up.

Your vision is watery—you don’t see it.  You don’t see the kid slowly turn around and take a few steps forward.  You only notice he’s there when green catches in the abstract blur, but you sniff and blink quickly to clear it.  It only takes a second to see the baby’s hand, extending and pressing against the blanket covering Din’s back, and you watch with wide eyes as he closes his.

And then there’s a second.  A second where you dare to hope.  Where you wonder if it’s even something that can be done.

The kid lowers his hand just a moment later and stumbles back a few steps, before plopping down on the ground and slowly falling backwards.  You have just enough time to see his little body inhale and exhale a few times as he sleeps, and then—

—and then Din suddenly jolts in your arms, bursting with too much life after spending too many heart wrenching moments without it.

“Shhh,” you breathe, instantly tightening your grip on the back of his head so he doesn’t pull away from you in a panic and keeping it tucked into the warmest part of your neck, right where your pulse thrums fast and present.  Your eyes clench tightly shut just in case and your heart bursts with pure, blinding, heavenly relief.  “Shhh sh sh, stay right here, just stay right here…”

As soon as he seems to recognize your voice and figure out that he’s not dead, his body immediately starts wreaking with shivers.  You squeeze him tight to you, feeling his large, quaking frame curl inwards into you for warmth, burying his own face into your neck even further and breathing shallow but quickly now, like his body actually wants the air again.  You do your best to will your blood to pump faster and provide him that relief, stretching and opening your body as much as possible to give him warmth.

And then you spend the next few hours like that.  Holding him, murmuring gently to him, providing him with your body heat and stars, he fucking clings to you.  He presses tight to you and trembles, and you don’t even know if he’s listening, but you keep talking.  Finding words for hours, and while some of them are just different ways of saying the same thing, you say them anyway.

He’s okay.  The kid is okay.  Everyone is okay.

Eventually, the shivering dies down until it stops altogether.  Din stays in one place and goes completely limp again, but this time he continues to breathe you in, slow and deep into the crook of your neck.  Fast asleep in your arms, and you thank the good fucking Maker above for the little angel passed out on the floor behind him.

***

He has to meet with Karga in two days.

After a few more hours of holding him and making absolutely sure he’s going to be alright, that’s all you can stupidly think about.

A deadline.  A very quickly approaching one.

You don’t know why.  But it might have something to do with the fact that you want nothing more than to climb up into the cockpit and navigate the ship off this horrid planet, and you can’t.  You’re confident that the hull and blankets are warm enough by themselves to keep Din comfortable as he recovers, and you’ve also had quite a while to regroup and get your mind thinking logically again, so you’re not worried about getting up and leaving him right now, no.  That’s not the problem.

The problem is that there’s a corpse outside.  You know this.  You know it’s there, and you know he needs it.  Nobody’s gonna take his word for just saying they’re dead, much less pay him for his services; no body, no bounty.  You also know it’s probably being covered with fresh snow right now, or maybe some sort of wild animal has already gotten their teeth into it, if anything can even survive out there.  And you’re the only one awake.  The only one capable of going to get it.

You’ve been arguing with yourself.  For about an hour, you’ve been struggling with the thought.  Din is soft and warm and every breath makes you focus less on the terrifying moments that occurred and more on the need to step up once again.

In the end, it’s the kid who gives you the final push.  You’re not going to leave him laying on the floor like that for any longer.  Not after what he did.

You take a second, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up all the way over Din’s head as it rests warm and comfortable in your neck.  You’re incredibly careful to cover his face, and even while climbing out of the warm cocoon of the bed, you keep your eyes firmly shut and continue to pull the fabric even higher, making absolutely sure you’re not going to see his face on accident.  You shouldn’t, you don’t think, as long as he doesn’t jerk awake and pull it down himself, but you want to take extra precaution regardless.

After quickly yanking on some clothes, you immediately make your way over to the kid and pick him up, seeing his little mouth open as he snores—and oh, you just have to.  You pull him to your chest and give him the most heartfelt, thankful embrace you can while not squishing him, before setting him down in his much more comfortable hovering blanket palace and closing the lid on it.

You know you have a very clear task now, but for just a few moments longer, you do your best to stall despite the ticking clock.  You start to pick up the mess in the hull—you close the fresher door, pick up Din’s discarded armor and set it in a neat pile close to the bed, place the helmet under the vent to encourage the padding inside to dry faster, and then you collect his old armor and stuff it back into one of the storage cubbies with your toolbox.

Only, an idea suddenly occurs to you as you’re putting away the chestpiece.  When you open the door to the hull, you know that a blast of cold air is going to flood the ship.  The engine is still heating everything inside and making sure you don’t get trapped in the snow by continuously melting it on the outside, but you don’t want Din to start shivering again.

So you grab the dented piece of electronics you were working on and flip the power switch, feeling the capacitors slowly start to heat up inside the housing.  You go back over and lift the blanket near his feet just enough to tuck the metal under it, close enough to Din that he’ll feel the same amount of warmth your body was providing him but not enough to overheat.

And then you make your way over to your bag and pull on the rest of your clothes, now exhausting almost every single clean thing you own just to make another trek through the snow.  You’re in the middle of pulling on your fifth pair of pants when the thought truly sinks in.

A corpse.  A dead body.  That you’re actually considering going out into the worst fucking weather in the galaxy to search for, haul back to the ship, and put into carbonite.  Because of a fucking deadline for an occupation very much not your own, very much not chosen by you.

You quickly walk over and leave through the door on the side of the hull before you can change your mind, slamming it shut behind you.

***

Well, it’s…  It’s not too terrible, you guess.

It’s been frozen out here for hours, that’s why.  It’s not bloody, not gory, not demented or malformed in any way.  Tranquil almost, like the creature died in its sleep in this nightmarish landscape, perfectly at peace.

You still don’t want to get anywhere close to it, but you have to.  You pull a face and slowly reach out, absolutely not thinking about the literal impossibility of it playing dead and just waiting for the moment to strike, but even still…  Even if there was nothing more sinister hiding underneath the surface of this scene, it’s still… existentially fucked up.  The last time you were confronted with a dead body, Din had to be the one to dispose of it—you couldn’t even think about it without threatening another wave of shock to your system.

And now you’re voluntarily grabbing the rope around one’s ankles and dragging it back down the pure white slope to the Razor Crest.

It doesn’t weigh that much and its icy exterior seems to work in your favor; it slides easily along the snow as soon as you get it moving.  As the ship comes back into view, you hurry to the door and you’re just about to open it when you suddenly get the feeling that you’re forgetting something…

Oh—

It takes a few moments of searching around in the freshly fallen snow, but eventually your fingers brush metal underneath and you stand, reaching behind you to tuck the blaster into your waistband.  When you’re positive you’re not going to accidentally shoot a chunk of your ass off on accident, you shove open the door and pull the body inside, before locking it tight behind you and keeping the frigid winter from touching this warm, quiet safe-haven.

There.  Halfway done.  You almost don’t want to look in case he wakes up unexpectedly, but then you find yourself peeking over your shoulder at the silhouette of Din’s body still passed out under the blankets and you’re thankful the squeaks and slams didn’t disturb him.

And then you take just a second to wonder if this is what it must be like for him.  Minus your obvious discomfort and ickiness at beginning to haul the corpse over to the carbonite chamber, it seems like it’d be reminiscent of any other time he’s brought back a dead quarry while you and the baby slept soundly.  Trying to be quiet, wanting it done and over with just to get back in bed that much faster, doing everything you can to prevent anything out there from so much as breathing on anything in here.

You do your best to hold on to the loveliness of the thought, because this part is the part you’re most anxious about.

The body needs to go into this slanted upright space so you can freeze it in carbonite.  And in order to do that, you have to grab it and put it there.  With your hands, you have to grab it.  With your hands.

You look down at its face, calm and at peace, frozen and forever etched into that expression, and something twists in your heart.  If it weren’t for the kid, that could’ve been Din.  If it weren’t for the kid walking barefoot through snow, fighting an uphill battle to make sure you get to him, helping you drag him back here and then overexerting himself to make sure he’d be okay, that could’ve been Din.  He drives you crazy on a consistent basis, but he came through today.

Know what?  If that little squirt can save a grown man’s life twice in a few hours, then the least you can do is finish this job for all three of you and fly your asses out of here.

Weirdly enough, being frozen solid allows for way better handling than the alternative.  It means you don’t actually have to touch it too much; you don’t have to deal with the limpness of death, it doesn’t seem as much like a person as it does a rigid board you’re simply moving from one place to another.  You can just grab the shoulders and yank and the entire fucking thing goes with it, solid and upright, naturally wanting to lean back into the chamber so you don’t even have to hold it in place.  The perfect quarry for you basically, day one stuff, as easy as it could get.

Almost done, almost done—you study the key panel on the upper-right frame before eventually pressing a few buttons, and then you step back as gas freezes and solidifies the corpse in its carbonite prison.

Yes.  You’re done.  You already want to take another shower just from touching it for a few seconds, but that can wait.  Quickly making your way up the ladder and into the cockpit, you fire up the thrusters and then navigate the ship through and beyond the swirling white atmosphere of this dreadful fucking planet, before punching in familiar coordinates to Nevarro.

***

“Din,” you murmur, making sure you have your eyes completely covered with one hand before gently easing the blanket down from his face with the other.  “Din, I want you to drink some wat—”

He jerks awake so suddenly that you hear the metal canteen fall over on the floor next to you, thank the Maker its lid is on tight.  You automatically reach out to steady him, pressing your free hand to his bare chest and continuing to speak calmly and gently to reassure him, but he still scrambles to take in his surroundings after sleeping longer than he probably has in weeks.  

You know what he’s seeing, even though you’re blind right now.  You took time to make sure everything was settled before waking him.  The hull is clean with only a single light to illuminate it, the baby is still snoozing in his closed crib, his armor is stacked in a neat pile, the blaster is put away, and you retired your makeshift blanket heater box so the only thing left is you.  Freshly showered, hair dripping, offering him water, and dressed in just a thin shirt with nothing else (you ran out of things to wear).

“Wh-Where’s my h-h-helmet—” is the first thing he asks, voice broken and raspy.  Stars, he needs water.

“The padding inside is wet,” you quickly supply, keeping your hand tight over the bridge of your eyes to make sure his freshly conscious mind immediately understands that you have no bad intentions.  “I swear I didn’t look, and I made sure the kid didn’t either.  He’s sleeping now, it’s just me—I swear nobody looked, I swear.”

You might just be saying the exact same thing over and over again and admittedly, that might be putting some weird kind of suspicion on you, but you just want to make sure he knows.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It’s important that he knows he’s safe and that everything is okay now, even if he collapsed and spent an unknown amount of time in a purgatory where nothing was.

His body trembles under your palm, waves of shudders attacking him even after hours of keeping him as warm as possible.  “Are—Are we st-still on H-Ho—H-Hoth—”

“No,” you answer.  “We’re in hyperspace.  Everything’s okay now, I took care of it.  We’ll get to Nevarro on time.”

It’s like he takes just a few extra moments, as if he’s trying extra hard to remember before responding.  “But—I d-didn’t—”

“You have four bodies for Karga,” you tell him, not letting him get too lost trying to recall something that no longer poses an issue.  “I took care of it.  You need rest, I only woke you up to make sure you drink some water, so please—” you blindly reach your hand out for the canteen you know has to be around here somewhere, but all you feel is…

His.  Catching yours.

“Y-You took c-c-care of…”  His hands are trembling harder than his voice.  “Sh-shit, I’m freezing, I—”

“Drink some water,” you tell him, squeezing his fingers.  “I’ll go turn off the light so you can sleep more, but you need water.”

His hand feels like it doesn’t quite want to let go of yours yet, but eventually it does and you hear the sloshing of water as the metal flask is picked up with an unsteady grip.  Purposefully turning your back to him and making sure he’s not in your line of sight whatsoever, you finally let your hand drop and blink your eyes open at the wall across the hull.  You hear Din shakily unscrew the lid while you stand up and find the light switch, before turning around in the pitch blackness and using his loud gulps as your guide back.

Your hands and knees are barely on the blanket when you hear him toss the empty canteen to the side and grab you, pulling you down to him.  

Fuck, you’re not expecting it.  You fumble in the dark but he doesn’t really give your clumsiness much of a choice—Din pulls you under the blankets like he needs you, his body craving that warmth even though his skin doesn’t feel cold at all.  He hooks a strong forearm around your tummy, keeping your back pressed tight to his chest while the rest of him curls to fit every part of you, and you have to adjust the blankets yourself.

It’s not even a few seconds after you settle into position when his trembling hands jerk down to grab your shirt and yank it up.  You quickly scramble to help him get you as naked as he is, feeling his palms drag greedily across the heat of your tummy and breasts before you’ve even finished wiggling the fabric over your head.  The shirt lands somewhere in the darkness and you’re squeezed back against him, your hands landing on his forearms as they wrap around your waist and he clings shamelessly to you.

“You…”  Din’s body still shivers every once in a while but the heat and closeness allows his voice to even out just a bit.  He clears his throat and swallows, tucking his head and burying his face in your hair before trying again.  “You brought back the qu-quarry?”

“Yes,” you confirm, confident in your reassurance but gentle at the same time.  “It’s in carbonite.”

All you can feel or hear in response is his breathing.  His heart beating steady and strong against your back.

And then Din’s arms suddenly squeeze you tight—tight.  He lets out a low shaky exhale against the back of your shoulder and presses his lips to your skin.  “Sweet girl.”

And he says just… so much with those two words.  Slow and purposeful, the steadiest thing you’ve heard from him in hours.  But the two biggest competing emotions you hear tugging at his vocal cords are gratitude and apprehension.  Like he already knows that it couldn’t have been easy for you.  Like he’s not taking it lightly.

You don’t want to talk about it.  You don’t want to talk about anything that happened in the past few hours, not right now.  “It’s okay.  Please.”

This time his silence seems to be on the brink, as if he wants to say more but the extra plea you put on the end makes him hold onto his words, at least for now.  

“How d-did you find me?”  He asks instead, scooting his legs up enough that yours actually go with him.  Cradled in his naked body, radiating heat so he can recover, pressed so close to him that you feel like gravity itself would be pushing you into his lap if the world weren’t sideways.

“The kid,” you tell him.  “We were goofing around outside and he dragged me ov—”

It’s like he’s still so cold that even just the surprise of hearing you say that makes his whole body lock down and convulse a few times against your back.  “You were wh-what?”

“I was practicing,” you openly admit to him, feeling like the earlier events already occurred a lifetime ago and you have no reason for being shy about it anymore.  In fact, you’re glad you were there, being terrible at shooting.  The alternative is unthinkable.  Though, something tells you also improbable, having a little supernatural sidekick who cares so deeply for him.  “I raided your armory.  We weren’t outside for more than five minutes before I wanted to go back in, but then he found you.”

And you think he’s going to get after you, for some reason.  Seems about on par, you figure—going outside for even just a few minutes on a planet whose name you now remember is colloquial slang for hell, even if it’s the only reason he’s not an icicle right now.

But he’s just quiet.  Breathing.  So you just relax into him, thinking that’s the end of it.  You take a few deep breaths in through your nose and just… rest.  In the near perfect silence of hyperspace you used to find haunting, but now only find comfort in.  It reminds you of him.

“Did you hit the target?”  He asks you quietly, and at first you scoff, about to ask if he’s kidding.  No, of course you didn’t hit the…

Only, after a remarkable delay, hearing him phrase it that way suddenly makes your stomach decide to drop and do a fucking somersault on the ground out of absolutely nowhere.

Everything comes flooding back.  The conflict you used to think was the most pressing thing, the one that kept you awake and your thoughts scrambled for hours.  It feels like it was ages ago.  An entire lifetime has passed since that happened, you might’ve forgotten it altogether if he didn’t decide to ask that very simple question in a very specific way.

“I…” you mumble in response, your heart suddenly pounding.  “Not… not yet.”

Okay, that’s a good answer.  It’s the truth and you’re giving nothing away by saying that.  So now what is he going to say?  What is he going to say?  You spoke your piece, it’s his turn now, that’s how conversations work.  Well typically, that’s how conversations work—but with Din… you probably should’ve known.

He falls back into silence almost immediately, appearing to accept your answer just the way it is without anything else to add.  You feel his heart continue to beat strong against your back, but there’s something too tense about his stillness that doesn’t imply he’s relaxing anymore.  His body goes slightly taut, but not from the lingering chill in his bones.

He’s going to make you ask him, you realize.  He’s waiting until you confront him about his choice in words at the shooting range.  Which means he wasn’t just joking around.  He wasn’t just messing with you.

“Din…” you whisper uncertainly, and his face suddenly finds its way into the crook of your neck as soon as the word leaves your mouth, arms tightening up around you.  You spent forever trying to find the words to even bring this up, and here he is, already knowing exactly what you’re asking just by the tone of your voice.  Still, you ask anyway, sounding small and so unsure of yourself in the darkness.  “Why did you say that?  On Tatooine, why did you…”

Din’s chest expands against your back with a long, slow breath, and then he lets it out against your neck, hot enough to raise goosebumps all over your body.

“I… don’t know,” he admits, voice muffled and quiet, but it’s not… casual.  Not like he’s brushing you off or indicating he doesn’t want to talk about it, but like it’s actually a complete fucking mystery to him, just as much as it is to you.  “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…” you repeat slowly.

“You had said something,” he mutters, shifting just a bit behind you.  His palm slides up your bare tummy, stopping in the warm spot just under the swell of your breast.  “Earlier that day.  I thought about it, and then I just… s-said it.”

You?  Said something that made him ask that?

“What?”  You blurt out, genuinely startled and having no fucking clue.  “What did I say?”

“Something about…”  He gives the smallest shudder from behind you, and you don’t actually know if this one is from the cold.  “Not wanting anyone else to know me the way you do.”

Your heart rapidly kicks up and you flush, hating how unbelievably possessive your own words sound coming out of his mouth.  “Oh shit, I… I didn’t mean for that to be… that sounds so bad, Din, I swear I didn’t mean for it to—”

He cuts you off by clutching you tighter, burying his face deeper into your neck and breathing out shakily.  “Tell me you meant every word.”

You blink a couple of times in the pitch black before sighing, letting go of any charade or front you think about putting up for him to save some dignity.  “I meant it.”

Because it’s the truth.  You said it when you were caught off guard, throwing it out to him along with other mindless drabble that came from a place that was very real.  You don’t like the way you phrased it, but you meant it.  You do mean it.  Every word.

If there weren't so many things still left unsaid right now, you might actually worry he fell asleep on you.  Din loosens up considerably after you admit it, letting go of more tightness you didn’t even know was inside him.  His head slowly drops from the crook of your neck to the back of it and he breathes hot air on your nape, quiet for a long time.

And, you suppose you’d actually be okay with it if that was the end of the conversation.  There are, of course, millions of things left to ask.  But he doesn’t know the answers, just as much as you’re left clueless about the questions.  You’re not expecting him to elaborate anymore, and if he’s waiting for you to ask, he’ll be waiting a long time.  Soon your eyes close and you almost feel yourself beginning to drift.  It’s been such a rough day today and to just be here in his arms, it’s more than enough for you.  

But then his low baritone comes through the darkness.

“In Mando’a,” Din’s voice suddenly whispers against your skin, “the verb, kar’taylir… it means to know.  Su kar’tayli, you know, kaysh kar’tayli, they know.  Ni ke kar’tayl nu… I don’t know.”

Your eyes pop open and you immediately forget all about sleep, wide awake and suddenly hanging onto every word as it rolls so gently off his tongue.  You’ve never heard the language spoken aloud, you’ve never heard anything about the Mandalorians directly from one before.  All of the stories seem sensationalized, passed down by word of mouth and chipping away at the kernel of truth until it disappears completely.

“The language is dying,” Din continues, murmuring soft and gentle along your nape.  “By the time I learned it, too many words had been lost.  The ones left were the ones that were needed.”

“What do you mean?”  You whisper, almost afraid of breaking the quiet.  Not wanting him to feel distracted or pressed, but needing to express your curiosity lest you somehow overflow with it.

“There are only three pronouns,” he answers slowly, and you’re already fucking fascinated.  “Ni, for I or we.  Su is you or you all, and kaysh is third person.  Subjective, objective, possessive, singular, plural—doesn’t matter.  Three words, for every individual or collective in the entire galaxy.”

You blink in the darkness, your logic telling you that it sounds so simple it’d become confusing and then your logic also telling you that doesn’t actually make any fucking sense at all.  If that’s true, it’s unbelievable.  How do they differentiate?  Just context?

“How do you distinguish?”  You ask him.  Admittedly, you don’t know much about linguistics—not anywhere near the extent he does, but it seems so counterintuitive.  I can’t be the same word for we, the amount of misunderstandings would be a nightmare.

“We… don’t need to,” he explains to you, slowly, like nobody has ever asked him these things before and so he’s unsure how to phrase it.  “Individuality isn’t valued, it’s not a concept.”

And… you almost can’t wrap your head around it.  “What do you mean?”  You ask again, knowing you’re sounding like a broken record without specifying more, but trying with your whole heart to understand.

“I mean… we swear oaths to never reveal our faces,” Din tells you, something you shouldn’t need to be reminded of.  “We abandon our names.  We become… whispers, of the same voice.  There’s not many words in Mando’a with a unique meaning, almost all of them are homonyms.  Interchangeable.  Transient.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, suddenly blown away by the implication.  Almost all of them are homonyms?  How in Maker’s name are you even supposed to communicate at that point?  That’s… unthinkable.

“Most words have two meanings?”  You clarify, wanting to be absolutely sure you’re getting it right.

“Most have five or six,” he returns, and you’re downright shocked now.  “Everything just depends.”

“Stars…”  You breathe, moving a palm up the length of his forearm and holding the back of his hand with it.  Fuck, you hope this is the direction he’s intending instead of veering him off course, but you’re incredibly invested.  “What else does, uh… kay—er, kar… kar’taylir mean?”

Din lets out a slow breath from behind you, and you can… you can feel his own heart beating faster when it presses up against your spine at the apex of his inhale.  “It’s… a rare word, it only has two meanings.”

You bite your lip and start to feel butterflies in your stomach for some reason.  Slowly, his hand begins to travel up your breast and then to your sternum before heading just the slightest bit left, and your own hand moves with him.

“To know,” Din says quietly, “but also… to care very deeply for.”  He doesn’t stop until his palm presses right above the rapidly pounding organ in your chest.  “To hold in the heart.”

“To know,” you swallow thickly, curling your fingers around his hand and praying he’s saying what you think he is, “or… to love?”

“When Mandalorian’s take vows, there’s no ceremony,” he whispers into the back of your neck.  “No witnesses, no celebrations.  We just take our helmets off in front of the other and look.  It doesn’t sound like much, but… our secrecy is our survival.  Letting someone see our face and swearing lifelong devotion to them, it’s the same thing.  To know is to love.”

Your eyes close tight and your lungs empty themselves, too full of emotion to even fit oxygen inside you anymore.  Din’s lips press feather soft behind your neck, and now you’re the one shivering uncontrollably.  The move up and trail along your neck in the darkness.

“Ni kar'tayl su,” he murmurs, shifting back just slightly and pulling at your shoulder.  “I know you.”

You go with him, facing the ceiling as he fits his head under your throat and places slow, open mouth kisses down the curve of it.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,” he goes on quietly, his voice starting to sound raspy again, dragging his hand down your torso while his lips brush your collarbone.  “For an eternity, I’ll know you.”

Water wets the corners of your lashes and you inhale three or four times before exhaling, shallow hiccups and desperate for air.

“Ni ke vaabi nu kaysh ke kar’taylir su te ni kar’tayl su.”  Din says, slowly moving his mouth back up when your fingers tangle in his hair and beg him to come that way.  The words dance along your skin as he whispers them, forever searing themselves into your memory.  You can’t see them, you’ll never have a visual to reminisce upon, but you’ll know how they felt.  Right under your ear, brimming with quiet devotion.  “I don’t want anyone else to know you… the way I know you.”

Your face goes blazing hot at the sound of him translating your own rushed and half-assed sentence into something gorgeous and flowing, something that sounds so much more beautiful than when you blurted it out earlier.  You told him you loved him in that hangar, right to his face.  Unashamed and stupid about it, but meaning it with every part of your body.

“I knew you’d say no,” he finally admits, staying in this one spot.  Unmoving.  Telling you the truth, allowing you to know it.  “I just wanted to… say it.”

That… that makes sense to you.  The last part does, at least, it makes so much sense to you.  The first time you said you loved him, you said it just to say it.  You wanted to feel the words, sound them out even if neither one of you could hear them.  It felt freeing, like coming to accept a universal truth.

The first part, though.  You’re still behind.  “You knew I’d say no?”  You ask him, feeling him ease back just slightly.  Staring down at you through the pitch black, even if he can’t see either.  Keeping his palm over your heart as the ship hurdles through nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You wouldn’t take my first name without convincing,” he reasons quietly, and then moves back to lay in the blankets once more, leaving the rest unspoken.

But he’s… oh stars, he’s so right.  If he’s going to take his helmet off and let you see his face—if he’s going to commit to you that way, it is not going to be because you shoot a blaster correctly.  Not after today, not after what he’s told you.

So you move up to your elbow and turn to face him, trying to let him know why even if he’s already guessed the what correctly.

“I want it to mean something,” you say after a moment.  “I want it to… have the meaning it’s supposed to have.”

Your palm finds its way to his chest in the silence following.  Right over the beating of his heart, feeling it thrum hard and rhythmic while he considers his response.

“This is The Way,” Din finally murmurs, settling his hand over yours, and you repeat the words back to him.  Respecting them.  Feeling like, for the very first time, they now apply to you in some way instead of belonging to some mysterious creed you’ll never know anything about.

But when a shudder subtly rockets up and down his body, you realize the blankets have been pulled down with the changing positions and his whole torso is bare and exposed to the hull.  So you pull them up until you’re both covered again, before you lean down and press a soft kiss to his shoulder.

Din shudders again when your mouth opens and the hot glide of your tongue catches his skin, but you know it’s not from the cold this time.  His breathing deepens while you slowly move over him.  You ease him further on his back and let him keep feeling the warmth of your mouth on his body, alleviate the lingering chill by sucking gentle hickeys into his skin and feeling the goosebumps raise under your tongue.  He moves with you; he stretches his neck when you want to nibble his collarbone, arches when you mouth down his chest, shifts his elbow to let you drag your tongue along his ribcage.

And… and it’s as if all the stars and systems hold even more still for you than the relative physics of faster-than-light travel can explain away by themselves.  You’ve always felt timeless in here, living from one fleeting eternity to the next, suspended in perpetuity while the rest of the galaxy ages without you.  But when you’re with him and it’s pitch black and there’s no light to streak across your vision, no evidence that time and space have all but disconnected from each other just to let your insignificant little bodies through… it’s like you’re meant to be here.  In some strange, unexplainable way, you feel like you could’ve died out there with him in the frozen wasteland today and this is exactly where you’d still end up, no matter what.

To know is to love.

“Do you have brown eyes?”  You hear yourself whisper under his jaw, and you feel Din’s fingers thread in your hair and ease you up enough to brush his lips against your chin.

“Yes,” he whispers back, and then his mouth is on yours.

[sw124]

MLC: Josie and Viper

[Symbiote Boyfriend]

She hadn’t moved all day, she barely ate anything all week, she didn’t speak to anyone for almost a month; her phone muted. She tossed and turned on her couch from time to time but mostly to keep a cramp in her leg at bay. The only time she moved from the couch was to use the restroom, if it wasn’t for Viper she probably would have trouble even moving a single finger.

“Babe, honey you need to eat.”

Josie tilted her head towards the voice, no one was in the room. Her stomach complied with the tone, it growled like a ticked off bear. With a heavy sigh she walked into the kitchen, she went to the fridge and pulled out a gallon of milk. From her back a large ocean-black tendril extended and pulled out a box of cereal and a large bowl. Josie picked up two spoons and went back to the couch, once the cereal was made the tendril picked up the remote and turned on the TV; from her shoulder a larger mass formed a head and turned to her. Large milky eyes curved upwards before leaning and gently placing a soft kiss on her cheek.

“….Thanks sweetie…….sorry about all this-“ she was silenced with a smaller tendril touching her lips.

“Babe you got nothing to be sorry about, come on lets watch some dumbass commercials and classic cartoons. We’ll deal with what happened later…ok?”

Viper nearly melted seeing her smile, he could feel that little spark of joy in her…but then get smothered by guilt again…he had to help her but problem was how.

After the seventh spoonful of chocolate cereal came a rather interesting commercial. It was an ad for the Meta Clinic and…Monster/Human couples therapy? This made the couple pause, this was…well this was new! Sure there were dating sites, clubs, cafes and speed dating for people looking for monster boy/girlfriends but now offering couples therapy?

Viper wanted so badly to grab the phone and call for an appointment but…he didn’t wanna force Josie into something like that. He’d be doing more damage then good…he’d start by talking about it.

[Two weeks later]

“Viper and Josie?” The secretary called out. Josie looked up from her phone and stood up.

“Thats us…” Viper extended his head from her back giving a nod.

“Dr. Fortune will see you now, please head back down the hall to room 7 please.”

With a nervous smile she proceeded down the hall, Vipers head gently tucked beside her..whispering soothing nonsense. This was enough to at least quell the rising panic in her chest, finally they came to a door with the number 7 on it. With a hard gulp Josie pushed opened the door…

The room was massive! It almost looked like the lobby of a hotel, hell it even had a pool in the corner of the room and a tank! The room was painted in shades of two-toned moss, the air smelled of perpetual rainfall…and lemon. It was there but didn’t overpower…the temperature was perfect.

In the center of the room were two chairs, a large love-seat sofa and a dark grey armchair. Between them was a white round table with a pitcher of water and three glasses. In the grey armchair….was the doctor they came to see.

“Ah, you must be Josie and Viper. Please come in, have a seat.”

She hesitated but…Josie complied, the love-seat felt like if jelly and clouds got married and had a baby. It was so soft and cool to the touch, best part she didn’t sink it like some other chairs. Viper loved the feeling, hell he could just imagine cuddling up with his girl on this couch watching old sci-fi movies.

“Lets get started, first can you tell me how you met an how long have you two been together?”

Josie paused…then spoke. “Well…Viper an I met via collage..we had the same class, we got paired up and it sorta started from there. We’ve been together for about…two years now.”

“What kind of class were you in?”

“It was a philosophy class, I took it cause I was curious on what made philosophy so damn interesting.” Said Viper.

“I personally took it cause I’ve loved things that sorta question the norm of society. Our project was to listen to one of the stories of Plato, we got ‘The allegory of the cave’ and write our thoughts on the meaning and reasons behind it….those were some of the best nights I ever had.”

Josie never noticed the subtle blush on her cheeks, but that smile she had told the Doctor everything they needed to know, even Viper couldn’t hide his smile.

“You and Viper have a very close relationship I can tell…however the reason why you’re here is not really about the two of you. Its the people around you, mainly family.”

You could almost make out Josie’s heart in her throat, Viper; if he had one, would have been in his as well. Dr.Fortune took a sip of water and…with a sniper-gaze they fixed on Josies eyes.

“I’m going to take a guess, stop me at any time. The problem isn’t with either of you two but from Josie’s family.”

Josie began to chew on her thumbnail, Viper was quick to pull it away as the Doctor continued.

“Your parents I will take are very strict people, perhaps even falling in line with deep religious practices but yet despite saying their ‘devout’ they continue to say and do things that go against the basic principles of their religion. Growing up they saw you as either property or a tool to get what they wanted. If you ever raised your voice in defense of yourself…you were either met with Verbal or Physical violence…”

The Doctor paused, fat tears were cascading down Josie’s face. Her breathing was labor, almost choking on some of her deeper breaths. Viper already had his tendrils wrapping around her in a tight embrace, gently whispering into her ear.

[Klink!]

Josie jumped, looking down she found one of the glasses had been filled with water…with a lemon slice in it. She looked up at the Doctor who was pouring a glass for themself.

“Take a sip, it’ll help.”

She…did feel a little parched, Viper handed her the glass, she took a few small gulps. Blinking she looked into the glass…the water tasted sweet, with the lemon slice it almost had the taste of lemonade but without the sharp zing. She noted how the water almost was coating her throat, soothing the burn forming.

“Like it? Its something I made myself for my patients, I boil distilled water and honey together an let it sit overnight in the fridge then add lemon slices to it. The honey and lemon help soothe your throat while the cold water rehydrates you.”

“Its…really good.” Josie smiled taking another sip. “Everything you said…was right, even the religion part. My parents always treated me like I was some show pony at every gathering, they never listened to me an always thought my problems were just…not worth their time.” Josie rubbed a tear away.

Viper remained quiet but nodded when she was done speaking, Dr. Fortune turned to Viper then.

“An the first meeting with her parents they referred to you as a ‘parasite’ and even went so far as to disown Josie from her own family if she didn’t breakup with you.”

Vipers eyes went wide for a moment before slowly closing…his lips curling back, showing off his razor teeth.

He hissed. “Yes, the moment she finished telling them they started calling her all sorts of nasty things and…even went so far as to say they picked out a husband for her to marry. To be honest I actually knew the guy and he…he’s rich but also a huge dick, he was the biggest bully at my high-school back in the day. When Josie refused…they disowned her and kicked us out on the streets…this was around a month ago…”

Dr.Fortune set their glass down, leaned back in the gray chair with their elbows resting on the armrests…fingers pushed together in a pyramid fashion.

“An since then Josie has received texts and phone calls demanding she breakup with you and marry this ‘dick’ all for the sake of money. I’ve seen this before and its a classic case of narcissism but also a show of parental neglect and abuse.” Doctor Fortuned leaned forward, their gaze turning sharp.

“Josie….for starters you are not the problem, your parents are stuck in a mindset that is outdated and unacceptable. You are not to blame for their disappointment, no you never were. Your parents refused to change their ways and therefore are stuck in the past. However that doesn’t mean you have to, in order to help yourself you need to first cut ties with the ‘parasite’ that is your family. Go completely no contact with them, then once thats done I want you to focus on your relationship with Viper.”

Josie blinked, eyes widening. Cut ties with her family?! How could she do that, this was her family!

“Yes I’m aware your not keen on the idea but…let me ask you something. When has your family ever done anything for ‘you’ out of love an ask for nothing in return?” Josie opened her mouth but….nothing came out…she looked through all her memories…but couldn’t find anything.

“Now…I want you to think about what Viper has done for you, who do you think is more deserving of your time an energy? A family that wants you to marry a jerk for money or the symbiote who from the moment he met you has treated you like the human you are?”

Josie sniffled….they were right, ever since they met; Viper had shown her nothing but compassion, patients and love. Sometimes she felt so guilty about putting him through her crap but…he never complained about it. She rubbed her eyes again, it was time to stop waistline her hard earned time and effort on people who didn’t love her! It was time she spent her energy on Viper and school!

Doctor Fortune smiled, the match was struck and the fire was starting to burn. Now it was time to slowly stoke the coals and make sure they never went cold.

“Your right Doctor….I need to stop waiting my time with those people…I’m thankful they gave birth to me but thats no reason to hold it over my head. I’m…I’m done with them!” Josie slapped her knee, it…it felt really good to say that.

Viper could feel the adrenaline pumping in her, yes there it was, the spunky spitfire he fell for was back an with a vengeance!

“Thats good to hear, but thats just the first step in your road to recovery. I want you to take this a step at a time, in time you may learn to ‘forgive’ your family but don’t you ever, EVER forget what they’ve done to you. If you forget then your just gonna end up falling into their grasp again. On another note as a way to help you cope and give you a extra bit of therapy I suggest taking up a type of hobby. Hobbies can help you gain a sense of control over your life.”

The Doctor paused and looked down at their watch. “Oh, it seems we’re just about done with our session. If you’d like to set up another appointment please see the secretary up at the front desk, before you go is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

Viper looked at Josie, she looked right back at him before turning to the Doctor.

“What kind of hobby should I get?”

Doctor Fortune handed them a small brochure. “Try flipping through this and see if any catch your fancy, my suggestion is find a hobby you two can do together or by yourself; its really all up to you an there are no wrong choices.”

An with that…Josie and Viper left, scheduling another appointment two weeks in advance. As they walk outside Josie looked through the brochure, there were so many hobbies to choose from..

At least she and Viper can choose together.

[I plan to do more couples, I did a Symbiote/human couple to start cause everyone is familiar on what they look like thanks to Venom. I’ll be working on more monster like boyfriends in the future. I hope you like this, I’ll be doing more of this in the future including Yandere couples. This was inspired by @semisolidmind artwork, I also wanna thank @sarabat85 for helping me out as well. My next couple will hopefully be posted very soon and was put together by my closest and dearest friend @eomlotanis who has always helped me with story ideas and character development.]

[bokoutoe-retired]

— #51 “i’ll always be here for you, ok?” & #6 “i’ve been falling in love with you since the first day we met”

characters; shoto todoroki

synopsis; todoroki seems troubled and it’s up to his best friend to find out why

total w/c; 2030

warnings; a few brief mentions of anxiety, but thats it :) i also mention end**vor like once lmao

「a/n」 requested by @greywarenns oh my god!! i literally rewrote this thing four times until i got here, and i’m decently happy with how it turned out. but i found it super hard to write todo so he’s defintely a little ooc, but i hope it’s decent! this was a challenge but i enjoyed it nonetheless so thank you for the request! <3

the realization that you’re in love with your best friend is shocking, to say the least. and it certainly was to todoroki. y/n and shoto did everything together. they studied together, trained together, ate together, made fun of endeavor together, the two were practically attached at the hip. wherever shoto went, y/n went and vice versa. but when todoroki found himself staring at you for just a little too long during one of your regular sunday study sessions, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

i’m in love with y/n l/n. i’m in love with my best friend.

that night, you didn’t notice any change in shoto and the next couple of days were pretty normal too. going about your school days and training schedules as usual. but you and shoto never ended up spending time alone together so there was no opportunity to even recognize any shifts in his behavior. you two were always separated or with another classmate, but never alone.

it wasn’t until your scheduled friday hangout that you first noticed a change. every friday night, without fail, you and todoroki set aside time to hangout. either to study, to watch a movie or even to just lay around in the same room. it didn't matter as long as you were together. during the last friday night you two had agreed that tonight's hangout was to be a movie night. now normally, todoroki wasn't an outrightly affectionate person but he did mention to you once in passing he found physical closeness comforting, and even longed for it from those few he was close with. ever since that late night conversation, it wasn’t uncommon to find yourselves situated near each other. just casual stuff like your legs touching during lunch and your feet thrown over his lap or your shoulders touching during movie nights. on particularly cold evenings you might even find your head tucked into the warm curve of his left shoulder. this subtle form of affection between you had soon become the norm, as it was welcomed and appreciated by both parties. after growing used to the comfortable, casual affection it was understandable that you felt a bit out of place when he showed up to your dorm room and took his seat on the opposite side of the bed, as far away from you as he could get. your laptop resting in the space between, almost mocking the distance while the movie sits waiting to be played. his act of separation sparked a flame of anxiety and worry in your chest. maybe it had gotten to be too much or you were making him uncomfortable, and he didn't have the heart to say anything.

“everything okay sho?” you really didn’t realize how accustomed to his touch you had become until you no longer had it. he may have only been less than a few feet away but it felt like miles compared to previous nights.

“yes, why?” he looks over to you as he answers. his face appears neutral, with no signs of being uneasy.

“oh nothing...” you trail off and shift in your seat while awkwardly adjust the blanket you had draped over yourself. it’s not like either of you had outright asked for it or mentioned anything about it out loud. truthfully, it just kind of started happening. and at this point you didn’t want to be the first person to say anything and make things awkward. you opt to keep your concerns unspoken and just roll with it for the night. your friday movie night came and went. it was nice to spend time with shoto and it wasn’t unenjoyable by any means, but you will admit it felt odd not having him pressed against you like usual.

over the course of the following saturday and sunday you invite him to hang out a few times. and all he gives you in response is a blunt “i can’t” or “i’m busy”. being his best friend you're more than aware how straightforward, or even how dense, he can be but this time it’s different. it’s sharp and curt, maybe even bordering annoyed. maybe he was just a little tired today. but maybe it was something more? between his attitude now and actions friday night, perhaps it was. it could be that something was bothering him or something put him in a sour mood. you can’t help but give into the lingering fear that maybe you had done something wrong. you let it go for the rest of the weekend, knowing that he would hopefully come to you, his best friend, if something had happened and he wanted to talk. hopefully.

it’s not until monday that you finally get truly fed up.

to start the day, there was no todoroki waiting outside your dorm room. normally, every morning without fail, you and shoto would walk together across campus from the dorms to your first class of the day. it was a wonderful way to start your day, but this time he wasn’t there. ten minutes later, when you arrived to class he was already sitting in his seat, notebook open and pencil out. had you really done something wrong? said something unintentionally rude, or had you really made him that uncomfortable while spending time together? you meet his eyes from across the room and offer him a small wave as you enter the classroom and slide into your seat across the room. he gives you a small nod and returns to looking at the textbook on his desk.

as much as todoroki wanted to walk you across campus, and as much as he wanted to talk with you before class started, he had come to a conclusion late friday night. when he walked back to his dorm after finishing the movie and saying goodnight, he decided that maybe if he stopped talking to you for a little bit he would be able to clear his head a little, sort out his feelings and figure out what he should do. as genius of an idea todoroki thought it was, a conversation with you was inevitable as you easily fell into step right next to him on the way to your second class. you immediately start talking about an album jirou had recommended to you. he listens to you speak while also doing his best to not get caught up in thinking about how pretty your smile is, or how cute you are when you get excited. it’s only when he catches a soft smile forming on his own face he realizes not talking to you would be a lot more difficult than he thought and not nearly as effective as he had hoped. he knew you would eventually realize he was purposefully disregarding you. he also knew you well enough to know that you would probably think it was your fault. that outcome definitely wasn’t what he desired. the last thing he wanted was to have you think he was upset with you for some reason, when in reality he was upset with himself for feeling about you the way he does.

it’s honestly a big relief to you when he starts engaging with you again, but you can tell somethings still bothering him. he gives you that soft smile often reserved only for you, but it doesn't quite seem complete. he nods and makes small comments as you continue talking, and it does little to soothe the nagging fear that somehow you messed up. you begin to wrack your brian for any possibilities. he hasn't mentioned his father in a while so it probably wasn't that, he did spectacular on the last three tests and as far as you know he was still ranked number one in class. he even got off campus last week, to visit his mother in person and said it went well so it’s likely not that either. there’s always a possibility that you really did do something to upset him.

after observing his abnormal behavior for the rest of the day, you manage to finally pull him off to the side on your walk back to the dorms. you gently grab him by the elbow and tug him down by the arm to sit with you on the bench.

“listen, shoto” you begin to speak, and he doesn't miss the anxiety that flashes across your face as you gently squeeze his arm with the hand still resting there, “i uh, i don’t know what's going on with you, but i know something is up and i’m really worried. you’ve been distant and moody and maybe i’ve done something wrong and you're upset-” he cuts you off in the middle of what he knows could’ve been a very long rant.

“y/n it’s not like that, i could never be mad at you. please don’t worry yourself over nothing” he does his best to reassure you without completely spilling his feelings. it’s difficult to not share everything with you like normal, but the fear of losing you holds him back.

“sho, it’s clearly something if it’s causing you to act so different. if you don’t want to talk about it right now that's fine, but just know i’ll always be here for you ok? i’ll be here to listen whenever you wanna talk” you have the softest look in your eyes as you speak and place your hand on top of his. your skin is so soft and much warmer than his. he feels an unusual heat begin to crawl up his normally cold right side, and he resists the urge to turn his hand over and intertwine your fingers with his.

“i’m in love with you!” his eyes widen as he realizes what he's just blurted out, but continues on anyways, “i’ve been falling in love with you since the first day we met. and it's so scary and i’ve just now realized it, but you’re my best friend and i don’t know who else to tell. i don’t want to lose you but i don’t think i can keep it to myself. i understand that you don’t feel the same way, and i apologize if i’ve made you uncomfortable...” his words start out bold but he quiets down as he loses confidence and sees a look of utter disbelief flash across your face. he begins to regret his words immediately and his first instinct is to leave. thinking maybe he could just walk away and pretend like this never happened, but your grip on the back of his hand tightens and prevents him from running. he stops and looks down at you only to meet your eyes, glassy with tears. he feels his own eyes begin to grow hot, he must’ve really messed up huh? he flumps back onto the bench next you, as your hold on his hand never loosens. the tears welling in his eyes threaten to spill over but his heart skips a beat when he sees your lips stretch into a smile.

“sho, you idiot! i thought you were mad at me” out of relief tears begin to stream down your cheeks “i’m in love with you too, a whole lot” you sniffle and let out a laugh, before moving your fingers to interlock with his.

“you? you what?” the breath leaves his body and he squeezes your hand in an attempt to ground himself. not once had the idea of you returning his feelings even crossed his mind, in his head he had already written himself off as unlovable in that way. yet here he is, on a bench with someone who truly loves him back. the emotions that swell in his chest are nothing but overwhelming and its all he can do to smile and pull you into a big kiss. with one hand still holding yours, he uses the other to tug you close. it’s inexperienced and clumsy as your lips slot with his. you bump noses and you can even taste a hint of your shared salty tears, but in the end none of that matters because it’s so good and so full of love.

[xsugarysweetsx]

Could you do a Leopold x reader? Where Leo wants to ask the reader out but is like “how tf am I expose to do this” so he asks Fuegoleon, and he has no clue. And then Fuego asks Mereoleona and she’s like “BATTLE HER TO THE DEATH”. Ad Leo’s like no. But then Leo asked Mimosa, and she was like OMG THATS SO CUTE. And basically bombards the reader about if she likes anybody or anything (they’re best friends). And so one day Leo was freaking, but the reader was like, “Hey Leo, wanna go on a date?”.

Awwwhh this sound adorable! Thank you for requesting! And thank you for being patient!❤️ Almsot to the end!

How he would battle you to the death

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. P E R F E C T!

That was all that went through his mind when he looked at you. You were a new reicut to the Lions and you could say it was a crush at first sight. You were merely a commoner but he could see so much last that.

Not only were you strong but you were very skilled and always were a few steps ahead of your oponant. When he spared with you and managed to literally her sweeper off his feet, he knew he was screwed. He had a crush.

You were never cocky about how strong you were and never put yourself on a pedestal. You were also very kind and soft hearted towards other people. He couldn’t be the only one who wanted to call you his. He’s seen the way other boys and even older men looked at you. He hates it.

He wanted to ask you out. Take you on a nice date and treat you kindly. He would do it all, he really would! The problem was, he had no idea how....he felt a bit embarrassed in all honesty. He wanted to be able to seeep her off her feet without scaring her. It came so naturally to other boys his age so why not him?

He did spend a large amount of time training, so that could be one. But he had almost no idea! He needed help in this department.

Since he had no experience with any of this so he went to the next person. The most knowledgeable person he knew and trusted. His brother. He knocked on his door and when it opened he said

“how do I talk to women!” Fuegoleon was confused to say the least. He brought him inside and he let him ramble on about his troubles. He paced back and fourth through the room as he spoke

“And she’s just so amazing and you know that! But I don’t want to scare her away! You know more than anyone so I want to hear what you have to say!” He said sitting down in a chair

“Well Leo, I’m an honest man and I’ve always tried to lead you down the right path” he got excited to hear his brother’s speech “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“What?! But you know everything!” Well there goes his chance. His world was crumbling around him, if Fuegoleon couldn’t help, then what will?

“Well why don’t you ask another woman about this? Get a better insight in the topic” he suggested. In an instant he went to the next person he would ask

His lovely sister Meroleona

—————-

“So, my youngest brother is finally becoming a man huh?” She smirked down at him as she ruffled his hair

“Um sort of, but I don’t know how to even ask her out” he pouted. She stepped back and gave him that look when she’s about to go into battle

“BATTLE HER TO THE DEATH! IF SHE COMES OUT ON TOP SHE IS WORTHY OF YOU AND IF SHE DOES NOT, YOU MUST MOVE ON!” She yelled out in the most confident tone there could be. Leo thought you himself

Maybe this is why she doesn’t have any suitors

“Yeah, No” he spat bluntly “I want to show her why I’m worthy of her” she sighed. There were very few times where she was soft but she saw how much he was thinking about this. She went over and ruffled his hair as she usually does when giving him advice

“Well she sounds special to you...why don’t you go ask Mimosa about this? She has a..uh..softer approach on this” and she simply walked away. Guess not even her family will see much of a soft side to her.

————

But the suggestion was a good idea! He got the her household the fastest he possible could and banged on her door. She answered with a confused look as to why he was banging like that

“Hi Leopold what can I-“ he cuts her off

“I like Y/N!” She smiles at him and chuckled

“Well, took you long enough to realize your feelings” she giggled. His crush wasn’t exactly descreet when he’s basically glaring holes into her head, but in a good way. She let him in and took him into the living area

He explained his situation to her and she knew exactly where to start.

“Alright first of all, what would you like to do with her?” She asked

A finger coming to scratch his head as he thought “Mmmm, I wanna go on adventures with her and spar with her!” He said as his eyes twinkled

“Okay um..what’s your favorite thing about her?”

“How tough she is! But I think she’s really beautiful as well” he said with a blush

As soon as the word left his mouth a cocky laugh filled the room

“Impossible. There is nothing nor, no one as beautiful as I” said her brother, and for some reason petals were floating around him as he spoke

“No, she’s way misread beautiful than you are” Leo responded casually. Her brother looked physically hurt when Leo said that.

“Can you please go back to making out with your mirror?” She said passive aggressively, and yet still held a smile. He hmph and walked away as his hands laid upon his face.

“Well Leopold why don’t you try something your way instead of other people?” She wondered

“Because I suck at this and I want to be perfect for her” she rested his head in his hands as his eyebrows knit together. She felt bad, she could tell he cared for you very much but was struggling. Then an idea popped into her head. She rushed over and whispered it in his ear.

His eyes lit up like fires, the plan was perfect. He ran out of the house to prepare for tomorrow. This took all night for him to practice what to do and what to say.

The next day he has picked some wildflowers and had them nicley wrapped. He made sure his clothes were neat and clean and walked with pride. He found you casually taking your morning walk, enjoying the breeze. Since no one was around this was a perfect time!

He hid the flowers under his cape and out of sight. He cleared his throat to get your attention

You turn and smile “Hey Leo! Well don’t you look all proper today” you joked he laughed and approached you.

“Is it a bad thing?” He said as starts to walk with you feeling his heart flutter, and face heat up.

“No, you look good, a lot like your brother actually” he hummed and took the bold step

“Hey I need to talk to you” this mase you stop walking and give him your attention. “So listen I-um wanted to tell you some things...that have been on my mind I uh...” he took a deep breath

“S-so do you like anyone..hehe?” Strange question and you answered anyway

“Mmmm you could say I do have my eyes on someone” he didn’t know what to say and choked up on his own words

“I-I um I do-um what’s the ummm..”

Great he was freezing up and he was feeling exptremly hot for some reason. Now was when he was conscious of the decision he was making

“Um..Leopold...you’re on fire...”

Wait...

He looked to the side and saw the roses he got you had been set aflame. He started panicking and running airing trying to find some type of water. He finally ran far enough and found a small pool of water and jumped in. The fire going out and he was unharmed.

You went over to him

“Are you okay? How did that even...” you eyes trail down to his hand and see the flowers. He stood up and sighed, feeling defeated and apologized for everything.

“It’s funny isn’t it? A royal who’s magic is fire and I caught fire..hehe” he laughed weekly. You started to giggle and couldn’t contain your laugher. He felt a bit embarrassed

“Hey Leo?” You ask getting a little closer

“Yes?”

He felt a light touch in his cheek. You had given him a peck and said

“Wanna go on a date?”

“YES!”

You all thought Meroleona was loud this kid yelled yes so loud Solid dropped his wine over himself. He came the next day to complain to Fuegoleon.

Well this was cute and fun to write I hope you enjoyed and thank you for your patience!❤️

[transhoverfish]

What are everyone's "abilities" in Survivors? Ryley has good hearing and Milo glows but what do the others have?

!!! YOU HAVE ASKED ME ABOUT MY AU !!! THE FLOODGATES OF YELLING HAVE OPENED!!

OK SO. as u mentioned ryley has good hearing and milo glows. basically,

ryley = good hearing

milo = glowy boy

emily = electric detection (cooler than i describe rn my vocabulary is small)

danby = like emily's but reverse. controls electromagnetic things

roman = night vision

jochi = the most superpower like one, he got quick regeneration.

avery = telepathy!

bart = also kind of telepathy but more like future telepathy. he has future vision.

and i. never thought of one for ozzy actually and at this point i have no idea what to give them that wouldn't have been brought up prior so. u know genetics are weird! they just dont have anything ig. nobody look at me LABDKABDLABD

AND ALSO paul and marg have powers! paul got that peeper enzyme carrier thing, and marg got the very funny power of feeling others emotions. yes that includes the fish. yes this is one of the primary reasons she didnt kill paul over a decade of dealing w him. yes she hates it.

and the vesper haven't been sick long enough to develop anything! or at least thats what im going with bc i havent thought of anything for them yet 😔

AND NOW: LONGER EXPLANATIONS. IM GONNA GET CARRIED AWAY SO ITS UNDER A READ-MORE.

first off on the list: bart! so bart.. kinda has futuristic visions?? but the things he sees are not set in the stone,, as in if he dreams about smth (a lot like ryley can!) it is possible to change those events! most of these visions/telepathy type stuff were bc of the emperor and warpers, and also al-an! once the sea emp died and the warpers all calmed down his powers kind of go away a bit. i think i wrote al-an sort of mentioning it in one chap of awa?? but its only kind of implied. so he has rlly similar powers to avery except he can't tell what others are thinking and he can only kind of tell how his closest friends r feeling. so right now bart pretty much doesn't have powers! he can communicate w the warpers and sea emps much easier than the others tho (he's the only one that can talk to warpers! im not sure he'd get along w them after being hunted down by them for like 12 years though KABDLSBRLSHD)

avery has telepathy! this is because when he first shows up he jokes about having telepathy and i was like "haha. WAIT." and then he got telepathy! i realize its a bad idea to not come up with their powers until as im writing but uhhh well. i never said i was a fantastic writer who's smart. KANROSHROSBF.

he also kind of had marg's empathy ability but wayyy dialed back. he can only tell how other humans are feeling and he can only vaguely understand it as opposed to feeling the emotions himself like marg does. so he can kind of tell how others are feeling and he can tell what theyre thinking about! unless of course for plot convince he can't. strong emotions, especially strong negative emotions (ie. fear) can overwhelm him and makes his powers stop working. and if someone is convinced they're right then he wont b able to tell they're lying/hiding something! yay plot convenience!!

roman has night vision. i have no way of making this sound cool he just straight up can see really well in the dark. like a cat. most of the powers were based off where they originally landed and what would help them in that area! and roman landed in the sparse reef, which is so dark all the time i cry thinking about it. so he has night vision! his poor eyesight is probably all kinds of fucked up now tho.

jochi has regeneration abilities! now i know this might sound a bit much but he just heals from cuts and stuff faster and like. he bones heal fast. and he's more likely to survive smth that might usually kill someone, but its like a 10% higher chance of living nothing too much. he doesn't rlly get scars as much as the others, and its healed his old ones a bit more! this is by far the most unrealistic power of them all, but ya know its alien fish planet game who cares. basically bc his life support systems failed his spine got all fucked up and he got infected faster bc he was barely alive for the first few days and spent a lot of time w bart who was looking after him. power helped fix his back, but he still has a rlly bad limp and pretty much constant pain. big mood there khasar 😔✊

emily can detect electromagnetic waves! works best underwater. kind of like ryley's, but instead of hearing noises she can only hear anything electric, like vehicles or ampeels or heartbeats. gets all fucked up during thunderstorms though sadly. she's the only other one that can kind of hear warpers and can tell when ones about to warp around but she cant actually talk back to them. pretty sick if u ask me tho.

danby has p similar powers to her bc ampeels also spawn in the bulb zone. except he can sense them at a much smaller distance, cant hear warpers, and can control the waves around him! mostly just his own tho. so like, he can quiet his heartbeat or make it stop all together. scary power that he does not know how to control. uh oh. but he can also control other creatures a bit! he's very good at hiding bc of this, which is nice bc he loves to hide from scary things. very big mood once again.

milo is glowing powers! looks a lot like the transparency of a ghost levi or a crabsquid, although he isn't as see through as them. you can def make out like veins but not bones or organs. his powers are activated by touch, the more force behind will create more glow and more transparency! a poke = goes away within a few seconds, a slap = stays for a minute or so. instead of bruises, he just glows until the bruise would normally go away. he's basically a living glowstick. i have another joke for this but i cannot physically convince myself to type it bc its some shit emily would say to him and i cannot embarrass him like that LABDLABDKABAKD

andd ryley's super hearing! can hear basically everything within a mile radius at all times. im bad at math and i don't know the metric system but i think that's like around 1k meters. wait does the metric system use mile already. no. ONCE AGAIN NEVER SAID I WAS SMART.

OK ANYWAYS back on track! this means he can hear about half of the crater at all times. he's gotten p good at blocking out background noise and anything far away. typically only hears everything within like 300 meters of himself. so when he does get back to just hearing everything its like. u ever take out headphones in a busy place and everything kinda hurts for a few seconds bc its so much noise. yeah like that but 500x worse. he's able to concentrate on specific areas within this 1 mile field but if its far away it fucks him up good for a lil while. sorry ryley :(

and then the other two degasi! as mentioned before, paul can carry enzyme like the peepers, but he also can kind of make some himself! only small amounts and it works a bit less than the peeper enzyme does. he does not have to cough it up though thankfully it just like. idk how to describe this idea it can just kind of leave through his skin?? he has like no control over his power at all it just kind does its own thing and he deals w it. this is primarily how he and marg survive for so long w/o dying to kharra!

and finally marguerit! highly empathetic abilities that allow her to feel the emotions of anything around her! i thought it would be funny as hell to give MARGUERIT of all ppl Big Emotion Disease. this is a big reason why she has had yet to murder paul and why she's a lot less murderer like in the au. its hard to kill someone if you. you know. can feel exactly what they are. probably the reason she adopted Dog Bart/Legally Preston Emotionally Not. saw sad puppy and felt too bad to leave him. like paul, she has basically no control over it and is one of the reasons she does NOT want to go back to the survivors base and be around so many other ppl, she'd be feeling like, 13 ppl's emotions at one time. all these powers have fucked up drawbacks dont they??

once again sam, robin, jeff, maxim, and ozzy are (for now at least) not gonna have any powers! mutations are weird and ozzy just didn't get anything, and the vesper haven't been sick long enough for any yet!

OK THATS ALL. HOLY SHIT SORRY FOR YELLING FOR 15 MINUTES. GOT CARRIED AWAY. hopefully that explains everything tho OABEOABROANRJS OK BYE MY PHONE IS ALMOST DEAD

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

[bakugoubabygirl]

           okay before I start she going to choose one. Don't worry if its not the one you wanted her to choose bc its going to be  a Roller coaster  of emotions and a lot of back and forth for awhile  BC I FUCKING LOVE BOTH  OF THESES BOYS. also  there will be smut soon and it wont be vanilla .  

                                                        YOUR POV

          "Lets go before they find us" I whispered tugging on Bakugou arm.  He didn't say a word and followed me.  " Lets get some food at the stand" I gave him smile. Bakugou followed me he seem kind of moody though more moody then usual .           " Are you going to say yes?" Was he asking about tododroki. I didn't give much thought to that . I like him  a lot but if I was being honest with myself i had feelings for someone else.       " I dont know I like him a lot and i think it would be amazing. But i also think I have feelings for someone else. To be fair they haven't shown no sign of returning this feeling. Maybe I ought to say yes and forget about the other guy like that" I admitted.        " Who is this other guy" He asked. Why was he so damn interested and how can i tell him its him.         "Not telling" I felt my face getting red. Next thing I Knew I was getting pinned against a wall.           " Tell me" He growled. Why was this bothering him so much. If only he knew that telling him would ruin our friend ship . He would never look at me the way I look at him. because I was made to  be the villan.  Bakugou strive to be perfect at everything and I was not perfect.           " Bakugou Its you stupid" Then I broke free from his grasp . I didn't want t o know his reaction or have him mocked me. I hurried and disappear into the crowd.    Still haven't found any thing to eat my tummy started growl. When I heard my name being called out, The next thing I knew someone dragged me off  somewhere quite. I'm so sick of being pulled around today. It was my dad, Honestly I was relived that it  wasn't Bakugou .        " Hey  I know you and how your going to give it all but You need to make sure your head is clear. Ive been studying and your powers  feed off you emotions.  I want to make sure you have a clear head" he said worriedly .  OH god I'm screwed my head is far  from clear.         "  Yeah I'm not focusing on anything right now except for winning" I said and I fake smiled.          " that's Great I Know your going to make me proud. I may be rooting midoryia but Your my number one and I hope you win more." He smiled. Pulled me and for a hug.           " Thank you dad and don't worry Ill cut all there throats open" I laughed.      Then it was time to to go back to the arena.  Time  to face bakugou mental and physical . I think mentally would be harder to do.  Midnight call me and bakugou to fight first.  I try not to think about what had conspire between us earlier. I need to focus to keep my head cleared.              We both step into the ring. Bakugou goes to attack me and I dodge it just in time. Then I Blast one of my purple fire balls at him and he dodge to . This was really upsetting, and I  Take one of my shadow hands out and it wraps around his body. I started to think about how he never loses. He was perfect and every way and would make a fine super hero one day.   something you'll never be  the voice was back again.  

                                                 Bakugou  POV

She had her hand wrapped around me. I  had to escape and then I saw  Her starting to levitate off the ground. Her eyes flash purple there was a gasp from the crowd.  She slam hard into the ground  with the shadow hand. She was Going to kill me.        I jump up and fired another explosion at her this time using more force.  She shield it and then made a big shadowy fist at the ground causing it to erupt . I almost fell but then I caught my balance.  This time I used my full force now that I knew it wouldn't hurt her too bad.       The explosion was so big she couldn't shield it. She was on the ground and lay there for several of seconds.  I walked over her to see if I have won and if she was okay. She started to get back up again and she grabbed a whole of me again.      She grabbed me so tight with the shadow arm I couldn't breath.  My face started to turn purple I was pretty sure I was going to die.  The crowed was screaming to let me go But she wouldn't listen.   " Y/n Please let me go I cant breathe" I try to say but she didn't hear or listen. She wouldn't do this on purpose.  Something was seriously wrong . this was not her. " Y/n Please I love you" at that point I didn't fucking care if the whole crowed thought I was a simp . I love her and I need her to came back. Her eyes turn back to e/c when I said that.    " Bakugou" she gasps and then dropped me. I could barley move I'm pretty sure she won but she just stared at me. Her eyes started to tear up. " I give up" she yelled. Then ran out of the arena . They announced me winner and The nursing girl came to heal up my minor wounds.  I was livid that I won that way. She threw the fight.

                                                                   Y/N POV

     I Brought shame on my dad and my school. I brought shame on myself. The whole world watch it happen too. They watch me turn into a monster. I almost killed bakugou and He never going to want anything to do with me again. I sat outside the stadium on the ground.  I'm no hero I cant even go and face what I done.       I must of sat there for hours and hours. It was finally dark and everyone left. it started  to  pour down rain.   I decided to go back into the arena to pick up my bag and stuff.  It was dark except for a couple security lights. I found my bag when I heard a familiar voice.       " Tch where did you go?" Bakugou asked. Was he still talking to me.        " heard you won congratulation"  I gave him a smile. The air was so cold I could see my own breath. 

                                            BAKUGOU POV 

 " THATS NOT HOW I WANTED TO WIN" he yelled. " YOU GAVE UP THAT FIGHT WAS YOURS"        " I almost killed you .  I was created for one reason and one reason only. The whole now know so to. I let you guys down and I let my dad down. How can I be the princess of peace when I cant even find peace in my own head.  I'm done," I said  tears started to pour out my eyes.        " IF i was the bad guy you would of won. Your powerful and just because its hard your going to pack up then Your not who I thought you were " he scoffed.         " I almost kill you and maybe next time I will. I care about you too much for that to happen" I cried. I started to turn away.  He grabbed my wrist and pulled me agaisnt him.        " I know you wont. You stop because your good and you over came it. we just have to work on it. Please stay if not for yourself then the million you could save with that power.         " I dont know how I stopped myself. All I remeber is blacking out and then waking to see me almost killing youself." I explain.             " I said something to you and then you just snapped out of it" He said nervously .              " Oh well what did you say" I asked.  This could help me find the answer.      " I told you I Love you"  He blushed. This was a side of him I never seen before. I think im falling to. Todoroki was important to me but in the end bakugou been here.  I wasnt sure if I was ready to say it back. I grabbed his face and kiss him. He started kissing back first it was soft but then its starts to get more rough and passionate. He grabbed my ass and pulled me agaisnt him. despite the freezing rain , I felt warm.               He pulled away but remain eye contact with me as he pulled something out of his of his jacket. It was a small box and he handed it to me. " I wanted to give this to you when I ask you out after I won the festival correctly . That didn't go as I plan but I still want to win your heart. please accept this and be my girl. I never done this soft shit and I'm sorry if it not something I'm going to show everyday. Your worth taking my pride down a little I guess" His face was red.       I open it up and it was a sliver bracelet with his name on it and diamonds. It was beautiful and way too much. I had no idea what to say. " Yes Ill be yours" he pulled me into a tight  hug.      " lets go to my place you need to get out of the rain and getting late" he said gently. It almost scared me the way he was being so kind.                                                                      Bakugou POV         We arrived at my place. She look like she was about to past out. Today was a lot on all of us. I didn't really won the sports festival but at least I won the girl. I just got to keep that damn icy hot away from her. I wanted to rip the necklace off of her that he gave her. She mine now.        " Hey you stupid bitch your late" my mom bitch. No good job bakugou or nothing.         " Fuck you too hoe" I said back flipping her off. She was about to really yell, until she saw Y/n  come in after me.             " Hey Y/n nice to see you again. I saw you tonight you should of just kill him and not worry about it' she laugh. The fucking old hag meant as a joke. Y/n face turn white though.  I grabbed her hand and lead her up to my bedroom. She seem like she was still half in a daze.        " Lets get out of these wet clothes. You can wear anything of mine for now." I said awkwardly. I knew we were dating but I didn't know her boundaries . There so much I want to do with her. She needed sleep tonight though. we both did.   she started to strip off in my room.  Oh, she wasn't paying attention to anything really. I couldn't help but to watch in amazement though. She took  off her clothes and strip down till she was naked. I had to use all my self control to not do anything. then she put on one of my T-shirts that looked like a dress on her and then a pair of my boxers.  I strip down to nothing and but my boxers and laid on my bed.     " come here princess" I yawned. She crawled into bed and laid on top of me. She feel asleep instantly but then here phone started going off. I  Pick it up and looks at it.  Deku: hey are you alright. Me and your dad are really worried.    Damn deku fucking worrying about my girl. I didn't want to give her a dad the pro hero a reason to hate me though. Me: yeah I'm fine just staying at a friend house. I'm really sleepy so I'm going to go to bed.   Then there was other messages on the screen so I looked. Todo: hey  Y/n I'm so worried about you. When you see this please answer and I was wondering if we could meet up tomorrow to talk about today and I have something I wanna ask you. I hope your safe and sleeping well beautiful. Oh hell  no. She mine and he going to back the fuck off.  I took a pictures of her sleeping on my chest and I sent it. Me: she mine and she sleeping fine thank you. Back the fuck off  she mine now!!!!!! Todo: I see for now that may be it. I don't give up and I especially wont stop until she mine. You well slip and when you do ill be there for her. Your impulsive and abusive and don't deserve her. Me: You come any where near her your dead I blocked his number from her phone.  I wrapped my arms tight around her and I pass out.    The sun filled the room waking me up. She was still asleep. She was so beautiful and peaceful when she sleep.  Her phone started buzzing causing her to wake.   " Where my phone" she sat up straight looking for it. I handed it to her. The number didn't have a caller id. She scrunch her nose in confusion.     " Hello who is this " she answered.      " Todoroki, are you alright?" I heard him answered.  Great rich boy has more then one phone.     " Yes, what happen to your old phone number?"      " Long story, where are you at?"     " Bakugou house, why whats wrong?" she asked worriedly     " Ill be there In 20" he said and then hung up.  " Do you have anything else I can where by chance?" she asked   " I think you look fine in that Idiot" I snorted grabbing her wait.   " I cant go out like this" she said digging though the bag of mina and kiri clothes that they leave here.      " Your not going anywhere with him and no way in hell wearing that" She hold up a short pink dress of mina. Mina was shorter then Y/n so this dress was gonna not cover anything. She took off my shirt and put on the dress anyways not listening to me at all.    She grabbed my hair brush and tied it back out her face. she look stunning even though she didn't try and its for him.  " I fucking mean it your not going anywhere with him" I yelled.   " Chill out you have to trust me. He one of my friends and I'm yours so don't worry" she said try reassuring me. I almost lost her to him though. He going to try all Kinds of flirty shit. I cant be okay with this but I have too. She will leave if I'm too controlling.   " One hour then come back" I grumbled.  " I have to go home afterwards and talk to my dad" She sigh. She was right even though I wanted some time with her. The door bell ring and I hurried up to open it. IT was half and half baster.   " Leave your hands off of her and no flirty shit or I will Murder you" I screamed and then Y/n push me put of the way. I grabbed her and kiss her so fucking hard in front of him. She push me away and laughed.     " I'm sorry about him" she said. Walking out of the door with him. I kept trying to talk myself out of following them. I decided to invite shitty hair over to distract me.

IM open up to ideas and or request for my one shot books I'm doing. Thank you for read part 7 will be here Thursday at the latest

[ghost-in-the-stalls]

your hc about mary please🤲🏻🤲🏻

Aw thanks so much for asking!! Idk if you're the same anon that asked about Tilda or a different one, but I appreciate you just the same 😍 no one has interacted with the Tilda post yet from what I can see so idk if people care about this in general but im glad you do! And I'd love to share regardless.

Once again this'll probably be long so it's going under a cut. Cw for normal aftg stuff but then also a little human trafficking mention in the beginning and general abuse/neglect both physical and emotional.

And once again this is in no way to excuse Mary's shitty behavior. She and Tilda were both abusive and terrible mothers and this is more just an exploration of the character and her mentality than anything else. I just love character depth.

Finally, I apologize if this isn't very well worded. I'm pretty tired but I dont like editing myself lmao I'd rather just get this out now. I think I get my points across clearly enough so I don't care as much about how good or bad the writing is

So Mary's mother was a woman who I consider not only having married into the Hatfords but who was basically like... sold to them as a child. Like maybe she was the illegitimate child of some other wealthy family who happened to owe some kind of debt to the Hatfords. And the Hatfords had only one son and were struggling to have another, but were desperate to keep the family line going. So they took this baby in exchange for forgiving a debt, and raised her to one day marry their son.

So this girl (whose name I've decided is Marion for some reason) is raised as a member of the family but like... slightly less. Treated as more of an object than a person. They basically only gave her enough of an education for her to get by, and made sure she knew from a young age that her sole purpose in the family was to marry their son (let's call him Samuel).

So you can imagine she didn't grow into a very happy woman. But she filled her role. She married Samuel Hatford, gave him 3 kids, and then pretended to stay out of the way. Stuart was the oldest, Mary in the middle, and I hc they had a younger sister as well. Don't ask me why. That just popped into my head one day and now I can't imagine otherwise.

So this family dynamic was fucked from the beginning. See Marion filled her role, but she had plans. In raising her children, she gave a great deal of care and attention to Stuart as he was the eldest and the only son. He was to inherit the family business upon his father's death or retirement. And she wanted to make sure she was taken care of properly in her old age. So she made Stuart feel as loved and doted on as she could.

Her daughters served her no purpose, so they got very different treatment. Mary especially was affected by this. The youngest daughter was able to generally slip under the radar and find her own niche in the world (married into a powerful wealthy family through a man she genuinely loved and that was already more than anyone needed or expected from her).

But Mary. She felt her mother's cold shoulder on a very deep level. Their father wasn't exactly a family man- couldn't be bothered. And here was her mother, so plainly and openly playing favorites. Stuart would get hugs and soft words while Mary would- on a good day- get slapped for even opening her mouth. See Mary and her sister were never meant to have any real power in the family. So what did it matter to Marion what grudges they held against her?

So enough years go by and Marion decides its taking too long for her husband to retire. So she takes matters into her own hands. Starts slowly slipping poison into his meals in very small doses until he's too weak to fight back when she slits his throat. She doesn't hide what she did. She doesn't need to. When Stuart takes over at 22 years old, he can't find it in himself NOT to protect her.

But I'm getting carried away. So Mary was now in a pretty weird spot. Stuart being in charge gave her a bit stronger footing in the family (they'd always had a very close relationship despite their mother's attitude), but she was still lower rung. She still suffered at the hands of her mother's emotional neglect and manipulation. And she was getting tired of it.

In comes Nathan Wesninski. See the thing I imagine with Nathan is that he is actually incredible charming. His knives can only get him so much when there are people he can't reach to cut up. And when his rising empire starts doing business with the Hatfords, he and Mary latch onto one another very quickly.

They each have their own intentions in the relationship and neither of them are blind to that. But it wasn't an arranged marriage. See Mary saw Nathan as her ticket up and out. She knew he was vying for power and she knew he was fully capable of getting it. I wouldn't go as far to say they were ever in love- I don't think either of them were ever really capable of that- but Mary definitely had some strong faith in what their relationship could be.

Now, when she looked forward, she finally saw herself on top. She saw her and Nathan standing side by side. That power that had always been out of reach for her? It was now in sight, and she definitely was blinded by that. She didn't see what Nathan really was until she was in too deep.

Stuart and the younger sister had disapproved of Mary and Nathan being together from the beginning. Being in business with him, Stuart knew what Nathan really was and how much he could drag Mary down. Their younger sister had just learned to be much better at reading people. But it didn't matter what they said. Mary had her plan and nothing was going to take it from her.

Mary's commitment to marrying Nathan and Stuart's blatant disapproval of him created a deep rift between them. They had always been very close, but Mary saw his interference as an attempt to keep her in her place. She was stubborn and refused to back down. By the time she and Nathan got married, her and Stuart were barely on speaking terms.

Now the thing is, Nathan knew what he wanted out of Mary. And he also knew that once he had her, she wouldn't be able to go anywhere until he got what he wanted.

It didn't take too long for Mary to come to understand that what they had was never and would never be a partnership. She was a tool to him. And by the time she had Abram, he was already beating her into submission and openly fooling around with Lola on the side.

But now she was stuck. Their marriage may not have been arranged, but it was still a business deal. And even if it wasn't, Nathan wasn't going to let her go anywhere.

Once it became clear that Abram wasn't going to make an appropriate heir for the Wesninski business and Nathan tried to sell him to the Moriyamas, Mary decided she'd had enough. She was going to get out one way or another.

Now here's the thing. We know what Mary was like with Neil when they were on the run. We know how abusive and controlling she was. And she could say it was for his own good all she wanted. But ultimately, it was all about power. She had been beaten down from the very start of her life. She'd been left in the dust, bloody and bruised, while those around her rose to a power that was always just out of her reach.

But now it was just her and her son. And they may not even have the luxury of being real people anymore, but damn if she was going to lose the one thing she was able to call hers- the one thing in the world she actually had power over.

Because that's really all it's ever about isn't it? Mary Hatford wasn't capable of loving anything or anyone. The people who'd raised her and made her who she was had never taught her how to do that. And maybe the fierce protectiveness she had over Abram was the closest she could get to it. But really she just ultimately became the same thing she had always been fighting against. Now it was her own heavy and swift hands doling out punishment to a misbehaving child. Now she herself was the one getting the last word and making all the decisions. Now she had someone following her every command.

It eventually became clear to her that she very likely would die sooner or later at the hands of Nathan and his men. She could only run so far and for so long. But even in her death, she knew she would never let them take what was hers. She never took Abram to Stuart because the break in their relationship was beyond repair at this point. But she still would prefer Abram eventually ended up in his protection than at the end of Nathan's knife. But until these things came, she took Abram and kept running. The more days they ran, the more days she had of power over him and freedom from everything else. The more able she was to ensure that Abram would keep running after her death; that he'd never fall under anyone else's power and that her voice would be the only one left in his head at the end of each day.

If she could see where he'd ended up, she'd be furious (and she'd be surprised at her own fury, as introspection wasn't something she indulged in often). He was never meant to live. He was never meant to move on from her memory or to leave her dying request behind.

But, at the same time, good for him for finding his own strength and place in the world. Because of course it could only happen once she was gone.

---

So thats my take on Mary. Once again, she was a piece of shit just like Tilda. This is not to do anything other than explore the character and give her complexity. I do genuinely believed she "loved" Neil in the only way she could ever be capable of loving anyone. But it wasn't love. It was possession. And good on both him and Andrew (and Aaron and Nicky for that matter) for being able to slowly learn to heal from the abuse they suffered at the hands of their parents.

Thanks so much again for asking!! It means a lot and I love to share my headcanons 😊❤

[icharchivist]

hello icha!! i finally got around to finishing the stranger haha,, by which i mean i just watched it today. was veryyyy excited for it as i really like the poster design for this one. anyways. this event starting w/ the sort of portrait format or whatever / that narration is like. god. threw me right back to autumn troupe. I kind of love that the storytelling format itself is so distinct for autumn! the moment I realized it was omi I started getting teary… like oh man oh man… omi…. And the connection with him taking photos! ahh!! now that I think about it… omi kind of seems a bit like early version tsumugi, huh? also I keep forgetting this man is a college student lol. suspension of disbelief I suppose. onto the play i think like. mankai should invest in a fainting courch for tsuzuru. i also went to watch the play and 1) im betting yuki had a hell of a time costume design wise like the vines on the body? such fun costuming wise and 2) the ethical implications of whatever this play has,,, fun fun. tsuzuru was clearly having some kind of thoughts. i love zeros design and am always up for a3 characters crossdressing bc 1) i think its fun and 2) the costume design. i also dearly wish this whole thing was animated bc I feel like it’d be o fun to see taichi act as zero. or at least I hope this event gets full voiced one day... moving on to the scene where omi adds soy sauce to the paella I know it’s just like haha homare funny so lets five him a lil bit but like everyone in autumn troupe making their comments on the paella and like homare just jumping in. homare autumn troupe besties. just thinking. also the way they just r like. no no no omi it’s fine if u made a mistake!! it’s ok! we like it (you) anyways <3 it’s got it’s own special taste. something something omi’s perfectly pleasant as he is now but even if he weren’t on his a-game and was dealing with all of the biker gang stuff they would love him just as hard. another thing that got me was omi telling banri that he’ll give him something sweet so juza will stop grinding his teeth in his sleep… guys… guys you’ll give him cavities…. mb omi is a college student after all lol.

anyways when i saw the actual costumes. appreciative of them, i like the lil circuit-esque detailing on banri’s outfit, and that sakyo and taichi (nine and zero) both share that like collar detail? its very symbolic and probably also literal but its a nice way to sort of signify their relation to each other visually! also sakyo just looks nice. seeing him without glasses is so great. whoever thought up the like two mole detail for him was doing gods work.

something that confused me was ryo mistaking juza for nachi for a split second? like. does juza… look similar to nachi? or was it just that ryo only heard juzas voice and made that mistake. if it’s appearance wise too. kumon nachi confirmed. I’m joking lol bc I feel like I would’ve heard at least something abt it in one of the like small conversation comments, plus that doesnt seem like itd fit summer troupes style and kumon is for sure the wrong age… but still.

i really like how for this event, the roles for taichi and omi were kinda reversed. and taichis just so like. idk. smiley. rly lifts ur spirits. its kind of nice how this event contrasts to that cg where taichi is crying on omi. I also think like. idk. considering the story of the stranger. wolf gives zero a sense of purpose and life and I think that zero helps wolf lose his apathy. it’s about “the stranger” and the ending makes him like… not a stranger, right? because he’s got a companion. in the same way, taichi brings omi out of his emotional isolation. the picture taking! also the stickers coming back… thats such a good setup! the found family of it all!!

when he was trying to work out zeros character as soon as taichi mentioned a sharp speaking style I KNEW it was Yuki… yuki would never be as honest as zero is though lol… to me i imagine she’s got a sort of juza internal monologue feel? anyways. the taichi yuki dynamic intrigues me. havent yet decided how I feel abt it but when I do… yes. sorry that I make literally no sense. I think it’s very obvious that yuki is my fav chara kind of? I’m just. hmmm it makes me think! I’ve been monologuing to myself abt the yuki and juza dynamic lately which, to my a3 knowledge so far, doesn’t exist, but its ok bc I’ll make it exist! uhhh anyways this event was very good i liked the pacing. i think it didnt drag too hard and it really properly honed in on just omi and taichi, which was quite nice. they really did a lot for just an event!

time to listen to the event song,,, ok so. ah. i rly enjoyed just for myself it was very much to my taste so. out of curiousity i was like ok lemme look up the composer / producer AND IT WAS YUYOYUPPE....... that guy is like!!!! one of my FAV producers ever!!!!!! i know him from like. his vocaloid days and god leia is still one of my fav songs to this day...! this knowledge gives me so much joy omg!!! like wow!! wowwww!!! like i knew yuyoyuppe was out there doing other stuff (i know he worked on a lot of babymetal music which is cool) but like idk. to suddenly encounter it like this. heheh.... its so nice! made me soooo happy. going to relisten to leia now haha

WAIT ONE MORE THING. i was like "haha let me look at other songs i remember liking a lot" which. for me was rakuen oasis and don't cry. anyways. rakuen oasis is ALSO by yuyoyuppe???? oh my god!!! oh my god... sigh. feel like im in heaven.

OH HI FRIEND!! so good to see you with an a3 update!! :D

godd yeah The Stranger started so strongly and the idea to still incorporate portraits in his story was really something to make us cry!

And linking Omi and Tsumugi like this is pretty interesting :O <hat is your reasoning exactly? :O

For the fainting couch for Tsuzuru LMAO and i'm letting you know there's a webcomics that addresses it in Act 2 (hough there's no spoilers aside from the fact Chikage is here)

Im glad you liked the costume and the play!!! yeah i love the designs and it is always a blast to see them this into it, and yeaaah Tsuzuru has thoughts huh. It'll get voiced sooner than later hopefully and there we'll see more in details :3c but also that's what made the seiyuu live so fun bc they perform the songs in play cosplay and replay a bit of the play everytime and it's *chief kiss*

HOMARE AUTUMN TROUPE SOLIDARITY YES. LOVING IT.

And yeah the scene itself was so cute TwT they all want to reassure Omi and be there for him it's so sweet :( but yeah i love how you say it all, Omiimi TwT

and dLKFJDFLKJFDFD Giving Juza cavities is the price to pay for sleep i guess??

yeah agreed on the costume they all look so cool! and nice catch on how those three seem linked like that with their costumes, Yuki (and the designers) does such a good job! and god yeah for Sakyo.. yeah. He has sucha good design dLKJFDF

aND DLKFJD yeah no Juza is supposed to look like Nachi physically, but mostly his face? like i think Nachi was had green hair? we see a sprite of him in a future story, and yeah, everything is in the eyebrows. so Kumon should be safe? Omi mentions he sees a lot of Nachi in Juza, and while it is mostly due to their passions i think, the fact they're also rough looking guy with a heart of gold must play a part as well. but yeah, he does look like Nachi a bit.

and i love your deeper analysis of the event yeah!!

I feel like Taichi is really an emotional core of the troupe in the sense that is, he tends to catch on what others are feelings easily. And he uses it in the early chapters to ease off the tensions and stuff, but he was being held back by knowing he was deceiving them. So now that he's more free, he can be more of himself. but yeah i also love the contrast with how Omi was the one to help Taichi through his breakdown and guilt, and now it's the other way around, it's Taichi helping him through it. and the parallelism between the play and their dynamic is spot on imo! well said!!

and god yeah the sticker things made me cry sO HARD, and the pictures! and everything!! sobs it's such a sweet found family i'm going to cry :(

And! i love what you say about Yuki, Taichi and Juza on this one. I love that Taichi keeps bringing it back to "that childhood friend" and it's always like. so obvious who it is for us rip. But it can make you wonder if Yuki was more honest as a kiddo when Taichi knew him, though now he's clearly not. I love the mention of how Zero is more like Juza's internal speech (which, if anything is another argument about why you should let Juza wear a dress, cOWARD)

but also your mention of the Yuki and Juza thing, while i can't think of them having a dynamic per se yet, but i actually wrote a post during my reread about how i was baffled at the fact they treated Muku the same way?? like both of them tried to push Muku away because they were scared of how people would react if they say pure, sweet Muku was associated to them. And i find it fascinating because i guess those two are pretty aware of how the world see them, and it used to stop them from fully allowing them to be themselves.

I also find it relevant with the fact Yuki says in his personal song that while all of this way people judge him weight on him, he rather be himself, and "I want to love myself". Meanwhile we have Juza who's also aware of the way people judge him and it weight on him, and he wants to change himself from this person he hates, this self loathing - and in a way, he can grow in a way to be "someone" he may not hate, even on stage. I feel like those two have quite a bit in common in this way of being rejected by their peers in some sort of way.

I really want them to share some stuff at some point because there's really a groundwork on it all :(

But i'm really glad you liked that event!! agreed on the pacing and i do love what it brings to the characters! it really fleshes them out and have them move forward a little and it's pretty sweet.

AND OMG THAT'S SO COOL FOR THE SONG!! i'm so glad you liked it, but that's incredible it turned out to be from one of your fav producer!!! ahah sometimes life is like that where you end up finding the stuff you loved back into new stuff! and the fact Rakuen Oasis was from him as well... that's so cool!!! just, so so cool!

im pretty sure he has more songs going forward so i hope you'll enjoy the ride even more!!

thank you once again for sharing your thoughts about a3 :3c it always makes me so happy to see them!!!

Thank youu <3 have a good day :3c

[gunmetalarchived]

winner takes it all; pt 1 | a discord thread with @epiitaphs + @consultingsister

ALEX

It had been 48 hours since she had last closed her eyes, and they stung with exhaustion. Alex couldn’t tear them away from the door though, knowing what was coming. She was about to watch her life fall apart, for the third time.

It would play out something similar to the events of two days earlier. He would be hauled in, bag over his head and hands bound together with multiple zip ties. They only managed to catch her because her weakness was known. They were monitoring Sams home, watching for any trace of the prize they were after, Sam still had the alarming bruise on the left side of his face where he had been knocked unconscious. They were tied up and transported to the government black site, to here. Where she had no real choice but to sign away her life in the hopes it might keep her family safe too. She had turned out Sams rational protest at the sordid series of events to state Mycroft dead in the eye. She knew a predator when she locked eyes with one. This wasn’t a rescue attempt, it was a death sentence. But once she could live with. 

From the other side of the mirrored glass, she watched that door unblinking. She could have been in that room, she could have taken him in herself. Yet she knew for certain if there wasn’t a bulletproof layer between them then Sebastian would kill her. He still might, given the chance. He still saw the red flags throughout his time with Moriarty as little romantic hints. He had no objectivity, although he had no reason to either. Why fear the man when killing you would be such a heavenly way to die?

She had told Sam to go home, promised she wouldn’t be far behind. He had the destruction to pick up after their flat had been raised by swat teams. He didn’t need to watch what was about to happen, he deserved more than that. Seeing a cornered caged animal was horrifying in itself but when it was someone you knew? Someone you cared about? This was something Alex needed to bare alone.

Or with whoever opened the door she had her back to.

SHERLOCK

Perhaps it was because he didn’t believe that he had ended up in hell. It had more filing cabinets than he imagined. More interrogation rooms. At least Mycroft was happy. Although he didn’t smile much, he walked around with a self-satisfied air. Mycroft Holmes was not a bad man but he was perhaps petty. For example, he didn’t need to haul Alex Moran and Doctor Prescott from their home in the middle of the night. It as just because he could. Sherlock had handed over the keys to the kingdom and Mycroft was happy enough pretending to be the King. No Jim, Morland getting old; a black hole was forming and Sherlock had intended to get as many people to safety as he could before the end. Only, watching Alex give nothing for six hours didn’t exactly feel like safety. Mycroft taking more than he needed because he could wasn’t what he wanted. Maybe he was the clever one, he certainly got everything he wanted. 

Sherlock was tired. He thought he might sleep more when he was dead. In the hours since Alex had agreed to everything Sherlock had done nothing but stare at a laptop screen, read through documents and guess at where to find Sebastian Moran. At least this one, he considered, would be satisfying. 

For a moment, he stood in the hallway, one door to his left (soon, they would bring in Sebastian, shine a spotlight on his face and demand from him) and to his right, the safety of the observation room. Maybe he could sit and sleep for the next twenty-minutes. Only, when he opened the door the feeling of lightning shot through him, energising him. That bastard. How could Mycroft not tell him; how could he allow him, after all their planning, to just walk in on her again. 

It was panic that tightening around his throat. He could hardly close the door and walk away now. He didn’t want to either. “Alex?” His voice was hoarse, unused for days, only to give an address for Seb. “Alex, I didn’t-- I had no idea--”

ALEX

She expected.... well, she didn't know that what she had expected. But certainly not a man who had called her, who she had watched die. She had seen it, seem him plummet to his death through the scope. That definitely wasn't a trick, nor was the voicemail that sounded so genuine. It had been two months of complete silence. She had watched her back, watched her brothers back, watched Sam struggle from afar all hoping beyond hope that there would be a chance of it being a mistake. Except as she stared into those big green eyes she felt nothing but pure rage. How dare he?

He said her name like he hadn't said much in years. Almost six years exactly. He had held her through the night and known it was going to be goodbye. And she had buried the person that loved him since then. Years of dodging direct contact, of trying to stay just out of sight to save face. And now he stood right in front of her, defying all logic.

She moved across the room to him as fast as physically possible, but instead of reaching out to pull him close, her balled fist connected with his jaw in a strong right hook. Her lips curled up in s snarl, half out of breath just from trying not to strangle him them and there. " Code. Fucking. Zero" was all she could manage through gritted teeth, grey eyes glaring at him with unbridled fury.

SHERLOCK

He saw it coming. Passionate was how he might describe Alex Moran. Psychotic would probably be more accurate. And he could already hear Celia saying you enjoyed her touching you too much. Only she wasn't talking to him now. Or he wasn't talking to her. He guess there was a difference. He couldn't really do anything to stop her but he didn't try. He braced himself for the pain and fell backwards, holding his jaw with a small whine. "I know-- I know." 

Sherlock rarely cried but shame crashed over him like a wave. Anger too. Why was Mycroft doing this to him? Punishment for picking Alex over Cee, maybe? He let the force of her punch carry him to the floor and he stayed there. "I am dead. I am dead. Alex you were not-- I wasn't-- I have no excuse, I was not supposed to even be in the country but that-- I needed you to--- move on." 

But she had moved on, she would go home to Sam after all this and that was exactly what he wanted. "What can I say," he was begging, "what can I do? I am so so sorry, this is not what I wanted."

ALEX

She stood there in ill fitting borrowed clothes, the t shirt she has slept in still underneath. Her hair was wild and falling out of its messy hun by now, a hot mess if she had ever looked one. She pulled back her leg to aim a kick at him on the floor, and stopped. Her shoulders heaved with heavy breaths. This was a conversation they needed to have, another time she could kick the life out of him for scaring her like that. But right now? Right now she had enough to think about. 

Alex stepped back, folding her arms across her chest. It was hardly proud, but it was something. She couldn’t look at him right now. “Keep your eyes up, if you want your brother in one piece. I’m sure as hell not saving his life.”

She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but the connection to his jaw was enough to know even in her sleep deprived state this was real. Just... one thing at a time. Get home to Sam. He needed her right now. She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed back on the door just... waiting. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.”

He had been the one to pick up the pieces last time. It was some kind of poetic irony he was going to get to see the creature she was so afraid of. And yet she also meant alive, or as alive as they could be. Maybe she’d be able to see his face one day without that long black coat whipping around his legs as he—

Too soon.

SHERLOCK

Sherlock didn't get up from the floor. Exhaustion was likely taking over. He had gone longer periods of time without sleep (once he conducted an experiment which included shots of adrenaline and energy drinks) but this was a different sort of tired. One knee bent, the other leg stretched out, he almost wished she would keep hitting her. Likelihood was, she had no idea what he had done, what he had agreed to before the fall, or she would have kept going.

She is mistaken into thinking he has fallen into the same trap with her. 

"I couldn't care any less about how many pieces my brother is in. I hope he tears him to shreds. Mycroft was never any good at field work; he likely won't even go in." Sherlock didn't care much for violence either way; no need for it but it never really scared him. He had also never understood Alex's fear of her brother, although he could never decide if thats because he was sure his siblings could and may kill him and had accepted it, or was sure they could not. 

They had both turned their back on him with relative ease this past month. He wondered if he had also been wrong about Alex. The punch meant so little, he hardly registered it as a mark against her. He deserved it of course, the man who would never lie to her, back from the dead. 

"Why are you? Surely Prescott will be anxious to be home with you; will seeing Sebastian help?"

ALEX

He didn’t move from his pathetic heap, and after a few silent breaths, Alex extended an arm. She wasn’t looking at him, but it was a truce. A middle ground. Because she didn’t want him dead, she just didn’t know what to feel. It was too much in the last 48 hours, the last two months. The place where her heart had been was filled with an empty numbness when she wasn’t in Sams arms. She had watched the world collapse around her too many times to have faith in anything or anyone else. Even Sherlock.

He spoke like he really meant it, like he wanted Mycroft dead. That could be arranged. No, no that was the point of all this. It was a real fresh start. Her eyes were still glued to the door as she waited for his hand. 

“Help? Nothing will help.” Why was she here? Sam did want her home, and there was no need for her to watch the consequences of her betrayal. There was never going to be a way to erase that look from her baron, knowing he would end her life given the chance. It was a totally different thing to accept it, actually seeing it meant sleepless nights and burying her heart behind a wall of steel and barbed wire. She didn’t know what the real answer was. “Why are you?”

She parroted it back at him, an old trick for deflecting he would read through in seconds.

SHERLOCK

For a moment he doesn't want to take her hand in fear that he will pass right through her. It was a fear he had since he was little, they he had died and no one, not even him had noticed. Since learning the truth from Cee, he thought he might know where this fear had come from. Still, it was silly to imagine he was a ghost. When he reached out, her hand was as solid as it ever was. 

"He ruined my life." 

It wasn't fair to give Seb all the credit on that one. Moriarty had a hand in it, his father, both his siblings. Alex to some degree but he would never think like that. He stands next to her, almost shoulder to shoulder. "I brought him in. I want to see the look on his face when he realises he has lost."

ALEX

She had pulled him to his feet before she could bite back her anger again. “Don’t. Don’t fucking talk about him like that.”

She still wouldn’t give him the benefit of her gaze. Especially not now. Sebastian had his fair share of the destruction but it wasn’t fair for him to take the blame when her hands were soaked in blood. Alex was far from innocent, and choice didn’t matter. At least she was aware of what was going on, Sebastian had all of that stripped from him. James Moriarty had found an addict and just changed the drugs for power and adoration. Same as Sherlock switched his high from heroin to danger.

She visibly flinched as Sherlock mentioned his role in all this. But she didn’t have the words to wound him, there was no victory here. No winners, only survival.

“I remember when you used to care about people. What is life without love? Where’s your fucking compassion now?” It was said in a quiet voice, hollow, empty. Exhausted and hoarse. She sounded like a shell of a person as well as looking like one. “At least he stayed sober.”

SHERLOCK

"You're a hypocrite, Moran. You can speak about my brother however you like, a man who does what he does for the good of the British public. Your brother is a murderer and a thief. Your whole family is. Do not pretend your causes were righteous; the Moran luck has run simply run out."

He had never spoken to her like this. He doubted he had spoken to anyone like this. But to hear his words, his preaching of love and forgiveness thrown back at him, the jab about his inability to stay sober, it was too much. Everything he had lost, everything he would continue to lose because of her and her family. She would gain, she couldn't see it now but she would gain as he fell further and further down a path he had been avoiding since he was seventeen. The one person, maybe the two if you counted Celia, who could save him would hate him and that was the end of it. 

"I have no compassion for men from good families and good homes who knowingly caused others pain for his own self-serving desires. The world is full of them, Sebastian is no different."

ALEX

She launched at him before she knew what she was doing, the one concession being that her forearm was pressed against his chest and not his throat. She slammed him against the glass, the flicker of pain showing in her face as her shoulder took the impact. But she glared at him, grey eyes boring into his soul now. If he still had one.

“Funny. I don’t remember you minding much when I was fucking you. Or was getting your dick wet worth putting that aside? Is that where your line is?”

She had never claimed to be anything other than a monster, he was the one looking for a chance to play saviour. He needed this as an ego boost. All that talk about caring clearly meant nothing.

“Men like you? Silver spoon up your arse and all. Where’s the good in getting high and playing dead?”

At least she was here. At least she was going to watch as her brother exploded. She slammed him again, bristling with hate now. He had no idea what it meant to lose everything, and there was a pain in her eyes he would never have seen there before. Living through hell justified anything in the name of getting out alive.

SHERLOCK

He hardly reacts. Pain shoots through his, his lower back makes contact with the border of the fake mirror but the pain feels distant from him. To die at her hand, is that the way he wanted to go?

"It was never about the sex, you know that." His fierce tone has softened; not kind, just tired. "I know what I am. I have never pretended to be a good person, I am an addict, a spoilt rich boy. I try everyday to make decisions that will benefit others. Most days I fail. But we continue on. You cannot say the same for your family. Defend them if you have to, it's your nature to do so, but do not expect me to pity your brother, or your cousins, when they are in the hell they themselves created." 

Even now, with her body weight pressed against him, he cannot lump her in with the rest of them. He knows he should. The logical side of brain says there is no difference. "I doubt Mycroft will let you kill me, he would be at risk of losing you to a prison cell if he did."

ALEX

“Neither did I.” She spat it back at him, wondering whether his cheek would come up in a nice bruise. This was so different from falling apart in his arms the last time they had been those close. It was funny to think that Alex really thought that night might be the closest she had come to death. Now she was a living breathing corpse. No passport, no records, no state and no identity. But she had a deal, a deal that could keep the few people she cared about from knowing the indefinite hell of being trapped in the same four walls with no escape. None of them knew the true extent of human cruelty. Now they might not have to.

Her hands moved from across him to his throat, but before she could apply any pressure, the door opened. The door she had been so laser focused on. In a split second she shoved him out the way, and watched as the hooded figure was bolted down to the table. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, her whole body wound so tight it was visibly stiff. Her jaw was clenched, her full attention on the person who could only be her brother. Sherlock was going to get what he wanted, he was going to see them both fall apart because he could. Because she had made every single bad choice in her life to protect the person she was loyal to above everyone, and yet he would cut her off as it was convenient.

Maybe she should have been relieved no one could find August or Bash. Maybe it was a mercy.

SHERLOCK

As she reached for his throat he thought both of how wonderful it might be to not have to live the life he had backed himself into and, with quite a different feeling, how she had once trusted him with the knowledge that she liked a hand around her throat. Nothing even close to worry occurred to him. He closed his eyes and hoped for it. 

Before she could finish him, or as was more likely, someone came in to stop her finishing him. The sound or the door opening and close came through a radio he couldn't see, although he assumed there must be a button somewhere so they could communicate. 

He stepped back from her, although instead of watching Seb, he watched her, the back of her head. Mycroft followed Seb in and Sherlock recognised the happiness in his brother's walk. Finally. The folder full of documents hit the metal table with a sharp slap and Sherlock attempted to melt into the shadows behind Alex.

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian was having a rough couple of weeks, to be honest. Alex had left - finally - having apparently decided he wasn't three steps away from an overdose at any given moment. It'd been nice. And maybe he'd started spiraling a little bit, but then Rich had found him and offered him a job. And that was nice - something to do. Except it'd been a week of that - weird as the situation was - and now he'd found himself grabbed, hooded, and transported somewhere. 

To be honest, he'd wondered when this might happen. He wondered on the ride over, after they got him more or less immobilized, whether this was the result of the information Moriarty had told him a little before he'd died. If so, he was going to get free and kill a few people. If they let him. Sebastian wondered if they'd be stupid enough to let him go after this. The proper response was death or wasting away in some hole somewhere, but guilty consciences might get in the way. 

He struggled as they unloaded him, figuring he might as well be the biggest annoyance possible before they killed him, stopped struggling when they finally put a pistol to his head to walk him down the hall. They should have done that from the start. And maybe the first few bruises should have gotten him to behave, but he didn't have anything to lose. 

They dragged him into a room, yanking his arms forward to cuff him to the table. He sat, sprawling as much as someone handcuffed to a bar on the table could. He couldn't see properly beyond the weave of the bag, but he could hear the slap of a folder on the table, feel the puff of air on his hands. "So who is it I'm speaking to? Don't want to run the risk of ruining a pretty face, is it?" They couldn't see the grin behind the hood, but it was there, despite the blood and bruises. "I'm handcuffed, how much do you think I could do? I appreciate the caution a little, obviously. Feeds the ego to think you're afraid."

SHERLOCK & MYCROFT

The victory was hollow but he would take it. After the years that he had put up with the whole Moran families antics, it had become personal and he would enjoy this. It wasn’t just the Moran’s either. It was Sherlock choosing Alex, it was Celia choosing Morland. The fragile ecosystem his mother had left with him had fallen apart. Only now he felt like he had it back again. Maybe not quote as complete as before, but he was back on top. 

He strolled into the integration room, closing the door firmly behind him, pulling at his tie. He glanced up, just for a moment into the mirror, imagining Alex standing behind it. That little bitch imagined she had called the shots on this one; he wondered is Sherlock had told her yet that they had been in control since the beginning. Mycroft moved past Seb, reaching up in the corner of the room to yank out the wires that lead to the security camera. What the British Government didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them. After all, he had done much worse than his in the name of national security and they had thanked him for it. 

His movements were slow, controlled and then, pausing for a moment in front of Seb, he slammed the other man’s head down hard against the table. It was a rush, he’ll admit that. He understood the pull of violence, he was just a better man than Sebastian Moran. He knew when to say no. He doesn’t hold his head down, instead moving away as quickly as before. 

Sherlock, despite himself, moved forward and, with more caution than Mycroft was showing, slowly reached out towards Alex. “Don’t… my brother is a bully who’s never got to act on it before, he wants you to react, he wants to know he’s getting to you both.”

ALEX

The voice on the speaker system, though tinny and filled with statics, cut to her core. It was the first time she had heard him on over a week, since she had left him to hopefully restart his life. There had been a small chance he would still relapse, but with a crushed phone and no friends it would be difficult. At least harder. Alex had put off leaving as long as physically possible. Even worse, she had excused the insults hurled at her in the name of grief and pain. She had sat outside the locked door that allowed him to cry, to feel something for the first time in years outside of pride. She was as loyal as a dog, and had been treated like one. Maybe that was why she was always so keen to jump to his defence. 

Her brother made jokes like he couldn’t be intimidated, rule 101 of getting under your interrogators skin. She didn’t really register she was holding her breath, but the audible smirk in his time had her on edge. She had been there once. Maybe she couldn’t watch this.  For a moment the nausea was too much, yet right as she was about to look away and focus on Mycroft, he seemed to move to the corner of the room. 

Alex moved closer to the glass to get a better look. “What the fuck is he-“ And there, right as he placed his hand on the bags she knew that look. She had seen it too many times in her nightmares. Right as they pressed the knife to her skin, right as the carved along her rib cage with the branding she would bare for life. The sign of someone enjoying pain in others. 

“NO.” It was guttural, almost like a scream but low and animalistic. But their booth was soundproofed. None of it would carry through to the interrogation room itself. She hovered, wondering how many bodies she would have to leave in the hall to get into that room. If Mycroft had turned the cameras off, he didn’t want to be disturbed. “He’s a person, not a fucking pressure point. If he kills him, I swear to god-“

SEBASTIAN

The door shut, trapping him and whoever this was in the room together. He had to imagine it was a Holmes. Wouldn't that make sense? In fact, he rather hoped it was - that'd make the experience better. A regular interrogator wouldn't have the same attachment to the situation and that'd just be tiring. Something was happening over further from the corner. He couldn't quite tell what, but footsteps approached once more and he decided to concentrate more on that. 

Which turned into concentrating on just how hard his face had hit the metal table - definitely metal, the way his nose ached and dripped blood onto the hood and down over his mouth. He grunted at the impact, unable to cushion himself in any way, given that his wrists were currently attached to the table. He sat back up slowly. Must have turned the cameras off, then. Oh well. Seb didn't want a rescue anyway. He felt a little bad about abandoning Rich, but he was resourceful enough to find someone else for protection. If Seb died here, that was better than a box of a cell deep underground. 

He hacked a little to clear his throat. "That wasn't much of a defense. Didn't your mother teach you violence wasn't the answer?" Sure, Sebastian's probably had, even if he'd clearly ended up ignoring such advice. "Very big of you to attack a man who's tied down. I can't even see your face. Makes me think you're too much of a coward to kill me. Not even interested in having the option on the table?"

SHERLOCK & MYCROFT

"He won't," Sherlock assured her, quite confident in that, "but he won't make this easy for either of you." His arm remained stretched out, only inches away from her arm, having there.

Mycroft continues his silent vigil around the table. Suit jacket off, neatly hung over the back of the other chair, he began to roll up his shirt sleeves. It wasn't just Seb he saw in that chair. It was all of them; every Moran, every criminal, every terrorist who cannot think further than their own bank account. At least the terrorists believed in something. His mind moved in a similar direction as her brothers; he had no time for men who made a sport of violence. They all had it within them; the spark that causes bar fights after too many beers. Intelligence sorted the men from the boys. Only he wasn't in the mood to be an Oxford man today. Moran would suffer and in that moment, he may have time to think about all the people that suffered because of him. 

"I imagine it's the same sort of feeling when you shoot a man from a hundred meters through a telescope," Mycroft said finally, his tone steady. "Skins not really in the game but it's still satisfying."

ALEX

“No.” It was quieter this time. Soft and barely audible. Spoken as you would a prayer. Maybe that was the true meaning, the true weight to her words. She wanted to take it back. They sounds suck like honey in her throat, on her tongue, knowing whatever was about to happen she had technically agreed to. On paper. None of this was supposed to be happening. She didn’t pull her eyes from the bag, now stained with what alex would assume was the blood of a gushing nose. She could hear all of it, crackling over the sound system and yet she was doomed to watch.

It was sitting in a cell listening to AJs screams all over again. It was beating her fists bloody against a door, handcuffs cutting away at her wrists in the struggle to make them stop...

This was all achingly familiar. Even the way he took his time to roll up his sleeves, the careful folds as to keep his image clean. It certainly wasn’t his shirt. “He’s enjoying it Sherlock. Look at him. Look at your brother and tell me that’s fair.”

She glared back to him for a second, trying not to let the desperation show. She still had her pride, but not for long.

SEBASTIAN

Not much in the way of conversation, then. Sebastian was patient, but he was patient mostly on rooftops or on hillsides. Times like these, a lack of engagement grated on him. Couldn't let it show, though. Maybe that was the one nice thing about having a bag on his head. Still, he'd rather have it off. For all that he was seemingly relaxed, the back of his mind was still very aware of the time he'd been here, the time he might have left, the fact he couldn't see the man's hands. 

"Satisfaction of a job well done, maybe." Was this the same? He didn't think so. "You are gloating. The job's not done yet, and that's still what you're doing. Sure," he gestured vaguely, the handcuffs clattering as he did, "you've got me here. Well done. You're not finished, though. I am still very much your problem for the foreseeable future. I've got all day - do you?" Sebastian might not talk much most of the time, but when he had a captive audience and time to kill, he could get going well enough. 

"Now if I wanted to gloat, I'd tell you that the satisfaction comes from the seconds before the bullet makes impact. You watch them through that scope and it's up to you to decide whether they live or die - or for me, at least. I'm good enough not to miss. And then once you've pulled the trigger you've got a few seconds where the bullet's flying through the air and you really are God. Only you know what's about to happen, and with complete inevitability, it does." He shook his head, wincing a little at the motion. "It's not comparable, this and that. The satisfaction isn't that they know who did it - I don't have to stand in front of my target and tell them it was me. If you don't gloat at me, I'll never know who was responsible - that's where your satisfaction comes from - the knowing. Your skin's more in the game than you want it to be, I think."

SHERLOCK & MYCROFT

Sherlock clears his throat, lowers his hand. "Mycroft... my brother believes that Moriarty was, likely indirectly, involved in the attack that cause Bridget... Mycroft's wife... she's not been the same since. Your brother is linked to... a part of the organisation that got our neice killed, that destroyed his wife, that had got some of Mycroft's best agents killed. This isn't just fair in his eyes, it's just." Never make decisions until you have all the facts. Even then, have an exit plan. Begrudgingly, Sherlock had always followed that advice, even though it came from his father. 

Mycroft, through the one-way-glass reached forward and pulled the bag from Seb's head, only holding the corners with finger and thumb, then folding it neatly in his hands. He was careful to stand away from the man. He might hate the hitman but he was more than a little aware of his abilities. "For you? I have all week. And you can take that as a compliment, Moran. I have been aching to have you in that chair. But not before I knew I had you. And I do have you."

He smiled, surely satisfied. "I have removed all walls between us. We can be open and honest now. Moriarty is dead. Your cousin August is protecting my little sister, your cousin Sebastian is serving time at her majesty's leisure and your sister-- well, she recognised a losing side what she saw one."

ALEX

“He’s not in his right mind. You know that. I fucking told you, the night he tried to...” This wasn’t right. Her brother was rattling on with some speech about playing god, when none of it mattered. “You put him in there. You found him, let him in the room with Mycroft, How could you?”

The deck was stacked against her from the start and she was only just starting to realise it. Her head snapped back to the scene in front of them at the mention of August- that was new information too. Mycroft had used the words untraceable less than 24 hours ago when she had asked where on earth her family was. And Bash? In prison? All those demands seemed futile now.

“This is a fucking game to him and- a-and...” and what? She moved to the door, grasping at the handle and forcing it down. And down again. Yet the door wouldn’t move.

This whole thing had been a set up from the start. And her body was full of panic as she scrambled to fill in the blanks.

SEBASTIAN

There went the bag. Finally. He blinked a little in the new light, gave Mycroft a charming smile that was perhaps made less charming by the amount of blood on his face. He'd have to worry about flashbacks later though - and anyway, it was his blood, which was better. He wasn't planning on biting Mycroft, though the temptation was certainly there. "Oh, I do, Mr. Holmes. A whole week just for little old me? You shouldn't have." That gave him something of a timeline, though he was doing his best not to construct one that could be taken away. 

A grin. "Have you? I'm very flattered, to be honest. It's very nice to meet you, I'll say. On this end of a scope, of course." Whether or not that was true didn't matter. "You do have me, Mr Holmes, very good observation." His tone as patronizing as could be, though it shifted for the next part. "All tied up, too. You can get closer - I won't bite. Unless you're into that." He looked around the room briefly. "Do you really have me, though? I'd have thought you'd look less tense if that was the case."

Smug bastard. Sebastian would very much like to throttle him, and would absolutely have tried if given the opportunity. "Honest? Don't lie so soon, it'll destroy the rapport you're building. I think we both know honesty only has a small foothold here." And openness? It depended on the information, which - interesting. A cold smile across the table at Mycroft. "She did leave suddenly - I had wondered a little. She did always hate the man. I suppose then it was only a matter of time before the rat jumped ship." August was safe, then. Bash might die. Alex would die if they ever crossed paths. "So did she give me up or did she cling to the notion that I might care about her survival enough to thank her for holding out? I'd love to know just how much to thank her when I see her next."

SHERLOCK & MYCROFT

Sherlock took a step back from Alex again, his back against the wall, his face full of something like grief, or regret but he didn't excuse Seb. He couldn't. They had gone too far, done too much. "I hunted him down because you asked for his pardon. It's the only reason he is in here." That was cruel, but he wasn't going to take the blame fully for this. 

Mycroft considered that, if he wasn't holding all the cards, that Seb's calm would frustrate him. If he really needed something from the hitman, if he was desperate.... but it wasn't like that anymore. Sure, Seb likely had enough information about Jim's web to fill a library but would good was it now? The whole thing was being picked apart, mostly by other criminals looking for their slice of the pie before the party was over. The job wasn't over, he wasn't about to retire anytime soon but this would at least mark the end of the Moran's being a thorn in his side. 

"Not something I could say for sure, Moran. Why don't you ask her yourself?" With obvious glee, Myc moves across to the mirror and presses on the button by the side. The room behind the screen lights up. Sherlock, seeing where his brother was heading had backed away into the shadows but he would not be hidden. Mycroft smiled between Alex and Seb. "A nice family reunion, I'm so glad I could witness this. Why don't you tell him what you've done for him Alex? I'm sure he will be ever so grateful."

[magnaflourious-nerdity]

But Through Darkened Glasses

(You Need Chaos in Your Soul)

" And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

There was a prompt on some Halloween themed fandom challenge for October. Monday's was 'Black Cat' and for whatever reason. This is what happened. Bc im just going with that kind of thing lately I guess, I decided to spit it out here. I didn't beta this thoroughly enough I guarantee bc im lazy and also the fandom is like 20 people big, and generally full of forgiving, lovely, content starved ppl. The last point I am extrapolating from my own experiences of being in the fandom, haha.

_____

It's weird, he thinks, twining in and out of the fence post he's been following for the past few minutes, trying to get his bearings now that he's been saddled with twice his accustomed amount of limbs. It's weird that I'm not more freaked out about this. He pauses, grooms himself briefly and crosses the street under the lamp light. The bulb blows out halfway across. He doesn't even jump this time. Maybe it's a bonus of having nine lives, you don't worry so much about one or two practice runs. His ears twitch minutely as the wind shifts and brings a low, buzzing, sound sighing through the fronds of the willow at the edge of his yard. They're even more sensitive now that he's a cat- the ears that is -twitching at the slightest whisper of a sound in the night.

He doesn't even bother to slow his pace as he hops the fence and passes through his own back yard, simply fixing jade eyes on the window he knows to be Becky's, turning them away again with the knowledge that there's no way she'd be at home tonight. Not on a night where she's basically been given free reign to go full-tilt feral social-climber on every party in town. There's no gaining entrance into his lair in his current state (nor is he particularly keen to meet Rasputin face to face right now either) and his parents are out of the question. Can't guarantee his dad won't be too drunk this late on a Halloween to tie a bottle rocket to his newly acquired tail. Don't really care to see him if he's sober either. Or just in general

Instead, His attention remains fixed on the sound he'd heard in the distance before, as he cuts across lawns and ducks down the well trod neighborhood backalleys, avoiding any heards of desperate, last-minute, trick-or-treaters or gaggles of drunken party-goers he catches wind of.

He's at the point of shrugging off the weird sounds he's been hearing as the result of some sort of particularly lumbering rodent in the underbrush, turning his attention instead to the little flashes of lamp light glinting off of abandoned candy wrappers. Batting at one every now and then non-committaly. It wasn't as exciting as one might think, being a cat. Kind of a snooze even, as far as curses went.

Well, at least it had the wherewithal and the courtesy as a curse to take aesthetics into account.

He was definitely the kind of cat his father would have chased off the lawn with a bb gun, if it had showed up at their door looking for food. He examines the pitch-colored shroud of his newly acquired fur as best as he can, glad- in a removed sort of way -that at least he was a proper Halloween cat. Scruffy and mysterious, not one of those opulently fluffy, pearl-colored, fancy-feast models.

There was dignity in being a black cat on Halloween. There was style! There was pinache!

A whisper, a low hum beyond his perception.

There were secrets. There was power. All of it his for the taking now that the opportunity had been unwittingly granted.

He'd read a legend once- in one of his massive, dusty, volumes on the lore of shapeshifters, dating back to antiquity -that on Halloween, black cats were at the most transient state of their existances. They could- if they could find the right chinks in reality's armour, where the space between things overlapped and folded in on itself like challah -use the threads surrounding and connecting the worlds to perform any number of impossibilities. Assume other forms, be anywhere at once, sew prosperity or discord at a whim.

It was said that those creatures most in-tune with with the pathways could even travel between them all. All of the worlds bookended against and, at certain times like tonight, overlapping their own. Those most-adept cats could slip in and out of dimensions as easily as a shadow slips under doorway.

I mean, I guess now is as good a time as any to test that hypothesis, Merton mused, slit-pupils zeroing in on the slightest movement down the street from Tommy's house, which was naturally where his slinky, purposeful, wandering had taken him. There were no other thoughts to it really. After all. He and Tommy were each other's lifeboats, lashed together to weather whatever bullshit came their way, side-by-side.

At least where finding ourselves on the wrong side of dark magic is concerned. He amended to himself. There was no one else here so he wasn't sure why he even bothered really.

He hesitated silently under a street lamp. The crackling sound of the light flickering above him sounded grating to his sensitive ears. He could understand Tommy's super-hearing-based woes a lot better now at least. With his gaze shifting uneasily between the safety of Tommy's house- the safety of his company, and of his unconditional presence, and of his unwavering dedication to Merton's protection despite the workload that it was turning out to be- and back to the subtle, but suddenly noticeable undulations of the shadows at the farthest edge of the neighbor's hedgerows. An opportunity had manifested itself.

Almost neigh-imperceptably, something shifts in the air, pervading every cranny of the now darkened street.

A moment of choice for Merton. The unexplored possibilities mount in his head, weighed against the cons of breaching the utterly unknowable. He is bewitched, rooted to the spot. Eve on the precipice of the apple, by virtue of both temptation and fear.

He'd gone to more extreme means, on less intel, for far more ridiculous pursuits. This was just a short walk to the end of the street. But he hesitates nonetheless, his own mind overriding the detatched curiosity that grew into him- into his bones -the longer he was attached to this form. He feels the pull of the interstitial static of the spaces between space, it hums and pulses gently along to the music of the spheres. Soft, inviting, unknowable.

He thinks of slipping between the phases of reality. Could he regain his body on his own that way? Could he pick a better one? He pads gently forward, going only a few, cautious steps, questioning himself all the while and trying to brace his senses against the hypnotic call of whatever the netherspace was wordlessly offering to him. He is waiting to see when the time will be right. If it will be at all. What will come of it.

I can fix this on my own for once, right now. He tells himself . I can learn so much. About everything. I can fix so much if I can just...

The pull of the place between is Urgent. Heady. Disorienting, he finds. It beckons him more insistently with each passing moment, and every sound made in the darkness is a soft, sighing, call to action. To adventure. To satisfy all of his human spawned, feline fueled, curiosities alike.

But another sound, this one from inside Tommy's house- still nearly right next to him -severs the tie. It's Tommy's laugh, loud and sharp and as intimately familiar to him as a siren song of his own.

Tommy. His tail lifts up into the air of its own accord as he starts to correct course towards the tree in Tommy's back yard, one which frequent exposure to the Dawkin's household tells him leads to the- usually wide open -2nd floor window landing of his best friend's bedroom.

The whispering from behind him grows more urgent as he turns away from it. Easier to discern from the normal night-music of Pleasantville. It grows in pitch, insistent, like a vulture pecking at the stripped down bones of its roadside carrion.

Despite his growing unease, Merton still feels the gravity of the thin places of the world eying him up, clawing at him. He realizes, with detached horror, that if the last few minutes are anything to go by, in this form, he isn't even sure if he can resist it at all. Much less how long his moment of self possession can last.

Merton, as a cat, finds himself to be mostly a loose collection of animal instincts and a haphazard jigsaw of the the bits of the world that don't seem to want to fit right with himself; all of this sewed up into a body thats more suggestive of physical form than equitable to one. He doesn't know how to even begin to navigate the puzzle of resisting the undertow of the universe as it digs its fingers solidly into the newest and most vulnerable parts of his shared but singular conciousness. The shadows in the hedgerows, the ripples of what's underneath the idea of them, begin to pulsate. They flail. Or it flails, because he can't tell the collective from the distinct anymore, can only watch with awe as the patch of space and time it is currently occupying shimmers, and cracks, and grows, and reaches. Merton swears he can hear it SCREAMING in the back of his head. At the place where his thoughts dissolve into notions less definable by words, and transform instead into a swirling mass of impulses conducted by the now-shrill trans-dimensional, thrumming of the universe's insistent, staticky back beat.

He sees something solidifying in the ectoplasm of that open sore in the flesh of the world. Something besides the thrashing, churning, cult of tendrils reaching out from the places they can squeeze through in the cracks. The sight makes every single one of his hairs stand on end. Which is something, given he has a significant deal more of them now than he usually would. But there is no mistaking what he is seeing being melded together in the eye of that widening miasma. A hand claws its way past the meshing, roiling tentacles of that dark expanse. Pulling itself forward into the physical, out of the theoretical. A set of shoulders struggles past, dragging the other arm in to being along side it, pale and wan. There is a pause, one last still moment before, with repulsion thrumming through every part of him, he focuses on the well of dark magics still spewing forth parts of the creature. He sees the top of a head breech through the dimensional weak spot. The head turns in Merton's direction at his displeased hisses of fright. Merton locks up in immediate, gut-wrenching, horror when the creature gazes back at him, wearing his own face.

‐-----

I'll probably never continue this or even do anything at all w it,, but it was fun! In case you were wondering about the subtext between tommy and merton, yes. gay. Also whats dialague don't know her

[dream-journalism]

journal entry | 3-10-20 | regarding shifting

I feel like i’ve been close to shifting these past two days (like really close), especially the day before yesterday. I think that if I’d been persistent and resisted scratching my side (it was too much I was dying) maybe I would’ve been able to do it.

Unfortunately last night was a bit of a mess and didn’t go as well as it had before; I tried some new methods involving songs, but youtube ads had this really funny idea of wanting to completely take me out of the experience and then Spotify also did me dirty by automatically playing more songs than I had queued (and no, the queue wasn’t looped, so it wasn't that either). The setbacks made me feel super frustrated, which obviously didn’t help, so I decided to keep giving those methods a try some other day and went back to using the raven and sunni method combination, which (as I mentioned in a previous post) has so far worked the best for me and shown me the most progress. 

Now, there’s two aspects of this that I want to explore, firstly it’s why I think I’m getting close, what have I noticed that changed? What’s different? What am I doing right? And the second one is why I feel like I haven't shifted yet, what am I missing? What am I doing wrong?

-

As for what I’m doing right, I feel like the Raven/Sunni method combination is working the best and most efficiently, and think I should stick to that one until I manage to learn how to shift with ease before trying something else and risking setting back or stalling my progress the way I did last night.

Now, there are a couple of reasons why I think I’m getting close: the symptoms have been coming way easier and more persistently than they did the first few days. The first few days that I started trying to shift I only seemed to get to a point of meditation and stopped there, which is great, it helped me concentrate and focus on visualizing, so that felt like a good first step, but recently, I’ve gotten past that and actually felt a bit different.

I’m going to talk a little bit about the symptoms that I’ve felt in more detail, mostly because I feel like most people who talk about them just say “dizziness, feeling like you’re floating” which, yes, that is what it feels like but personally for me, sometimes its hard to just base everything off of one word, because to me, there are different kinds of “dizzy”, for example.

Now, because I know these symptoms aren’t necessarily something that everyone experiences, but they seem to be the most common and generally accepted ones, as well as the ones that I have personally experienced so far and I will list them. They are in no particular order, since they all happen but don’t seem to have particular pattern in which I experience them.

Floating

This one is a bit confusing for me, not in the literal sense of the word, but it sort of overlaps with Detachment. The closest thing I can compare it to is when you’re swimming and you just completely relax your arm in the surface of the water and it’s, well floating.

I like to think of it as air fairies holding my arm up so it doesn’t fall through the mattress, I sort of stop feeling the sheets of my bed and the cold air of my AC, it’s this sort of just neutral feeling. In general, it’s just very relaxing. However it is with this symptom that I personally have the most trouble dealing with because as I start feeling it, at first its just calm and comforting, but after a few minutes, I start to get itchy spots (mostly in my legs and torso, which are the worst for me personally) and I have to concentrate really hard not to scratch them or think about them.

Dizziness

I felt dizzy, but it was a strange sort of dizzy. I’m anemic so, I’m pretty familiar with bed-dizziness, and for a second, I thought it was just that, but, it felt different. Instead of it being like everything around me was moving, it felt like I was the one moving. My back was still to the bed but it felt as if I was standing and the mattress was behind me. And yes, the world around me does move a little bit, though its not painfully disorienting, it just feels sort of like when you get off of a trampoline, or done a lot of exercise a lot and your legs make the ground feel wobbly, but in my head.

Detachment

I don’t know if this is what people call but the best way I can describe it is feeling detached from my body, something similar to disassociating (if you know what that feels like). To me, it feels the way a 3D movie without glasses looks, off kilter, like my body is the red and I am the blue. When I say I, I mean my brain, my soul, my essence, whatever you’d like to call it, but thats what it feels like. They’re not quite separated from one another yet, like in a 3D movie, they’re still touching, but they’re definitely out of phase.

The most noticeable parts for me are the arms, sometimes they feel a bit shorter for my actual, physical arms (which makes sense, since I did script that I start at a younger age in my DR) and they want to move forwards and reach for what I’m visualizing in front of me. The only thing that has stopped me from actually doing this (re: reaching out) is that a lot of different elements are still the same (i can still feel my sheets, i can still hear my AC running, etc.) and I don’t want to break concentration until I’m sure 100% I’ve shifted.

Other Symptoms

Some other symptoms that I’ve been feeling (but honestly I don’t think too much of them for a couple of reasons) are seeing Angel Numbers and Migraines /Headaches. Now why am I talking about these separately? Because they don’t particularly mean anything to me, but they are listed as some of the most common symptoms you experience during the day when you’re close to shifting (but not necessarily attempting).

Migranes/Headaches are something I experience quite often, it’s just something that runs in my family and my caffeine addiction doesn't help at all, so even though I had one throughout the entire day yesterday (the day after I have felt the closest ever to shifting), I don’t want to get my hopes up about it, since it’s not an uncommon thing to happen to me, however, it is still worth noting (if this is something you experience though, and it doesn’t happen to you often, then I’d probably take it as a sign that you’re close! Hooray!)

And as for Angel Numbers, they’re something that I’ve been seeing a lot of in these past two-three days (of course, when I say “a lot” I mean once a day or so.) I don’t count the Angel Numbers I see on my fyp on Tik Tok for example, because it makes sense to me that I’d see them on posts regarding Shifting Realities because those feel a bit like cheating, of course I’d see them under that particular topic. Though not gonna lie, I’m a little bit of a skeptic when it comes to Angel Numbers (I know i shouldn’t be but i just can’t help it), but it doesn't take away the fact that I HAVE been seeing them

-

Now that I have the positives down and the changes I’ve felt identified, I want to focus on why I think I haven’t shifted yet. Other than the fact that yesterday all the shifting setbacks really threw me off from the progress I thought I had made, it made me feel really frustrated and I feel like that negative thinking and feeling carried on with me until I fell asleep, which is never good, so I need to stay positive, and I think I will, now that I’ve mulled it over, so that should be good.

I’ve also had a really busy week so I’ve been super distracted in general and haven't been able to prepare as well as I would’ve liked for the Sunni method, but I’m going to try to get some preparation in before I go to bed, and since I can sleep in tomorrow, I won't feel as much pressure. I hope that’ll give me the last little push that I need to shift.

-

As of writing this, its 11pm and I’m going to prepare as best I can for the Sunni method before I wash off and then go to sleep. Hopefully today will be the day, and if not, I hope it’ll be soon.

[jjkpls]

(y)our name 2 - two (m)

> genre : smut, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> total words : 10.3k

> warnings/content : dumbassesfriends to lovers, unrequited love, slice of life; cursing, dirty talk, penetrative intercourse, oral (m receiving), thigh riding, some filth and then some more filth; jk being a lil shit, oc still panicking

jungkook : Who said I don’t want it

It took him a good twenty minutes to send this. You don't know if he pondered over it for that long or if, after getting back to whatever it is he was doing, the thought suddenly sprang in his head. It's such a curious message. Makes your heartbeat stutters and your hands clammy and it takes you an eternity to formulate a response.

you : Well you sent me the link for a reason

jungkook : Yea cause I thought it might help but it has nothing to do with what I want

What?

jungkook : You’re the one who said you wouldn’t do it again with me

What?

you : Did i say that?

jungkook : Yes you did

You start to type but stop as you realise you don't even know what to say. He wants it again? And what is he even saying? You don't remember ever saying that. Everything's a blur honestly, but Jungkook's words, his insistence, it almost gives off the feeling that he remembers well. Perhaps he hasn't just brushed it off like you thought he did.

you : Would you want it again?

jungkook : Say what you meant to send and I’ll answer

Those goddamn dots.

you : That’s not very fair but whateva

you : You wanna be a big baby as you always are

jungkook : I’m not even going to answer that

you : Well you just did idiot

You purposefully waste time, just trying to delay the confession.

You want to test your luck -maybe rejection is not what's waiting for you. He's pushing it, demanding you to tell. He's admitted some of his own feelings so you should do the same.

you :  it’s just that I found myself very frustrated, to an extent solo doesn’t do anything for me anymore..

As soon as you send the text, you shut the device off, throwing it down on the carpet. It's burning like your shame on your face and you can't bear to hold it any longer.

You really sent that. Your heart is beating furiously. You feel yourself sweating bullets. It's so hot, you sway your legs nervously, vainly hoping to ventilate the suddenly overly-heated room.

Jungkook is sweet, he doesn't leave you hanging for too long and soon enough, your phone is vibrating, begging you to pick it back up.

jungkook : Of course it wouldn’t 

you : Ok don’t even get cocky with me dude

jungkook : Why not? It’s my fault isn’t it?

jungkook : Cause I made you feel that good

So he knows. You were annoyed for you found yourself troubled, anxious and restless. Shaken to your core, moved to your soul. But a side of you, the rational one, kept pestering that you were the chaotic, dumb and weak one responsible for the mess he's made of you. However, here, he admits he knows. He's known all along. He's done it on purpose: fucking you up.

you : 😐

jungkook : Don’t admit it it’s fine we both know it

What an ass.

you : Seriously you’re too cocky what for

Your brain is off right now. You don't know what to say, tempted by the teasing warmth your chest is taken over but nervous to let it spread too far.  

jungkook : I know I’m right

jungkook : I’m not trying to embarrass you

jungkook : Maybe embarrass your exes a bit

jungkook : But it’s pretty easy to tell

jungkook : When someone hasn’t felt a certain way before

jungkook : I know you’ve never come that hard before

jungkook : Don’t lie to me

jungkook : And more than once you reacted like I was crazy

jungkook : Thats the whole fun of playing with a cunt it’s to make it come endlessly until it hurts and your soaked sore and allswollen adn red

Shit. How does he even do that? With just a couple of texts, rendering you speechless, breathless and burning. Soaked in your panties, the discomfort so evident you have to sit up, thighs pressed to one another by fear of exposing the incriminating dark spot out in the open.

He does own you. Capable of manipulating your body and mind with a few well-chosen words. It's something you've never played with, dirty talking. And you didn't know you'd like it as much as you do. But when Jungkook does -the other night, tonight by text- it's lethal.

But how could he do it so easily? Turning so lewd so suddenly? When for the past weeks, he's acted so natural, so casual as if he couldn't care less about the sex you've had. How can he just switch like that?

you : Are you drunk?

jungkook : 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

jungkook : A bit tipsy we went to a bar with the crew

That explains some of it.

jungkook : Was it too much?

you : Nono it’s fine

you : I just don’t know what to say

jungkook : Tell me what you want

jungkook : What you meant to ask me the other night when I so rudely interrupted you with a dumbass article

Well, shit.

It's just Jungkook. Honesty and shamelessness are the main keys of your friendship. However, you're not him and expressing your sexual desires as easily as he does is not innate.

jungkook : Don’t be shy just tell me

Fuck it.

you : I’d like it if you could be with me again like the other night

You can count the excrutiatingly painful seconds as they tick by. It's been fiveteen.

you :  😬

Now, fifty.

you :  😖 😖 😖 

Finally, he decides to spare you.

jungkook : Is being friends is not a problem anymore?

you : Idk i trust you you trust me

you : We communicate well most of the time

you : Last time wasn’t such a big deal was it? I feel like we’ll be fine

you : Don’t you think?

You're rambling. You need to stop rambling. It's one thing to be in constant panic mode with this shit -this you can deal with, you know yourself and you accept it- but Jungkook really doesn't need to know.

jungkook : Idk I guess you’re right

you : So when you come back are you going to consider it?

jungkook : No

What a dick. Toying with you, bringing you there to then, deny you. How dares he?

jungkook : I’ve made up my mind already

jungkook : You’ll have me if you show yourself convincing enough

you : like how?

jungkook : It’s not that hard 

jungkook : I love it when someone makes me feel like you really want me

jungkook : *they

Oh boy.

you : k ill try

You’re resolute to try. To try your hardest. It kills you, the idea that he somehow managed to have the upper hand in this. It feels like he's going to make you suffer. But the point of the matter, the only thing you care about anymore is the fact that you were wrong -he did enjoy the first time if he’s up for a second. Oh, and also, obviously, the fact that you are a couple of hours away from a devastating orgasm you've been craving for for weeks. 

You spend the whole day -luckily for you, you're not working- prepping you. Trimming and grooming. Exfoliating and moisturizing. And as you’re doing all that, your stamina is twitching in anxiety because, holy shit, it feels like it never stops. There’s always a thing to arrange, another one that wouldn’t let itself fixed and when was the last time you spent that amount of effort into looking (that) attractive for someone? Even for Namjoon, you did not.

You did a lot. You cared about him. Namjoon was always so class and handsome and you hated the idea of being an ugly potato attached to his side so you’d take care of yourself more than you would when completely single -just gotta be honest. But not as much. You’re not exactly sure why. Probably because Namjoon was attentive and sweet but not the same kind of lover. He wouldn’t feel you up as heavily as you remember Jungkook doing. He’s never specifically asked to see you with the lights on. He’d talk to you and listen and maybe that’s more what it was about. He would lean in and seem to be drinking in your appearance when you’d be having a good conversation. One where you’d get animated and passionate. You’re pretty sure your brains -no matter how lame you consider them to be next to his- were what he liked the most about you. He must have found you pretty. Surely. But you’d never really caught him giving you a longing stare from the other end of the sofa when you were not looking.

He’d call you pretty and ravishing when he’d come to pick you up for a date and you’d spent a lot of time dolling yourself up. But always the same way. Always the same words. Never anything specific to what you were wearing or whatever. And his eyes were not really looking, were they? It didn’t hurt your feelings nor your ego that much. Because there’s probably nothing more flattering for you to have someone like you for your mind rather than your appearance -the flimsy quite irrelevant thing that you don’t really have much control over. It was fine. And like everything that used to be fine, Jeon Jungkook had to make it a problem.

As you stare at your own reflection in the mirror, pinching your lips together to spread the lipstick more evenly, you’re reminded of the way his hot stare was burning you that night. You remember how every time you’d look his way in the dark, you’d see his big round eyes locked on you with the cute stars in it shining fondly. You have no idea how attracted he is to you physically. You have no idea if he is at all or it’s just a thing that he does. Maybe he likes you the way you like an ugly old picture of yourself. With time and fondness, it becomes sweet and special and you just like looking at it.

Maybe, it's a weird analogy.

More so given what he’d be doing to you, the words he was saying while looking at you like he did. You don’t know how to read this distinctive mind of his. It’s new territory. Not completely terrifying because there’s your guide, your best friend, walking you through it. But it’s like a new mansion you’re just visiting. So bright and light and welcoming, with so many doors all closed but not locked and you don’t know what’s behind any of them even though you’re so curious to figure it out. There’s all those new faces, secrets behind those doors. You hope he’ll open them to you. All of them. They’re holding, you're certain of it, mind-blowing surprises -if the other night, where you discovered an actual man instead of your little boyish baby of a friend, is anything to go by. And it’s wonderful, that idea. That after all this time, after being so sure of knowing the kid like you’ve crafted it from scratch yourself, there is still more to learn about him. New things for him to amaze you with.

“What are you doing?” Eun is watching you with a hand on the frame of the door, eyes blown wide and a weird stance. She looks about ready to flee like she’s witnessing something so unspeakable she is that close to jump on the phone and call the cops.

That’s rude. You’d frown if you were not so concern about munching up your freshly applied mascara. Fair enough, lately, you haven’t been exactly runaway material but the way she’s looking at you is plain blank offensive. 

“I’m just making myself pretty. Do I look weird to you?” Maybe you do. Maybe you overdid it a bit. 

She completely ignores your concern to jump on the exciting bait you did not even mean to throw. “What for? You have a date?”

“No, I don’t. It’s for my own, uh, enjoyment.”

Her face twists comically while she tsks in disdain. “Bitch, please.” Getting ruder by the second, she is. “You have a date. It’s not Namjoon is it?”

“No, not with Namjoon. But do I look too different, like strange-different?”

“You look gorgeous, babe. I was just surprised.”

“Oh okay, cool.” You decide to take her words for facts, panicking over potentially looking like a clownish try-hard is not what you need.

“So... A date? You little cachotière*.” Here, the nerves hit. You have been nothing but excited since the text conversation you had with Jungkook the night before but now, merely an hour before he’s supposed to be home, you begin freaking out.

It’s Eun and her overuse of the “d-word”. Because it’s not like that. At all. If it becomes a date then you have to rightfully so freak the fuck out. Thanks to her, even if it's not one, you start losing it. In your state of panic, while you observe yourself liquify in the mirror -it’s quite interesting to watch, you having a crisis in real time-, blanching in utter destress, another scary thought assaults you.

Jungkook lives across the short hall from here. He and Jimin and you and Eun are so close and comfortable around each other, you basically share one giant apartment, allowing yourselves to just barge in no matter how inappropriate the moment is. The whole floor is a constant open house. The probability of having Eun find out that you’re in fact sleeping over to their's is so high, it’s almost prophetic.

Shit. She’s going to ask so many questions. And of course, she won’t believe you if you say you dressed yourself up to the nines just to go play games with Jungkook. She’d think there would be something else to it. And she’d be right. But she doesn’t need to know just yet. You were blessed enough the other night, that she drunk herself to sleep with Jimin, knocked herself out so bad she couldn’t remember anything past the cake cutting. Not that you have or want to preserve secrets from her. It’s not really secrets. “Secrets” sounds like you’d purposefully want to withhold information from her from lack of trust. It’s not like that. It’s just whatever Jungkook and you are doing is yours. There are a lot of things you two never consider sharing with other people just because they are your thing.You two share a private garden and no one will ever be invited to visit it.

“Who is it?”

“I- just- it’s a bit soon to-“

“You don’t wanna say yet. Ok, I get it.” She says it with geniune sympathy, yet her glossy lips puckered in a little pout. “Do I know him?”

“Uh- possibly.” Her eyes widen for a second before they’re looking up to the roof, searching her brain for the full list of your common acquaintances -she’s understanding and respectful but that doesn’t mean she's not eaten up by curiosity.

After a while, as you ponder over your own image and consider wiping your whole face off of the makeup to just go with something more like your everyday self, the one Jungkook knows better, Eun gives up on the investigation and redirects her attention back to you, “Is he handsome?”

You don’t know how to answer her and end up giving an incoherent babbling and spilling of squeaky sounds that can only describe it better than words would. She’s smiling a wolf grin, picking up a lipstick from her personal shelf before taking a makeup remover tissue to drag over your already painted mouth. She applies, meticulously, the new taint she’s chosen. It’s a deep red, very sultry that gives you the look of a sexy vampire or maybe a succubus.

She gets it. Jungkook's tending to observe you is not the only reason you've worked so hard on yourself. He is so deadly handsome. You always knew but not felt it arouse anything within you. You saw him as that little brother of yours who’s grown so much into a very charming, universally attractive boy. But that night, with his hair -you’d never, in more than a decade of being his friend, seen his forehead and you’re oh-so glad you did not because horny-high-school-you would probably have freaked about it, who would think that eyebrows could do so much to someone's face- pulled back and his leather jacket, quirking his eyebrow and biting his lip and leaning around like he was some kind of James Dean. You don’t know how responsible are the orgasms -surely, they can have an impact on your perception-, or your thirst, but you’ve decided, observing him more attentively since that night, that he was one of the most beautiful men you’ve ever seen. Truly.

Also you can’t actively name who would be standing right next to him on the podium but that’s just a detail. A detail you won’t share with him more than you did last time because you don’t want his ego to inflate and explode right in your face. It wouldn’t be pretty nor pleasing. He's cocky enough already as it it.

Anyway, you just want to look beautiful because he, himself, is so much so. 

“I hope you’re aiming to get laid because with this magic...” Eun leaves the sentence pending, her sharp eyebrows high over her protruding eyes conclude it. You can’t control the widely telling grin drawing itself on your mouth.

“You’re gonna need a lot of convincing.” It’s the first thing he said as he saw you walked in through the cracked open door. You’d just sneaked your way through the whole length of their apartment, trying to not get caught by Jimin while having a mini attack because said Jimin was sitting right there, in the living room you had to pass by. He had headphones on and was so engrossed in whatever he was doing on his cellphone that he didn’t even notice you, staring at him like a deer caught in headlight, not even flinching when in your panic to run from the scene while luck was still on your side, you had knocked down a craft bag full of noisy ramen boxes. You hadn’t even picked it up, just rushing to the end of the hallway for Jungkook’s bedroom.

You don’t know what you look like right now. You feel awkward and dishevelled and quite exposed, standing in front of him in your fancy outfit while he’s in his pyjamas, looking up at you from the bed, with an unimpressed expression masking his face.

“You know I arrived 2 hours ago, right?” He is not genuinely upset, you can tell. But there’s a little edge to his tone. An honest curiosity. And maybe a relief. Maybe he thought you had changed your mind and hadn’t bothered letting him know about it.

“Yes, sorry. Mom called.” You say it with a bratty roll of your eyes as if you’re not left warm and fuzzy each time you hang up a phone call with her.

She’s lovely. You miss her often but not to the point of actually wanting her around -she’d pester and nag the life out of you if she were to see the state of your room and just the general way you chose to do things. And she talks so much. She has so much to say every time she picks up the phone to ring you. Everything about her and about your dad and the rest of the family and the rest of the neighbourhood and what the mayor has been up too and what her colleagues at work have been discussing about these days. It goes on and on and on and you understand that it comes from a place of her missing you dearly but when most of the times it is okay and a fairly entertaining way of wasting two hours doing nothing, you couldn’t care less about whatever the hell was going to be replacing the shop next to your uncle’s when the stupid story is delaying the event of tonight. But how could you tell her that? So you sat on the barstool, your forehead pressed onto your handbag (that you didn’t need but you were supposed to go out on a date so that fit better the narrative), shoe-clad feet bouncing nervously in the air, half-listening, half-dreading, humming noncommittal monosyllabic words into the phone, as Eun watched you from the sofa, staring with a beyond confused, low-key judgmental gaze, miming with all her body how you should hang up and head out. And that’s how you arrived two hours late when you meant to be in his bedroom before he even came back from the station.

You shrug, grimacing in a form of apology. But Jungkook knows your mom like his own and doesn’t hold you accountable for the lateness anymore, his face being recovered by a soft layer of fondness at the mention of her. “She said to tell you she thinks about you a lot and misses you. And to give you kisses too.” He chuckles at that and you match him, amused by the double meaning you now give to the term. You used to almost fear those innocent kisses -more subconsciously than not, it just wouldn’t come about, none of you needing to express your affection like that- and look at you now. About to get screwed by him. For the second time.

He is staring up at you with an intensity, you don’t want to get ahead of yourself and assume what it means but it is here. And you can't help but stare back, hoping to not show too much how bad you want to jump on him right now. Lain in bed like that, back pressed against his headboard, with a half unbuttoned white silky-like shirt, and his expression and his demeanour, you can see that under the cover his legs are taut and slightly parted: he looks like he’s expecting something. You. He’s been expecting you and you’re finally here and he’s tantalizing you with the meal he knows you want to consume. Tantalizing because no matter how sure you are that his expression means he still is on board and wants you, he doesn’t look willing to make a move. “So, as I was saying: a lot more convincing will be needed.”

“Well, I’m here already. Doesn’t that tell you I- like- want it?”

“Sure. But still it’s late and I’ve been travelling all evening and I’m so tired.” He feigns a yawn. “As you can see, I was going to sleep.” What an annoying little shit. He makes his eyes all big and sorry-looking, putting his mouth in a pout like he’s saddened. But you see the quirks of his stupid eyebrows. He has the “bullshit face”. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Whenever he has it on, and he has very little control over it by the way, you know he’s in for some bullshitting. Either it shows when he wants to get away with something he’s done or doesn’t want to admit it out loud, or he’s straight on wanting to mess with you. He has had that stupid face since he was fourteen and he pretended in that one conversation about porn and sexism that he shared the same opinion as you and yes, lesbian porn for male was wrong and disgusting. He didn’t believe a word of it, and this not because he was a big fan of the genre but because he wasn’t a big consumer of porn in general -which you didn’t know at the time. You just knew that he was lying because his face contorted in a way it never did before and that was suspicious as hell.

So here comes the bullshit face and you already know why. You’re in for some torture. Jungkook and his stupid competitive ass. While he doesn’t like competing in 'real' life with other people because he doesn’t like to win over them, he has no problem with you. He loves to make your life harder. He balances it out by being the best friend you've ever had but still, so aggravating.

“Guk, seriously, don’t be mean. I already made the first step the other day!”

“And then you avoided me for a week.” He says, totally unfazed.

“It wasn’t even a week.” You’re the one scowling now. Mumbling through button-shaped lips. “Seriously, I can’t do this...” There’s a flash of alarm blinking for a second on his face as he straightens up in his bed, the cover slipping completely from his torso, exposing all the golden skin peeking from the open shirt.

“Do what?”

“‘Convince you’. I can’t- like- seduce you or whatever.” You grumble like an upset kid and that’s pretty much what you feel like. It’s like your favourite toy, the one you’ve been wanting for many Christmas is just right here, within reach, but you won’t have it because you’re required to resolve an impossible math problem or something. It’s too hard. You already feel yourself burning from embarrassment, your heart is thumping in your temple and you just decide to give up, taking a few tentative steps backward, hand already reaching out for the handle when Jungkook jumps off of his bed to grab it. Standing so tall and broad, hovering you, his warm hand holding yours and the breeze of his perfume hitting your nostrils, you’re taken by a rush of excitation. It’s crazy what the context does to perception. He stood that way in front of you so many times but never have you felt so small, never have you found him so big and attractive because of it and that scent, you’ve smelled basically all your life -a soft flowery carress-, never made your head spin that way.

“Don’t leave!” His voice is a bit loud, almost desperate and the thought that he might be makes you smile internally. “Lemme help you.” He demands so gently, with the stars in his eyes as fervent supporters to his cause, there’s no way you’d say no. He could ask you anything when he’s looking and talking to you like that, with his warm hand now pressed to your neck, thumb caressing your cheek.

You nod your head once and he kisses you. As softly as he is, your hands clutch at his shirt way too intensely to match. He’s so gentle like you’re a tiny little thing he’s dreading at the idea to scare away. So different from the kisses you remember him giving you the other night. It’s lovely anyway. Tender as can be. Delicate and kind and when he pulls back to look into your eyes again, your heart warms up with all the love and adoration you have for this man. He really is your best friend, the most important person in your life that you had chosen and he makes you so happy.

“Is it okay?” He whispers so sweetly you want to wrap your arms around his neck and suffocate him with love. You nod again this time more dismissively because a scent in his breath has just interpellated you.

“Have you been drinking?”

He smiles cheekily, dipping his head down in guilt. “I had a shot or two.” You relish in the shameful tremble of his confession.

There’s this complimentary thing about you two. One would often compensate for the other's lacking. It’s never been conscious or anything but it’s always been there. You see the way he gulps visibly, you recognize the tiny blush of his cheeks sauntering to his ears, you know why he had those shots, and you feel the rush of confidence run through your veins because he is so nervous, you can see it now. Therefore, you have to tease. It’s only fair.

“You were not this nervous by text, were you?”

“Stop saying that, I’m not nervous!” He exclaims with passion but you both know he’s lying and it makes you laugh right in his face, uncaring of his pinching your cheek to make you stop. He’s just too cute and dumb.

“Keep that up and I really won’t be nice to you.”

Even if the grin remains on your face, you shudder from head to toes. His tone has dropped to a lower purr, his gaze is dark with a gravity that wasn’t there before. That's funny because it really feels like a deja-vu. Last time unrolled so similarly and you know what is supposed to happen now.

“You always say that.” He doesn’t say anything, keeps staring, engaging in an eye staring contest, daring you to not drop your own. “You threaten me but you never act on it.” You say quietly. You don’t know what comes over you, probably just the heat of the moment, but you regret almost instantly to be so reckless. You don’t want him to be merciless with you. You had a taste of him being fairly nice the other night and almost died. You’re terrified of him being mean. But here you are tempting him into doing just that.

Perhaps he, who knows you the best, reads you again like a book he’s written himself and he settles for being soft and lenient with you. He leans in to smash his lips to yours, now wet and demanding, sucking your bottom lip between his teeth before you even get to close your eyes. His hands holding your head firmly, his hips leaning forward making his thighs dig into you, his tongue greets for the briefest of moment your own, sending a direct message to your centre which you can feel clench around nothing. But before you can gather back your thoughts and try and meet him and work his mouth too instead of just letting him devour you, he’s let you go. All grip on you, any proximity allowing you to feel his warmth are gone. He’s so far the only thing that's still been linking you, the thin strip of saliva joining your mouths, snaps. You’re cold outside yet burning inside, heart erratically pumping in your chest, feeling dumb and confused and abused and revolted, because why would he already stop? Especially to step back and look at you like he’s decided he now wanted to be mean.

“I’ve helped you enough. Now it’s on you.” You gawk in silence, watching mindlessly as he proceeds on making his bed, laying the cover flat so he could hop back down on it.

“What does that mean?”

“Make me feel good. Remind me why I’m letting you have me when you’re being such a bitch.” You gasp at the choice of word. He’s never used it in front of you, not even in a joking manner -or maybe once or twice but he was talking about his roommate who happens to be one at times. Your astonishment is met with the greatest smirk. He’s having so much fun because he’s got the upper hand again. “Treat me better and I’ll be good to you when it’s your turn.”

And this is one of those moments you'd encountered so many times since you were a little girl. This instance where two options would be presented to you and you had to make a choice. An important one. One that you decided would define you and therefore, it needed to be the right one. Either you choose the easiest option, indulge in your fear of the unknown, turn into a coward, denying yourself what you really want because you’re scared. Or you carry your virtual balls, decide that even if you might fail, you will follow this terrifying path out of your comfort zone because you want the future you to be proud and thankful for you. Most of these times, you did not only think about you but also about the little boy with the bunny teeth and fluffy hair and big and soft wondering eyes which were always watching you, you couldn’t permit yourself to bend and plead because you wanted to inspire him to be strong and adventurous.

The boy's right there. Not so little anymore. Not needing any push nor any light to follow. But eyes still as big and soft, looking at you so expectantly, you recall those would never hurt you. You can face the shame. You can even face the embarrassment of not knowing what to do or try and end up doing wrong because it’s just Jungkook. He’d smile to heal your bruised ego and guide you gently the way he did before.

You step forward, carefully, as if he’s become the fragile being ready to fly away now. It's silly. The precaution is for you more than for him. Legs twitching slightly, eyes set on your every move, lips now hanging open as if he’s struggling to breathe, he doesn’t look whatsoever wanting to back away. He’s waiting for you. You slip your feet out of your shoes in a swift motion, before kneeling on the bed, one hand setting on his knee. You see his Adam's apple jump up and down and you wonder if he doesn’t wish he had downed more than two shots. He keeps switching from a nervous wreck to a hot “alpha” dude and you don’t understand how you're supposed to deal with that.

When you look down, pondering over your next move, you notice the blue shorts he has on. You know them for you’ve seen him wearing them multiple times before. They’re meant to be rather loose. At least you thought they were. But as you gawp at them, you’re struck by how tight they look on his legs. They end way higher than they should because of his position, his thighs filling them up to the point of straining -if he keeps them for too long you’re sure he’ll have a thin indent along his skin. His thighs look so meaty and the part just before his knees, lacking fat rendering his monstrous muscles enhanced. You press your own legs on reflex. You had no idea a man's legs could be so attractive.

The glorious view finishes to urge you on. Trailing forward, your hands set on the object of your new obsession, fingers loving the warmth of his skin and dipping in the flesh. He feels wonderful under your touch.

Would he let you bite them a bit? Maybe if you ask nicely, he will. You shake the thought off. It’s not the plan right now. You don’t even know if he’d like that and you’re supposed to please him.

You raise yourself from the bed, keeping your balance thanks to the grip you have on his thighs and get even closer to take a seat on the left one. Jungkook looks so handsome from up close. You’re met with his soft skin and pretty shades. There’s the rather deep scar he got on his cheek one of those times when you were fourteen and you were practising riding your bikes on the low stairs in front of the subway station. You remember how scary it was to have to entangle him from his fucked up bike with half of his face pissing blood. Terrifying. But it left him with this eternal scar, charming along with his boyish features, and memory of a not-so-pleasing moment but precious friendship. You love it even more because he lies each time he's asked about it, telling crazy stories that'd never happened, while sporting a cheeky smile only you understand. And there are his beauty marks scattered here and there like they’re playing a game of hide-and-seek. You find your favourite one hiding under his bottom lip, lean in to place a kiss on it.

When you back away his eyes are shut, his face so relaxed, he looks so peaceful and happy with this tiny curve of his pink lips -lips that you notice are smeared with a faint dark red you know to be the lipstick you're wearing-, you want to squeal from how grateful you are to have him like that.

Jungkook scrapes his throat when he opens his eyes again, shifting a bit under you as if to get more comfortable and you’re reminded that he’s waiting. He’s been waiting patiently and your clit from down here pulses as to remind you that you also need something.

So you start moving. Hands pressed to his shoulders, loving how sturdy and big he feels under you, you grind languidly along his thigh. You feel it building already. You've lost the manner, the way to do this for it to be nice, but it's so hot: he is, his breath on your lips is, the room, everything is. Soon the intense gaze you’re sharing with him is broken as his head falls backward, all teeth out from how amused he is. You don’t stop moving, no matter how confusing his reaction is, because the contact on your clit feels incredible. It shoots a succesion of electric shocks through you, blanking your mind momentarily each time, there’s no way you’re stopping because he wants to make fun of you again. 

“So I tell you to please me and that’s what you come up with?” He asks once his fit of chuckles have quiet down. 

Breathlessly, you counter, “You said you liked that.” You’re not offended about his change of mood. You couldn’t care less. Not when you’ve figured out exactly how to move your hips to treat your cunt, when the motion has come so easy to perform you can now speed up comfortably. 

“I do but when you’re done, you’ll have to try harder than that.” You nod, eyes closed and eyebrows furrowed. He takes hold of your hips. He’s not guiding, just letting his hands there as to feel you, encourage you. “For now, just make yourself come, babe.” Your eyes open again on his, the latter having a lot to say. You read them outright. He wonders if it’s ok to call you that. He apologizes every time he does it by accident so it feels a bit weird, unfamiliar. But the pet name, for some reasons you don’t care to elucidate, renders you all putty and giddy. He can probably feel it in the way you melt even more in his embrace, looking up at him with large eager eyes. 

“I promise I’ll do better after.” It slips out of your mouth straight from your hazy heart and Jungkook catches it with eagerness. You sound so tiny and lenient. Almost pitiful. 

“You’re doing great, baby.” He assures you right away, kissing your jaw with way more tongue than lips. “You’re so sexy.” You moan over him, from the pleasure building, the wetness on your skin, the praise, the name. Your fingers slip under the open folds of his shirt, too lazy and incompetent to unfasten the buttons, but so eager to grant your eyes with the glorious vision of his thick chest, they drag the tissue down as much as it’d go, not caring the least about how the stretch might hurt the skin around his neck. “Are you close?”

“Yes.” You moan in his ear. His hands on your covered hips glide along your thighs to sneak under the skirt of your dress and grab the flesh the find there. 

“You know one thing that I would really like you doing for me?” His voice, texture of honey, meets the crook of your neck and coats your heart in a thick, warmth layer.

“Tell me.” You pant in his face without an once of embarrassment left. You’re rutting like a horny bitch on his thigh, begging him to tell you how you could please him. How he brought you there, how he is doing all this is beyond your comprehension but you're loving every aspects of it.

“I'd really like you to cover my cock with the pretty lipstick you have on.”

Your lips press against one another. May Eun be blessed.

“I’d love that.” His tongue is at your collarbone for a devilishly short instant. “'Will show me how desperate you are for it.”

“Ok, I will.” He smiles to you, from his bunny smile to his glittering eyes. “Can you kiss me? Like ear-earlier?” His mouth is on yours before you get the question fully out. You moan into him, finding out this is the tiny push you needed. As he licks and sucks, his fingers digging deeper in your thighs, you get off both from the friction and his kiss. You’re almost there. You can feel the heat spreading. You sneak one of your hand down his chest to his crotch to get a grasp of his cock. It’s so hard and so hot under your palm. So hot and wet in your mouth. And you are coming undone, hips snapping on his leg, eyes shut and lips open only to leave out a small, broken whine. The pressure against your clit feels a bit too intense, a bit raw and makes you jerk and wince, until Jungkook wraps his arms around you and welcomes you into his chest, kissing the top of your head while whispering something you don’t really catch through the ringing in your ear.

It’s decided. If he’s ok with it you’ll come back to his bed for all your sexual needs. Rubbing yourself on a pillow never felt that good and he hasn’t done much to you, just being there and turning you on in a way that shouldn't be allowed. When you withdraw from his lap, you’re cringing visibly from the sensitivity, movements slow and careful, face contorted. Jungkook is watching you with undisguised enjoyement, a grin biting on his lower lip. 

“So I gather you like thigh riding too, now?” You shrug, red in the cheeks, avoiding his gaze. He doesn’t comment further. He just sits there, the tips of his fingers grazing mindlessly the thigh you just rode. The other set of fingers toying with the hem of his dishevelled shirt. You watch him from under your lashes, not ready to meet his eyes just yet, resulting in you having to face the prominent bulge of his crotch. The moment lasts for an eternity. All you can think about is why he won’t give it to you already. “If there’s something that you want, you should know how to ask for it.”

Aggravation is heavy on your temples. You take the time to think about it and quite frankly you don’t have it in you to start arguing for something you both know that you both want. You’re not that petty. He can have his stupid win if he wants. 

“Strip already so I can- suckyouoff.” How is it so difficult to say out loud? You’ve never thought yourself to be that prude but here you are, having to say the words, and you realize you’re so unfamiliar with them if not for the erotic novels you used to read back in high school. While he, on the other hand, says all those obscenities with such perfect phlegm.

His slender fingers raise to his shirt, toying with the first button and after an excruciatingly long time which tastes of pure torture, they unfasten it. They aim for the next one but just stop there. You’re boiling, shaking, this close to jump on him and rip it off already. Decency and, to a bigger extent, pride keep you from doing so. He would like this too much.

“That won’t do, ___.” You can't help the long sigh that escapes you.

“Remember what I said? Convince me.” He says again, stressing the syllables as to make sure you get them right this time. He's pushing you so far. Too far. You don't get why he would challenge you this much. He was gentler the other night, more complaisant. Maybe it turns him on. Maybe he's not a total dick and actually likes to be worshipped rather than simply enjoying your misery. You do want to please him. Therefore, with a trembling voice, breath shorten by timidity, you pronounce aloud the words you mean but hurt to admit.

“Can I please have your cock?” Those are the magic words. In a blink of the eyes, his shirt is thrown away, one of his hand sets on his crotch, massaging it softly while the other reach for you, open palm welcoming you forward. You fit yours in it, Jungkook presses the inside of your fingers to his mouth before he drags you to him. Once you've kneeled in between his opened legs, your hand slip from his. You look up, gnawing on your lip. “Can you like- guide me through it?”

“You've never given head before?”

“I did but- I don't know. I want it to be good.” He smiles wide. That big, big grin that shows off both his up and down lines of teeth, with his dumb nose all scrunched up.

He nods, observing you quietly. And you reach for the waistband of his shorts. You mean to just drag it down to his thighs but he takes upon himself to strip completely out of it. You have no idea how he does that, standing fully naked there, in front of you -who's still fully clothed, by the way. You're not complaining; when he's looking this good, it makes it rather understandable. He looks perfect. Perfect but not in a linear, boring way. In a shockingly stunning way.

You've never had the full experience. You had the massive thighs, the broad shoulders and lean chest, his pretty face and opulent fluffy hair on top of it. But all put together, he's a deadly piece of art. Hypnotizing. Shaped like an Adonis. He looks so handsome. Gorgeous.

And of fucking course, as any piece of art, not a detail is left neglected. He's this remarkable to his very sex.

It's so fucking ridiculous. And unfair.

Quick before letting yourself the time to look at it for too long and get intimidated, you wrap your hand around it. Fairly long and lean, fair with a blushy tip. So soft and warm and hard in your hand. Such a pretty cock. The thought plagues your mind but you're smart enough to not say it aloud. It's one of the weirdest thought you've ever had, you realize.

It's true though. So true. So pretty it just pulls you in.

You kiss the head a few times, slowly, before you slide to the length. Walking your way up with your tongue, you hear him hiss aloud, see his abs contracting in spasms.

The tip of his cock is so tender. Flushed, silky and soaked, tasting and feeling so nice on your tongue, on your lips. Your eyes meet his. You're just curious to see how sweet his face looks when he's letting out all those tiny whimpers. You see him grimace, frown before he closes his eyes shut and throw his head back, blocking entirely the view you're giving him and you're wondering if you're doing this right. He's not giving you any guidance like he said he would. He's not that loud, quite quiet even, if you consider how talkative he was the other night. He's not bucking his hips uncontrollably in your wet heat like you remember your ex, Taehyung, used to do.

As you suckle on the head, dipping the tip of your tongue in the slit, your left hand holding him firmly upward while the right one, curiously tests its way down, caressing his balls. There's a switch hidden there apparently. Each time the tip of your fingers dip there, he leaves out a languid groan.

“You're not telling me what to do.” You complain between two deep inhale, raising up. Your lips feel hot, tingly, and you imagine them swollen and red. You imagine it's the reason why he's staring at them the way he is.

“I don't need to tell you anything. You're- You're doing perfect.” It makes you roll your eyes. His voice is tensed, his words stuttered but he might be faking it. He's not even cursing or anything. His hands not gripping your hair. Awfully disappointing. Perfect in your mouth but disappointing around you. Even more so, when he stops you from leaning to work your mouth on him again. “You wanna give me more?” You stare silently, not having a clue of where a yes would take you. “Wanna try to ride me?”

It’s the best sensation you’ve ever felt. Sitting on his chest like it's your throne, having him look up at you with the giant marbles he has for eyes, enchanted and eager. “Should I eat you out first?” You’re soaked. You’ve been feeling yourself drip since you tasted for the first time a drop of his precum, you don’t need to be eaten out. You know what’s to come. You’re about to have him fill you up again. After all this time craving for it, dreaming day and night about it. You wouldn’t want to delay it any longer.

When Jungkook gets busy grabbing a condom from the nightstand, you take the opportunity to throw your dress over your head. You’re not sure why he hasn’t hinted at taking it off yet. His wandering hands have been teasing the skin under it non stop but he’s never tried to actually take it off.  

“Jungkook, why not take my dress off?”

He looks up from the wrapper he’s been struggling with, confusion shining in his eyes. His mouth opens, about ready to answer but he catches sight of your form, naked except for the delicate black lace lingerie you carefully picked. He’s never seen you naked with proper lightening, nor any close to this state of undressing as the last time he’s seen you in a bikini, well, you can't remember but it was probably in late middle school. He seems to like it. It’s the special gaze again. The one of a lover. The ardent one, dark, almost teary as his hands graze up your sides so lightly it leaves a painful scorching along the skin. “You’re beautiful.”

“Thanks.” You mean to hit his chest to chastise his over-exaggerated gravity but you can’t deny his sincerity and your hand simply lands flabbily instead. “Can I keep my, uh, underwear?” He just nods, doesn’t get cocky or mocking, eyes still bathing in your appearance, and a crazy thought occurs. Could it be possible that he sees you the same way you see him?

You don’t like to talk in leagues. It’s ridiculous and pointless and for the most part inaccurate. You know your worth. You’re a good person with a lot to offer, fairly pretty on a good day, with some flaws, of course, but nothing that outrageous, just like most people. But Jungkook is quite, he’s quite phenomenal. Friendship put aside, you can see how much of a surreal deal he is. And physically -even though it doesn't usually matter to you but since it’s about sleeping together for the sake of sex rather than feelings, it kind of does matter here-, he’s beyond anything you have ever seen, in real life or on a screen. He’s something else. Something else from another world. A perfect dream of a perfect sculptor brought to life. And he’s looking at you like he doesn’t know that, like he can’t see that and he believes it’s you the piece of art.

“Sure. You’re- It looks so pretty on you.” His voice has lost some of the heavy tension from before. He's smoothing the tissue under his fingers, studying the quiet intricacies in the pattern.

“Thanks. I just bought it.” His dark orbs snap up.

“For me?” You could lie. You could and he would never know about it but you want to tell him the truth. You nod. Shrugging slightly to pretend casualty. Kindly, he whispers, “Thank you, babe. I love it.”

Maybe it's the timid blush on your cheeks that manages to change his heart. Either way, it’s like he finally thinks you’ve done enough and don’t deserve to be waiting any longer. However, now it’s your turn to delay the action a bit. Placing your hand on his just wrapped firmly around his cock, you prevent him from covering it up just yet. There’s still precum shinning at the slit, and the head looks so sweet, you just need to know if it’d feel as good against your clit as it did on your tongue. It does. It’s soft and sleek, warm, it toys so pleasingly with your button and the visual, the visual is sinful. The cherry on top is the expression you catch on his face when you look up. Jungkook is as mesmerized as you are by the sight.

“I want you now, Guk.” It takes him a good five seconds during which he gauges your gaze. You’re not sure what he meant to find there. Doubt maybe? Disappointment? Probably. Disappointment matching his own for he seems to drag on the moment he separates your two sexes to proceed on slipping the condom on. You feel it too. The almost dread. There’s a vivid image of him jerking himself off against your clit that blinks furiously behind your eyelids. Fuck. It doesn’t help to see him tug at his cock and manipulate it between those beautiful veiny hands of his.

“Up.” You obey forthwith, pushing on your knees to let him place the tip just under you. His free hand push the crotch of your panties to the side, managing to sneak a couple of fingers between your lips. It makes him smile when he sees you unwittingly bucking your hips forward. “You control it all, ok? It’s like for my thigh, you just do what feels good to you, yeah?”

You nod. The rational part of your brain is freaking out but the greedy glutton that is the other side jumps on the occasion. Literally. In one swift motion, you've downed yourself completely on him, taking his cock entirely in, you’re almost positive you can feel him in your womb. It has him gasp loudly, cursing under his breath as his hands fly to your hips to squeeze them meanly. You don’t know if it’s a manifestation of a brusque and unexpected rush of pleasure or if you’ve hurt him as much as you hurt yourself. He should have done it. He’s the one that knows how to get you off. He gives you the power for five seconds and you manage to hurt the both of you with your incompetence and stupid hormones. It's not a good time to give up though. Not when he still has the steamiest kisses for your collarbones. You start rising up slowly this time, it’s decided you’re keeping it slow. It’s easier for you and brings you progressively to a more comfortable fit. Also as you take your time to free every inch and take them back in one by one, you get to feel him graze your walls. It’s a wonderful sensation. Being that filled up. Being on top of this man who’s still holding you like you’re holding his faith between your hands and he’s so willing to know what you’ll decide to do with it.

Lucky for him, you're feeling merciful. It’s hard not to when through the layers of sweat and crimson covering him into your lover, you still catch glimpses of your best friend. The cute little boy, forever the cure to your loneliness and adversities, the one person you would give up your whole life and its aspirations for. Even your family, you care so much about them, love them so dearly but you’re still marked by that time you had to come to the realization that your life was your own and you had to disappoint them by going against what they wanted for you just because it didn’t match your vision. But Jungkook, Jungkook could ask anything from you, anything and you’d give it to him. You’d give up on anything that’s ever meant something to you. Because he is everything. He's all the meaning your life owns. You’re not sure if it’s the right time but it’s there, sitting on his cock, riding him minutely that you feel a rush of utter love and adoration for the one friend that possesses your happiness since you were little. He's so sweet to have never withheld it from you but you know it depends on him. You could cry just meeting his pretty eyes looking back at you with as much fondness as your heart feels.

You’re getting too sappy, it’s ridiculous. You gather it comes from the pace, nice but not high enough to have you two focused entirely on the pleasure. Therefore you proceed to mix it up as much as your body would allow you. Switching the speed, the movements, rotating your hips instead of rising them, going back to jumping on it, just guiding yourself by his reactions, the quiet curses, the kneading of your flesh under his hands, the wincing of his features. He’s so hot. So sexy. You can’t keep your eyes off of him. You don’t even deliberately control your hips anymore. It’s just your body following closely Jungkook's advice. Doing whatever feels good.

“Guk, I’m close.” His eyes which had been closed for the past few minutes from the deep grinding of your hips against his pelvis suddenly shoot open. They’re not soft nor gentle anymore. All dark and intense again.

He grabs your face in his hand, the thumb digging in your left cheek as the rest of his fingers press the other one. Pressing his mouth hard to yours he asks, “Will you come for more?” He's harsh, voice severe as he doesn't speak but growl, sending an electric jolt to your spine. Soon the idea that there might be even more hidden wherever that Jungkook comes from is sending liquid fire to your cunt.

“Yes, yes, I will!” You gasp, blinking a tear down your cheek. He notices it and let his grip on your face to wipe it away. You’re about to come. You’re so fucking close. You can tell the ball of your orgasm has reached its maximum size, it just needs something, one little something to burst and annihilate everything else. “Why?” His hand is back to the side of your face, not rigid like before instead warmly cupping it. Eyes searching for yours, he presses, “Why is that? Baby, tell me please.”

“Cause you’re so goo-uh”

“Me or my cock?” He chuckles against your hair and you wonder how the fuck he has enough brains left to make jokes, when he’s that deep inside of you and must be, has to be, as close as you are.

“B-both” That makes him laugh again, that same mean chortle.

“Yes,” He’s moaning it so languidly. He relishes in the idea. “Shit- come here.” Jungkook presses down on your lower back, you follow leniently, like clay in his hands, laying entirely on top of him. He helps you raise your ass up higher and once you meet the perfect position to take it, he starts thrusting upward hard, slowly but brutally, each time you can hear the loup clap of his hips against your skin, you’re pretty sure it’s going to hurt tomorrow but for now, it feels fabulous.

It’s so rough and it feels like you’ve been going at it forever. The girth is dragging the ring of your hole along with the movement and that stimulation alone is electrifying. You’re almost there.

“Tell me- talk to me,” Desperation is laced closely to his tone now. It fits him so well, you're loving it. “Tell me y-you’ll come back to me for m-more, please.” He’s losing it, you can hear it in his tremble, his cute stutter. And the grunts he’s leaving between each needy word sound animalistic.

“I will, Jungkook.” It comes out before you even get to think the confession over. But as it does, you realize you mean them entirely. “I’ll always come back, you just, ah, you fuck me so well. So fucking good, your big cock always-” A particularly strong thrust, resembling more of a spasm, pushes a new tear down your cheek. “fills me up so good, you- no one has ever-“

“Fuck. No one has ever what?”

“Fucked me this good, shit.” Shockingly enough it’s your own words, filterless, genuine and born from the fabulous heat of this moment, that suffice to push your orgasm to the edge and make it explode and invade your whole being, body and mind. You don’t even take notice when Jungkook ends up coming, blinded and rendered deaf by your own pleasure.

It's when your erratic heart starts to calm down, and your muscles to relax, melting calmly into Jungkook’s body who’s welcoming you so kindly, not complaining about the heat or the weight or the stickiness, you gather he came too.

It’s incredible this sensation. Not that you’re proud of it but being taken over by pleasure so much so to render you selfish and clueless of your every surrounding, even your lover, it’s never happened before. You wonder if that’s not the precise reason why none of your before-Jungkook orgasms can compare.

As you land back safely on his chest, you're only granted a few minutes with his agitated heart beating under your cheek and his comforting warmth before your surroundings reappear to you, obnoxiously reminding themselves to existence. “Oh my god, Jimin!” You whisper yell in a theatrical gasp. It just makes Jungkook laugh. This moron.

“S’fine, he has Eun to discuss it with.” You raise up, fighting the fatigue, just to glare at him. It's the same stupid argument as last time. Except this time, it's so fucking worse. You still don't get how casual he can be about this. “I don’t care. Do you?”

a/n : Phew. That was a big chunk. If you made it this far, i thank you immensely. I’m sorry if the editing is a bit off, i’ve been looking at this piece of work for too long and my head is torturing me so yea, soz. What did you think? Tell me all your thoughts!! There’s still one chapter to go (but i don’t know when it’ll be up - i have other little spooky projects to attend to, i hope you guys don’t mind). ANYWAY. A beautiful week-end to you guys, kisses, love & 🍗🍜. :)

tag list : @lavscenery @busansgloss @batakookie @jwlmnbt @somewhereinthestarss @amanda-deann @feminist-goddess

[gdotsand]

The Fastest Way Back Home - Prologue

Pairing - Bucky Barnes x Reader (Post Infinity War) 

Summary - A collection of memories sprinkled along the road to regain what she lost. 

Word Count -1,400 (ish) 

Playlist Link - Link (will be updated as more chapters are added) 

Warnings - Sadness. Angst. Bad jokes regarding muffins. 

A/N -  I really wanted my first published Bucky series to be happy, I really did. I fought my brain so hard but this was the first work in progress it allowed me to finish for him. I’m sorry in advance? I honestly get physical chest pains from writing this story because it also makes me sad but I will promise you happy endings and it wont (hopefully) all make you wanna curl into a ball and listen to sad songs. Likes, reblogs and feedback is always appreciated. Also big shoutout to Lara (it wont let me tag you), thank you for encouraging me to post this finally and listen to my ramblings. You’re the real MVP. Thank you - G.Sand 

Present 

He'd always said that the water calmed him, the darkness lapping against the small dock. One of the main reasons he'd thrust a pros and cons list into her hand the night after viewing the house. Top of the list, the water.

There were many other things on the list, a tree that seemed like it had grown specifically for a treehouse to be constructed against the thick branches.

A living room big enough if they pushed back the furniture he would be able to twirl her around barefoot as the record player in the corner softly played old country vinyls her grandfather left her when he passed.

A wrap around porch, sure it needed some work, some of the slats have fallen though, but he promised to replace them, whitewash them and share lazy Sunday afternoons drinking fresh lemonade and watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon.

It felt like a life time ago, sometimes, most of the time it felt like a fever dream. Calloused fingers against her jaw line, the slipping of a golden band onto her finger, her doing the same for him. Bright smiles and her mother softly wiping the tears from her cheeks. Promises of forever and always, promises of a future beyond the hurt and loss that lingered deep within his bones.

Promises of all perfect and beautiful things that would now never come true. Promises of a life away from bloodshed and fear. Away from anger and torment. Everything turned to dust that day, breathy whispers at some ungodly hour, promises, commands, vows, everything including the man she loved turned to dust, and she had no idea.

Sometimes she could pretend, pretend he was on a regular mission, or he'd gone out to a meeting or to the store. Because he was ever present in her home, their home.  The photos that adorn the walls, his jacket is still on the hook by the door, weapons safe still locked. It can only be opened by a retinal scan that now didn't exist in the world. Tony he said he can override it, find a way to disable his own systems but she declined. What was the point anymore? What was the point in anything anymore?

So she looks out at the water. Watches as the sun starts to set, another day has been added to the tally marks somewhere etched into the walls of her brain. Filed away, so she wouldn't be able to recall an exact number if asked, but still enough to keep a permanent hole in her chest since that day. Its been almost five years, and Betsy is bordering on her birthday, and she wants, she prays that she can believe that Betsy is a happy child but it always feels like something is missing. Its in the depths of her eyes, in the dark curls that sit on top of her head a question that will forever go unanswered, at least not completely. Because no sweetheart your daddy isn't coming home and no bugs he was never home to begin with. Not really, not with both of his girls. So she take things day by day and who can blame her? Honestly what else do people expect. Not that theres many people left to judge her that is. So to hell with it.

If he was here, he'd tell her to buck up. She knows that, but even Tony dare not make that joke. He'd tell her that everything happens for a reason and that everything will work out in the end. But thats Bucky all over, and Bucky isn't here.

The light shifts into something reminiscent of artwork purple and oranges splayed across the horizon, and a smooth pebble is thrown into the icy darkness, it skips across the water at speed and disturbs the darkness, but eventually like everything else the ripples dissipate into nothingness again.

"See kiddo, it's all in the wrist" Tony says, and Betsy listens, she idolises her uncle Tony more than he can know however it's not lost on anyone else. Eager to please Betsy takes the second stone from his outstretched palm, skims it across the surface of the water and it bounces once, twice, three times before eventually sinks, and Betsy squeals as she hoisted into the air in celebration. Y/n could listen to the sound of her laugh till her dying day and never get bored of hearing that little girl enjoy the freedom of happiness, but y/n? She allows herself a smile and turns back to the water, because you know, it always said it calmed him.

Steve approaches slowly behind, careful not to make her jump in the process, spends a good minute or two just watching her. She's never been the same since the snap, okay, no one has been the same since the snap but out of everyone, he thinks that maybe y/n had it the worst. And sure he may be being an overdramatic asshole as Buck might have said once upon a time but Buck's not here to reprimand him. Even if he can hear his taunt somewhere far away, carried on the winds that come from wherever he is.

"He was right you know"

Steve hums at her as a response, an explanation waiting on the other-side of her tongue that for some reason needs to know that Steve is listening before y/n continues.

"It's pretty fucking calming when you think about it"

He hums again, but it's more of an amused tone.

"I came to talk to you specifically before we do this" he says, always a man to get right to the point is Steve Rogers, there is no proverbial bush and he'll be damned if he beats around it.

"Well I assumed you didn't come here just for my muffins Steve"

"You're a married woman can we not talk about your muffins"

"Ah, no one is talking about my muffins these days" and then earns her a chuckle at least. She's always had a way with words like that, always been the one to crack the jokes. First to make light of a situation that really doesn't need it.

"We can get him back, well" he swallows but continues "we can get all of them back, but we're going to bring him back y/n"  

Y/N rolls her eyes and takes a couple of steps off the dock towards the house, "Don't make promises that you can't cash Rogers i'm not in the mood" she throws over her shoulder. It only takes half as many steps for Steve to catch up and stop her with a hand on her shoulder. There are already tears in her eyes, and it's a knee jerk reaction. Because she remembers the day that Steve had made that promise to her before, years ago.

5 Years Ago 

The house was too quiet, the kind of quiet that strikes fear like a match in the pit of your stomach. The hollow feeling that just something, somewhere isn’t right. There are no books to read, no work to be done, no shows to watch and no mindless task that she can do that will keep her brain from thinking the inevitable. It’s always the case yet it never gets any easier.

Washing done, book shelves back into the correct organisation system. Dinner being planned in her subconscious because she has to keep that hope, that preyer that there will be dinner. There will be another set of feet under the table, a light too minimal conversation to be had and a head on the pillow next to hers at the end of the day.

But then there’s gravel crunching under tires, there’s one, two, three car doors being slammed and three pairs of out of sync footsteps growing closer to the front door. Three sets of footsteps isn’t good. She knows this. She knows as she crosses to the front door, pulls it open and meets the eyes of his best friend. Although she had known that at some point, this day might come, it makes the horror no less scary. It doesn’t make the gravel any less sharp on her knees as her breaths come quicker and Steve arms aren’t quick enough to react. To catch her before she falls.

She can see it reflected in the gaze of Nat that he’s not coming home, that something terrible, something unimaginable has happened.

Steve swallows around the lump in his throat that he prayed wouldn’t be there by the time he got out of the car.

“We’ll get him back Y\N. We’re going to bring him back”

[ladybugsfanfics]

(red flags look like normal flags when you’re wearing) rose-tinted glasses

pairing: Tom Hiddleston x platonic!reader

style: one shot

WC: 2.7k

summary: requested by anonymous on tumblr: “Reader is small and have an Danish Dog, thats actually an giant drool dog. While she's taking the dog to the park he start running with Bob while on the tab and he keeps pulling her until Tom saves her. Then Bobby start growling at her, and they think that is bcs he's jealous...”

warnings: angst, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, ABUSE, PHYSICAL ABUSE, EMOTIONAL ABUSE, ANIMAL ABUSE, please note the abuse, this fic contains it

A/N: this was really hard to write and i want it to be clear that ive never been in an abusive relationship so ive done my best to portray it and how hard it is to break out of it, but i dont have firsthand information. please let me know if something seems unrealistic or weird. i want you all to know that there are explicit abuse, but that it's not very violent but it still has an emotional impact. please don't read if you know it won't be good for you, and there is a happy ending even tho ive made the relationship between reader and tom platonic (that's more for realistic purposes).

The tall man startles as the bark sounds through the park. You widen your eyes at the sight of the little brown the male walks with. 

No, no, no , you think. 

Your dog, or actually your boyfriend’s dog, is rather big. The giant of a dog also barks whenever he sees brown dogs (as if the dog can be racist, honestly you have no idea how it works, but there are many things that can be the reason), and the dog that man walks with―  

You don’t want to think about it. 

Nor do you get the chance as your tight grip on the leash seems to be your downfall. The dog has almost leapt into the air as the barks rip through the quiet silence of the park. 

“Yoshi! Stop!” you yell, but to no avail. He keeps running, stronger than you even as you put your heels down on the ground and try to brake. 

The tall male has turned around. You send him a pleading look as your dog, almost literally, attacks his little one. In the sudden change of speed, where Yoshi goes from running and barking to hopping around and barking, you trip over your own feet and find yourself on your way to face planting with the ground below. 

A pair of strong arms around your hips keep you from falling and you’re put back up on your feet with your back pressed to a muscular chest. As you regain your balance, the arms fall away. They don’t go far, only to grip the leash of your dog in an attempt to help your arm not dislocate. 

“Thank you,” you say as you crouch down to keep Yoshi under control. He’s stopped barking, and with your soft strokes along his neck, he stops hopping, too. 

“You’re welcome,” replies your saviour. 

Standing up, you find a handsome male looking at you. Curly ginger hair, the most reassuring smile you have ever seen, and gentle blue-green eyes that makes you feel at ease. The way his eyes trace over you make you drag down the sleeve of your jacket slightly, and then you return his smile to the best of your abilities. 

“He can be a little unruly at times, I’m so sorry.” You press your lips together in a tight lipped smile, shaking your head to let your hair come back to the front and cover your neck where your scarf fails. “I think something might’ve happened when he was a puppy because he only reacts to brown dogs.”

The stranger’s smile crinkles his eyes and he lets out a slight chuckle. Your heart beats faster at the sound. You will it to shut up. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’m Tom, by the way.”

“I’m Y/N.” You swallow the lump in your throat. Throat dry and heart steadily beating faster, the pounding like a drum inside your head. “I’m sorry, again. For the whole… thing. But I should get going now.” 

With a little tug of Yoshi’s leash you turn to continue down the path you were headed. A wait from Tom has you turn back around. He steps closer to you, tugging with him his own dog that so far seems rather docile and that you find super cute. 

“Could I possibly get your number?” he asks. 

If your heart hadn’t already lodged itself in your throat from talking to him, it definitely shot there now. With a steady breath (as steady as you can) you nod. “Yeah, sure.” And you take the phone Tom hands you. 

It takes no time typing in your number, but you nearly drop the phone when Tom’s dog starts barking at you. Big dog eyes that look at you, nose high in the air and the barking growing steadily louder as he continues.

Tom frowns at his dog as he accepts his phone. He shakes his head and tugs at the leash, telling ‘Bobby’ to quiet and that there’s nothing to bark about. “I’m sorry,” he says. “He’s probably a little jealous.”

You try for a smile and a soft laugh but it comes out more strained. “Yes, jealous. Makes sense, I guess.” With a deep sigh, you turn to look at Tom again. “Again, so sorry. I guess I’ll hear from you. Bye.”

And now you leave with Yoshi in tow before Tom can stop you. 

You wonder what he’ll do if he finds out you won’t answer his messages. Wonder if he’ll do the same as your boyfriend does whenever you forget to answer or don’t do something as he wants. 

After all, fear was the only reason you did give Tom your phone number. That reassuring smile fools no one, and those gentle eyes are the same gentle ones he uses in front of others. 

Sorry, Tom, but I won’t exchange him for someone worse . Even if I might deserve it . 

 ---

The door is unlocked when you get home. The shoe rack kicked over and the few sets of jackets that hung in the closet have found their way to the floor. Your heart stops beating as fear settles in your gut. 

This is never good, but neither is cleaning it up before he allows you to, so you kick off your own shoes and let your jacket fall to the floor instead of hanging it up. You unclasp Yoshi’s leash and let him pad into the living room and greet his owner. 

Clenching your eyes shut, you regret letting the dog go in before you. The whimper has tears forming in your eyes. You will them back. You can’t cry. Crying just leads to a worse… you don’t know exactly what to call it. 

“Babe?” you call as you take the steps in after the dog. 

Your boyfriend’s rage filled face meets you. He’s locked the dog in its too small cage, and he hits Yoshi on the snout rather hard as the dog lets out another whimper. 

“Babe, huh?” The retort has your gut churn, nervousness courses through your veins. “What the fuck took you so long?!”

There goes the level voice. You keep from closing your eyes, embracing for impact. He likes it more when you face him head on, as if it’s some kind of challenge. Pressing your lips closed, you let your eyes wander over his face. 

You note the down-tug of his lips, the anger boiling like a hot fire in his eyes, and the flare of his nose as his form towers over you. “Bitch, I asked you a fucking question! What the fuck took you so long?!”

“Yo-Yoshi saw a… a dog. I-I couldn’t hold him back and we-we went on a detour.” God, you sound weak. I am weak , you think, too weak . 

“Couldn’t hold him back, my ass.” He takes a step closer to you. Your body moves on its own when it takes a step back. It continues until your back collides with the wall and he locks you in. “Give me your phone!”

You fish your phone out of your pocket and pray to God Tom hasn’t texted you. You haven’t gotten the chance to block his number yet and if he has texted you, well, life for the next three days will be even worse than usual. You’d deserve it, too, probably.

Fear the only thing holding your body up, you hold your breath as he checks. First when he throws it away with a silent grunt and it lands on the couch, and he doesn’t yell, do you let yourself breathe again. 

“Fucking good for you there was nothing there.” His voice is a rough whisper, hoarse and with an underlying tone of want. He doesn’t say more before he presses his lips to yours, pinning your arms to the wall and pressing your head against it. 

When one of his hands falls to your hip, pressing you close to him, pressing you close to the growing bulge in his pants, you know it’ll bruise. Just like you know the grip on your wrist will bruise and that you won’t be able to walk in the next twenty four to thirty six hours. 

You know because that’s how it always is. 

How it always has been. 

 ---

[07.47] Unknown number Hi, this is Tom. I didn’t have time to send a text yesterday, but I still wanted to tell you that I would like to meet you again. Hope that’s possible. - Tom

[08.29] Unknown number I know you haven’t replied yet, and it’s probably because you have yet to wake up, but when you do, would you be up for a cup of coffee? Either lunch or breakfast, whatever sounds best for you? - Tom

[11.32] you Hi, Tom. This is Y/N. Very sorry, but I can’t meet with you. I have plans all week and the next months. Work is taking my time, so is having a boyfriend and friends. Very sorry about my dog, again, but thank you for saving me from the ground. Have a lovely life.

🛇 Blocked

To move this conversation out of Archived and get messages again, unblock xxxxx-xxxxx 

 Unblock

---

You’re unsure what it is that has you think the thought. It pops up from nowhere, really, but it still sounds… reasonable. 

With aching moves, you pack your things. A suitcase is more than enough for everything you own (your boyfriend keeping your hobbies to a fair minimum), and everything for Yoshi.

As you pack the bare essentials, your body shakes. Every few pieces of clothing thrown into the suitcase lands outside on the floor and your heart hammers in your chest. In the bathroom, finding your toothbrush, you hear a noise from the hallway and your heart shoots into your chest. Rushing out and to the living room, you only find Yoshi with one of his toys. 

Tears prick at the back of your eyes. Fear an ever lurking presence. Putting the leash on Yoshi, you hope he isn’t close. You fumble with the clasp and use far longer than you would have liked to put it on, but thankfully, the dog’s big eyes and somewhat smile and the wagging of his tail, helps put you at ease. 

His work day still has three more hours, meaning he won’t be here for another four. That should be enough time, right? More than enough time…

You leave the door unlocked, having left the key to the apartment on the kitchen counter. If anyone robs it… you fear the repercussions, but by the time he comes home, he shouldn’t be able to find you. 

Even as you walk with Yoshi and the suitcase down the street, finding a taxi and asking him to take you to the police station, you don’t know what has settled in you. You don’t know where this is coming from. This… courage.

You’re unsure whether it was the show you saw last night where the relationship between the two romantic leads, even when they were alone, never had any hitting or bruising or anger in the same way he shows. Or if it was Tom, and the way his face still sits at the back of your mind. How you’d compared his gentle eyes and reassuring smile to his fake mask in front of others. 

Has it really taken you so long to see the difference? To see that Tom’s, despite how instilled with fear you were, actually showed genuine compassion and care, and his is always with an extra layer that it takes a lot of study to see (but what else do you use your time on when you can’t look at others when you’re out?). 

You pay the cab driver as he drops you off and you find your way into the police station. It takes a long half hour before you walk out again and sit down on the curb. It takes another three hours to stop crying and shaking. In those three hours, Yoshi lies his head in your lap and lets the weight of him being close reassure you. A man who tries to help and ask what’s wrong is quickly barked away by the dog guarding you. 

It warms your heart.  

A police officer on her way home asks you what’s wrong, and, as you don’t tell, she tells you to contact someone. She also leads you into the waiting room and tells you to sit there until you find help, even if help doesn’t come from the police. In the hour you sit there, you delete the find my phone app and you block him and everyone associated with him on everything you can remember you share. You wish you’d done it sooner. 

In your phone, you’re left with few options. 

The unblock button is easy to press. The text is everything but easy to send. Your fingers shake as you type, and there are countless spelling mistakes. Finding them all takes a few minutes, and even after telling yourself you’ll send it, your finger hovers over the send button. 

Exactly seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds later (you counted), your finger falls down and you press the send button. Watching it turn blue has your heart beat faster and faster, and you press back the tears pricking at your eyes. Swallowing hurts as your throat is unbearably dry. 

The reply comes a lot faster than you would expect, and it helps ease some of the fear lodged in your body. The tears that fall now are a mixture of relief and fear, and Yoshi lying his head down in your lap again helps you regain your composure. 

Tom picks you and Yoshi up at the police station half an hour later. He offers up his guest bedroom, but you refuse, saying you’ll stay at a hotel until you can find something. You don’t refuse his offer of going somewhere to talk over a cup of coffee.

He helps you find a hotel that allows dogs, helps you check in (unlisted) and joins you for a walk with Yoshi before you find a quiet cafe to sit down at. You sit outside, Yoshi quiet by your feet, but regarding everyone who passes by with a steady look. Being a big dog, you see more than one person a little frightened. It warms your heart.

And the coffee in front of you warms your hands. 

“Thank you, Tom,” you say, after the silence becomes too much. “I haven’t told you anything about why but you’re still willing to help. Thank you.”

Tom smiles. One of his hands leaves his cup and when it comes close to yours, you instinctively flinch―though you don’t move it (that has never gone over well in the past). Tom’s hand hovers over yours and his eyes study you as his brows crease into a frown. Your heart pounds in your chest. “I won’t ask, but I hope I can help. However you need.”

Taking a deep breath, you bite your lower lip and look down at your hands. Both now clench around your coffee cup. The steam rises in the cool air and the smell stirs something in your gut, something that has tears prick at the back of your eyes. You let your hearts incessant pounding die down before you look up Tom. 

“I could use a friend,” you say, eventually. The smile you try to show is crooked and unsure, and you know the fright is visible through it. 

Tom still smiles. His eyes are gentle and reassuring, and it warms you that there actually does exist someone who doesn’t raise his voice at weakness and vulnerability. Someone who wants to help, and who doesn’t demand answers. 

You could use a friend. A friend who lets you find your own way and lets you take your time. 

“Anything you need, Y/N,” replies Tom. “Time, space, money, a hug, a friend . Anything.”

This time, when you smile, it crinkles by your eyes. It’s still crooked and unsure, but most of the fright is gone. 

You’ve finally taken off the rose-tinted glasses.

A/N: you’ve reached the end so please let me know that you’re alright, i care!

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